Teachings of Christ Mind

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

Well, I think everyone’s had a good opportunity this last couple of weeks to take a look at the characteristics of taking offense, and have had the opportunity to see how each of you employs being offended, and what purpose it serves for you to employ it. And this is excellent.

I would invite you if you still feel tinges of offendedness at what I’ve had to say and the words that I’ve used, do not shove it on the back shelf as we move on. Continue to let yourselves be present with the experience of offense. If you are not at peace with it yet, you will find yourself still subject to the power that others would attempt to exercise over you by means of offending you.

When you are offended, you are in a state of self-defense. You are in a mindset in which you’re seeing your Brother as different from you in an incompatible way, as someone who is not your ally, as someone who doesn’t have your interests at heart and who is therefore, in one way or another, an enemy. And this is why the need for self-defense.

But I will tell you something. What are we talking about currently? We’re talking about how to be an agent for change; how to be with and for your Brother in a healing capacity, or simply in a capacity of being so benign, but if I may put it this way, so filled with the Spirit that the involvement is a blessing for you and your Brother. And if you are offended by or at your Brother, you will not be able to say within yourself, “Father, I wish to be the evidence of Love with my Brother.” You will not be able to say, “Father, what’s the Truth here? Father, how can I be with my Brother in a helpful way, in a real way, in a substantial way, in a way that blesses us both?” No, you will not be able to be open to that because it will be more important to protect yourself.

You can take being offended as just a little quirk of the moment in your mind, and prefer to get on with something more positive; turn your attention elsewhere from where the call for love has come. But it’s more serious than that, because it’s a place where you’re covering up your unity with your Brother. It’s a place where you’re covering up the potential and the capacity for union, for the experience of Brotherhood.

If his clothing offends you, if her clothing offends you, if his or her language offends you, if the color of his or her skin offends you—it comes in all different forms—well, it brings you right to the point that we’re discussing in this part of the book, which is how you are putting your mind to use; the use you are putting your mind to. Of course, in being offended, the use you’re putting your mind to is not on your mind. “He/she” is what’s on your mind, and what you might need to do to keep yourself safe will be on your mind. That’s why we can’t move too quickly through this portion of the book. Because in order to answer the call for love, you have to be in a place of balance, of equilibrium in your own mind. You have to choose, first of all, before anything else, to do whatever it takes to release whatever conflict is going on in your minds so that you come to a place of balance where you are not charged positively or negatively, because in that levelness, there is enough quiet for you to move into that place of excellence in you that knows how to be excellently in the situation because it can hear the Truth, because it can hear the Father.

So, as I said, if you still find yourself somewhat offended, if you are somehow willing to sort of discount the last two get-togethers as though they were slightly off track, be wary of the suggestion that it’s so. Be wary of the confidence you have that either I’m not who I say I am, or Paul is too caught up in personal dynamics in his life to be able to hear me clearly, and therefore you don’t really have to pay attention to what I’ve said. But I promise you, you do need to pay attention to what I said, because you need to become free of taking offense, as we’ve said and we’ve read.

It is possible for you to hear a call for love without being offended, without being reactionary. In fact it’s essential for you to arrive at the point where you can hear a call for love as a call for love, rather than the obtuse behavior that it’s being expressed through. And this has to do with the preparation of your mind, if indeed you want to be an agent for change, if indeed you want to be the evidence of love in your Brother’s life.

Let’s go into the book. And I’m going to go back one sentence prior.

… in other words, when you got your bill of divorcement from the Father and you decided to see yourself as an independent agent, you caused yourself to forget who you were: God’s Son, God’s Daughter. You lost your Father. You became an orphan. And in forgetting your Father, you forgot not only that you were His Son or Daughter, you forgot that your Brothers and Sisters were his Sons and Daughters, so you forgot them in their Reality as well. This is why you can’t wake up alone—because when you remember who you are, you will remember who your Brothers and Sisters are. And one of the most effective means of remembering who you are is to be willing to look at your Brother or Sister and remember who they are, even though they’re behaving in a manner opposite to what they truly are. You will be healed together by virtue of your abandoning whatever shield you have put up between yourself and your Brother, including the shield of offendedness.

… whether yours or another’s …

You see? Your Brother can’t offer himself the perspective that it’s impossible for him to be ill because he’s the Son or Daughter of God; because he is the direct expression of God, including all eternal characteristics of God, and nothing else. He thinks he’s just a mortal. He thinks he’s just a body. He thinks he is an organism that sprang from a sperm and an egg. He’s forgotten who he is. And so, he doesn’t know of his Birthright. He doesn’t know of his incapacity to be sick. And therefore, he has no means of challenging what he’s experiencing; no means of disagreeing with it; no means of authoritatively dismissing it from his experience.

… in other words, a call for an understanding of what your Brother truly is …

… and there we are with our art of contrary thinking again …

You see the behavior, you see the apparent physical condition, and instead of believing the behavior and the appearance, you recognize that it is a direct statement of the opposite. It’s not an expression of hate; it’s a call for love. It’s not illness; it’s a demonstration of the fact that the incapacity to be ill is that one’s Birthright—and at some level he’s feeling it, he’s feeling the Truth about himself, but he’s not able to embrace it—and so he’s resisting it and suffering in the process.

Continuing.

… you get to keep what you give …

Well, I’ll tell you something. There’s just no way you can know your Brother as yourself when you’re offended with him, or when you stand in self-righteous judgment of him, or you have all of the explanations as to why his experience is so miserable—the poor, stupid bastard. There’s no way for you to know your Brother as yourself, and so somewhere in this picture, you have to be able to set aside your offendedness and your judgments and your clear explanations of why he’s in the dilemma he’s in, and be willing to look at him and say, “Father, I want to see You there. Help me to see You there. Help me not to succumb to or be enticed into believing the picture that this one is presenting of his ignorance.” You see? Somewhere you have to be willing to switch gears in your own mind so that your own mind is being put to a better use than you would spontaneously be inclined to put it.

… your Brother’s …

Because you will be able to see yourself in him, and him in yourself—not the puny little self-righteous ego that you seem to be, but the divine one that you are—and in that, both of you are confirmed in the Truth about you and blessed.

We could say, remember what we said about the frightening perceptions of the neatly-dressed person walking down the street last week and seeing this street-person leaning against the light post—which terrified you or terrified the person in the neatly-dressed demeanor.

You see? When you read this book, don’t just read the words that are there. Find a way to make them relevant.

“Oh, yes. Yes. I’m well aware. My children did it. And I remember when I was scared of the bogeyman, too.”

“Well, what in the heck does that mean? How is that helpful?”

But hey, let’s talk about you walking in downtown San Francisco, or downtown Los Angeles, or downtown anywhere in a big city where there seem to be rough elements—oh, now you can relate to what we said about the frightening perceptions of childlike adults, which terrify them because they don’t understand them. You see? You put yourself in an element that you’re not familiar with, and the unfamiliar can be frightening when it doesn’t need to be. And you need to be careful not to be offended just because you’re in unfamiliar circumstances, because the moment you do, you put yourself at a disadvantage and you put the circumstance you’re in, whether it’s benign or not, in a position of superiority over you, and you can’t help but intend to be defended. And if you behave in a defended manner, your behavior will be inappropriate, and it will be recognized as inappropriate, and you will have laid yourself out as an easy mark.

Well, now, you know, everyone who participates in these study groups every Sunday night is asking for enlightenment, and I shared enlightenment over the last few weeks. And some of you didn’t accept it, and your fears didn’t vanish. The state of offense didn’t melt, when it could have and should have.

… the little children …

“Oh, let’s move on to something more pleasant. Do we have to continue discussing this unpleasant subject?” That’s called hiding it; covering it up. Covering it up, covering it up, and moving on to greener pastures. But it will remain there as something that hasn’t been, shall I say, “defanged,” and remains there to strike and confuse you.

“Yeah, I know this guy leaning against the light post. Yeah, I know all I need to know. And I’m scared shitless. And I better just straighten up my neat-and-tidy, tidily-clothed body and just ignore him as I walk past, scared shitless. And hopefully he won’t bother me again.” And let’s say the guy doesn’t bother you and you get past and you get down to the next corner, and you let out a huge sigh and you say, “Thank You, God! That was a miracle. Thank You, God. Thank You, God. Thank You, God. Now I will have something to give testimony about as to the proof of God’s Love. Thank You, God.”

That wasn’t a miracle. That was you hiding your fear really well. That was you offended by the words you heard and gave your own meaning to, that disallowed you from being able to be in the presence of your Brother from a place of serene wholeness within you, who would have been able without fear to be utterly appropriate so that perhaps a moment of intimacy might have occurred in which both of you knew that you were safe in each other’s presence, in which both of you experienced the blessing of being in each other’s experience.

Now, last week I mentioned that if you are able to be in your peace where your mind is singular, not conflicted, and you’re in the presence of people whose behavior and language is uncomfortable for you, that you can be an agent for change because of being in your peace. And you know what? I’m sure a number of your egos thought, “Yeah. That’s right. That sounds pretty good. It would be worth it to me. It would be worth it to me to be able to have that kind of inner balance so that even under those awful circumstances I could still be an agent for change and bring blessing.” You see? But you know what? [laughing] When you’re in that place, your Brother—the one using language that offends you—might be the agent of change for you by uncovering to you a perspective on life that you had been afraid to look at, and one which your self-righteousness kept you blind to, which caused you to see awfulness where awfulness wasn’t going on at all, except by your definitions. Your Brother might be able to be an agent for change for you where you can see his wholeness, his love, his reasonableness, even though his language offends you.

“That’s asking too much,” you say.

Well, I want to ask you this. You with your good language—and I’m speaking specifically to those of you who are in the United States listening, speaking English and not using any four-letter offensive words—do you realize that every word that comes out of your mouth is absolutely offensive to some? Not just a few—a majority of a whole religious group of people. You are the infidels.

You are the infidels. Now, you hear the word “infidel,” it doesn’t have much emotional impact on you. But I promise you, the word “infidel” describes someone of gross character; someone who in self-righteousness from the other side of the fence, sees as despicable and worthy of being killed, worthy of being wiped out. You see?

“Well, I’m an American; even feel pretty proud of it. I’m an American. America stands for wonderful things. And I speak English. And I don’t say any four-letter words. I don’t say any words to offend anybody, because I’m on my spiritual path and I’m learning how to always express love.”

And those words come “out of the mouths of infidels,” according to a large portion of the population of your planet. “I shouldn’t even be speaking to you, you know.”

Somewhere along the line, you’re going to have to realize that there are those who see you as infidels. And somewhere along the line, you’re going to have to finally stop and find out, learn how to communicate with those who see you this way, so that the misunderstanding can be rectified and replaced with brotherly communication. They are going to have to be willing to abandon their firm conviction about you, and be willing to talk to you, even though every fiber of their being says not to get near you, not to associate with you, so that they can stay pure. They’re having their nightmare about you. Do you see what I’m saying? Bring this home to roost right where you live.

And I’m going to add: That is your downfall. That is where you are caught. That’s where you’re trapped.

That’s where you’re bound, without even knowing you’re bound until somebody who isn’t even making a call for love, but is expressing love: “Hey, motherfucker, how ya doin’? Join me for a cup of coffee?”

That’s not a call for love. That’s an invitation. But watch you recoil, and think maybe not twice but maybe fifty times before you finally dare to agree to risk the chance and sit down and have a cup of coffee with this motherfucker. You wouldn’t use the word, but that’s what the meaning is when you reject the invitation, based upon a self-righteous judgment you’re entertaining because you feel superior. You see a call for love when an expression of love was happening—and you’re out of touch.

But you think you’re spiritually correct. And you can say with feigned kindness, “No, I’ve really got some things I’ve got to attend to. Maybe another time.” Bullshit! You wouldn’t do it another time. You’re just making your escape. You’re making your escape from an overture of love, because his choice of words offended you and frightened you because you have defined that language and that behavior as something that couldn’t possibly be an expression of caring.

Now before I said this, this evening, and you had read that, or even if you’ve read it before, well, it’s a really nice image, isn’t it?

Well, now you know what in the hell that means, don’t you? It’s not an image. It has to do with the way you misuse your mind. And it said that so that you might find relevancy in it; so that you actually begin to use your mind in a different way so that you’re not bound by your nightmares.

… in the darkness of your own certainty. The darkness of your own confidence that you’ve got things pegged. And you’ve got things pegged because you’re pretty far along your spiritual path, and you’ve been refining yourselves, and you’ve made progress.

… what?

You’re refusing to sit down at that table and have that cup of coffee, and perhaps find that this is a really interesting person. You might even find out that he works at Microsoft, or that he’s a research chemist—highly educated, who doesn’t mind at all using that kind of language. You might find it’s somebody really worth knowing. You might find that he has been the agent for change for you—you self-righteous prick. And your world may open up, and your heart might be bigger than you thought it was, and your capacity to love will embrace more than you ever thought it could.

“Birds of a feather flock together,” they say. And so you can go to any large city and you’ll find a community of the Irish, and a community of the Norwegian, and a community of the gays, and a community of the straights. And you say, “Oh. Well, see. Birds of a feather flock together.” And you never step back to look at San Francisco as a whole. And you see mankind, regardless of how they’ve identified themselves, “Here is a flock that is gathered together.”

A whole flock separated by mutually-agreed-upon definitions of what’s important. “It’s important for me to have Irish friends. It reminds me of home and helps me feel not as much a stranger in this land.” You see? But there’s no brotherhood there. It’s just a group with mutually-agreed-upon definitions of what is important. And so they are bound by a boundary that they have created by deciding that what keeps them separate from everything else is what’s important.

And as I said, I’m here to help break down false boundaries so that you don’t become imprisoned by and incapacitated in your divine wholeness from embracing everything and finding God there; finding someone just like you there that you don’t have to be afraid of.

… thinking about doing it is mighty scary. Thinking about sitting down with this guy who’s invited you for a cup of coffee is what frightens you.

Do you realize that self-righteous spirituality is hateful? Self-righteous spirituality that discounts someone because of his language, or because of his dress, or because he actually is making a call for love and is attempting to be obtuse. Whatever you use to keep yourself separate, especially in the name of spirituality, is hateful.

And if you haven’t realized how you have been being hateful, you need to become aware of it now. And that is why I am speaking bluntly, clearly, fundamentally, so that you might not suffer from your self-righteousness, and find it worthy of abandoning so that you might find it in your heart to dare to be the presence of love and confirm to yourself and your Brother, your inviolable Integrity—your (plural) inviolable Integrity.

… what turmoil? The turmoil of the gutter people? The turmoil of the people who are dressed differently because they’re not buying into the mainstream clothing-designers’ concept of “what’s in”—who apparently, therefore, don’t give a shit about what they look like?

… the turmoil in your own mind that sees what isn’t there because it’s using measuring sticks that don’t arise out of an awareness of God everywhere, but arise out of self-righteous, superior definitions of self, with which anyone can justify any kind of behavior they damn well please.

See? We are still talking about the use to which you’re putting your mind, and the journey to peace in your own mind before you ever do anything to be an agent for change on behalf of your Brother. Before you open your mouth up in response to a call for love, get your own head on straight.

… in you …

“Oh, yeah.” And don’t think I’m talking about the way someone else is dressed, or the fact that they haven’t shaved, or the fact that they’re using certain language. These aren’t the images that rise to delay you. The images that rise to delay you are the determinations you have made in your mind about these behaviors and these characteristics. They will delay you from being in your peace. They will cause you to be fearful when fear is not called for.

And even if some aggressive situation is occurring, your freedom from fear will allow you to have the presence of mind to know how to respond appropriately so that all are blessed and no one’s integrity is called into question.

… arises in your own mind …

What is the goal?

“Oh, I would prefer for him not to use that language! I would prefer for him to take a bath more often. I would prefer for him to, well, you know, dress a little bit better. I mean, purple and orange, and purple and blue, and chartreuse just don’t go together! They would offend … ”—Oh, there’s that word again—“They would offend anyone’s sensibilities. Of course, anyone who’s developed sensibilities. You know, anyone cultured.” You see?

That’s why I only talked to the publicans and sinners, you know. They haven’t refined their sensibilities. They aren’t spiritual dilettantes. I do talk to them, yes, but they’re not the only ones I talk to. They’re just a little bit harder of hearing.

And I will say: Despite your acquired preferences.

Do you see that? The goal of love, the capacity to be the presence of love, belongs to you. No matter how you have covered it up with irrelevant crap, it’s there with you. It is there for you to be. It is what you have been created to be and express, no matter what preferences you might have, or someone else might have. And we’re talking about your coming to a place of equilibrium in you where your intent to be the evidence of Love is more important to you than your conditioned responses, your egotistical conditioned responses. It’s there. And it’s got to be more important to you than your dearly-loved capacity “to be offended.”

… you really do.

It’s not like that’s a command: You must accomplish it.

You must accomplish it because you have no capacity to do anything else. It’s what is utterly natural to you. It’s what is utterly normal to you. It’s what your function is.

And it will be what you find yourself doing and being when you get over self-righteousness; when you let the right “to be offended” gently slip through your fingers and out of your grasp and out of your repertoire of behaviors.

… Wake up! Wake up!

… your purpose isn’t to be offended.

Of course, you don’t think it is. But that’s what I’m here for—to remind you that it is.

“Self-righteousness.” Your capacity “to be offended.”

Do not let it …

You’ve got to remember to love your Father again. In other words, you’ve got to learn to love not being an orphan any longer, so that then you can learn how to love your Brother because of what he really is, whether he rides Harley-Davidsons, whether he uses good language, whether he dresses well.

[laughing] Just ’cause you have your head stuck in the sand, doesn’t mean I’m hiding. I’m right out in the open here.

… of course, if you were offended last week at my language, well, you didn’t see me.

So:

Well, you want to know something? Your mission with your Brothers and Sisters is to escape crucifixion, not redemption. But that’s going to mean that you’re going to have to be willing to look your Brother in the eyes, and not recoil because you’re seeing your definition. You’ve got to try to look in your Brother’s eyes and remember God—can’t do that if you’re in a state of self-defense.

… your mission …

… crucifixion is a result of lack of communication.

So don’t avoid communication with your Brother because of his dress code, or lack of it, or poor language, or because he surprised you, like I did last week and the week before, and didn’t behave—didn’t behave the way you expected. “Not the way the Christ would behave.” Well, there you are in one of your little nightmares, seeing something that you weren’t expecting that didn’t fit your protocols, and therefore what happened must have been incorrect, wrong, faulty; cause for you to withdraw trust. See? See how each thing builds a defense, a wall, a little bit sturdier?

You’ve got to abandon your nightmares that separate you by being willing to be with your Brothers innocently, with a willingness to discover what you’re not familiar with yet; with a willingness to discover the wholeness that is there that you haven’t discovered yet; the intelligence that is there that you haven’t discovered yet.

RAJ: In your resurrection is your Brother’s release. In your resurrection, in your getting your head on straight, is your Brother’s release. This is God’s Plan for salvation. This is what it’s all about.

Can’t put it much more squarely than that. That’s the way you must do it too: in peace. And getting in your peace is you getting your head on straight before you get messed up in any aspects of being an agent for change for your Brother in response to his call for love.

Peace is pretty scary. Peace is balance. Peace is equilibrium. And the misinterpretation that can be applied to it is that peace is vulnerability, because in peace you’re not in a state of defense; you are not prepared to defend yourself. In your peace, you are defenseless. And so it’s not worth it to you to abandon the conflict, because at all costs, you must maintain your defense.

What I must reiterate over and over again with you is that although you may be defenseless because you are not in a conflicted frame of mind that sees opposition that must be prepared for, intelligence and love don’t go out the window, but are more solidly available to you than you’ve ever experienced them before.

But you’re not going to find that out until you risk the chance and find the peace, and relate to your Brothers from there, and Sisters. And when you do that, you will find either that a call for love that you thought you heard was not a call for love but an expression of love for you to embrace, or you will find that the call for love was a call for love which calls for a different response from you, but a response that will come from your immediate on-the-spot experience of integrity and invulnerability. Invulnerability [that is] invulnerable because of the presence of mind, the presence of intelligence, the perspicacity to know exactly how to be to the benefit of yourself and your Brother. You won’t find this out until you dare to risk the chance and turn your own head around so that you’re putting your mind to the use it was made for.

So don’t … don’t think that it’s just a really cute thing.

… as I read this, do you not have images of a child in a bedroom at night seeing images and being frightened?

“Why how irrelevant could that be?”

“That’s nice.”

But it doesn’t mean much if you can’t relate it to you as an adult who believes that he does know what everything is, and therefore is not amenable to “Aha’s,” discoveries of what he doesn’t know, and a capacity to see love where he thought it was absent. So as we go through this coming week, pay more attention, continue to pay attention to when you’re offended, and how you employ offense, and why you employ offense, and ultimately how it keeps you separate and superior relative to your Brother—which you will now be able to see rather clearly constitutes your being in exactly the opposite way of what you want to be.

It’s important for you not to carelessly let what’s in this book become a means for you to further establish your separation from your Brothers, and to cause you to continue to be uncommunicative with your Brother, separate from your Brother, alone, and ultimately lonely, which it is not your Birthright or your purpose to be.

I love you all, and I look forward to being with you not next week and not the week after—Christmas and New Year’s—but the week after that.

You will have plenty of time to be offended. And with the holidays you’ll have plenty of opportunities to be offended, or to be with others who are offended, which means you’ll have the opportunity to find the value of what we’re discussing, and ultimately what a blessing it is for you not to be sidetracked from your capacity to glorify God, recognize God in your Brother, and not be fooled by your Brother’s presentations, and not to be fooled by your already-established definitions of things. To not be offended is to remain in your Sanity. And that’s a blessing for you and your Brother. Give yourself half a chance to experience the benefit.

Okay.