Teachings of Christ Mind

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

Well, as I said last week, we’re sort of in a “meat and potatoes” section—takes a little more effort to digest. And so we’re not going to move through this rapidly, and we will do a little bit of review.

It is helpful not to read this like a two-dimensional creature which can only move backward and forward on a line. Don’t read it with such focused attention that you’re only letting the sentence you’re reading register with you. As a three-dimensional creature, you have the capacity to stand back and get an overview. And so from time to time, it’s helpful to take a look at what chapter you’re reading in—what’s the subject of the chapter?—because it will help you put into context the sentence you’re reading at the moment.

Now in the paragraph before the one I said we would start with, we have this difficult sentence that people have trouble with, and which I spent some time talking about last week. It says:

What’s confusing is, what is the “it” referring to? And so I’m going back to in the Sparkly Book, page 258, the first full paragraph.

And I want to remind you that the chapter we’re in is called, “GOD’S PLAN FOR SALVATION.” That’s what everything we’re reading about is relevant to. It says here:

… Reality …

Now mind you, this “ONE Teacher of reality” is the Holy Spirit. Again, and I cannot say this too often and I will repeat it over and over, that “ONE Teacher” is the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is nothing more than your right Mind; you in your innate, fundamental clarity.

Continuing …

… what?

In other words, it’s your Birthright to not only include them, but to be fully conscious of them.

Now …

… and I’m going to add: All by yourself …

… your Brother’s call …

Now your Brother and your world are always presenting to you the opportunity to recognize God there. That’s the only thing that’s ever being presented to you.

If the Brother, perhaps like yourself, is unconscious of his Birthright, is unconscious of his Source, and therefore unaware of who and what he truly is, behaves in an obtuse way, or in a way that calls for confirmation of what he ignorantly believes, it is still a call for you to recognize God there. It’s still a call for Love.

There is never an occasion for you to function in any other way than finding God in the middle of what is happening; to find God to be the center and circumference of what is happening—no matter what mumbo-jumbo is coming out of your Brother’s mouth. That’s the only thing you’re being called upon to do. And interestingly enough, that’s your divine function; that’s your Birthright to be able to do. That’s what you should find yourself doing all the time, and that is what you will find yourself doing all the time as you forget less and less that that’s your function.

Again …

When you recognize your own need for the Father, you will turn to the Father, instead of your opinions, your best judgments; all the definitions you have already created for everything you’re experiencing. And so you will turn to the Father, instead of your memory and your beliefs. That’s what’s being called for.

Now let’s go back to page 263.

If the only thing you’re being called upon to do is to be willing to recognize God right there where something ungodlike seems to be presenting itself, then you have to recognize that the mumbo-jumbo that’s coming out of your Brother’s mouth doesn’t matter. The mumbo-jumbo that’s comes out of your Brother’s mouth is inevitably going to be an invitation to you “as an independent authority” to respond to him from the same place of ignorance of your Birthright that he is suffering from. That’s what’s “outrageous.” And that’s what doesn’t matter. That is what doesn’t mean anything at all. And so you must recognize that the mumbo-jumbo doesn’t matter, and you must not take the bait and come from your best limited place in order to respond.

Now if when your Brother comes on to you with something, with an “outrageous” request to join him in the belief of “lack” of any kind, he usually will do it in a manipulative and coersive way, and usually in a way that calls your integrity into question. He will not be treating you well, at least not according to the agreed-upon definitions of politeness and manners. And if you take offense at his manner of approaching you, you are then likely to find that the idea that what is happening is a “call for love” is outrageous. “How can I respond to this as a call for love? How on earth can I possibly justify being loving, being in my peace, in the face of this attack?” You see?

And then you must realize that the mumbo-jumbo going on in your mind doesn’t matter, because that is not your function. And you must make the choice to turn to the Altar, to turn to the Holy Spirit, to turn to the place of excellence in you in which your inheritance, your God-derived Birthright is waiting for you to embrace, so that it may find expression through you because “you are letting it through you” is your ultimate divine function, and you must do that. And you do that because what your Brother is asking for which is different from that, doesn’t matter. That isn’t what matters.

Your Brother’s …

Not for confirmation of his bad situation. His poverty asks for that which will uncover his wholeness. You see? It asks for gifts.

You see, something is going on there. There is an experience of need.

What is the need for? The need is for clarity, for understanding, for the Truth that replaces the belief that he or she is suffering from, that causes the belief to become so nonsensical and meaningless that it is immediately dropped in favor for what is meaningful.

… what does not matter is how he’s perceiving himself at the moment. And what does not matter is how “you unjoined” might be perceiving him as well.

… and do what does.

And recognizing it, you will lean into the Father. And what will result will be the expression of the answer that heals. Okay.

Don’t be tempted by niggling thoughts that say, “Well, why was that written in such an unclear way when it could have been said clearly?” And don’t let niggling thoughts come in that say, “Oh, well, because it’s difficult to understand, maybe there is more to understand.” No. I have expressed it with perfect clarity, what the need is. And you will have to agree with me that it is consistent with everything else we’ve been reading as we have been going through the Course. So be at rest with the Truth. Be at rest with the answer. Embrace it. And when the temptation comes to practice doubt or to still remain somewhat ill at ease, dismiss it! [slight pause] Dismiss it! And don’t entertain it further.

I’m going to read the whole paragraph that we ended with last week.

… in all your little tininess …

Just as every aspect of the Universe elicits from you the recognition of God in it. It is for you. It is for you coming back into your right Mind where you’re not seeing your interposed imaginations, instead of Reality, instead of Creation as it is.

… what?

… now that may not be what’s coming out of his mouth. What’s coming out of his mouth is most likely to be a request for you to see the reality of his dilemma and to join him in confirming its reality. That’s what will come out of his mouth.

Now if you don’t want to accept as valuable the fact that it’s your Birthright to be in a constant state of recognizing and acknowledging God in everything—meaning actually having the experience of God in everything—then it means that you want to accept something else. Don’t! Stop wanting to accept something else, and abandon it.

Continuing …

In other words, peace is the only thing that can be saved. And the decision for peace, and the letting of yourself into it, is the only way it can be saved. It’s the only way that you can find that it has been ever-present with you and is the foundation of your Being—or expressed more perfectly, the foundation of Being, of Existing.

You see? The only appropriate response is love—no matter what is presented to you, no matter how your Brother is behaving. Love is the willingness to recognize that which is Real, with a capital “R”, in each and every thing. Not only is it the willingness to recognize it, it’s the recognition of it. And the recognition of it always spontaneously occurs when nothing else is more important to you.

You see how simple it is. It’s easy to be devoted to that. It really is easy to be devoted to wanting to see the evidence of Love and wanting to be the evidence of Love. You just have to dare to abandon all other goals, all other intents, and just do the one thing, and to do it as consistently as you can through the day.

… strong word.

… in other words, don’t lose track of singularity of purpose.

You see? Your Brother approaches you with a sense of lack, and mostly likely with some sort of grievance because he can’t help but take offense at life when he’s unconscious of his Birthright and doesn’t recognize himself in each and every thing. And when he approaches you this way, out of habit you think there is another answer than the only answer there is. You think the answer is defense, and so you employ it. And you’ve got to begin to be disciplined enough to recognize when you’re doing it so that you can stop, realize that there is another way to look at this, and then ask for the experience of how to look at it otherwise. And ask it of One who knows, not of one who doesn’t. Ask of the Holy Spirit. Ask of the Father.

Now, as usual, the ego, the private sense of self that has figured out everything to the best of its ability without having any connection to what everything really is, and who, which because it has separated itself from the Father, sees itself in a state of lack, turns all of the experiences of lack into something positive—something that, if dealt with, will refine your soul; something that, if dealt with, will strengthen you; something which, if dealt with successfully, will move you closer to the ultimate of what “you on your own” can be. And it has done this with lack, with poverty.

And it has suggested that poverty is valuable. It has suggested, in fact, that one who devotes his life to poverty, can become so valuable that he is elevated to sainthood. Many of the great ones in your past were those who had taken a “vow of poverty.” And so as a result of this belief, it becomes difficult for you to justify experiencing abundance, because you have few people in recent history who were abundant who were significant in elevating the human condition, in elevating human thought; in getting past the significant beliefs that actually block each of you from reconnecting with your Father.

Now poverty and abundance are almost always associated with dollars and cents. But abundance should be equated with wholeness—not accumulations of lots—but wholeness itself from which nothing is excluded. Poverty, on the other hand, should be equated with incompleteness, partialness; not being able to be in your right Mind wholly aware of everything in all of its infiniteness, in all of its unlimitedness. Poverty—in other words, ignorance—is not your Birthright.

Now those who took “vows of poverty” made a decision as to what they were going to serve—God, as it’s put, or mammon—the dollar, the wallet, the bank account, the CD’s [certificates of deposit], the stocks and bonds, and most of all, position that all the accumulation of these things seem to substantiate. Those who took a “vow of poverty” decided not to serve that. They decided to serve a vision of God that they experienced within themselves. They devoted themselves to service, not accumulation; giving, not getting. And they were willing to do that and let the chips fall where they may, rather than trying to behave in such a way to get the chips to fall in a certain order, so as to give them a sense of security, because money means power, money means ability to control, money means the ability to govern your circumstances. You see? A “vow of poverty” has nothing to do with lacking what is needed. It has nothing to do with having nothing. It has to do with being devoted to something other than accumulating things so as to substantiate one’s own substance, position, authority and power.

Those who cannot embrace their Brothers with a desire what?—to be the evidence of Love, on behalf of his Brother or Sister—blocks the flow of the movement of All That God Is that would move through him in extension to everything. And blocking that flow constitutes an impoverishment. In doing it, it causes each one of you to forget Who You Are; to suffer from amnesia. That’s “the poverty” that we’re talking about. It has nothing to do with dollars and cents, or clean fabric to wrap around your body, or beautiful fabric to cover your body with, or a comfortable bed to sleep in, and so on.

So, understand that “the poverty” that’s being talked about here is the poverty of your ignorance of understanding Who You Are; the poverty that causes you not to reach for, or be open to, or desire the influx of a clearer understanding of What You Divinely Are. The poverty is one that disallows you from recognizing or even conceiving the possibility of the fact that you are the Christ, that you are the immaculate expression of God right now, and you have never been anything else. That is “poverty.” Do not take a vow of that kind of poverty! But do understand that when you value the ego, you are taking a vow of that kind of poverty.

Be black and white enough, be clear enough to recognize that so that you can more easily say, “Wow. That’s not what I want to do,” so that a change of behavior can occur. So that what? All that we’re reading about ceases to be interesting and stimulating ideas about the Truth About You, and becomes something that you allow to transform into actual experience, so that your mental and physical behavior changes.

Continuing …

… why is that? Well, we just said it. Because when you’re devoted to the ego, you are devoted to your ignorance—mental and experiential ignorance of the Truth.

If you’re going through the day feeling deprived of whatever—freedom, health, peace—know that it’s because of one reason only: you have identified with the ego. You haven’t identified with the Truth of You. You haven’t identified with the place of excellence in you that is you in your fullness.

… you …

You do not realize this.

… what? Ego? No.

… it exists because you have become devoted to the ego. You have become the worshipper of the ego. It’s because you have chosen poorly. And on top of it, you’ve chosen for something that’s purely imaginary.

What does that mean? He tries to manipulate his world. He tries to get his world to behave in a way that will provide him with a sense of security and safety that he lacks, that will allow him to release the anxiety; not realizing that the only thing that will relieve him of the anxiety is to switch his allegiance from the ego to that which is nothing more than his right Mind; to switch his allegiance from his much-revered independence to a “state of dependence”—immutable union with the Father, with his Source.

… that he’s going to make insane “arrangements” with, through manipulation.

His adjustment to what? His adjustment to his insanity. His adjustment to wrong devotion.

You see, the fact is that as the Christ, your mind is the Mind of God not divided up into bits and pieces, and therefore all that exists is some aspect of the infinitude of your Being. And none of it is “outside” of you. And all that is quote “inside you” is unlimited, infinite, unbounded.

Now listen to this.

Does it say there that, “If only the loving thoughts of God’s Son are the world’s reality, the real world must be an illusion; the real world must not exist at all”? No, it says that, “the real world must be in his mind.” The distinction here is that it is not “out there” in space as you’re experiencing it at the moment. It is a conscious experience going on in your own infinite Mind.

… you see? There just isn’t any “out there” for any of it to be the illusion or the truth.

You cannot tolerate.

… what’s the saying? “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” That which is fragmented lacks integrity, and it must fall. And that’s why so much of your existence is taken up with fixing up that which is falling apart, because you’re trying to hold together something that doesn’t really exist.

… glory hallelujah! And I’m encouraging you to let it go ahead and collapse so that in it’s absence, you will experience what’s left—which is nothing more than your right Mind, and you “fully conscious” of your eternal Oneness with God, and therefore with the Conscious Awareness of Being that is characteristic of the divine (capital “M”) Mind, in which no illusion is going on at all; in which your experience of your Birthright is not obscured.

The Reality remains untouched, unaffected. Nothing happens to it.

Because it’s only the misperception occasioned by fear that is occasioned by your orphanhood [which] constitutes the conflict that’s intolerable and that must be projected “out there,” so that something “out there” may be blamed, and then turned into an ethic of overcoming so as to gain a sense of your own autonomous worth.

… your ego? No …

Well, if identification, if a self-image isn’t your self, isn’t your salvation, what is? If identification is not, what is? Identity.

“Identity,” for purposes of illustration, is that which preexists any conscious thought you can possibly have. Identity is unalterable, permanent, eternal and unbounded. Identity includes within itself all of Creation, with nothing left outside of itself, and without conflict of any kind.

Again if identification is not salvation, what is? Identity.

Important. Not … not what’s going on “out there” in the world; that isn’t what has consequences for you. The thoughts, which you embrace and invest with meaning in your own mind, have consequences. And it works both ways. Consequences aren’t negative.

When the thought is illuminated in your mind that God is infinite Love which emanates from you and around you and to you from everything, and you feel loved, there’s a consequence. Fear cannot exist in that conscious experience. Vulnerability cannot exist in that conscious experience. The consequence of that idea allowed to be experienced is Heaven; very simply, it is Creation experienced without distortion.

On the other hand, if you wish to have “created ideas” that are pure fantasy—in other words, having no basis in fact—and you wish to make commit to them, devotion to them, there are going to be consequences. Devotion to “that which isn’t true” is uncomfortable, because it’s you trying to act as though you’re out of your Mind. And yet, you can’t actually violate your divine Sanity. And so, the Sanity of your Being, which is unalterable, will constantly remind you that your foray into illusion is not natural, is not Real, is not your Birthright, and that you, therefore, cannot be comfortable employing that frame of mind. The discomfort is there to remind you to come back Home into your Sanity.

… this is important.

Why do you think that? Because you projected it “out there” because it was too hard for you to embrace the full conscious awareness that you were believing, fully believing opposites. You were fully believing the possibility of absolute conflict—which, of course, is an absolute impossibility.

So …

… you say, “This is me. That’s not me. This is me. That flower is not me.” Well, that’s not true. All conscious experiences, all true ideas, are some aspect of the infinitude of your infinite Mind. It is all you. It is all a Singularity. And none of it is antagonistic to you.

… as you have given it definition …

Now in many spiritual or metaphysical teachings, the idea is expressed that you must raise every human condition to the mental level, you must translate it into ideas, in order for the true idea to be able to, let us say, have an effect on the false idea. It still posits the idea that the false idea is something that can be affected by a true idea. That is not the case.

What happens is that, as it’s said, when you bring the darkness to the Light, or you bring the Light to the darkness, the darkness disappears. By taking every manifestation of imperfection and bringing it to the mental level, recognizing that it has to be and can be nothing other than “an idea that is false,” you take it out of the realm of physical cause and effect—you know, a “physical universe out there” that you’re in the middle of. You bring it right into the middle of you “as Mind” so that you can look at it as an idea and, we’ll say, compare it with the True Idea, so that in the recognition of what the True Idea is, it becomes perfectly logical to you to accept that the false idea will simply dissolve because there’s nothing to support it anymore. And you will not have manipulated matter. You will not have manipulated a faulty world “out there.” But your world will no longer reflect your mental confusion, because you have become unconfused.

… or your ignorance. Your being offended, and the thing you’re offended at.

Creation as the Father is being it.

… it’s the expression, it’s the embodiment, it’s the rendering visible and tangible the Love, the movement of the Love of God. And that’s why in moments of illumination, you have the experience of seeing everything, all that you have called “physical form,” in movement radiating/emanating/extending toward you, Love that you actually feel embraced by and one with. And then comes the almost instantaneous inevitable realization that the Love that you’re embraced by is the Love that you Are; that it is a Singularity.

Not being able to “see the world of death” is the consequence of your having no other conscious intent but to see the evidence of God, to see the evidence of Love, and to be the evidence of Love.

It’s a consequence that you don’t have to enact. It isn’t a penalty that is laid down. In the presence of Love, in the presence of a Singular Mind, in a presence of a Mind that is Sane, conflict doesn’t exist. Conflict is nonexistent. In the process of Awakening, it appears to disappear. And so the word “consequence” can be used.

Conflict is not “of” Singularity. You see?

… by virtue of divorce.

But you can’t die, and therefore the world is not truly a world of separation. It is still the Presence of God, the Movement of God called Creation, which embodies the meaning of the words, “Behold! … ”—in other words, be alert, be conscious, watch—“ … I make all things new.”

Now …

The temptation to be an independent thinker, an independent authorizer, was pretty tempting, was pretty seductive. And of course, as I’ve said before, at that point you were feeling your omnipotence. And so you felt no fear around venturing into this experience of autonomy, and so you did it with gusto. [laughing]

… you couldn’t change the way things work.

… God …

… you see? You wanted your independence. You got yourself an imaginary divorce. Why? Because you desired to be unlike Him. You desired to be like whatever you wanted to create yourself to be. It was a tantalizing and fun experiment.

This is very important. Many people think they can coerce others and coerce life into a different track if they simply desire strongly enough. But desire is not will. You want a perfect example of the truth of this? You say, “I desire to wake up.” And you’re not awake yet. Why? Because you haven’t actually made the decision to do it, and you haven’t done it yet. That is an act of will.

It’s all Mind. And I’ve been saying this for a long time, and it will keep coming up until it finally clicks with you that everything you’re experiencing is an experience of Mind. It is going on in the state of being Conscious, which is Life. And ideas are perfectly tangible and experienceable to that which formed them.

But that doesn’t mean that they exist in time and space as “physical energy,” which as you all know is polarized energy. You see, the energy of Spirit which is Singular is caused to be experienced as polarized energy called “matter” when you dissociate yourself from all of Creation, and find it to be different from you, and you different from it, and therefore, not necessarily in harmony with each other, even though Really, with capital “R”, all of Creation is necessarily in harmony with every other aspect of Creation.

So your foray into the imagination and the realm of insanity causes the Kingdom of Heaven to appear to you to be polarized, conflicted—all because of one thing. You have devoted your attention poorly. You’ve devoted it to your independence, instead of devoting it to your real and only function, which is to recognize God in every thing, recognize Good, unconditional, singular, unconflicted Good in every thing.

“Oh, yeah. Unconditional Good and unconditional Love. Wow.” That can mean that you are supposed to unconditionally love everything, even illusions. Now you tell me where the intelligence is in that. Because if you’re willing to unconditionally love illusions, if you’re willing to unconditionally love poverty, you’re never going to have the presence of mind to distinguish between what is Real and what is unreal, so that you may set aside that which isn’t Real. And this maintains your insanity. This maintains and confirms your ignorance.

And I’m telling you this is not your Birthright. Stop doing it. Start devoting yourself to the Truth. Start devoting yourself to the willingness to at any moment you think of it during the day, looking to find God right there, no matter what you’re looking at.

… the one you’ve made up …

But it can’t end as long as you are leaving it “out there,” believing that it is separate from your Mind. It is out of your reach by virtue of your decision to hold it “out there” and see it as different from you.

… what?

Your peace. Your capacity to recognize Truth. Your Birthright to be experiencing Truth, not as a head trip, but as actual experience.

You see, the Kingdom of Heaven, Reality, Creation has not been affected by your getting a few cans of paint and drawing distracting designs all over the Altar so that it isn’t recognizable.

… your perceptions …

Every time I suggest to you that you have a moment of intimacy with a flower, a moment of undefended intimacy, a moment of willingness to look at it with innocent eyes, I’m asking you to bring that flower to the Altar.

Meaning without distortion, without the interference of your wanting to see what you’ve made up right where what really exists is sitting inviting you to recognize what it truly is.

… what?

From your undefiable, unchangeable Sanity that is right there, the place of excellence in the middle of you.

No matter what kind of “outrageous” request your Brother places upon you, recognize what doesn’t matter, and do this:

… or the world as your Brother is projecting it to you …

You see, God’s Plan of salvation is your reintegration, so that no part of your mind is split off, so that no false sense of conflict can find any abiding place, and, for lack of better words, so that you might find Existence/Being joyful, peaceful, full of Life. And I’m going to say, stimulating Life, but not stimulation arising out of conflict. That’s what we’re talking about. And as you can see, we’re still talking about getting your own head on straight.

I love you all. And you are getting it. Whether you’re getting it fully or not, you are getting it. I look forward to being with you next week.