Teachings of Christ Mind

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

Well, how many of you had an interesting time this week observing your thinking? Let’s say, how many of you didn’t succeed getting thru the week without noticing how you use your thoughts to one degree or another?

How many of you found out that your thoughts are always from the past? If you, I’m not going to say, “think about it” If you pay attention, you’ll realize your thoughts are always a rehearsal of something already known. Not one of you has ever had an original brand new thought. That which is new is described by the word, “insight” or as an “aha” or as “revelation.” That’s when something new is experienced. And once the something new has happened, you can then think about it. That should be a big eye-opener.

Whenever you are thinking, you are rehearsing something from the past.

If you live in your thinking, you’re living in the past. You’re not even living in the present. You are thinking about whatever is confronting you. You observe it not with your mind, but with your thinking. “Oh, that’s a bald-headed eagle, Oh, that’s a swallow, Oh, that’s a fir tree … Oh, it looks like rain.” You’re always looking with your thinking. You’re always looking with what you already think you know. Again, that means that your general method of being or of operating is one ofliving in the past. That in itself should impel you to question the way you be presently because you don’t want to be trapped in the past.

You don’t want your very existence to be an ever occurring rehearsal of that which is old. I mean after all, when you have family members who are getting into their senior years and all they do is begin to talk about what happened in 1945 or when they met Joe, and what they did on their first date and every time you get together you hear some tid-bit about the past, you say, ohhhh they’re beginning to suffer from senility. And you don’t feel good about it.

So why feel good about yourselves, when you, even when you think you arefunctioning in the present, aresimply rehearsing the past?

Now we’ve talked and talked and talked about looking at everything with fresh eyes. Looking at everything with innocent eyes, meaning, absent the influence of past experience, past concepts, past convictions,and being curious to seeing the More of what God is being Right there than what you’re presently seeing. It’s wise counsel.

Now, change of subject. Who are rules for? You all know thatrules exist. But who are rules for? Rules are for those who have forgotten how to Love. Rules are an artificial means of establishing and maintaining order and harmony when order and harmony do not naturally occur. Why don’t they naturally occur? Because you have forgotten how to Love. How did you forget how to Love? By getting a divorce from your Father. By saying, “I’d rather see it my way. I’d rather do it my way. I want to be the determiner of what everything is. I want to be the determiner of what happens. I want to try my hand at being the authorityin my life.” And so in effect you pulled the plug—disconnected yourself from your Source. Forgot who you were, lost the experience of the movement of Love through you that the Father is Being by Presencing Himself right there where you are. And you found yourself without natural harmony.

But you had just had the experience of harmony. So quickly, you decided what you needed to do to re-establish what had disappeared by your own hand, by your own authority. And the only way you could do it was by establishing a mutual agreement with someone else as to what good behavior was constituted of and that everyone had better abide by this, so that there is a certain degree of peace and security for everyone.

So, structures, ideas were brought together in structures or patterns to be abided by. They were called, “manners” They were called “codes of behavior.” They were called, “Protocols by which to live.” And to date, a certain amount of harmony has been established. It fluctuates. But a certain amount of harmony has been established. But you know what? It’s a harmony that depends entirely upon mutual agreements. And if the mutual agreements are abandoned, harmony ceases. So even when there’s a certain modicum of harmony, it’s not really Real. It’s simply the current evidence of quote,”good behavior.” That’s not security. That’s not stability. And it wouldn’t do me a bit of good to point this out to you, because the Truth of what I’m saying is unsettling.

I’m saying it in this context: That there is a natural harmony. There is a natural order. Because there is Love. And there is Love because there is a God. There is a something beyond whatever tiny authority each of you has created out of whole cloth, out of imagination and convinced yourself that you have. And it’s your birthright to be experiencing this Love. It is natural to youfor this Love to flow through you because you are undefended against it. Because you are willing to be without limits or boundaries. And it’s time for you to re-access It. It’s time for you to stop suffering in ignorance of what you are and of what your function is.

It’s time for you to become free of rules. Oh boy, the ego can have a hey-day with that. A lot of New Age thinking does revolve around the idea that rules areopinions,rules aren’tReal. And that one must learn to let go and move freely and just be whatever you feel like being. But see, that’s still doesn’t embrace the fact that there is a God. In other words, there is some Universal Absolute. Some Universal consistent Movement of Be-ing that is so pure, that it is without conflict, without opposites, and for this reason, it is Eternal. And for this reason, there is Something going on for you to have a misperception of. And you will forever have Something to have a misperception of because Reality is permanent. Reality is Eternal.

You have to arrive at a point where you stop valuing your perception of Reality; of This that is forever Changeless, but forever New.

Now, when I’m talking to you, I’m not talking to who you think you are. And I’m not talking to the patterns of thoughts that you have adopted in order to define yourself and define your world. I’m talking to the You that you Are. I’m talking to the You that is the Place where the Movement of God is happening. I’m talking to God right there, where each of You Is. You don’t think that’s what’s there. But I persistin talking to the You that is there, and telling You that It Is there, and I will continue to encourage you to stop denying it and to open the door just a crack through the use of curiosity.

Now, what does this mean? This means that I am standing as an Advocate for You and You and You and You and You and You and everyone watching. I am standing as an Advocate for the Real You. I am standing in a Place of confirming and reconfirming to You a Self that you are inclined to deny the existence of. A Self that you don’t believe that you can really be. Why? Because you’re so damned attached to the definitionyou’ve made up about yourself—to your thoughts!

And what am I doing? I’m setting an Example. What I am doing is showing You what You need to be doing. You need to be standing as an Advocate for your Brother and Sister. Being willing to not be deterred by your Brothersor Sisters insistence that they are nothing but their accumulated thoughts and their insistence upon operating on the basis of the past themselves.

How many of you during this past week wanted to not think, but to look into your Brother’s eyes, with innocence and listen for, be open to, the Revelation or the experience of the Truth about your Brother and had your Brother, figuratively speaking, spit in your face, or treat you really badly? And how many of you found, that when a Brother or Sister was behaving in a totally gross way, that you immediately reverted tothinking? Immediately reverted to your pre-existing definitions of them? “Well, of course, what could I have expected? Of course they’re behaving this way—that is the way they are and they have a history of behaving this way!”

What … what was that? What just happened? You obviously weren’t being still were you? There wasn’t silence, was there? There wasn’t a willingness to stand there in the face of the flack coming toward you. There wasn’t in you, in the face of the flack coming toward you, a state of disbelief, a willingness of not validate the flack and not validate it with a history to back it up and convict your Brother or Sister further and solidify the picture.

When a Brother or Sister behaves in a way that seems to threaten your Peace, you will automatically shift into thinking. You will automatically shift into the past and join them. They, in their past, you in your past, thinking that you’re present with each other in the Present, instead of totally embroiled in your own private pictures and your own private thoughts and definitions.

What’s a definition? It’s a thought that’s been rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed until its dug a groove so-to-speak. And then it sits there even if you’re not thinking it. You have rules and definitions already in place about everybody and everything. Even things you don’t know about. I mean, you wouldn’t say that that was possible, but the minute anybody presents something new to you that you haven’t heard about before, watch and see what fraction of a second it takes for you to have an opinion about it. Just a fraction of a second. [chuckling]

You know what? If you are sued for one reason or another, and you have to go into Court, you seek an attorney. What does that mean? You seek an advocate to stand with you in order to bring out the truth so that you’re not convicted falsely. And that one has to be willing to stand as an advocate for you no matter how much argument regarding your guilt is brought forth. No matter how convincingly it is put. No matter whether the arguments against you are dishonest an evil in intent, or whether they are not really that bad but are demeaning about you. You need someone who is not going to be swayed by false arguments stated beautifully; stated well, stated intelligently, stated logically.

You are not orphans! You are not what you think you are. You are not bodies getting old, deteriorating. . subject to deterioration. You are not something that started with a sperm and an egg. You are not a physical development in process. You are again, Mind. You are the conscious Awareness in which all experience is going on including the experience of body. Now I’m repeating myself, but you need to hear the repetition.Because it’s so easy for you to slip back into your thinking.

Now, if thinking is a rehearsal of the past, then it means that thinking is always a form of habit. You’re not inclined to change your habits. You’re not inclined to abandon your habits. You need help. You need encouragement. That’s what I’m here for. And that’s what the Holy spirit is here for. That’s what, that which is nothing more thanyour right mind is here for. That which you divinely are is present and active with you right now on behalf ofun-rutting you from your thinking.

How many of you during this past week, found your thinking getting you into trouble over and over and over again? Something would happen, and instead of staying in that place where you held your Vision innocently, you slipped into a stream of thoughts, a rehearsal of the past that always put someone else at a disadvantage. And then, remembering what we hadtalked about last week, you realized, “Oh boy, I did it again! I abandoned my Peace. I abandoned my valuing the Silence in which Love, the Vision of Christ, the Father’s perfect Vision of everything could occur. And so, I’ve made myself miserable and I’m going to stop now and get back into my peace.”

And you got back into your Peace and perspective returned. The situation that had caused you to lose your mind hasn’t changed but you’re able to look at it without getting into your knee-jerk habitual responses. And in the process of being willing to stay with the situation from your Peace, something else happened that caused you to feel vulnerable again (snaps fingers) and just like that, you’re back thinking—you’re back being angry—you’re back justifying your being angry and convicting the one who caught you off guard, of guilt. How many of you had this happen multiple times—enough times that you’re now able to look back without judgment on yourself but with the clarity that allows you to see how it happens—the mechanics of it. So that you can look at it a little bit more objectively and thereby more easily avoid it when the next trigger comes?

For many its been a week of a great deal of growth, strenuous as it might have been. But of course what made it strenuous was, the ease with which you slipped back into the habit of thinking and valuing and validating the thinking.

Now, it should have become obvious to you that in the process of validating your thinking and valuing it, you became an absolute block to healing. You became an absolute block to Redemption. You became that which reinforced the problem. And that’s not what this is all about and it isn’t what you want. That awareness has value because it helps you see how unproductive your habit of thinking is. Not only did your habit of thinking confirm the problem,it caused you to feel misery. It caused you to feel as though you were in the middle of an absolutely untenable situation which you had no choice about—no authority to do anything about. It caused you to be trapped. It didn’t serve you well. And you need to be willing to look at it. You need to able to see it so that you can say with genuineness,”I don’t want this experience—I don’tvalue this experience! I am not going to do again what I’ve just done that made me miserable.”

Now the likelihood is that you will do it again. But when the resolve is there from a place of genuineness in you, you’re next response, you’re next foray into the habit of thinking won’t catch you as significantly and you won’t stay in it as long. And you will step out of it and you will begin to establish a new kind of experience where using thinking occurs less and less and each time for a shorter and shorter duration.

You know what? Mind Itself is a Movement. Mind is a very, for lack of better words, fluid thing. It’s not made out of matter. It doesn’t move in accordance with laws of physics. It moves with utter Grace and fluidity. Uninhibited. And it always moves as the manifestation or visibility of the Movement of God which is ineffably and awesomely beautiful. You are Mind. That’s not what you think. But that is what You Are. And there needs to be, as I’ve said before,a shift from body identification with Mind identification. You need to start identifying with Mind—your Mind.

Now you’ll find that your thinking, contrary to what I’ve just said, defines everything as an object including your Brother and Sister. And so you treat them as though they are not a movement of fluidity. And so, when you take rules—rules of behavior, rules of etiquette, protocols, and you apply them to this object that you have made in your mind of something that is an utterly fluid, uninhibited movement of harmony and order, you’re bringing what I’m going to call, two different orders of reality into play that don’t blend. Because one of the orders of reality that you’re bringing into play, is Reality itself and the other order of reality that you’rebringing into play, is unreality.. is nothing more than your bad habits..your ignorance that you are committed to and believe in andmaintain with all your heart and with all your might.

And so you bring these two things that don’t have any means of interfacing with each other and you try to apply one to the other. And there can’t be any resolution that way. The only way there’s going to be a resolution is when you stop addressing, when you look into your Brother’s eyes, the object you have conceived of him to be. And instead, you insist upon holding yourself to the goal, I’m going to say, the intent to see nothing less than what is Really there. So that you don’t bind them or convict them to a point that they couldn’t possibly exist at. And then try to enforce it. Because that isn’t standing as an Advocate for them. And that will not constitute a connection with What they Really Are that can trigger a sudden shift of perception in which they abandon their commitment to their ignorant thoughts about themselves.

You think that you look out there and the world is full of what? People, people, objects, people. Did you ever think that maybe you’re looking out at and seeing, and I don’t want you to hold onto these words, but I’m going to put it this way, that you are seeing works in process, works in progress, movements that are truly unfettered by things that don’t really exist? If you can’t look out at your Brother and Sister and see a Movement in Process and all you see is an object that you have defined in your mind, and then you apply rules of behavior that objects are supposed to operate according to, you will not be a Presence that is an Agent for Change. Because you’re caught in the unreality of your own definitions. You’re caught in the unreality of yourthinking. You’re caught in a freeze-dried frame—one frame out of a total movement. A forever unending Movement. And you’re saying, “This is what I’m seeing. This is what is there!” And all the time, the Movement has continued to identify God.

Now, you do this to your brother. Why? Because you’re doing it to yourself and you don’t want to look at the fact that you’re doing it to yourself. You are holding yourselves to your own made-up definitions. You think a certain way about yourself. And I promise you that whether the way you think of yourself is good and positive and full of self-appreciation, or whether you think of yourself in a self-depreciating way, in a constant state of self-attack, either way is not valid because you’re thinking about yourself. You’re caught in thoughts. Thoughts are pictures. Not the real thing. And the moment you can begin to see this and then remember, “Wait a minute, I am Mind, not body, not an object—not a thing to think about. I am Mind, that which is in forever, constant Movement that is unfettered and always reflecting the forever newness the Movement of God because God is Mind.”

You’ve got to be willing to consciously choose for letting go of your thoughts about yourself. How many of you have sat down with a photo album and as you go thru it, you say, “Oh, and there I was when I was sixteen—you’re showing your kids—And there I was when I met your Dad—Oh, and there I am swimming in Lake Tahoe, I’ll never forget that summer—wow it was really something!” As though you were that object in that picture in that place when you were the conscious Awareness in which that experience was going off, when the picture was taken. And right now, as you look at the pictures, you are that conscious Awareness which is not caught in any of those freeze-dried frames, still unfettered.

What does it say in the Course? It says, “I am not a body—I am still free to be as God created me.” God created me to be, Be-ing Movement, unfettered Movement of Grace and Harmony and awesome beauty and all the Universe, all that is, is embraced in this Movement ofMe. You see. You are in a process of freeing yourself from your addiction to freeze-fried frames. You are freeing yourself from the past that you hold in place by means of thoughts that can reflect nothing but the past and you think thatthose thoughts identify you when that which identifies you is the conscious awareness in which all of this is going on. Right now you are the Ultimate.

“Oh yeah, (looking thru the photo album) . yeah, there I am, you know, waiting for bail to be set … and there I am with my bail-bondsman aswe came out of the jailhouse … and Harriet was waiting for me in the car and we had to get back with the other guys because we were trying to divide up the loot before we got caught … and, oh yeah, and there I am after I got out of the penitentiary …”

It doesn’t matter whether the pictures are about bad things or swimming in Lake Tahoe—having a good time and a wonderful summer. You’re not the picture. You’re not any of the pictures. And neither are your Brothers and Sisters. You know what? You gotta throw the photo album away. And you gotta say, “Hey, look at me—what you see is what you get! I’m not anything else in another time. And you know what? I know that what you’re seeing isn’t even what you think it is. I know that this is the visibility and tangibility—it is what identifies a divine Movement. I know that this that I call a body, is nothing but an Idea, I didn’t say a thought, it’s nothing but an Idea in the Mind of God which is perfectly intangible but experienceable. And it is not bound by laws of physics.” Just as your body is the same, not bound by physics. Not waiting for a disease to advance and take its toll. Not even waiting for healing to occur.

In other words, it isn’t a thing waiting for bad things to happen or for good things to happen. It’s not any definition that you could apply to it. It is right now, the visibility and tangibility of the moving of intangible Order and Harmony, which although its intangible, is perfectly experienceable. And it is what you’re experiencing right now. But you are experiencing it through some definitions. You’re experiencing it through some thought patterns that stand in the way of your experiencing What it truly Is.

Now, I am your Advocate telling you how it is.Even though its very different from what you have believed it is. And you need someone to be able to tell you that. Else you don’t have a chance of spontaneously getting out of your habit. And, your Brother has need of you to stand as his advocate. Your Sister—everything has need for you to stand as its advocate illuminating what the truth is even if its met with disbelieve. Even if its met with argument. Even if its met with unpleasant responses. So all of this is very important.

Now let’s go to the book.

I’m backing up a couple of lines:

The Spirit of the Law saves. The letter of the Law kills. The letter of the Law does not embody Love, compassion. It’s hard-nosed, its factual, it says, and its absolute. But without Love to temper the letter of the Law, Law does not fulfill its function.

Well, the argument can be put, if we do not abide by the letter of the Law, we will be lost. And the Law says, “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” So pluck out that eye. That one took a life. Take his. That’s the letter of the Law. And because the letter of the Law is abided by because it is believed that that is one’s salvation, or society’s salvation, it expresses the idea that Salvation expressed as the letter of the Law being carried out, is at the bottom line, really Love. It’s Love because it saves society. You see?

Ok everybody, let’s back up. How many of you believe that? You know about Adam and Eve right? And you think, if you are a believer,that there was a beginning to Creation. And there was Adam and Eve and they were in the Garden of Eden. And certain events occurred and what happened? One of two individuals said, “You know, our Father said not to do this, but you know what? Let’s try it our way.” You see, that’s the beginning of getting a divorce from the Father. “I’d rather do it my way.” But you know what? It takes two to join together in order to validate it. There has to be one that says, “I’d rather see it my way—I’d rather do what I think I aught to do.” Well, that’s just a spurious thought. That’s just a thought that hangs in the ethers. But if there’s someone else to entice into joining in that intent, now there are two believers with a single intent, a joined intent and the thought can seem to become valid.

Well, its interesting isn’t it,that it was Eve who tempted Adam. I mean, we all know that men tempt women don’t we? We all know that men can lead women down the merry path to oblivion. But its interesting that it was a women who was a temptress. Right?Well, when that story got written down, [laughing]who was it written by? It was written by a man, or men, and these men already believed that they were orphans right? So they’re going to see their world in terms of conflict and temptation and the need for mutual agreements and so forth. But wait a minute. That there were objects in time . . somewhere in the distant or the far reaches of the past, that did certain things, is not true. It’s a thought. It’s a thought that hasbeen fleshed out with details. The fact is, that the Adam and Eve story is like the story I’ve been sharing with you about orphans. And I’ve also made it clear that none of you are orphans even though you believe you are.

Well, likewise, there never was a temptress and there never was a tempted. Because no one, not even Adam and Eve ever stopped being—what God was Be-ing right there even though they believed differently. So, they believed differently about themselves and they said, “OK, we’re going to make a new rule: It’s OK to eat the fruit from this tree. And we’re going to do it!” And they did it. Theyunplugged themselves. Right? They said, “I’d rather do it my way. Father, you’re not governing things anymore.” They pulled the plug out. No more juice—no more connection with the Father. And they experienced suddenly, what it meant to be orphans. “Oh, God kicked me out of the Kingdom of Heaven!” See. Totally irresponsibility there. They didn’t say, “Oh, we pulled the plug . .and all we need to do is to plug the plug back in.” You see? “Or, all we have to do is remember that at any time we want we can plug the plug back in.”

But no. They blocked out the fact that they pulled the plug and dissociated themselves from the conscious experience of Reality as it Is. They blockedit out. And then they said, “The Father kicked us out of the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Well, that’s just an allegorical way of saying what I’ve been saying allegorically by describing you as, well I’m going to call it, naturalized orphans. You know you have naturalized citizens? Those are citizens who weren’t really citizens before. But through certain processes of the law, they can become citizens of a country. And so they’re called, naturalized citizens. And you’ve all become naturalized orphans. You have granted yourself the right to have an experience that is impossible for you to have. And you believethe gift you gave yourself, so completely that you are unwilling to consider any other possibility. Oh, know you say, I’m not totally against it. But when I sit here and say, right here and right now that you are the full blown Christ, you can’t believe it!

You say, “I can’t wrap my mind around it!” Whatever. There’s an unwillingness—there’s a reluctance … you say, “an inability” —Bullshit! I’m telling you it’s Bullshit! You have the capacity because you are the capacity.

So …

So let’s be very clear: That there was an Adam and an Eve who had an original idea, “Let’s do it our way, let’s eat of this tree even though we’re told not to.” Even though you have that story. and even though it’s believed that it’s happened over many, many thousands of years ago at the beginning when Creation occurred. And centuries and centuries and centurieshave passed, and everyone has been wandering in the wilderness having been cast out! Nooooo… those are just ideas floating around that you’ve taken a-hold of and validated and behaved as though they were true when Adam and Eve were then, and are now, the full blown Christ—just as you are,Mind in which the experience of Universe is going on, and in which time is not going on.

And so you could say that although the story says they were caught in a thought, and everyone else down through the centuries has remained caught in a thought—and you’re caught in a thought, it’s not true! Because they couldn’t ever pull the plug. You know why? Because you’re hard-wired to God. You are inseparable! And what you think you’ve done, you haven’t accomplished.

But you see how it is? Do you see how it is, that it could be believed that God drove them out of the Garden—just the same way you believe that you are in quote”the human condition” unquote and nothing divine is truly true about you? Even though you wish it could be. The Father has not kicked you out. You have never become disconnected from the Father. You and your Father are still One. And you are not bodies, objects, freeze-dried pictures—material forms. You are still free to be. . Being. . Movement. ineffable, unrestricted unfettered Movement of Love…to Be as God created you—as God is Be-ing you right now.

“Well, I don’t have the evidenceof it. You keep talking about this and I keep not seeing the evidence of it!”

OK. I agree with you. You’re still not seeing it. But it’s there to be seen. And it’s your birthright to be seeing and experiencing it. And you’ve got to keep inviting it! Because all that you’re not seeing it means is, that you’re still caught in the thought. You’re still caught thinking about the Truth of you. And the Answer is, to take the time frequently to become still so that you might become, what seems to you to be, a giant emptiness. Because I promise you something: Emptiness is an invitation to filling. Emptiness is an invitation. It’s an invitationto be filled. It’s a request to be filled. And when you are not introducing thinking, or definitions or concepts or protocols or rules, what will fill you is the only thing that’s really there to fill you which is, well I’m going to say: The Holy Spirit; that which is nothing more than your right Mind—and the conscious experience of God.

Some of you, I know, wonder why I spend so much time talking about you. This is supposed to be an ACIM study group. We’re supposed to be here learning about … ta-daa … A Course In Miracles! Well, friends [chuckling] this book is about you. And if you don’t realize it’s about you, put it down. .or realize it. It’s not a subject. It’s not an object called a subject to learn about. A subject to memorize, a subject to incorporate the knowledge of, within you. Man, this is about your Mind. This is about you shifting from ignorance into the concrete experience of knowing the Truth—experiencing the Truth and becoming free of sin, sickness and death.

And I’ll say it again, “Your Brother and Sister are the means of your escape from yourbondage!” Not the brother or sister you think your Brother or Sister is, but the Brother and Sister who Are and have never stopped being the Presence of God. And they are being in your life, giving you the opportunity to abandon your definitions and your thoughts and your habitual way… of embracing them… around the neck [said venemously]. They are your opportunity to learn to let go of them—to let go of them by abandoning the thoughts that you are holding them to in your mind. And the only way that you’re going to be able to do that isif you’re willing to consider that they are not guilty of being something less than the Son or Daughter of God. And inseparably,that is the truth about you. And you must release yourself from the definitions you are binding yourself with—the thoughts.

I’m not going to give you something new to put on your refrigerator this week. Keep that note up there: thinking is not the normal use of your mind. And then, why don’t you say… like they do in the South, “What the hey, I’m going to try, not thinking.”

I love you, every single one of you. And I look forward this week rejoicing when I see light-bulbs go on in your mind that are the evidence of insight occurring—not thinking. Insight that takes you out of thinking even if its only momentary. Because even if the experience doesn’t last, you cannot return to the place you were before it happened.

I’m full of it tonight, but I must stop. I want you to know that I’m full of it all week. And I’m full of it standing with you and you can invite me to spill over onto you directly. There’s a reason you have an Advocate. And the reason is, that you are the Son of God believing that you’re not. And this is a humungous—an universally humungous impossibility. And the impossibility of it provides you with everything you need in order to escape its bondage.

Goodnight.