Teachings of Christ Mind

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

Well, have we opened a can of worms with the simple two-step?

During this past week have you had the opportunity to hesitate before blurting out your best judgments or what your vast experience has taught you that would undoubtedly be of value to the one you’re confronted with.

And if you have managed to hesitate, and ask what needs to be known here, and if you actually have heard what needs to be known and you’ve shared it, have you had the experience of it not being well received?

And like Moses, did you get mad and throw down the tablets and forget about listening and forget about doing the two-step and forget about caring about your Brother enough to want to know that the resolving answer would be here? And unlike Moses, did you perhaps not go back up on the mountain and do the two-step again because your Brother wasn’t worth it?

If so, you have been confronted with the incredible importance of the two-step and you have had a glimpse of what kind of commitment or persistence may need to be brought into play.

Truth, reality, Meaning, have nothing to do with sweet, flowery, spiritual platitudes that you sort of caress your mind with or caress your fellowman with to make yourself feel good when things are still bad. And I cannot support your reading this Course and not getting your hands dirty. I can’t support your finding wonderful things to think about while you abandon your Brother because he’s been obtuse and it has offended you.

In Boot-Camp, one of the practices to help teamwork develope, is to take a very long telephone pole and twenty or twenty-five men and they lift it up on their shoulders and they have to learn to jog while carrying it. If someone is out of step, he is going up when the telephone pole is coming down on his shoulder. And it is very uncomfortable. And his absence from the teamwork that’s needed to have all twenty-five men running smoothly with coordination, is lost.

Now you say, “Okay, I understand that. But you know what? We’re not all carrying a telephone pole together. I don’t have a telephone pole. Michael doesn’t have a telephone pole that he and I are carrying. So, if I don’t feel like coordinating with others, if I don’t feel like cooperating, if I don’t feel like being involved, big deal!”

But here’s the good news that you don’t want to hear: You’re all in this together. And you all need each other so that you might have objects of affection to give your attention to. Because until you have an object of your affection and you persistently express that affection—that intent to be involved, until that dynamic exists, is brought into play—that which is essential to your waking up is absent from your experience.

Earlier this evening, someone here in the group expressed a quotation that goes, “A mind that’s changed against its will is of the same opinion still.”

Now, this person wasn’t suggesting that that’s a reason to stop being affectionate, it’s not a reason for throwing down the tablets and storming off and abandoning the two-step. But it suggests a dilemma. “A mind that’s changed against its will is of the same opinion still.” It’s like, dead-end—dead end! No use in doing the two-step.

But wait a minute. Are you doing the two-step to change someone’s mind? No. What you are doing the two-step for is so that you might be undefended enough in your own mind that you’re able to be completely relaxed with poise. So that you’re able to be with grace and spontaneous balanced responses, and listen for the place where the willingness is in your Brother.

If you say, “He’s not willing and he’s a very willful person, I am faced with a real challenge here and it’s going to be hard work!” You’re going to approach your Brother as though he’s unyielding, un-yieldable, un-malleable, un-changeable, and your behavior will be a form of rough attack. That won’t get you anywhere.

But, you want his mind to change in accordance with his will. So you need to find out where his willingness lies. You need to be willing to stand with your Brother with interest. Not fake interest, not manipulative interest, but real interest. Because until you’re willing to stand there with your Brother in an un-defended manner, in other words, with love, you’re not going to be able to recognize where his willingness lies. He doesn’t know where it is at the moment himself or he would have changed his mind and it wouldn’t have been against his will.

Now we could say that you all could be at odds with each other for another millennium. And we could say, “Well we don’t have a whole millennium left in which to do this,” and sort of pressure you into it by scaring you with a time limit. Well, neither one of those options is valid. But the simple fact is, that this is what you’re all faced with. You’re all faced with the need to bring yourself within yourself, to a point of caring enough about your Brother that you will take the time it takes to find your Brother’s willingness to see the truth, or to see the answer that will resolve his dilemma.

It’s going to take conscious, conscientious persistence. Your willingness to be the Presence of Love is going to take conscious, conscientious persistence. And you’re going to have to be willing to abandon your willingness to abandon your Brother. You’re going to have to abandon your willingness to self-righteously judge your Brother and say he’s not worth the time and the effort.

“He’s not worth my using my mind well.”

Even though you’re using your mind poorly, it’s going to cost you your peace and your opportunity to wake up.

Your Brother, you will have to remember, is worth every bit of conscious effort you bring into play on his behalf, or on your Sister’s behalf. Each one of you is worth every bit of effort I bring to helping you arrive at the point of discovering your willingness to embrace the truth about yourselves and abandon what’s causing you pain.

And every single one of you knows that you balk, and you argue, and you withdraw, and you get angry when the help is offered, ..delay…delay…delay. “The suffering isn’t so bad, I can put up with it a little bit longer. Don’t push me Jesus!”

Well, I can’t push you. I cannot change your mind. But, you are worth My persisting in expressing love and sharing the ideas that help you uncover deep within you your willingness, a built-in already existing willingness, to consciously embrace the truth about yourselves and abandon the illusions about yourselves which you have been suffering from.

Again, as you go through this coming week and you’re confronted by anyone in any situation, I want you to remind yourself: “This one, this individual is worth my best thoughts. This individual is worth my taking the time to remember, even if it’s only intellectually, that they like me, are the Christ—the Son or Daughter of God—the direct Expression of God embodying all that is true about God and is therefore worthy of my utter respect. And so, I’m willing in this moment not to discount them because of how they look or how they’re behaving.”

Remember, I said last week, that you’re never in neutral. You always have some sort of assessment or evaluation or thought or concept about anyone you confront or run into. And whatever that is, you’re lifting up to Me to pass on to the Father.

I’m stressing this because as many of you found out during this past week, it can easily and quickly feel as though it’s not worth it to do the two-step. And the wish, and even perhaps the willingness to abandon it, has presented itself. And I need to remind you and confirm to you that this is exactly the time not to withdraw.

And like Moses, go back up to the mountain and desire to know of the Father, “What needs to be known here. How can I use my mind in the presence of this one in a manner that will contribute to our mutual benefit; our mutual sudden shift of perception about ourselves even if we’re strangers?”

Let’s go to the book.

You will be free. You will be in a state of freedom to let knowledge in; to let your intent to be the authorizer, the interpreter, the determiner, to let that be replaced by the infilling of the Holy Spirit—the infilling of your right Mind—the infilling of the Father’s Perspective.

What does that mean … seen your brothers as yourself?

Well, let’s get back to basics here. You don’t see your Brother as yourself because you think you’re an independent entity, born of a sperm and an egg, having grown up in an environment and that all of this is part of an evolutionary process that may or may not have anything to do with God. It certainly isn’t divine. It certainly is physical. And then if you are a physical entity in a process of evolution who has had a “God experience,” you may think that you are an expression of God that has been created and set on its own—given tools and faculties by this God to apply to life and make something of yourselves as an independent entity—what we’ve spoken of as the orphan mentality.

Fundamental to this orphan mentality is the premise that you are unique—that you are unlike anything and everything else. You even have finger-prints that no-one else has. That’s how unique you are. That’s how different you are from your Brother.

Your very mindset says that it is impossible to see your Brothers as yourself because you’re not alike. And if you were to see your Brothers as yourself, you would lose your individuality—that you would cease to be different. That that which can think well of itself and convince others to think well of it and become something important—that whole regime of arrogance and egotism, all of that must be abandoned in order to see your Brothers as yourself.

But, by its nature and character, it disallows for that. And so it takes someone like Me to say to you over and over and over again: ‘You’re not an orphan. And you are not unique and different from each other by virtue of separation. You are all the Presence of Love embodied. Embodied by a First Cause which is Itself, Love. And the Movement of Love that embodies Itself is Creation. And the Movement of Love that you are when you allow It to move, constitutes part of Creation. And so you and your Father are One. And you and your Brother are One. And you are all individuals. But differentness is not the bottom line—is not the determiner of your individuality.’

God infinitely expresses Himself. Love infinitely finds expression. And every expression is Love itself expressed. It’s all One. It is all One. But how it can all be One without the infinitude of Creation being lost, is something that you will not have the experience of until you’re willing to abandon the orphanage, until you’re willing to abandon orphanhood and the pride you get from being an orphan and making a success out of yourself.

So…

… when you allow that to happen, “No, can’t go any further than that”…

… when you have allowed that to happen, what have you done? You’ve done the only thing that will allow you to have that experience—you’ve done the two-step. You have backed off from your habitual responses, your educated responses, your mutually agreed upon responses to a situation or an individual, and you have said, “Father what do I need to know here? What is the truth here?” And then you have been silent and you have been an inviting emptiness, if I may put it that way. You’ve been the presence of curiosity which is an inviting emptiness isn’t it. You’ve desired to be filled with knowledge, with knowing, with the Father’s Perspective.

And when that happens, you have an experience of awareness that embraces your Brother in a way that reveals to you his utter divinity and his deserving of your respect. In other words, what is respectable about him is clearly available to you whereas a moment before, he didn’t deserve your respect. And what causes your respect to be due to him is something incredibly wonderful. It’s that the Source of him is God, just as the Source of you is God and you’re having this joint realization in that moment in which he’s no better than you or worse than you, and you’re no better or worse than him. But you are equal in the Oneness of your nature and what your nature is derived from.

And when that kind of experience happens, both of you feel it and healing occurs—correction of whatever was disturbing transpires.

Now this is what you should be experiencing all the time. This is what you should be experiencing multiple times during the week.

Now you can let your ego take charge here and say, “Well, then you must be doing something wrong. What is there in you that doesn’t allow this to happen?” It puts you on the defensive and creates a sense of guilt in you just because you happened to hear some really good news. The good news was, you should be having these experiences multiple times every week.

I’m telling you that you should be having them so that you will begin to have an expectation of them happening because that’s what opens the door.

If you don’t think it can happen, then it won’t happen. Because your definiteness constitutes a willfulness that fits the quotation: “A mind that’s changed against its will is of the same opinion still.” So if you’re so sure it will not happen, your mind will not be changed and you will not see it happen, even though it’s sitting there waiting to happen for you.

And so I say, it should be happening multiple times every week. It should not be an uncommon occurrence for you. And I say it to peak your curiosity because you have the capacity to hear what I’m saying and actually let it in and actually have the experience this coming week. And if you don’t, you still have the capacity. And I will be happy to tell you again and again and again without impatience, because there simply is no justification for you to continue not to experience it. And because there is no justification for you not to experience it, there’s no reason for Me not to continue to share the truth with you—to share a Perspective that’s different from the mindset you’re currently employing that keeps you from seeing it happening.

There are people who say: “Oh, well, the Course isn’t really about miracles, like walking on water! You, know, a miracle is a sudden shift of perception. So, you know, if there’s not healing, don’t worry about it. If you’re having these wonderful shifts of perception and they are giving you a great lift and a high, that’s what it’s about.” No it’s not.

A sudden shift of perception is one in which—one that is a miracle—is one in which the Presence of God registers with you surprisingly when you weren’t expecting it, or when you weren’t trying to make it happen but you were willing to let go of control enough to let something you weren’t in charge of, in.

… from doing the two-step …

What that means is you will be released from the bondage you were suffering from as a result of your own self-created definitions about how everything worked. And when you abandon your mindset, and you employ curiosity to know more than you presently know, you’re suddenly released from the bondage of your thought-structures and the recognition of truth can infill you as I’ve just described. Knowing the truth will suddenly be your illumined experience. So …

… the experience of Knowing …

Who is Him Who knows of freedom that you have learned from? God.

You can ask the Holy Spirit to illumine your mind with the truth, but what the Holy Spirit will do in response to that, is reveal to you the Father’s Perspective. And in the end you will have learned of the Father.

… the Father’s teaching …

Why will the power of God’s Son move in us? Because we won’t be denying Who we Are. You and I will not be denying Who we Are. We will be acknowledging that we are not the source of our existence, that we are the effect or offspring of Something Else—that we have a Father. And the moment you abandon the orphan viewpoint, the fact that you are the Son or Daughter of God—that you are the offspring of a Source other than yourself—your Sonship and God’s Fatherhood become real to you.

… which is what you’re doing when you say, “I wish to see everything through Your Vision, which is Your gift to me from God.”

… in that way

… which means under the holy banner of how things really work.

… or unity, conscious joining…

… what?

… so, when you do the two-step and you get a real raunchy response, you won’t run away. You will persist and …

This is very important. No one will be left alone. It cannot be part of your mindset that as you do the two-step, you might end up leaving a few people alone because you will do the two-step with the easy people. And somebody else will catch the ones you miss? No. Your wholeness will not be experienced by you until not one Brother is left outside of it.

Now, don’t take what I’m saying to mean that immediately you’re to go out and somehow consciously embrace everyone—every Brother, every Sister. That will be the end result. That will be the finale, if you will. But, you be willing to do this with the people in your experience.

The people in your experience are the ones the Holy Spirit has brought to you. But understand that you’re not going to slip by on the fast-track and just do this with the essential people. Be willing from the start here, to not let anyone slip out of your site without your Blessing. Don’t let anyone slip by you without your Blessing.

… break your isolation …

… conscious unity …

And that means that you will have dared to take the time to find the place in each one of them where the willingness to see the truth existed—and helped uncover it—so that they could gladly embrace it and easily embrace it. Because where their willingness is, for embracing it, is where it’s easy to embrace it.

Now, when you do this two-step, when you take the time with your Brother to look beyond your spontaneous judgments and opinions, to see what God is Being there, and you have this illumination that embraces you and your Brother and healing occurs, it’s still as though a miracle happened with your Brother. It’s still as though something happened “out there” and the total unity of it will not always be felt. And …

… in the end …

I’m going to say it this way: Every healing that you’re a participant in, every healing of a Brother or a father or a daughter or a spouse, is an event that fits under the heading of Creation. Every expression of Love that is embodied, manifest, consciously experienced, is eternal and is present for all to experience forever. It becomes your expression of Love embodied as part of Creation forever. This is important.

So the willingness to persist on behalf of your Brother is important. Because, for lack of better words, the successful embodiment of Love that arose out of your willingness to persist, becomes an aspect of Creation Itself.

The grocery store clerk who’s blessed by you, becomes together with you, a movement of love that will forever be experienceable, because it was part of the Movement of Creation. There is no place you can be or no experience you can have in your day that is mundane or inconsequential, or not worth embracing with your maximal curiosity to see God.

No. Fatherhood here does not have a capital ‘F’. The Movement of Creation, called God Being, is embodied in every single one of you. And your every expression of love embodied, demonstrates your fatherhood—your place you might say, in the Movement of Creation.

You are not a piss-ant mortal, a nothing—an imagination that pops up and then disappears. You are the Sons and Daughters of God and what God is, is embodied in you. You are not God. But God is all there is to you.

… and that has a capital ‘F’ . What does that mean?

Well, all children are witnesses to the fatherhood of their father and mother. You are the witnesses to that which has Sourced you—That which is Be-ing you.

What are the witnesses to your fatherhood? They are the uncovering of God—the illuminating of the Presence of God—where it seems to be covered up as a result of your being willing to do the two-step and even go back up on the mountain two or three, or twenty or forty or a thousand times if necessary, because of persistence of your love and your insistence that your Brother is worth your using your mind well.

[addresses each one in the room] You are the miracle of God. And you are the miracle of God. And you are the miracle of God. And you are the miracle of God. And you are the miracle of God, and you are the miracle of God, and you are the miracle of God. And your father is the miracle of God. And you are the miracle of God, you, and you, Christopher, are the miracle of God.

The wonder, the maximal wonder of what God is, that is what you are even though you are not consciously embracing it yet.

You all are perfect!

The embodiments of love which you have facilitated.

You generally don’t witness it for yourself and you, for certain, do not witness for your Brothers. Not as a general rule. Very few in your experience can be assigned those qualities.

… God witnesses to it and you are the witnesses …

See, there’s no camaraderie, there’s no joining with God since you said, “But Father, I’d rather do it myself,” and you got a divorce from your Father. You do not employ an “us” mentality. Like Father like Son. I am my Father’s Son, I am my Father’s Daughter. I did not create myself. I exist because Something has created me and I acknowledge that I am created.

I bear witness to My father by claiming to be His Son, instead of claiming to be an orphan who’s having a helluva good time overcoming the odds and winning over the negativities that are part and parcel of existence.

Again …

… your perfection …

… you don’t claim Him to be your Father. You don’t claim to be nothing without Him. You don’t claim and say, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” No. You don’t say that.

God waits your witness to your Sonship and His Fathership.

Pretty grand words. But the simplicity of it is, that you exist and you did not create yourselves and you have a capacity to use your mind well, or to use your mind poorly.

Right now you’re all caught in an eddy of the poor use of the mind. But it’s not your birthright to be caught there or to be experiencing that.

And there is a way for you to get out of that. There is a way for you to use your mind well. And the way, as we’ve been reading, to use your mind well, is to be willing to do the two-step. To stop before your knee-jerk responses and say, “Entirely separate and apart from my conditioned responses, what is the truth here Father?” Use that word, “Father.” Because when you do that you’re acknowledging your Sonship and you’re acknowledging a joining.

“What is the truth here Father? Because I care enough about my fellowman to relieve him of his suffering and even if he is holding on to it mightily and does not want to hear how he can be relieved of it, help me find the willingness in him. Help me address him in a way that touches the willingness so that he can abandon the self-imposed incarceration that he is binding himself with unnecessarily.”

And as you do that, the dominoes will begin to fall. You will begin to see healings during the week. You will be able to talk to each other about it, but you won’t be able to say how you did it. You will just be able to share how amazing it was. And you will begin to be willing to allow things to happen in your experience that you know you’ve participated in but which you were not the author of. And that will be part of the shift of perception that is called, waking up.

Now this week, I do not want you to read ahead to the next section. I want you to re-read what we’ve been reading for the last couple of weeks. And I want you to abide with what I’ve been saying. And as difficult as it might be for you to persist in doing the two-step, when you are met with an obtuse response, please understand that that is exactly when the two-step must be employed again.

Moses went back up on the mountain and listened again and shared and released a people from bondage. It was world-changing. It’s no small thing for each of you to listen, to do this two-step: and to do it a second, a third, and a fourth time if necessary.

I love you very much—all of you. And I look forward to being with you next week.