Teachings of Christ Mind

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

There’s a story, whether it’s true or not, the meaning is valuable. It’s a story about a woman who worked on an Indian Reservation and had worked there for a number of years—working with the women of the Reservation. And the time came that it was time for her to leave and go elsewhere. And on the day of her last visit, one of the Indian women came up to her, looked her squarely in the face, her eyes filled up with tears, and she said to the woman who was leaving, “I want to thank you so much.”

And the woman who was leaving, in thinking back over the time she had been there, realized that she really had never interacted very much with this woman except in the most casual of ways. And she leaned over and said, “What for?” And the Indian woman said, “Because whenever I’m with you, it’s easy to like myself.”

You know what the purpose of the two-step is? To get you into the place where those who are with you easily find it possible for them to like themselves.

I’m backing up a sentence or two from where we’re starting tonight:

And remember, that I brought out that you may not feel guilty, but if you are willing to employ guilt in your relationship with others, you are valuing guilt. And to whatever degree you employ guilt over and against others, you employ it over and against yourself. There’s no choice to it. You are not able to be so split that you can think well of yourself and think poorly of your Brothers. And you will hold your Brothers and Sisters to the same standards you hold yourself.

So …

I, who value guilt in any way…

… that way …

… The witness unto yours. The witness unto yours would be the Brother that you didn’t make guilty, the Brother who found it possible to like himself better and more easily when he was simply around you.

Now this is a very simple principle. What you give you get to keep. And it’s a law. It’s always operating. If you give little, you get to keep little. If you give alot, you get to keep alot. If you give an acknowledgement of innocence, you get to keep an awareness of your own that you will find yourself infilled with as a result of extending it to your Brother.

You get to keep exactly what you give. No more, no less. Always. If you give hate, you will get to keep hate. If you give jealousy, you get to keep jealousy. If you give love, you will get to keep love. It’s operating twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There’s no moment in which that is not operating absolutely.

What is confusing to everyone is, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Which came first, my thought or the other person’s behavior, or the other person’s belief? What is it that triggered the event?

Well, [chuckles] you are your own best examples of how this works. You know, without a doubt, that no-one can change your mind against your will. Whatever you set your mind to is the way it is for you. And anyone can talk until they’re blue in the face without affecting your stance or position in any way.

So you are the one who is the initiator or, as we said last week, the determiner; the one determining how things are going to be.

Now, your Brother or your Sister may be ignorant of his or her Birthright and may be acting out on the basis of a very poor image of himself or herself. But, how that affects you is entirely up to you and how you are determining their behavior is going to affect you.

Now that’s the selfish way to look at it. How their behavior is going to affect you. It is determined by you, but you notice that you are conceptualizing it as starting “out there” with your Brother or your Sister. That is confusion.

If you will remember, that you are the one making the initial determination, as to what the meaning of the event that you experience “out there” has, then you will realize that you are in charge and you have the capacity to heal or cause greater confusion.

You can contribute to the problem, or you can be the Presence of That which heals.

These are, as I said last week, very important things we’re talking about at this point. Remember, we’ve just read, “When you condemn a brother, you are saying, blah…blah…blah.”

Continuing …

… meaning, by condemning him.

If you condemn him and he feels guilty, he believes that he has caused you your grief—that he is guilty for the grief you are experiencing. But, as I’ve just pointed out, that can’t possibly be true. He cannot be guilty for anything you are experiencing.

So …

… his ignorance …

Strong statement.

Your function, really, is to look into your Brother’s eyes and remember God.

Now, [chuckles] that doesn’t mean look into this crazy bastard’s eyes that’s across from you and see how horrible it is, and then remove yourself from it and go unto God. You don’t remember God as a means of escape from this horrible visage called your Brother.

The point is, to look at your Brother and not believe what you’re seeing; not verify what his behavior or his condition seems to be presenting. You’re here to remember that no matter what your Brother believes, and no matter what you have believed about him in the past, if there’s anything there at all where your Brother is, it has to be God presenting Himself right there.

Now that’s not what his behavior may be saying, that’s not what his physical condition may be demonstrating. But if you don’t want to be stuck with the presentation, if you want to get past it, you’re going to have to disregard it and go to a different vantage point.

It’s a radical stand that you have to take relative to your Brother. If you will take the radical stand, you will find healing occurring. And in the healing of your Brother will be the healing of yourself—the revealing of the fact of what is true about your Brother is true about you because what you give, you get to keep.

Again, it is a law functioning, operating twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week period.

So the question is, “How are you going to use your mind?” How are you going to use your mind?

Now why, out of all the possible things you could engage in, why would it be your Function, with a capital “F,” your Function to look at your fellowman and remember God?

Because, that’s how you get out of your dream; that’s how you get out of your misinterpretations, misunderstandings, confusions, and all of the spontaneous reactions that come from them. That’s how you Wake up. Because at the bottom line, the only thing—the only thing—that is keeping you from experiencing yourself as you truly Are, is the fact that you have determined, because you thought there would be value in it for you, that you are separate and alone; that you are either self-created, or part of an evolutionary process of a material universe.

All of that is an idea. Those things are just ideas. You have been taught them. You believe them. And somebody had them originally as an imaginative idea. But it’s not the truth. But that idea has, and does keep you, has kept you, and keeps you bound in ignorance and incapable of experiencing your Birthright.

So, the reason it is your function to look at your Brother and see him from a radical standpoint, is that that is the way you break the fundamental ignorance—the fundamental misunderstanding—the fundamental flaw in your perception that keeps you from seeing truth. It breaks your isolation.

It may be relatively easy for you to imagine or believe that you are not separate from God, that God does love you, and that you are loved by this love always. And it is possible for you to believe that this love stands in constant support of you and that He holds you in an innocent state in His Mind. And from time to time, you may have had experiences of illumination where you truly felt it.

But I’m telling you, that in order for you to experience this always, it’s going to take more than a link or a joining between you and God. It’s going to have to come in the link or the joining between you and your Brothers and Sisters.

Now, I’ve suggested this before and I’m going to suggest it again because it’s a very powerful and practical practice: As you go through your day during this coming week, it doesn’t matter who you see; on the street; in a store; in another car; just look at them and in your mind say, “Bless you.”

You’re going to have some response; you’re going to think something; you’re going to have some sort of perception. It might as well be one that’s positive. It might as well be one that is embracing and one, which, if they could hear it, would make it easier for them to like themselves more easily. It will also be a wonderful practice for you because it will remind you that you can do something other than what you usually do as you encounter your fellowman during the day. And you will notice that it will arouse a feeling within you about yourself that feels good…and should.

Again …

All of this is pure insanity. Why? Because you aren’t the orphans you think you are. You’re the direct expression of God right now at every moment in every instant. You’re nothing more nor less than God Presencing Himself right there where you are.

To think otherwise is delusional, or insane.

Why? Because it’s impossible for there to be anyone to be insane.

Gee, sounds rather radical, eh? Well, what’s your alternative? Your alternative is, that there are people who are insane and maybe, if you’re a broadminded person, you might even say, “I might even be insane a little bit.”

But if you do that, you’re stuck. If you do that, you’re accepting something that is not true. And it’s based upon a fundamental ignorance of what you are. An ignorance that you’re the Son or Daughter of God; God expressed, right there, where you are.

Nothing …

Oh, you say, “But I don’t call for punishment on myself?” But you do every time you call for punishment on your Brothers and Sisters, because what you claim for them must be what you claim for yourself.

“Well of course, she’s guilty! Look, she’s having this physical problem because of her attitude and her behavior and the way she doesn’t take care of herself. What can she expect?” Well you know what? If you say that about her, you say that about yourself. Sure you do. I know you’re sitting there, “No, I don’t say that about myself!” But you do.

Let’s reverse it. Here’s the same person who hasn’t been taking care of herself; who has a lousy attitude and who has physical symptoms and circumstances that reflect the lousy attitude. And then one day, for no apparent reason whatsoever, she’s healed. I mean every single trace of the physical problem is gone and suddenly, she’s a very pleasant individual to be around. And when you ask her about it she says, “Man, I don’t know. All I know is that one day I was sick and had a lousy attitude, and the next day I was well and I had a wonderful attitude. Everything looked wonderful, and I felt good about myself.”

Oh, just let that happen. Just let that happen and what? You’re gonna look at your aches and pains. And you’re gonna look at the problems you’re having and you’re gonna say, “This is not fair!” You see. You do hold yourself to it.

“It’s not reasonable for her to experience transformation and healing for no good reason, when I’m going to have to demonstrate excellent reasons for healing to occur. I’m going to have to get my thoughts straightened out. I’m going to have to find where the flaw is in me that’s generating these physical symptoms. She’s getting off scot-free. She’s not having to do any of the work!”

So now, you, who doesn’t apply those rules to himself, that he applied to her when she was having a problem. Well now you see that you do. You’re saying, “The conditions I’m experiencing because I’m guilty of something, and I have to go through a process of ferreting out what it is I’m guilty about so that I can release it.”

So you do lay guilt trips on yourself. In fact, you claim guilt for whatever physical circumstances that are not the best that you might be experiencing.

So let’s be real people, you do it.

… uh-huh, there it is. Well, you know that’s not you, right? But it is you.

But I’ve just shown you that you do that. Now, I want you to accept that it is insane. And it is insane because it is the valuing of a belief that is constituted of nonsense. It is the valuing of a belief that is meaningless. And you are binding yourself to something that you can’t really be bound to.

Not for yourself, not for your Brother. As radical as it may sound, as unreasonable as it may sound, adopt this attitude.

Now, think about it: You do look at others. And perhaps you do it more since you’ve become a student of this wonderful Course. You have developed the habit of looking at yourself or others and passing judgment on them and saying, “You have created the problem for yourself.” As though that is the enlightening answer. When all it does is place guilt and confirm it, and leaves them there.

“You created it. You are going to have to uncreate it.”

Now, Joe Bloe is driving down the freeway. The tire comes unbolted from his car and his car careens against the divider and into other traffic and he is severely injured, taken to the hospital with quite a bit of physical damage.

Now, what would you say about the physician who would look at him on the gurney, unconscious, and then look at the rest of his staff and say, “Well, this fellow hasn’t been taking care of his car and he knew that he needed to have that tire checked and therefore, it should be no surprise to him that he’s in this condition. I’m certainly not surprised about it and he deserves it. And if I do something to alleviate him of the condition he finds himself in, he’s not going to learn what he needs to learn!”

Now, maybe somebody listening to what I’m saying might say, “Yeah … yeah, I never realized that, that’s exactly what the physician aught to do. That would be an enlightened physician.”

But, for the majority of you with intelligence and common sense, and compassion and love, you would recognize that this physician should be removed from the emergency room and someone else replace him; someone else who will come in and look at this fellow and say, “No matter what has happened up to this moment, there are conditions here that are not representative of health and well-being, and I must address those and bring him into a state of physical balance and function.”

And he will bring everything to bear upon the situation that he can and call in other experts—surgeons—whatever might be necessary to help reestablish balance and life there. Now the point is, that he will utilize all of the energy and strength of mind and intelligence; he will bring it all to bear on the situation no matter what has happened up to that point. No question will come up as to whether the person deserves to be brought into a state of balanced life.

Now, forget about that you’re a student of the Course; or you’re a student of truth, or you’re a metaphysician. Forget about that. Remember, that you’re a Brother or Sister, that you are part of a family of Man. And that your function in your relationships to each other are there for bringing all of the intelligence you have and every capacity you have upon the relationship to extend all the energy you have to bringing out the greatest balance; the greatest equilibrium; the smoothest functioning that is possible for you and your Brother.

You’re here to be healers, for lack of better words. And so that I don’t play into your egos, “Oh, I get to be a healer. I’ve always wanted to be a healer.”

Your function is to be lovers. Ones who love each other. Ones who love each other enough to bring your energy to the relationship so as to facilitate correction of ignorance and loss and suffering. That’s your function. And in a way, it’s as easy as what I’ve described; if you will go sit down in a mall or a grocery store and just look at everybody who comes by you and say, “Bless you…bless you…bless you.”

You’re perfectly capable of having a kind thought. It doesn’t have to be a huge religious experience. Just sit there and have a simple thought of kindness that you are specifically taking time to apply to or address your fellowman with.

It’s that kind of attitude in which judgment isn’t brought into play. But an awareness of innocence is brought into play that others find themselves able to like themselves more easily.

And it’s really all that the two-step is about.

[chuckles] If you actually succeed, even wordlessly, in helping another to more easily like himself or herself, you will find that you have made it easier for you to like yourself. And it will happen without your having ferreted out your flaws and corrected them. It will happen because you’ve employed your mind in an act of love that you can’t help but be embraced by in the process—and feel.

Like I said, it’s a law twenty-four/seven. What you give, you get to keep. It happens whether you went on an internal witch hunt or not. If you give something valuable, you will find yourself having it. And it won’t be a reward because you were so good, it’ll be a simple expression of the Law of Being: What you give, you get to keep.

… Lies your conviction that there is value in guilt and employing it, which automatically means there is value for it to be employed on you as well.

… who? for yourself? That would make it easy, wouldn’t it? No.

What you give, you’ll get to keep. What you don’t give, you won’t have.

And I promise you, that as long as you look at your Brother, and judge your Brother, and render him guilty, you won’t have innocence yourself. And there won’t be transformation. And there won’t be healing. And there won’t be anything you’ll like. And it won’t be your Brother’s fault.

Again …

That’s just the way it works. And you don’t have to be really good at it. It’s not a skill that you can increase. It’s a simple act that you can either employ or not employ. If you employ it, you get to keep what you’ve employed. If you don’t employ it, you get to keep the emptiness that you didn’t give.

Simple. Not a prize. Purely mechanical, if I may put it that way, because it is; it’s that easy for you to demonstrate it in your daily life.

Well, does that mean then that you should go out and find the biggest bastard in your experience and work on him? No. Keep it simple. Just go to the grocery store or stand in front of the post office for ten minutes and watch everyone who goes in and comes out and say, “Bless you. I may not see it, but I know that right where you are, God has to be Being all there is of you. Bless you. I can bless you for what I believe may well be there. I can do that. Bless you. Bless you for What is really Moving in and out here at this post office.” You can do that.

[chuckles] You can’t single anyone out and condemn him but leave everyone else, including yourself, scot-free. No.

It’s there until you no longer value employing it against others.

The undoing of it lies in the absence of your employing it. If you don’t throw mud balls, you won’t have mud on your hands. Simple. If you do throw mud balls, you’ll have mud on your hands. If you love to employ guilt, you’ll have guilt on your hands. And the only way for that effect to be undone, is to stop throwing mud balls.

See, these are not deep metaphysical principles. They’re very simple. They’re very simple explanations of what an act of love is; what simple acts of love are; and what the result of them will be. And what a simple act of hate seems to do and what it will be for you. And the solution is the making of a simple different choice.

… with everyone whom you choose no longer to employ guilt upon …

The witnesses to every act of love that you engage in constitute a great sound of joy in Heaven—in reality—in actuality.

… just for a little further understanding …

Or, for awhile, you see one spot of the valuing …

… in what? …

… that you’re projecting; in your valuing of guilt; that you project on your world to get your world to behave the way you need it to behave; so you can feel comfortable while you’re still claiming to be an independent orphan; separate from your Creator.

… the world …

… here’s the radical truth …

The guilt you would apply to yourself and the ‘you’ that would employ guilt doesn’t exist. So if you really look within yourself, you’re not going to find the darkness there.

Because guilt was never valid, and it was never useful. It could only have been useful against other orphans. And so, what happens is, that orphans take advantage of each other and seem to be able to accomplish taking advantage of each other, because they capitalize upon the fact that they’re all ignorant of their Source. And therefore, they can be fooled. But even though they can be fooled, it doesn’t change the fact of what they really Are—not orphans. And so the guilt that they feel isn’t real because that which is feeling it, is just an imagined sense of self; a costume, a mask that they’re employing.

You’re afraid to look within …

Where is this Altar? Some say, it’s near the heart physically. Some say it’s at the heart chakra. There are places that seem to be physically identified as the altar.

But I will tell you, the altar is located in the little gap between memory and imagination—the past and the future. The Altar is in the silence where thinking is not going on—calculating and imagining, and defining. But rather, listening.

The Place of Excellence in you is in that gap between memory and imagination. That’s where the Altar is.

Don’t be afraid to be radical. Don’t be afraid no matter what your Brother seems to be saying: “I’m dying!…I’m dying! I have this disease, or I have that disease, I’m dying…I know it! The doctors have proven it. They have shown me on the X-rays. I am dying they say. It is terminal they say.”

Really? Are you going to believe that? Are you going to just say, “Wow, this is really hard to take! I love you so much that I can’t stand the thought of your not being here. This is really devastating to me!”

Can there be healing there? Is that your function? Is that looking at your Brother and remembering God? No. But your function is to do that. And if your function is to do that, it means that the capacity to do it is present with you. You just simply have to employ it. Instead of saying, “I don’t know if I can take this bad news. God, this is awful. I will do everything I can to make your last days as comfortable as possible.”

This is not healing. This is not your function. This is not remembering God.

Well, you say, “All of this that you’re telling me is quite radical. I don’t know what to do instead of commiserating.”

Exactly. You don’t know. And that’s why you’re so lucky to have this little gap between memory and imagination: The Silence in you—the Place of Excellence in you—the Altar, where, if you will step back for a moment—the first part of the two-step, and go there instead of immediately running to all of your past memory and tapes and ideas and experiences.

“Now let’s see, Have I ever known anybody that’s been healed of this? No, I haven’t. Well, um, but there’s always a chance, so maybe I’ll try and …”

Think…think…think…think…think, or going into imagination as possible outcomes. No. You have this wonderful thing called, silence, in the little gap between past thinking and imaginative thinking into which you can step and in the silence, listen. Because you know what? There is in your Brother, a place where he can find himself willing to see a different outcome from what the doctor said; and to see a different outcome from what his own experiences and beliefs are telling him.

There is a capacity within him to see his healing occur instead of arguing vehemently against it. And you know what? Just as the physician who would bring all of the resources to bear upon the situation that he’s working with, you can dare to go into the silence and reach out to all of the resources that your Right Mind can make available to you, as your conscious experience of what truth really is. So that you can open up your mouth and say the things that will help your Brother gently move to that point of the willingness within him to see a different outcome that’s totally 180-degrees out of sync with what he’s been so confident about since the doctor’s confidence laid the facts out to him as devastating as they were.

That’s your job. That’s your opportunity. And that’s the way you get to keep the wonder that you give.

Again …

You see, that’s the way you break it—by not doing that!

Ignorant of the truth that you would find yourself knowing if you would dare to do the two-step: The truth that you would find revealed to you; truth that you didn’t have to think about and figure out and come up with.

… what?

… darkness, and all the proofs of your own guilt.

Here’s the truth:

And when you’re willing not to be an orphan any longer, when you’re willing to annul the divorce that you got from your Father, and feel your Sonship or your Daughtership and His Fathership, you will experience the holy sign of perfect faith your Father has in you.

… in your ignorance, I’m adding.

Why? (I’m adding this) Because they’re One.

Now is this a clue or what? When you see your fellowman, this might be the thing for you to do. Within your Brother, is the holy sign of perfect faith you have in him. You do not value him as he values himself. You know yourself as you truly are and know the truth in him. You know there is no difference, for you know not of differences. No, you’re both the same. And you’re both the Christ. You’re both the Sons and Daughters of God and you are not guilty.

Well, the answer is, No. But you can imagine that you’re able to see guilt where God knows there is perfect innocence. Not only can you imagine it, you do imagine it. There are so many people that you will not give the time of day to because they don’t deserve it. They are guilty of something you have determined them to be guilty. You have judged them. You have condemned them.

And so, you do seem. You believe that you can see guilt where God knows there is perfect innocence. And as long as you’re doing that, you’re not performing your function of looking at them and remembering God. You’re not looking at them and extending to them what God is extending to you.

It actually was replaced with love before you decided to cover it over with an imagination of your own. Once having replaced it with an imagination of your own, it didn’t undo the love and the innocence that really is the only thing that could be there.

And so, the experience you so greatly desire of your innocence and of being held in perfect love awaits you presently, and waits for you to abandon practicing an imaginative overlay upon it and believing your imagination.

And how do you do that? By doing it for your Brother. And then you get to keep what you have given. And you and your Brother are blessed.

As we have moved through the Course, there have been periods where you have felt like I have become monotonous because I don’t let go of something and I keep bringing it up. And I’m going to keep bringing up the two-step here and the simplicity of it.

Because you know what? There’s no need to suffer through the amount of time it would take for us to finish this book. I don’t mean suffer through the finishing of it, but until you are Awake, you are suffering from guilt. And you are causing your Brother or contributing to your Brother’s inclination to feel guilty for no good reason. And there’s no reason for that to be extended any longer.

Remember this: Within you is the holy sign of perfect faith your Father has in you. Your Father has perfect faith in you.

As confused as you seem to be, as messed up as you seem to be, or as messed up and confused as you think you are, and have judged yourself to be, your Father has a perfect faith in you. Just like the physician has a perfect faith that in spite of what has gone on, life can be established and brought into balance and harmony and function, and brings all of the reserves he has to bear upon the situation to illuminate that.

And each one of you has that capacity and that function to perform on each other’s behalf.

I look forward to being with you next week. And please, remember, as often as you can, to abandon whatever use you’re inclined to put your mind to and consciously bless your Brothers and Sisters as they move past you. It will bless you. Okay.