Teachings of Christ Mind

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

What if you got up every day and your goal, no matter what activities you were engaged in, your goal was to be consciously and noticeably friendly with everyone you came in contact with—consciously and noticeably. In other words, the people you come in contact with should not escape the contact without actually being aware that they were treated in a friendly manner. Wow, you don’t think it would make a difference? It would make a difference.

You know, all we’re talking about, all that we have been talking about is the use to which you put your minds. You can put your minds to use in ways that are destructive, debilitating, demoralizing, depressing. Or you can use your minds in ways that build, that solidify, that strengthen, that secure. And I’m very specifically, tonight, asking everyone to set themselves the goal of using their mind well every day so as to actually make a contribution; so as to actually not just engage in lip service to the truth or to what is meaningful, but to actually act upon it—actually embody it. Actually embody it; make it visible in the world even if you’re at home and the only other one in the house is your pet. Let that pet have the obvious experience of being loved. Embody in your relationship with that pet that which makes it happy for the moment it’s just experienced.

I’m going to ask you: What better thing does any one of you have to do than express love? Is there anything more constructive, anything more meaningful that you can express than love? And if expressing love is going to wipe away all tears, if expressing love is going to generate joy, if expressing love is going to reduce fear, if expressing love is going to dissolve guilt, then again, what better thing do you have to do than express love—embody it? Nothing.

Let’s go into the Book.

In other words…

… is willing to look into his brother’s eyes and remember God.

… is willing to look into his brother’s eyes and see beyond your best definitions of that brother, or the current behavior of that brother so that you might see what is behind the behavior, or you might see what is behind the best or poorest picture you are characterizing your brother with.

Because I promise you something: If you’re not willing to look beyond the presentation that your brother is making; “Well, if I’m not willing to look beyond the presentation you’re making,” we’re never going to have transformation. We’re never going to have the full-blown experience of the fulfillment of Be-ing.

But as I’ve said, this is going to mean conscientiousness on your part, focus in the use of your attention and the abandonment of sloppy-slipshod mental habits. And you’re going to have to be willing to persist to get past the presentation—the current mask that any of your brothers and sisters may be wearing—to touch on that essence that is what they divinely are. That is the threshold of enlightenment for your brother and for yourself; a threshold over which you pass into a larger experience—an infinite experience of pure awesome meaning.

I’ve said it. You are more than your best perception of yourself and your brothers and sisters are more than your best perception of them and they are more than their best perceptions of themselves. And as all of you are caught in your best perceptions, some of which aren’t very good at all, you’re trapped into an experience of existence that it’s not your Birthright to be experiencing. You’re trapped when you deserve to be free. You deserve not to be fooled, confused into believing things that aren’t true about you.

And from this tiny mindset that you are involved in, you have decided that you don’t deserve anything greater than this. And it’s a lie and you need to be shaken out of the lie. And you need to be willing to dare to believe that the rules that say you’re not allowed to get out of this terrible mindset, those rules are there to be broken. They’re there to be violated. They’re there not to be honored. They are a result of ignorance and the result of ignorance can never be reason or reasonable.

No matter how much you believe your rules, if they are not reasonable, they are not real and do not deserve to be honored.

Now, to those of you who are willing to look at your brother and look past your concepts and your brother’s concepts of himself …

Praise be unto you who are willing to see the ultimate. Praise be unto you who have been determined to get past the presentations and even your limiting beliefs, to get what is essentially real and whole right there. Praise be unto you.

… in other words, if you imagine that you’re alone, if you imagine you’re an orphan and you have no Father, you have no Source, in that mindset you are lowly. You are inconsequential. You’re guilty—you’re guilty from the get-go! Why? Because there’s nothing about you that stands in favor of your integrity.

More words that could be described as useless, flowery, and impractical.

Before the glorious radiance of the Kingdom…hm-m… Well, that’s more of those impractical words…tch…tch… You know what? Here’s the practicality of them: I’ve said no matter what you’re looking at, you’re confronted with the Kingdom of Heaven because the Kingdom of Heaven is the only thing that’s happening.

The Kingdom of Heaven either perceived clearly or misperceived is the only thing that’s going on. Your misperception of it doesn’t change it but it changes your experience of it. It flaws or distorts your experience of it.

And that’s why I say, whatever you’re looking at, look at it with curiosity to see the more of what it is than your current definition allows you to perceive.

… the Kingdom you’re right in the middle of, the Kingdom of Heaven that is available to you to experience in all of it’s awesome perfection …

… it doesn’t just wither up and vanish, it gets transformed …

What is kindness? Kindness is love. But not just love, kindness is love expressed. Kindness is love embodied.

What did I say? Let yourself get up in the morning with the goal to embody love in every involvement you have with a brother—consciously and noticeably. If nothing else, if you do that, you will be neglecting to project guilt on your brothers and sisters or your pets or anything.

This is the point. This section we’re reading is called RELEASE AND RESTORATION. Restoration is what it’s about. A new way of experiencing Be-ing is what it’s about.

Every reaction to your brother or the flower or the glass, or whatever part of the Kingdom of Heaven that you’re experiencing…

Because you will stand in awe of it, in appreciation of it, and you will recognize that it is Reality and you will see God in it.

And so, your experience of it will stand as acknowledgement of God instead of acknowledgement of this tired, worn-out physical world that’s full of all these organisms, called human beings, that are nothing more than conditioned responses and psychological processes that probably aren’t too good.

Aren’t you tired of that picture?

Again …

… if you’re willing to express curiosity as to what more of Reality is here than what you’re seeing, or in your brother …

… God …

… meaning your brother, your pet, the world—the Universe.

This is my Beloved Son (Daughter), in whom I am well pleased. 2

The Father’s Benediction on Me is the Father’s Benediction on you. That’s His praise of you: This is my Beloved Son (or Daughter) in whom I am well pleased. Not because of what you’ve done, but because of what you Are. You’re His Son, you’re His Daughter, you’re His Expression.

Where are the gates of Heaven? [chuckling] Right in the mug of water you’re holding; right in the hand that’s on the end of your arm; it’s right in the table in front of you; it’s right in the person across from you; it’s right in the trees and the world that you see.

… in which, wherever you are, you’re standing …

God loves you.

If God loves your brother, no matter how big a bastard he is as far you’re concerned, then could you lack faith in your brother and still love God perfectly? Well, there’d be a mismatch there.

“I love You Father and I know You love Peter over here, but I sure as hell don’t love Peter!” Um-m…something’s out of kilter there, right?

“I love You Father and I know You love Peter and you know what? I don’t love Peter but if You do love Peter, I would like to know why?”

There you go. Now you’re on the right track. Now you’re willing to look beyond either your brother’s presentation of himself or your poor concept of him.

“I would like to know, Father, why You love him? I would like to know, Father, why You love her? I would like to know why I don’t have to dislike him or be frustrated by her?”

And let it be a real question. Let the question become real by actually engaging in listening, by actually being silent with rapt attention. And realize that the only reason you won’t hear an Answer is if you have some justification for not hearing the Answer. A justification like, “Well I know her, or I know him, and I know him or her well enough to know that they are guilty and they don’t deserve to be loved yet. And therefore, Father, I don’t yet want to know why you love him or her.”

You won’t say that out loud, you’ll just harbor this resentment. And it will get in the way of your hearing the good news—the truth that the Father or the Holy Spirit would share with you that would let you put down your resentment and let your mind be healed so it gets put to a better use; a use like making the Father One with His own Son.

Now we haven’t talked too much about this and I’m not going to talk about it much tonight, but guilt is almost always the offspring—the projection that arises from self-righteousness. You who know so much better than so-and-so; you who are so much wiser; you who are just simply better than anyone else, feel the right to make another to feel guilty for not being like you, for not being someone you need to be paying attention to.

Self-righteousness is the means of putting another in his or her place. And the best way to put him or her in his or her place is to prove that they’re guilty of something and then demand that they experience misery for their guilt. And unfortunately, one of the elements that comes into play with self-righteousness and the self-righteous placement of guilt is a certain pleasure that comes from it that becomes addictive and causes one to repeat, what I’m going to call, the offence of projecting guilt.

It feels so good to make someone else feel miserable. It feels so good to make them suffer for whatever it is you have deemed that they are guilty of.

But then we can’t say to you …

Because you’re stating, “I am going to make my judgment one with your Son, Father.” And you break the trust, you break the bond, you break the alliance that comes from recognizing who your Father is, acknowledging that you are your Father’s Son and therefore are not a self-determined, independent authority over your life. And an awareness that your brother, your fellowman, is your brother or sister—Sons or Daughters of the same Father you have—in which you’re all family; in which there is unity; in which you all fit together and no one stands out superior, you know, or you can get that hit of self-righteousness. No it’s not there.

I ask again, what better thing do you have to do than express love? You literally have none. Because in the expression of love that is the acknowledgment of your brother as your brother, and the fact that you and your brother are Sons of a common Father, why, that’s how you abandon orphanhood. That’s how you free yourself from the improper or the poor use of your mind. That’s how you let go of memory (the past) and abandon the use of imagination (the future) which allows you to be in the little gap—in the moment you’re in which is free of illusion—and where the revelation of the Father’s Mind, the Father’s awareness of All That Is becomes yours, becomes revealed to you, infills you.

Now this is not an empty promise. This is something that will happen each and every time you allow for it. And I say each and every time because you do just stick your toe in the water for a moment at a time and it isn’t enough to capture your attention so that you never get out of it again.

Most of you have had the experience spontaneously without a conscious choice of any sort having been made. And so you say, “Wow! I just had a God experience.” And it’s possible for that experience to stand apart from everything else as one of many experiences that life can provide you with. When actually it was an experience of connectedness with the ground of your Be-ing, the fundamental of your existence of your conscious experience. It was a perfectly real experience without any illusion attached to it.

You’ve got to watch the use to which you’ve put your mind. And if you find yourself at some point in the day or even the moment that you wake up, engaging in critical thoughts, notice it! Don’t just say, “Well, you know…” Don’t just go along with the flow of thoughts. Notice it! So you can say, “Uh-oh!, critical thinking is occurring. It’s not my choice. And so, I’m going to be alert to it so that every time it occurs I can bite my tongue or stop the flow of thoughts before embodying them—before giving voice to the criticism. And I just claim it. It is not mine. It is not my choice and that’s why I can squelch it every time it pops up.”

Be alert! If you get up or at any point during the day a wave of sadness comes over you and you find yourself feeling depressed and nothing has happened—no event has happened! Notice it! “Oh, wow, I’m being invited to be sad.” Now don’t ask why you’re being invited, that’s taking the bait. Notice, “I’m being invited to be sad. I am feeling a real emotional invitation to be depressed. And I reject the invitation!” You see?

Don’t just flow willy-nilly with whatever is happening in your mind. Notice when you are being subtly or not so subtly invited to engage in poor uses of your mind, so that you can immediately and consciously and, I’m going to say, noticeably behave in a way that reflects a good use of your mind. A use that in one way or another embodies love, embodies the desire to see beyond whatever the harsh and unkind limits are that these thoughts that are presenting themselves are inviting you to claim as yours.

Oh, you suddenly feel guilty. You don’t have to answer me, but how often have you had the experience or how frequently do you find you have the experience of suddenly, out of the blue, for no reason at all during the day, feeling guilty. Feeling like, “Uh-oh, I’m going to be caught.” And you’re not doing anything that you could be caught for. But you just have this niggling, uneasy feeling in you of guilt and that you better be careful, because you’re likely to get caught.

The ego whispers in your mind. And it makes suggestions and invitations to you that seem to justify the poor use of your mind.

Now listen:

… and here’s the key …

In other words, if the war is going on between something that is real and something that is unreal, it’s not a war is it? There are no “powers.” There is no unreal power that can war with a real power.

You need to be alert so that you don’t falsely characterize an inner experience as a war when it’s not a war. When you are trying to use reason to fight the unreasonable—well, it’s like the sound of one hand clapping—when you try to use reason to battle the unreasonable, nothing is happening.

But you see, if someone is bound by his ignorance—if someone is ignorant—reason isn’t present, strength is not present, integrity is not present or able to function because confusion reins, ignorance reins. And that ignorance reining feels like an actual something. “That’s me! You know, I can’t deal with your confusion. I can’t deal with your ignorance.”

“Well, then you better leave, because that’s me!” [chuckling] No, discombobulation isn’t you or anyone else, it’s just disconnectedness. It isn’t connectedness. And it’s not you and you’re not it.

When a battle is going on between individuals and guilt is being flung back and forth, it’s being flung at the ignorance that is going on—that in the individual which is unaware of who or what he really is. And so he thinks he must respond and he thinks he’s really being threatened, or vice versa, she does; and so this battle is engaged in with great enthusiasm—great determination. And yet, if it could be seen that what was being fought against was nothing, that the ignorance that’s being despised and hated and upon which guilt is being heaped, if it could be seen that that was nothing, there would be no basis for continuing the battle. And therefore, that is the answer. That is the solution.

When two people fight to the bitter end hurling guilt back and forth, it’s only occurring with the vehemence that it’s occurring because it is believed that there is an actual threat and that there will be actual injury, actual cost. And if you don’t know what your Birthright is, if you don’t know who your Father is, and if you don’t know that it’s your Father’s good pleasure to give you All That Is, you will labor under the idea that what is happening can cost you and you will fight ever more strongly.

If you can break the mesmeric attachment to the fear and the anxiety that comes from guilt long enough so that you can remember that there is a God and that all that God is, is embodied in you as You, and that therefore, nothing can be taken away from you, you would recognize the whole mindset and the whole activity as nonsensical and you would simply stop. You would not protect yourself against a non-threat. It would be as clear as a bell to you. And that’s why I’m reminding you, so that you might take a second look.

Well, there must be another way to look at this. Um-m…oh, I think we call this the two-step, where you, before you act step back and say, “Father, what’s the truth here?” so that you can remember to look past the presentation your brother is making or the concept you have about your brother, to see what is truly there so that you might put down your weapons of defense, since there are no elements present that can actually war.

When you can look at something and see the nonsensicalness of it, you don’t validate it anymore. And you don’t react to it anymore. You don’t even respond to it anymore.

I’ll give you an example, it’s not the best, but:

You move to a new house. And there’s a store a couple of blocks away. And you decided that you’re going to walk to the store instead of drive to the store. And you walk along and as you’re walking along, all of a sudden out from the left of you, in the yard, this Bulldog tears forward growling and barking ferociously. And you leap back and start to run. And when the dog gets to the sidewalk, the chain on his neck yanks him and stops him right at the sidewalk. You let out a sigh of relief.

The next time you walk to the grocery store and you come to the yard, maybe once again you’re not thinking about the dog, but here comes the dog with all ferociousness and you smile, [chuckling] you just walk on. You know he’s not going to be able to touch you because he’s got the chain on. So what had seemed fearsome before is no longer fearsome. And what you felt was a cause of fear is seen to be nonsense. It doesn’t apply. You see?

Now, I bring this up from time to time: You’re here to be healers. You’re here, for lack of better words, to make a contribution. You’re here (and your ego likes this) to make a difference. The only thing is, that the difference you’re here to make is to be that which shows the ego to be nonsense; so that when it speaks up and whispers in your ear that you are guilty or that you should be afraid or that you are very sad or that you’re going to be caught, you [chuckle] think nothing of it, just another bit of nonsense—meaningless nonsense.

You know, there are people who grow up, they finish High School and they decide to go to college and they want to become a doctor or they want to become a nurse; or they want to become a psychologist; or they want to become a psychiatrist; or they want to become a social worker. Why? Because they want to help people, they want to make a difference in the most fundamental of ways. Not with the running of businesses, but with the better use of the mind that people put there minds to. Now, you think about them and you think that’s wonderful.

You can make a decision of the same sort for yourself and accept the position, if you will… no, accept the activity of being an agent for change. Not just to improve the human condition but to uncover the Divine condition.

Once again, this means actions, this means embodying a goal, to conscientiously and obviously express Love.

If you’re listening to me, you have some spiritual values. I’m saying embody them—embody them more fully than you have thought to embody them. Why? Very simply; because until you are willing to look into your brother’s eyes and see the very best, see the perfect, see and remember God there, see and experience the ultimate of ultimates there, when you do that, you are consciously blessing your brother. And the you that is doing the blessing, the you that the blessing is coming through is blessed. And your brother and you are both healed. Your brother and you may both wake up as a result of that single encounter.

Again, none of you has anything better to be doing. And you can do it while you’re teaching yoga. You can do it while you’re building a house. You can do it while you’re talking to the grocery clerk. The key is: start doing it; because without the embodiment, there is no transformation.

Now, here’s the simple truth, the simple good news:

… the Son made …

In other words, what God did not Create does not exist. What God isn’t Be-ing, isn’t happening.

Another way of saying that would be: from a battle which you’ve never been in, because God never created the environment or the circumstance or the events that could be identified that way.

And I would say, the war was never there, except in the imagination or except in the mind committed to an insane belief temporarily.

You have heard it, I have been singing it for you. And some of you have been singing it to each other.

What did you not make? Your release! How could you release yourself from a jail cell whose door was never locked?

“Oh, but she did! [Chuckling] Boy, she sure endangered my freedom! Oh no, he did! He is endangering my freedom, he’s endangering my freedom right now! And I’m retaliating! And I…I will dig out the dirtiest thing I can to plague him with and make him feel guilty for, and threaten him with, so that what? So that he can come back with a better one yet; you know, good, better, best, bested? As long as you’ve got those determinations, those evaluations, it’s going to get you in the end. “Good, uh-m that sounds good. Better, um that sounds good too. Best, um yes! Bested, ooh, that hurt!”

… dissolved back into their native nothingness.

If you want to be free of guilt and the effects of guilt, you’ve got to take the radical position, that it’s not real and that everything that guilt would cost you is nothing more than a great confusion believed and committed to. And that therefore, no matter what the threats are that are associated with guilt, that the moment you dishonor them because… because why? Because the war is between forces that are real and unreal powers and therefore there really isn’t a war, when you dare to embrace that and acknowledge that, you’ll move into another arena. You’ll move into the conscious experience where that isn’t happening. The nonsense will be obviously nonsensical. The Bulldog on the chain won’t frighten you anymore because there was never anything frightening about a Bulldog on a chain. You see?

So you have to be willing to take this radical position. And no matter what your brother is doing or saying, no matter what his behavior is or your sister, you can, before you react, step back and say, “Father, what is the truth here? What is there about this individual that makes You love him or her? I want to experience Your perspective.”

And look at what you’ve done. You’ve abandoned the orphan position. You’ve stepped out of the orphanage. You’ve asked your Father for help with your brother. And you have brought the family unit back into its unity. That is not only beautiful, it is not only significant, it is the way you wake up, which necessarily means, it’s the way you experience the miraculous.

[addresses each one] I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you and I love you. And because we haven’t stopped being what we divinely are: I thank you for your love, I thank you for your love, I thank you for your love, I thank you for your love, I thank you for your love, I thank you for your love, I thank you for your love, I thank you for your love, I thank you for your love, I thank you for your love, I thank you for your love because none of us for even the briefest of moments have stopped being the Love that the Father is embodying of Himself right where we are. And I appreciate and bask in and invite all of you to appreciate and bask in the Movement of Love that we are all embracing each other with.