Teachings of Christ Mind

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

I suppose we’re talking about one of the scariest things we could talk about and have been for the last couple of weeks. All of you think it is scary to not have guilt as one of your most valuable tools to use in living your life with excellent control.

All of you think that without guilt motivating you, without guilt as your most valuable tool for being successful, you will become a blob—a listless, meaningless presence. And it’s frightening to contemplate existing without substantial motivation—motivation that you have screwed up from, or brought up from the very depths of your very private being in order to vitalize your life.

What’s scary here is that I’m very clearly not just suggesting but encouraging all of you to stop making decisions by yourself—to stop acting independently.

Okay, what causes this subject to be frightening or upsetting, is the fact that you have your values out of sync with Reality. And so, that which would bring you into the conscious experience of the wholeness of your being is seen as that which would undermine your current lifestyle and your current values. You see it as that which would take you out of first place, that it would take away your credibility and your validity, when it would do exactly the opposite. And you feel that your very concerted effort to—through the use of your will—be creative, be authoritative and be a meaningful presence. You see that as something very precious.

You are afraid of your good and you value that which is destructive to you. You are afraid of your good because you think you’ll have to become a nobody in order to have it. And you want what is not good for you because you think it will give you everything that is meaningful. And so, there is great confusion and fear.

Many of you would like us to get past this part of the book where it’s talking about guilt rather than getting past guilt itself as an experience. But getting past guilt means abandoning guilt. And abandoning guilt means beginning to live your life on an entirely new basis, which, as we’ve discussed before, you believe will cause you to have to abandon all of the results of your good work—that it will invalidate every effort you have made to become credible—to be good, to become valuable.

Now, we ended up last week discussing the fact that there are no private thoughts. And that your decisions, the decisions you make for yourself, the decisions you make by yourself, are not decisions that affect only you. And what motivates the decisions you make for yourself—being guilt—is something that is communicated to the entire Brotherhood, because there are no private thoughts.

And we discussed the fact that those who have accepted the Atonement are unaffected by the gift you have extended of making a decision for yourself and by yourself from second gear.

… it says here …

… unlike those who have accepted the Atonement or who are Awake, they will not see that your expression of guilt and your use of it is not actually an expression of power and that it is arising out of a place of powerlessness because it’s totally illusory. They won’t see that. Those who believe they are guilty will not see that and will not discount the gift that you have made, and will join you with it and magnify the illusion, we’ll say.

So …

… an effect you don’t really want. You do not really want to further confirm illusion, to further confirm suffering, to further confirm an inability to see the way out of the dream.

Nevertheless…

… just like you do.

You see. They think it’s salvation. You think it’s salvation. You think that its expert use will accomplish wonderful things. Isn’t that what the Crusades where, among other things that were less violent and less obviously willful, less obviously second gearish?

When you think that guilt is your salvation you …

You won’t refuse to see it and you won’t refuse to side with it. And that’s where everything is out of sync.

This is not meant to be confusing. But insanity is a confused state.

Now, you do not want to embrace that which is going to cause you to suffer. And yet, you value guilt so greatly that you will not let it go, even though it is the cause of your suffering. You do not see that there is an alternative to it, in which suffering is no part of the equation of life.

And so, you …

… you …

… meaning, that which is going to cause you suffering, must hurt you, must cause you suffering.

… and we’re picking up now from where we left off last week.

See, everybody’s going after what they don’t want. Not truly. They do not want to exist in a manner in which guilt is the central figure of their life and which causes suffering. They do not want to be stuck in second gear, which necessarily includes third gear—guilt. You see? But in the insanity of the situation it is what is valued.

Now…

Truly what each of you wants, and what it is referring to here …

… is to experience your existence from first gear. What you want is to experience being with total Sanity, without any confusion. But, as I said, there is so much investment in the use of guilt—the effective use of guilt—in building you up and making you valid in your eyes, you find that so valuable that the idea of abandoning it does not look good.

… you …

You do not believe that what is your Birthright is good, because you won’t be able to itemize the factors that tell you that you are valid and valuable. And also, as we discussed last week, because being in second gear is a result of your disclaiming your Birthright, your disowning your Father, your divorcing your Source, you, because you are looking at things through the lens of guilt, see your Father’s only response to your desire to come Home as punishment. You don’t see that, in so many words, as the Prodigal, you coming toward Home is a cause of great joy and of spontaneous embrace, because your Father is not looking through the mean-spirited lens of guilt or the ego, and knows that you have done nothing worthy of punishment.

So you …

Everything is “bass-akwards”. What isn’t good for you, you go after with great insistence! And what is good for you, what will constitute your awakening, you avoid like the plague.

Now, again …

… was given you. In other words, the capacity to make decisions was given you.

… listen to this …

When was the last time you had that experience of will? A long time ago.

In other words, your real will, not your mean-spirited tiny willfulness, but your will, will not provide anything of value.

Nothing of value will be withheld from you. That’s what it’s saying. Nothing that is of value is withheld from you. But, when you are operating from second gear, which is a place of pure willfulness, you do provide yourself with things that have no value. There is nothing your divine will, will not provide that offers you anything of value. Whatever your divine will does not give to you will be something that has no value. Whatever your willfulness gives to you will have no value. This is what needs to be understood.

… you see. You do not understand your will. You do not understand what will really is.

Willfulness—what you exercise from second gear—is an authoritative expression of power by you over your experience, over your world, et cetera.

That’s what gives you a sense of being a vital, vigorous, living presence that has validity. And that’s what gets you into trouble.

Your real will—and this is what sounds totally uninteresting to the ego—your real will is not ever an authoritative expression of power over anything, manipulating existence. That is not what will is. Will is not something that happens as something you do. Will is something that happens as what you Are. And what that means is that, the act of real will occurs before you have a chance to practice it or exercise it. What you Are is already being the fullness of Being, before you have a chance to look at what is being and decide how to treat it and manipulate it and use it in your best interests.

And so, real will is not a practice of power at all. And so, from your present ego orientation, you see it as a state of powerlessness. You use power to get things but in truth you don’t have to use power to get things because you Are all things. All things are embraced in you, as they are in your Father, because you and your Father are One.

So, you can see the source of confusion here and why this is a difficult subject, because in order to wake up you must be willing to invalidate almost everything that you have used to respect yourself and to create respect for yourself. And everything that you have used to judge others and respect them, or withhold your respect of them because of what they do or what they don’t do, completely missing what they Are. And that in the context of what they Are—what they divinely Are—they are whole, they are invulnerable, they are Omnipotent, they are Omniscient, they are the Presence of God illuminated to you, right in your face—an awesome event, ongoing Eternal event. And if you are willing to see it about them, you will see it about yourself. But in order to have that experience you have to abandon the small-minded, mean-spirited domain of the ego.

If you’re having trouble grasping what I’m saying, it is because you are suffering from the confusion brought into play by your insistence upon functioning from second gear. And it necessarily colors your path Home. And it warns you that the path Home is dangerous, because you will lose your credibility, and you will lose your respectability, and you will lose your authority! And on and on and on.

And as you walk toward Home, it will cajole you and it will kibitz you and try to get you to come back—try to scare you into coming back.

But mind you, the path Home is what? The path Home is the movement of your attention from your private personal sense of yourself to that which is nothing more than your right Mind, which is right, we’ll say, in the center of you. It’s you moving from small private-mindedness into infinite-Mindedness, which embraces, embraces your Father, thus returning you to a clear sense of your identity and your brothers and sisters, as well as all Creation. The path back is a return to your right Mind.

Now, if you’re so screwed up by virtue of the perspective that’s inherent in second gear, your returning to first gear will not be accomplished by plan or exercise of power! It will happen by virtue of invitation, invitation by you to your right Mind, invitation for It to come back, invitation saying, “I wish to embrace You. I turn to You. I want to hear from You.”

And because the Holy Spirit is nothing more than your right Mind, the infinity of you that you’ve been ignoring, It, because It knows only of the wholeness of your Being and not the partiality that you are claiming, actually insists, actually nudges—it actually cajoles you. It actually encourages you and invites you to let the truth of your Being in, by virtue of letting that which is your right Mind that knows the truth easily, in.

Now, that’s why it says here …

… who are caught up in the confusion of second gear …

Now, the Holy Spirit only quietly understands it for you if you’re giving your attention to the Holy Spirit because you want to know the truth. And when your attention is there…

… you. Your right Mind understands the truth for you, that helps replace the temptation you’ve lived under to believe that what isn’t true is true. 
So …

… in other words, not what they are willful about, but what their real will is.

… all by themselves, and figure it out.

Now, how does that sound? As an experience, how does that sound, that everything will be given you …

… all by yourself?

I promise you the temptation would be there to reject it. Nobody really wants to be a kept man or a kept woman. No one wants to live a life in which everything is provided and you didn’t have to do anything to earn it. Because without having done anything to earn it, you aren’t credible, you aren’t valid, you aren’t a vital presence. There is nothing there deserving of respect. You see?

“Oh, yes I would love to be able to think of a steak and have it in front of me. I would like to just have the barest fleeting thought of bliss and have it happen. I would love to have what I need appear before I even realize I need it.”

But just think about it for a moment. I am going to encourage you to imagine for just a moment, but in your imagining, I want you to borrow from the deep beliefs from within you that you carry with you: For how long would it be wonderful not to have to earn anything? For how long would it be wonderful not to have to raise a finger to have all the abundance you might need? At the bottom line, existing without being able to become credible, by virtue of acts you engage in, would seem boring and unfulfilling. And that’s why you think guilt is salvation. That’s why you think that doing things on your own is your salvation. That’s why you avoid saying, “Thy will be done” and defer to the Father.

The Course talks about being co-creators with God. And boy does that sound good. But what if co-creators meant co-operators? Not an authoritative position at all. Co-operators, that which without decision whatsoever embraces the wholeness of Creation and recognizes it for what it is and glories in it. You wouldn’t be tempted to reach for that. That’s not a very attractive carrot is it?

But, here’s what you have to remember. You are listening to me say this, or you are reading this in the Course, and you are reading it through the lens of the practice of guilt that you have been engaged in ever since you moved into second gear. And so, you are not understanding the Real meaning of these words, nor are you gleaning from them the meaning or the fullness of existence that they imply, because you’re all upset and concerned about what you’re going to lose as this poor little orphan that you think is so great that you don’t want to let go of it.

And so you see, in a way the Course and I and the Holy Spirit are bucking against a very willful state of mind that all of you are in. That state of mind, being the one described by second gear—that you are holding onto for dear life. And we’re bucking against all of the concepts and perceptions associated with looking at everything with distortion, including the invitation that I’m making, the invitation that the Holy Spirit—that which is nothing more than your right Mind—is making to you.

And we have to encourage you to risk the chance that you will not be sacrificing anything at all that’s Real, so that your new carrot might be described as, “allowing yourself to yield into the unknown,” rather than compulsively going after a known that you have imagined and brought into view and created for yourself to go after.

Let it—with the perspective that I’ve shared here—let it become interesting to you, rather than uninteresting to you. Let it become interesting to you to perhaps explore having the Holy Spirit quietly understand your will, your real will, to understand it for you and give you what you will without having been authoritative in anyway …

… but stimulating …

… all by yourself. Be willing to be curious to have that experience and invite it, even though you know it’s going to mean that nothing that you end up having will you be able to take credit for. This is reassurance that’s being provided, not a threat of loss.

That which is nothing more than your right Mind knows the answer, because it hasn’t separated itself from that which It is the Presence of, which is God.

That which is nothing more than your right Mind—the wholeness of you that you’ve been ignoring—is Itself the Presence of the allness of you, which is insisting upon presenting it all to you again, without your having to earn It. In fact, It presents it to you and you receive it as a result of your abandoning the attempt to earn anything.

Now what’s the practicality of this? How do you abandon trying to earn something? You abandon it by ceasing to try to be an authority. You abandon it by no longer imagining that you can figure it out for yourself. And in the emptiness of your attempting to accomplish anything, you say, “Father,” or you say, “Holy Spirit, that which is nothing more than my right Mind, share with me the fullness of my Being, that has always been the truth about me, and in the experience of which I will never again have to try to create my good. And in which, the experience of being whole will not cause me to experience myself as meaningless presence, but will be experienced by me as the Kingdom of Heaven being the environment of me.” You see?

The words don’t have to mean what they fully mean right now. The point is, where are you going to bring your attention?

… the Holy Spirit, that which is nothing more than your right Mind…

Abandon that mindset! Abandon that activity!

Let yourself have what is given to you when you’re not trying to earn it. Let yourself have it and don’t use its presence as justification for belittling yourself because you didn’t earn it. And therefore, it really doesn’t say anything of any value to you about you or to anybody else about you.

Just receive it.

You see? As long as you’re in second gear playing the orphan role, you don’t think that God freely offers you anything because you put Him in the back seat. But your right Mind hasn’t forgotten the truth. And …

… the Holy Spirit …

… the Holy Spirit …

… that which is nothing more than your right Mind …

You see, as you hear these words you can begin to get a sense of emerging cohesiveness, rather than the fragmentation that you’ve been experiencing, a cohesiveness not only of you, an integrity of you beyond anything you could earn, but the cohesiveness of you and all of Creation, you and all of the Brotherhood.

… the Holy Spirit …

Now, I need to point out here, that deciding whether or not you are deserving of it is a practice of authority, isn’t it?

“Well, let me see Mr. Tuttle, Paul, if I may be personal with you, are you really doing anything this evening that is of value or are you misleading all of those egos out there, and distracting them from doing what will keep them safe? Are you really sure, Paul, that what you’re saying is true? Are you sure that it’s not just some mish-mash of ideas that might actually be very disruptive and destructive to your brothers out there who have learned so well how to be egos and how to function from second gear?” You see.

“I cannot judge you to be valuable at the moment. I invalidate you at this moment. And I will be busy helping you invalidate yourself within yourself, because after all you don’t want to be hurting anybody else, do you? I mean after all, if you’re going to keep trying to help the crabs out of the crab barrel, you’re going to have to be corrected. Because everybody knows it’s not good to be out on your own. It’s not good to be experiencing that kind of freedom, because of course, being crabs they don’t know how to deal with freedom. They don’t have the perspective. They don’t have the brains. So you’re being very thoughtless in thinking you’re helping your brothers gain a more infinite experience of their being, which you know they’re not capable of coping with.” You see?

Yeah, deciding whether or not you are deserving of it is a wonderful practice of authority. You’re going to have to let it go. It’s not part of the new paradigm.

You don’t need to decide. You see. It’s a useless thing to do.

Now, again, we can get caught up in words: “God knows you’re worthy of it. God knows you have integrity. God loves you without your doing anything to earn His love.” But how do you translate those words into your practical daily experience? The only way you can do it is by engaging in the practice embodied by the words, “Thy will be done,” or embodied in the words, just say, “Yes” to God.

Well, how can you say, “Yes,” to God if you haven’t said, “Father, talk to me. Share something with me. Give me something to agree with. Give me something to co-operate with.” You see?

And so, the way you move over this threshold of ignorance and confusion from second gear to first gear, is by abandoning authority that you think you have and getting, as I’ve said before, in the “not-knowing place” and saying, “Help! What do I do here?” Whatever the situation is that you’re confronted with, ask, “Father, what do I do here? How can I be, in order to experience the harmony that is supposed to be going on without effort, strain or the impossible burden of deciding what I want and need all by myself?”

You see, it comes down to this.

[Big chuckle] Well, of course, you would! You’re doing it everyday. You’re doing it all the time that you’re making decisions for yourself. You don’t even give God the option to share with you His decision, so that you could deny it. You deny it ahead of schedule. You say, “I can handle this. I want to handle this. I don’t want to explore what it might be like not to handle this. I’m not really interested in trying out something new.” No…

Hell, yes! But you don’t have to. But take an honest look at it. You don’t have to then decide whether or not you’re deserving of God’s Love or whether or not you’re deserving of respect or whether or not you’re deserving of disrespect. You can just notice it clearly without emotion and decide to do something different. After all …

See…

How do you side against it? By deciding for yourself! And as we read last week…

But, deciding for yourself is something you think is your salvation. And so you’re confused and do what you don’t want. And you avoid what you do want, which is to have what you …

… you …

… all by yourself.

… Ooooh …

Ooooh! That’s yielding! Ooooh! That’s not being in control. Oh-h, that’s the absence of everything that means anything to me.

But listen again …

That’s the subject of the sentence.

… you see, quietly. Authoritative action is not quiet. Yielding is quiet. Co-operating is quiet.

The moment you relinquish your own, [snaps fingers] you’re out of second gear.

… when you’re in second gear.

Because you see it through the lens of orphanhood, which is not the truth about your Being and so everything is distorted by the lens you’re looking through.

Now here’s wisdom. But it also leaves you out of control and puts you up against the frightening act of yielding and inviting in the Holy Spirit.

… salvation …

… ALL …

How are you going to hear his gentle counsel? By shutting up, inviting inspiration or clarity from the Holy Spirit and truly listening, and neglecting to activate in the silence any justifications for not wanting to hear it.

It’s simple. It’s simple. It’s simple. Listen. Listen often. Listening and hearing the Voice for Truth is your salvation. It’s simple, it’s simple, it’s simple.

Don’t let thoughts of guilt about yourself or thoughts of guilt about others that you would employ for control, get in the way of the simple act of listening.

I love you all. And I hope you have an easier week, by virtue of your abandoning your insistence upon being the decider of things all by yourself.