Teachings of Christ Mind

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

I have invited you to join me in acknowledging the guiltlessness, not only of each other, but of everything you see.

Another way of describing the guiltlessness of everything is to speak of the holiness of everything. The fact that there isn’t a single element of error—there isn’t the slightest blemish—there isn’t the most minimal conflict present in it, it is flawless perfection brought forth with perfect love. The “it” being each of you, the “it” being every flower, the “it” being every ant, the “it” being any aspect of Creation no matter how you’re seeing those at this moment. Some of them, like fire ants, you don’t like, you’re afraid of … or carpenter ants.

The point is, that I have invited you to join me in the specific task of doing the one thing you have not ever done before, and that is: To abandon the concepts you have formulated about each other and about everything, and instead to be willing to be present with each other and everything with an innocent mind—a mind absent of thinking, a mind absent of logical processes that you go through to arrive at an intellectual definition of everything, and in the process, never connect with that thing itself.

I’m inviting you to embrace everything with the specific intent to appreciate it. Literally, to be willing to lift it up as though unto Heaven to present to your Father, to present to That which is the cause of all that is and acknowledge it’s value to That which made it—and as I’ve said before so many times—in so doing, reaffirming your brotherhood with the one you’re holding up and your Sonship with That to which you’re holding your brother up: Your common Father, so that the isolation of self-inflicted orphanhood can be abandoned in the conscious awareness of existing Family.

Now, this act that I’m inviting you to join me in is the way we move …

The abandoning of the definitions you’ve made up which are very opaque and very, well … mean-spirited, because of course, in the process of making them up, you have seen yourself as vulnerable and needing to defend yourself against the state of vulnerability that’s called “existence.” And so the definition of your brother or your sister or of your world has been one which defines it as that of which you must be careful, that which you cannot dare to trust! This is mean-spirited. This is not love. This is not embrace.

Now, that’s a description of what happens when you are not joining me in acknowledging the guiltlessness, the holiness of your brothers and sisters and of everything.

Sometimes hiddenness is called mysteriousness. And that which is mysteriousness is scary. You tantalize yourself with mystery. You go and watch movies every week full of mystery. And you tantalize yourself with the fear of the unknown. You actually enjoy it. And the fact is, that you actually enjoy in your communications with each other, to use thinking as a means of making the clear mysterious. If you were utterly clear, your conversation would be finished very quickly. There would be nothing present to hold you together in tension. There would be nothing to hold you together in a state of wondering, you see. “Oh-h, I wonder … I wonder what would happen if this … I wonder what would happen if that …” And this is thinking, and you use it to create a nebulous sort of environment in which to be tantalized with the mystery.

Now, in most cases, in your human relationships with each other, you use your thinking to disturb clear communication because it’s helpful to keep each other off-guard a little bit—off balance. It helps you be in control a little bit better, especially if you’re the one creating the out-of-balance condition. And this is the way you manipulate each other to cause each other to behave in a way that keeps you safe you think.

But again, this habit, this style of relating to each other, keeps you all from connecting with each other. It keeps you at a distance. It keeps you hidden from each other and in that act of hiding, there’s no opportunity for acknowledging the guiltlessness of your brother and acknowledging his guiltlessness, his holiness, to your mutual Father and abandoning the isolation, reestablishing the conscious experience of Family and of mutual love, and providing the circumstance under which you can wake up.

I don’t want to cause you to be overly serious here, but I do want you to be unafraid to look at the uses you put thinking to in order to control your circumstances, and that the way you usually do it is not imbued with love but rather with self-protection and the exercise of control. This is the way you keep a state of mystery active throughout your day. It’s the way you keep fear as an uneasy undercurrent present. It’s the way you keep clarity obscure. It’s the way you keep truth obscure. And the obscure is frightening because you do not understand its meaning. If you did, it would be clear and you would be no longer in the dark.

But you say, “Well you know, you’re talking about me letting a new me come forth. You’re talking about me abandoning the orphan mind-set and reuniting as a Son and a brother and part of a divine Family. You’re asking me to embrace something that I’ve been keeping out of sight. You’re asking me to embrace something that I have kept hidden about myself, my brother, my world. And you know what? As long as I’ve been keeping it hidden, I’ve been able to create a sense of value here where I am and fool everyone into thinking that I have value all by myself. It’s been important for me to be here on my own and not just be the Son of my Father, who has inherited all that my Father is and has, and therefore, have no means of creating my own inheritance and birthright and wealth, or worth.”

But …

If it’s concealed, it’s mysterious. If it’s mysterious, its unsettling. If its unsettling, through the use of your imagination, you will make it fearful.

What we’ve just discussed is a description of existence from second gear. It’s a description of existence when you think you’re an orphan living in an orphanage doing everything you can to create worth in you that isn’t naturally yours, and managing somehow to convince yourself and everyone else of this worth so that you will be respected and can somehow become, like Pinocchio—a real boy.

Now, what I’m inviting you to join me in, in lifting your brother up or your sister up in your awareness, by choosing to cut through and past whatever presentation your brother’s making to you, or whatever concepts you have devised or imagined about your brother, and you choose instead to see the Presence of God there, and if you don’t see it, you ask for your Father to help reveal to you your brother’s innate value and worth—and I’m going to say, lovability. Because in doing this, this is the way you shift from second gear to first gear, which is the means by which you wake up out of your confusion—out of your insanity—and come back into your right Mind.

Now …

… and of course, the Holy Spirit is nothing more than your right Mind, your undisturbed mind …

… what? …

… you get the feel? …

… perfect undefendedness … perfect capacity for you to be fully present, fully present without any shield being put up between you and your brother or your world.

Well, when you are willing to join with me and look at your brother with a desire to see the truth about him, we’ll say, God’s truth about him, the one the Father is Being/Creating at this very instant while you’re looking at your brother, your desire to see the truth there when you were inclined to think poorly of your brother and to treat him poorly, is your bringing your attack to love. You are shifting from your negative assessment and treatment of your brother to a desire in you to see the truth about your brother, and that is love. That is the act of love that removes the shield between you—the defense between you—and embraces wholly. And …

Always!

You need to know the power of your conscious act of desiring to have a true assessment of your brother, an assessment of your brother as seen through your Father’s eyes or through the eyes of anyone who is Awake in which there is no conflict and no distortion.

… watch over what? What is kept APART from love.

You, who have decided to be independently on your own, and think that you are creating your own lives and that are creating reality yourself and succeeding at it … Oh-h-h… you are creating an illusory experience which cannot be had without the experience of fear. You cannot deny what you Are and be comfortable. You cannot try to be something that you aren’t and be comfortable! And yet, you can’t become what you aren’t, and you can’t succeed at your attempt to be the Creator. And so, although you’re uncomfortable, you’re uncomfortable because you can’t do the impossible and you’re still trying. You’re suffering because you can’t do something wrong but you’re still trying. Do you see?

But oh no. You all say, “ Oh no, it’s an evil world. Oh, it’s not me, it’s an evil world. Don’t you see? Everything is going to hell in a hand-basket—just look around you! How on earth could anybody be in their peace under these circumstances?” And yet, the only problem is, that you are trying to do the impossible and you’re doing it even though it’s impossible to do the impossible, and in that attempt, you are uncomfortable and it’s at your own hand or you might say, at your own mind that you are creating the discomfort.

All that we’re ever talking about here is your discovering how you’re doing that and then abandoning doing that. And the most effective and simple way to do that is to extend caring, extend your attention to your brothers and sisters and your world, with the intent to gift it with your acknowledgement of its value and to insist on that until you’ve succeeded.

You know, like …“I’ve got to protect myself. You can’t trust anybody.” Well, you ignore the fact that the vantage point from which you’re looking is shifty ground, and you’re not trustworthy either to anyone else, because you’re not coming from a grounded stable place of clarity within you—but of course, it’s everyone else. Well, this is a strange idea of safety.

And I’m going to add: They’re pure imagination. They are thinking. I was going to say, at its worst, it’s really thinking at its best. Thinking is always at its worst even at its best, because it’s the shield you establish between yourself and your brother. It’s that which you use to keep things apart and to keep yourself apart from things.

… the strange ideas of safety …

Let’s stop for a moment. Why are you using these sentinels of fear? You’re using them, actually, to keep yourself from having to recognize that you have a Father, and that you have a Birthright, and that you don’t have to earn it or deserve it. It is the essence and the condition of your very existence—your existing. You don’t want to find that out because then you won’t be able to strive for the goal of making something out of yourself and you won’t get that ego “hit.” And you know that you will also have to fit in. And at this stage in your ego’s development, the idea of fitting in and of not being able to stand out is not desirable. It’s boring, it’s meaningless, it’s useless, it’s unfulfilling and can’t possibly mean anything to one who is credible, respectable, real. Anyone who is credible, respectable and real will go out and make his “mark” in life. Blending will be engaged in if it happens to be fulfilling the goal you have. But if it doesn’t, it’s unnecessary.

So, all of these thinking processes that you’re using are being used to avoid something. They’re actually being used to avoid the clarity of being Awake—the sanity of your right Mind. Because at the moment, in your insanity, your right Mind seems utterly useless, meaningless, impractical, and something to be avoided at all cost.

Again …

To be Awake will no longer seem to be fearful or so blissful as to be utterly boring because you’re just going to sit on a pink cloud strumming a harp for eternity. That’s what being sane means when you’re looking at it from the aspect of the ego that you are currently engaged in. And nobody wants that! So [chuckles] anyone wise is going to do a hell-of-a-lot more thinking to avoid that. But …

Now why are we talking about this? Last week we were talking about things that were so beautiful. And we still are. We’re just pointing out what it is that you will be abandoning as you join me in the circle of Love in which you are conscientiously engaging in acknowledging truth and wanting to experience truth more than anything else in the world. And things that were meaningful to you in the orphanage, will become meaningless to you because you’re not having to struggle for your peace and you’re not having to struggle for your wholeness, you’re not having to strive to make something out of yourself because you’re already the ultimate.

Another reason we’re talking about this is that crucifixion is not part of my teaching, but Resurrection is. Crucifixion is the ego’s teaching. Killing, undercutting, undermining your brother for your safety, for your progress, pure ego bullshit.

I want to point out something: You’re all well aware that except for a handful of Us everyone has died. Very few have either not died or resurrected.

So …

Well, where is destruction not true? Well, it’s not true anywhere. But it specifically is not true in first gear—in your right Mind. It is not present in your sane Self.

If you are trying “with all get out” to be something on your own, in second gear, death still can’t happen as a fact, but it seems to. We need to break that habit. It’s time for that road to be less traveled. It’s time for that road to be turned into a dead-end, so no-one cares to go down it again for any imaginative reason.

So, joining with me and in joining with your brother, with the conscious intent of acknowledging the truth about him, with the conscious intent to experience the true truth about him, as opposed to your best judgment of him, is the bottom line means by which you will not die. It is the means by which the apparent cycle of birth and death will cease and will be replaced with the unchangeable experience of Eternal Life—the uninterrupted experience of Eternal Life.

So, as we go through the Course, we’re not just enjoying ideas which, when they’re put together in certain ways, make us feel more whole and make life a little bit easier to bear, we’re actually talking about that which is going to change the experience of life so that the experience of death no longer presents itself.

As you wake up, as you become clearer and clearer about your divinity and the divinity of your brothers and sisters, and the essential value and awesomeness about every aspect of creation, you can’t possibly have the experience of being happy while you still get sick and while you still die. This isn’t about making the human condition easier or more pleasant until you die. It’s about getting off the merry-go-round completely, of life and death. I’m speaking truly. I’m speaking practically. I’m speaking here and now today, where hospitals will go out of business because nobody needs their services.

Is that clear? Is it clear to you that I’m not talking “airy-fairy-pie-in-the-sky” spiritual principles. We’re talking about waking up. We’re talking about letting in a new experience that is already present to be experienced, which you are not experiencing because you are giving preference to your thinking and all of the ramifications of your thinking that you can imagine.

But you’ve got to let yourself out of the box. You’ve got to let your mind open up to that which you don’t know at the moment, so that what is there to be known can register with you, and so that the mystery of life—that wonderful mystery of life—can disappear in the conscious experience of what life actually is, without any of it being tantalizingly obscure to you, but making life interesting because you can discover it. You see.

Here’s what happens when you join me in acknowledging the guiltlessness of your brothers:

… guilt and guiltlessness …

You see, confusion ceases immediately. What’s real is real and what isn’t real isn’t real. No confusion anymore. Utter clarity. No mystery, “Well, you know, if this was that way then maybe that would be real.” No confusion anymore. No speculation about that which will not lead to a solid and real conclusion.

That’s the wonder of black and white: Something is something and nothing is nothing. And when you know that something is something and nothing is nothing and there is no confusion, it’s like the light is on, “Ah-ha, I understand completely. I am not confused in anyway.” And there’s peace.

Now you have interpreted the separation, “But, Father, I’d rather do it my way. I want a divorce, Father.”

See, that’s thinking … that’s done in second gear … that’s done from the sidecar on the motorcycle that has no means of providing itself any direction. It’s what happens in the orphanage. But that’s the unreal seeming to be real. But here’s the real:

The Holy Spirit’s intent and capacity is to show you that when you thought you were doing something and creating a separation, you were doing nothing. And your relationship with your Father and your brothers and sisters is still inviolably intact. And you’re still in your holy place. What you thought you were doing you didn’t do, therefore, there’s nothing you’re guilty of. But if you keep trying to do what you can’t do, you will be uncomfortable and you will feel guilty, but it’s only because you’re trying to do what you can’t do—you’re continuing to try to do what you can’t do.

… the Holy Spirit …

It doesn’t say He put it there, but He sees what’s going on. The Holy Spirit—that which is nothing more than your right Mind—sees what you, in your orphan mentality, think you’re doing.

He would just separate from you what you’re not doing. And what He would separate from you is the consequences you think you have to pay for having done something that you never actually did.

… I’m going to stop right there. Wow, I bet all of you thought that the power of decision was a God given capacity, a most important capacity—you have the power of decision. Wow, and of course, your ego loves that. But what does it say?

The Holy Spirit would teach you how to use this power of decision that you have created, on your behalf. It’s like turning a problem to your advantage, and He will help you use the power of decision to retrace your steps and undo all the decisions you made that moved you away from your conscious oneness with the Father. You see?

It isn’t that the Holy Spirit will take the power of decision and turn it into something that you will forever be able to use, because it really wasn’t a bad idea when you first thought it up, you just have been using it for the wrong thing. And now the Holy Spirit’s going to teach you how to use it for the right thing. No, the Holy Spirit is going to show you how to use something you already have an affinity for using, so it’s easy for you to accept the guidance that the Holy Spirit gives you to undo the use of the power of decision so that you might come back into your right Mind, where your mind is not different from God’s Mind. And in experiencing the Movement of the Mind of God, that is what constitutes your Mind, you can become co-creates with God of creation. Not a creator in your own right, but co-creators by virtue of being present with the Father, fully, as the process of Creation occurs.

So the Holy Spirit helps you use the power of decision to arrive at a point where you abandon the power of decision. But in the meantime, you’ve used it to undo all of the decisions that have consistently bound you tighter and tighter in a distorted, confused experience of being.

… the power of decision …

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

Which ultimately means, and can immediately mean, becoming free of the prospect of dying, and free of the prospect or the experience of illness, or injury, or anything else that does not reflect or that is not the manifestation of a perfect idea formed in a perfect Mind, meaning God.

… sweet little orphans that you are …

What would communication be? Communication would be of the discovery of truth—a mutual discovery of truth—a discovery of truth that occurs in a moment of joining, of involvement, not an isolated experience. That would be communication.

Well, what might one of those discoveries be? Ah, that you are a holy Son of God, that, as I said last week, you are a holy man or a holy woman—something you really don’t want to find out, something you have avoided and something which you use thinking as a means of avoiding and then you give expression to the thinking and you call it communication. But what you’re doing is inserting into the continuum of relationships that you’re in, disturbance that keeps it impossible for the divinity of everyone concerned, or of the Kingdom of Heaven that all of it’s really going on in, from being discovered, from being experienced.

That’s why there is such value in silence. Because in the conscious practice of not thinking you’re able to be more truly present with everything. And in the absence of the static of your thinking, everything around you has a better chance of conveying to you what it really is. And that’s communication.

The discovery … your discovery of what a thing really is because you let it communicate its meaning to you—which it is its joy to do—that is commun-ication.

… you know, called orphanese …

… listen to this …

You see, the ego is its maker. But if the Holy Spirit interprets it, there is something there to interpret, because even though it’s communication used for not communicating, it still holds enough of love to make it useful to the Holy Spirit. Why? Because in spite of yourselves, in spite of your insistence on being the most terrific orphans that ever existed, you never for an instance stopped being the Son of God. And so there is never anything you’re doing no matter how unconscious you are of what it is in its totality, that is totally void or devoid of your holiness. And so, there is always something there for the Holy Spirit—again, that which is nothing more than your Sanity, your right Mind—to use to help you to come back Home.

Now, let’s be clear about this: If, when you are with a friend, you are listening before speaking, you are letting your conversation and the movement of your inner actions, if you’re letting that be guided because you’re allowing yourself to fit in with what’s going on, then what you are truly meaning to say, the Holy Spirit will find ways to have pass through your lips so that real communication can occur just as it is occurring right now as Paul is speaking. And the experience will always be transformational.

The words that will come out will not be words addressing the egos of those who are listening, because the Holy Spirit in you knows the Holy Spirit in your brothers and sisters and that is too rich—it speaks!

… the Holy Spirit …

… of orphanese …

… obviously …

Now, again, for perspective: What we’re talking about tonight describes the aspects that come into play when you join with me in the circle of love, for the purpose of acknowledging your brothers or any aspect of creations, guiltlessness or holiness.

So this is fleshing out what we talked about last week, which many of you noticed was gentle and loving and inspiring. And what I want you to not lose sight of is, that what we’re talking about tonight are the underpinnings of the gentleness and the love and the inspiration that we talked about last week.

Now, the Holy Spirit’s function—the function of that which is nothing more than your right Mind—and which, therefore is your function, is entirely communication. You’re not here to figure things out. You’re not here to be intellectually brilliant. You’re not here to have fantasies or private inventions, all transpiring in your brain, in your head, in your mind. Your function, the Holy Spirit’s function, is entirely communication.

What’s communication? It’s connection. It’s involvement. It’s fitting together. It’s moving in harmony. It is movements, harmoniously fitting together and in the fitting together, expressing exquisite beauty—you could say, beauty of sound, beauty of sight, beauty of aroma, incredible, infinite beauty.

… [chuckling] like a pet project that you want to work on a little bit longer all by yourself, or some task that you have looked forward to completing for a number of years and you want to go ahead and have a little bit more time to do that, all by yourself.

There are no hidden chambers in you.

You’d think, like if you were going to close the door on your Father, that you would reach out there and close the door. But where you close the door is inside you. And you close the door by insisting on thinking, constantly, blocking or interfering with the entrance of anything that might uncover to you things you don’t want to know about yourself … like you don’t have to earn your Birthright anymore. You don’t have to prove your worth anymore. Not proving your worth will not speak poorly of you anymore. Not having accomplished anything on your own will not discredit you or disgrace you in anyway anymore.

So, we’re talking about not thinking anymore. But we’re not just talking about not thinking anymore, we’re talking about not thinking anymore and making conscious connection with each other—not to connect with what each of you think about yourselves or each other, but with the desire to experience what the Movement of Creation is Being as each of you, in each and every given moment, which you can only let into your awareness by being quiet enough and inviting enough to provide the environment which can be infilled with something. And that’s an act of love. And that’s how you shift from second gear to first gear, from insanity to sanity and from the experience of fear and guilt to the uninterruptible experience—the real experience of peace and love.

Next week’s section looks a little bit tantalizing. Be careful, you might want to read ahead: PERCEPTION WITHOUT DECEIT. Um-m, we’ll nail that ego, but we’ll also uncover your divinity.

[Addresses each one] I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you and I love everyone who is watching, who has joined us on the Internet. And I look forward to being with you next week.