Teachings of Christ Mind

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

Every week or so we get together and discuss the ego, the Holy Spirit, the orphan … we discuss a lot of ideas. And it’s very easy to think of these ideas and things as topics—topics of discussion. If they remain, however, forever topics of discussion, you might as well set this book down and go find something else to do.

If there’s anything I’m trying to do, especially in the last few months, is to help bring you to the point of understanding that we’re talking about how you use your mind. We’re talking about how you behave. And we’re talking about the call for a change in behavior.

We’re talking about the holy instant. And I’ve brought home the fact that the holy instant is that moment in which you say “Yes” to God. Not like you say “yes” to daddy, or “yes” to mommy and then run on out and play like a child, but where you say “Yes” to God, meaning, that you’re turning your attention to God to know from Him, to find out from Him what the truth is. To ask for Him to share His Perspective on Creation itself—which you are part of, which you are inseparable from and which it is your right to comprehend, embrace, understand as God understands it … comprehends and embraces it … so that you have no perspective different from the Father’s.

So in effect, saying “Yes” to God means (dirty word) yielding to God. It really does mean this. And it means it, as I’ve said before, in the here and now, in your everyday activity. It means turning, as though you’re in partnership with Someone, to learn of that Partner how to behave in this moment in a way that is totally consistent with that Partner’s perspective, valuing His place in the partnership.

We’re talking about letting yourself in for the experience of a radically new awareness of your Self. I say new, because, although it’s your original awareness of yourself, it’s one that you’ve ignored for so long that it seems unfamiliar to you now.

So, we’re talking about the fact that the holy instant is the threshold of Awakening. It amounts to leaving the orphanage. It amounts to letting go of the definitions you have given yourself as an orphan and all of the wonderful and uplifting concepts you have developed regarding becoming the best damned orphan there ever was, and becoming as good as a Real child, we’ll say, who’s not an orphan.

To experience the holy instant, and I’m aware that I’m being repetitious, stepping into the holy instant amounts to letting go of all that you know. It amounts to asking, “What is the more of Reality that I’m not experiencing? What, Father, is Your Perspective? I wish to allow It to replace my current perspective.”

We’ve discussed the fact that doing this puts you in the not-knowing place. A place in which you feel called upon to express a capacity that you don’t know how to express. You feel, as a result, incompetent. And this is an essential part of moving into the holy instant and moving out of the false perception of yourselves, moving into the truer experience of what you Are so that you are able to be real with your brothers and sisters and available to your brothers and sisters.

Now the key difference between the holy Son or Daughter of God and the orphan, is love and the absence of love. The orphan doesn’t know how to love because the orphan is preoccupied with himself or herself and his or her survival in a world that the orphan sees as hostile, because he sees it without love. Everything he does is based upon getting—getting safety, getting wealth, getting security, getting fame, getting peace by getting control.

Whereas, with the holy Son or Daughter of God, everything is a matter of embrace, of no judgment, of undefended presence—everyone with everyone. It is Being in such defenselessness that absolutely none of infinite Creation is distanced from you—absolutely none of it is feint because it seems to be at an infinite distance—where the universe is totally comprehensible, embraceable and experienceable simultaneously in every part of itself, which at the bottom line, means every part of yourself.

Now, some hundred years ago or more, a lot of these things could be talked about as though they were topics: Topics to discuss, topics to debate, topics to incorporate into progressive forward movement, or not. But I’m telling you that you are living in a time in which these lessons are required. You’re living in a time when these issues are on your plate. You’re living in a time when things are transitioning and you stand on the threshold of being in an entirely new way.

And one of the fundamental changes is going to be the shift from getting to giving—from self-protection to embrace of the whole.

The economy is changing. It isn’t just suffering and being brought back to health. You are watching transformation of economy and the transformation is going to be successful. But it’s going to become something that not all of you want, or it is going to become something that is going to require all of you to stand in the place of incompetence—to stand in that place of not-knowing, feeling the need to know and leaning into it without fussing about it, without fretting about it, leaning into it willingly because, in the beginning, all you can have based upon my encouragement is the idea that doing so will result in your becoming aware of what needs to be known that you never knew before … what needs to be known that will be transformational because it’s not based upon the past.

Your economy needs to turn around. And I’m not speaking to any nation, I’m speaking to everyone’s economy. And you know what? If you … and you … and you … and you … and everyone who isn’t willing to shift or is reluctant to shift, the transition will be tense and uncomfortable and will engender fear. Not because the transition is fearful, but because your attempt to preserve yourself as you have been, because that feels like security to you, is getting in the way of your experience of your fulfillment which is coming forth because you’re being called upon to shift from orphan to holy Son of God, or holy Daughter of God.

Now, many, many, many people are very excited about the space program and the new frontier. And much energy and much expense is put forth in order to explore this new frontier. I’m telling you that there’s a frontier before you that no one is going to be able to ignore. It isn’t going to be a matter of choice. But whether it’s strenuous, or exciting and inspiring, will depend upon whether or not you are willing to embrace it, or whether you’re going to be resistant to it.

Privacy cannot continue. This country versus that country can’t continue. For lack of better words, and I’m not being at all political here, there needs to be a United States of the World where everyone identifies with everyone else, and where everyone knows that the foundation for being every day when you get up is consistent globally. My God … if you can have a Big Mac¹ anywhere in the world and have it taste exactly like it does somewhere else in the world, you can all feel the same kind of unity with each other with a little willingness. And that’s what’s needed and that’s what’s called for.

There are new ways to be, if greed isn’t the bottom line of everything. And if benefit to everyone, not just in a business, not just in a community, not just in a state or a country, but in the world…

(Paul: I’m sorry I lost it.)

… new ways of being will have to develop that identify unity, embrace brotherhood and benefit for everyone, as opposed to greed and the accumulation of private, personal wealth. This is the threshold everyone stands on. It is a threshold which must take place. If it doesn’t take place, there will be collapse.

In other words, there is no choice now!

And so, everything we’re reading about regarding the holy instant and abandoning orphanhood and being willing to let the Father in because you love your brother or your sister, and in order to experience God’s Love you must be willing to extend It to them. That’s where it’s at. That’s where it’s at on your planet at this time.

Selfishness is going to have to yield to Love. And for Love to come forth, you’re going to have to find a confidence from some place that tells you, you do not need to be on the defense. And the only place you’re going to be able to get that from is from the Father.

Now the Father has already given it to you because you’re already the holy Sons and Daughters of God, right now, today, even if you’re acting like a miserable orphan.

You hear me say it over and over: You cannot become something different from what the Father has created. You cannot be something different from what the Father is Being right where you are right now. But you can ignore it. And you can manufacture imaginations about what you are and who you are and how you are to be and how to overlay that upon what you truly Are and attempt with all your might to live it out.

It’s time to give it up!

It’s time to stop reading this book and considering “the holy instant” and considering the ego … and mulling it over in your mind … mulling them over in your mind as topics of consideration.

And you need to see that they’re talking about you. The ego is the you that you imagine that you are when you insist upon being an independent authority.

The Holy Spirit is nothing more than your right Mind held in trust while you dally with the ego. It’s time to trade the one for the other. It’s time to abandon the one for the other. And the holy instant is the means.

And now … and now … and now … and now … and now … are all the opportunities for an instant in time to become the holy instant, in which you slip out of that which counts time as valuable into the experience of eternity which is wholeness, oneness, all of Creation experienced now with no part of it withheld from you, and no part of you withheld from it.

It’s time to stop taking each day for granted. It’s time to stop letting your spirituality relate to particular aspects of your life but not to others. And let the others, like … “Oh-h-h” … like you’ve done … “The economy will take care of itself,” like … “I don’t have anything to do with that … I don’t need to have anything to do with that … why, I don’t need to apply spirituality to that, it’ll run itself.” You see. And there are lots of areas of your life that you do that with.

Well, stop! It’s time to stop! It’s time to stop taking everything for granted. It’s time to stop saying, “Well, it’s taking care of itself,” or, “they’ve taken care of it forever.” You’ve just found out that they’re not all taking care of it. And the idea that they were taking care of it was just sloppy thinking.

Sloppy thinking … I say that because clear thinking is a heck of a lot more fun. Clear thinking doesn’t say, “Everything will take care of itself.” Clear thinking says, “What is fulfillment? Where does fulfillment lie?”

Hmmm. You know what? Maybe fulfillment isn’t, “My getting up every morning and getting on a crowded freeway and driving 10 miles an hour bumper-to-bumper to work, with everybody around me angry. And getting to work and hopefully getting that time clock punched before I’m late and then working in a crowded office with a lot of tension, because everybody’s getting, getting, getting.” Maybe that’s not the way.

Maybe … maybe it’s possible to work from home via the computer, via the internet. And maybe you could even have your own business without the overhead that would—if everyone else or many others were doing the same thing—would shift the workload and shift the area of provision to individuals that would be much more efficient and much more satisfying, because each one is personally involved—the creativity and the participation is evident. It isn’t a manner of everyone … hundreds and hundreds of people being a tiny clog in a wheel, where that clog has no idea what the end result is and can feel no relationship to it.

The question: “What is fulfillment here?” Maybe fulfillment isn’t anything that we’ve been doing already. If you do that, you’re likely to have the idea that fulfills purpose before something else collapses that needs to collapse because it’s not efficient, because it doesn’t express divine order. And it doesn’t express an involvement with everyone, where everyone’s benefit is at the heart of what is done.

There are new ways that things are going to have to be done. And every single one of you … if you are conscious, and you are … that every single one of you can participate in being the gift of. But this means you’re going to have to get off your—I’ll be nice—duff … get off your duff … get off your complacency and care enough to become involved at levels and in areas that you never considered before.

How? By imagining areas you’ve never considered before? No. By becoming still enough to be able to say, “Father, what is the truth here? Father, what is needed here? Father, of all the things I see in my life that seem to be working, which ones aren’t actually working and which ones need to be refreshed, which ones need to manifest insight that shifts everything away from greed and self-protection, to gift and love and fulfillment guaranteed for everyone because that’s the goal, instead of getting, getting, getting.”

Do you see what I’m saying? We’ve been reading about the holy instant and all of these things, but it needs to be translated into your life in order for it to become dynamic and real.

It happens that at this place in the book things are gelling, enough information has been provided in order for these things to be comprehended. And it happens that it coincides with things that are going on in your world that call for what this book and this teaching and these truths are putting forth.

Star Trek … going out into the unknown… or you and you and you, and everyone bringing in the unknown by inviting it and making it possible for it to register with you because you’re not insisting upon filling the space it will take with your own imaginative mental gyrations. All of which, at the bottom line, serve your selfish greedy needs and ultimately, you think keep you safe. When the fact is, that each one of you is a holy Son or Daughter of God who is safe, who is whole, who needs no protection, who, because He or She is the Presence of the Father in expression, has the characteristic of omnipotence and omnipresence and omniscience—the ability to know what you don’t know yet, until you let it in and know it, which you need to be consciously nourishing everyday.

Now, if you say that the Course is not about the world because the world isn’t real, it will not apply to anything … it won’t be relevant to anything except a little mental masturbation. And that’s not what it’s about. It does relate. It relates to the use you put your mind to. It relates to how you’re identifying yourself—holy Son or Daughter of God or ego/orphan. And depending upon which of those you embrace as the definition of you, your behavior will be different. Where will your behavior be different? Right here “in the world!”

And I’ll tell you, that when you go into partnership with God by saying, “Father,” which an orphan doesn’t say … by saying, “Father, what’s the truth here? Father, what is Your Perspective? Father, I wish to see things the way You see them, I wish to experience being the way You created me to experience It,” you lay the ground work for the influx of illumination and inspiration and revelation, the uncovering of Reality to you in which whatever was false about your perception of the world and universe is replace by the True perception of It—the Reality of It that has forever been what Is.

What this Course means will not be known to you until it becomes embodied by you in your actions once your mind is renewed and its renewal is the basis for those actions. And your mind won’t be renewed until you let something other than your present sense of yourself in—the Father.

Now it will begin, not as you letting the Father in, it will begin as you letting the Holy Spirit in, which is the comforter the Father gave you when you abandoned your Birthright for a thrilling ride of independence that you made up for yourself.

The Holy Spirit, as I said, is your divinity—the truth about you, the conscious experience of the truth about you held in trust while you dally with the state of independence, which greed is the foundation of and fear is the motivator of and death is the ultimate result of. To give that up is not to give up much. It’s time to give it up and it’s time to enjoy giving it up, because it will be a joy to see the world change in simple ways that embody simple common sense arising out of love.

But by dammit! [slapping the book] let’s … let’s … let’s get this book out of the book, let’s get this truth out of the book, let’s get it inside, so that even more consistently than you may have been doing it, you go through your day, each day, really interested to know what the Father’s perspective is of this moment … of this moment … of that individual … of this circumstance … of what the truth is here … of what is called for … of how can I love this that seems unlovable and how can I persist in it when I am faced with such defense, such ugly defense, that it seems intolerable to stand in the face of it and want to know what the truth is and want to know what constitutes love, so that it can be extended, so that healing and transformation can occur.

Whatever you see, whether it’s a physical problem, a physical disease, a social problem, a social disease, a global problem, a global disease—I’m talking about an Earth disease—it is not something to crumble in front of, it is not something to be wimpy in the presence of. It’s a call for an answer. It’s a call for you to discover a capacity you didn’t know you had.

And the only way you can discover that capacity is to stand in the face of not knowing the answer, and to stand in the face of feeling incompetent about it and not getting huffy, egotistically proud, pissed-off, self-righteous about it, and saying with all honesty and agreement and cooperation, “I don’t know the answer. The answer is something I don’t know yet. But the answer is something I am capable of becoming aware of. And I know I’ll become aware of it if I will be willing to be in this not-knowing, incompetent place with an understanding—theoretical though it may be—with the understanding that all of me, all of what I am is always present, all of me is always functioning and all of what I am is always available.”

And then settle into that. Relax into that. Let go of all attempts at control because it will only stand in the way.

The infilling will come. The new modes of business will come. The new methods and means of commerce will come, and a world more united because it has become everyone’s intent to embrace each other, because every single one of us are the Son’s and Daughter’s of God and not piss-ant little orphans who need to scramble for their good and grab it where they can get it, even if it means killing something or someone else to get it.

I’m going to end by saying: Be more alive to your days. Be more alive in every moment of your days. Wonder what it is you’re missing. Wonder what it is you don’t know. Wonder whether there are things that seem to be functioning well that actually aren’t, where change is needed. And don’t try to figure out the answers to any of those questions. Let them be dangling triggers of the awareness in you that you don’t know and that you are yourself incompetent. And be happy in that knowledge, knowing that it’s the Father’s good pleasure, as it always has been, to give you the Kingdom. And that the Holy Spirit has as It’s function, the reuniting of you with It—that which you abandoned in favor of becoming an orphan and exploring all the fearful excitement of being independent.

It’s a good place where you are. Don’t grouse about effort that it may take, because you all have more vital energy in your being than you dream of, and capacity that you don’t know you had. And this lethargic incapacity and willingness to dreamily go through your day letting “them” take care of it or letting the economy take care of itself, and as a result, living in a tent city, or living in a tense city, because everyone is uptight because they’re on the defense and they’re trying to save their butts, or working for a corporation that sees getting the big bucks as the bottom line, no matter who they have to cut down in the process.

This is a world none of you have to endure. It certainly isn’t something to just settle for because … oh, it’s like being on vacation, you know, you just sort of sit back and let things take care of things. Well, that’s okay, as long as things are going good. But since no one’s actually consciously [chuckling] participating from a level of Real consciousness, it’s bound to fail. And then everyone is going to say, “Damn, ah, this isn’t any fun.”

Well, no it’s not fun, but that’s only because you haven’t discovered the benefit of a little bit of, we’ll say, exercise in which you find out you have capacities that you didn’t know you had. In fact, you have a capacity to know and embrace all of Creation consciously, without effort, and love it and feel it feeling your love. Having that kind of unified feedback, if I may put it that way, you have the Kingdom of Heaven awaiting you and the Sonship and a Daughtership as a Birthright awaiting you, that you no longer need to be unconscious of.

So, next week we’ll go into the book.

In the meantime, I want you to go through what we discussed at the last meeting. You don’t want to let this subject slip away. And no matter how much further we go in the book before we Wake up, you will not want to leave the practice of what we’re talking about now. You will not want to move on to other things and let this become a topic of discussion that you discussed—and now it’s not the topic of discussion that you’re discussing. You don’t want to let it be that. And I won’t let it be that.

I love you. I love all of you.

Let’s start having fun Waking up by participating in Waking up, instead of leaving It to “them”.