Teachings of Christ Mind

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

We’ll go right into the Book—into this awful paragraph:

“I’m going to make you guilty! You’re responsible for my suffering. You’re responsible for relieving me of my suffering. And you know what? You’re not doing anything to relieve me of my suffering, therefore, you’re to blame for my ongoing suffering.” You see.

What did that do? What did all of that Do? It said: “I don’t have anything to do with my suffering. I have no choices I can make that would make a difference. I’m suffering for no good reason at all … at the hands of someone else … at the hands of circumstance or chance.” You see. And it’s not true. Your decisions make all the difference in the world.

But let’s continue. So …

You know what? Whether we’re talking about truth or illusion, what you give away you get to keep. That’s a law that does not change whether you’re on the side of truth or illusion. So the belief that this decreases in them is totally false.

Now …

Interesting. Because very often, because of the devotedness to the game-playing, and perhaps even a spiritual willingness to “see the best in another,” the action of attack and being wounded, because it happens perhaps in little ways, perhaps unconsciously, you say, “Well I won’t say anything about it. He’s not really trying to hurt me. She’s not really trying to hurt me. It’s completely unconscious. What it is, is it’s just plain pure thoughtless and so I don’t need to jump on them for that.”

But the fact is, that it’s never without demand of sacrifice. Attack always makes a demand for sacrifice that you will have to pay if you don’t object—if you don’t say, “No!” to this con job when they say, “Well it’s all your fault.” No, it isn’t. That’s a con job trying to put one over on you, trying to get you to say, “Yeah, you’re right!” They’re hoping you’re going to feel guilty enough because you’re an orphan that you won’t even question them seriously because you were waiting for the axe to fall from somewhere because you were guilty, you see.

And everything gets fuzzy. You’re expecting an axe to fall and that’s your ignorance. And they throw an axe at you and you say, “Oh, that must be the axe that I was expecting to fall … and well, I lack the clarity to see that what they’re trying to do is a con job—something for me to object to. And my attitude that says, ‘Something bad is going to happen to me because I’m an orphan,’ that I need to say no to and object to.” You see? Clarity needs to come into play, not fuzziness.

… continuing …

See, you do soft-pedal it, you do cover it up, because why? Because although you might be willing to see that the bad behavior of others arises out of fury, you’re not willing to take a look and see that your behavior … your bad behavior toward them … your manipulative behavior toward them arises out of fury. So you won’t look at it. If you look at it anywhere, you’re going to see it’s everywhere. Because it is everywhere until you leave the orphanage, until you decide to engage in the holy instant—to practice the holy instant and to abandon your privacy, your aloneness.

We’ll get into what that is.

Now, for two or three weeks here, we’ve been going at this subject in great depth and it’s bound to have helped move you to the point where you don’t value your so-called right to think on your own. It may well have caused you, and hopefully it has caused you to want to be more diligent about joining with the Holy Spirit or with your Guide and bringing that partnership into play more consistently throughout your day and days, and even perhaps weeks, so that it becomes more and more permanent.

The awfulness of private thinking and the suffering that you may have begun to realize accrues from it, may have actually caused you to become quite diligent with a very dark sense that you must do something to get out of this habit that is purely destructive—not constructive in any way. And this could cause great discomfort … a sense of urgency to join with the Holy Spirit, why? so that you won’t be guilty of doing destructive things—because if you become guilty for doing truly destructive things, why there’s no hope for you. Nobody’s going to help you.

Now, you know what? I hope you are each becoming diligent in your desire to know the truth. And I hope that each one of you is becoming diligent about reaching out to the Holy Spirit or the Father as the Source of your understanding of what truth is, as the Place where you want the truth to come from, so that you might abandon and break the habit of isolation—of being a totally independent agent.

Now, what I want you all to understand is, because I’ll tell you, this past week I have felt … I have felt many say, “I can’t do it!” It’s been a sort of sad, angry, plaintive cry. You want to connect with the Holy Spirit. You want to hear me, you want to hear your Guide, but it isn’t happening. And if you’re feeling an urgent need to do it so you won’t be guilty of doing destructive things, because you aren’t doing it, that puts you between a rock and a hard place—nothing but a sense of pressure, of unfair pressure!

And here’s one of the things that you need to be able to hear someone tell you, and you need to be able to hear them tell you over and over and over again: Has anyone heard of God’s plan for salvation? There is one. And you know what? God’s plan for salvation was created to work! It wasn’t created to sometimes work and sometimes fail. It wasn’t created to be a carrot for you to run after but never reach.

The Father’s plan for salvation—God’s plan for salvation—was created to work. And it’s guaranteed to work. And that means that it’s not impossible for you to hear your Guide. It’s not impossible for you to hear the Holy Spirit.

You know what? The holy instant is God’s plan for salvation. You, standing in that very intimate place right in the center of you where nothing else is present but you and the Father—you and your desire to connect with the Father, and the Father—that is guaranteed to work. You, in that quiet, private place and the Holy Spirit and your desire to let the Holy Spirit in, it’s guaranteed to work . It was created to work.

And as we’ve said before, when you realize that the Holy Spirit is nothing more than your right Mind, it becomes more obvious why God’s plan for salvation was created to work and will work. Because, at the bottom line, when it works, That of you which you’ve been ignoring while you’ve dallied with the ego, becomes One with you again. Or you, abandoning your right to make decisions by yourself, find yourself melded, blended again, wholized again with the Holy Spirit—that which is nothing more than your right Mind.

It’s bound to work because that which is One can never be other than One. And ultimately, it can do nothing other than become apparent again as One.

Nevertheless, because you haven’t had this experience, and because you haven’t met a lot of other people who have had the experience and perhaps only a few like Paul have been vocal about it enough for many people to have heard about it—about the holy instant, about the two-step, about hearing the Holy Spirit—it can seem as though it’s a special gift for an elect few, but not for you. And that’s why it’s not working for you. And that’s why it seems justifiable to say, “I can’t do it … I–can’t–do–it.” Well–yes–you–can!

Yes you can! You were made [chuckling] to be able to do it! Because in the beginning you were doing it, until you decided to have this little dalliance with the idea of independence. And now you’ve had that experience, up to here, I hope, and you can come back into your right Mind. You can! It is not a talent. It is not a special gift. It doesn’t require an especially spiritual person—you don’t have to become a monk. And so I want you to lighten up. And when you feel like you can’t do it, I want you to pull out this tape and listen to it so you can hear me say, “Yes–you–can!” and remind you of it or go to any other source that reminds you, “Yes–you–can!” It’s the way God’s plan for salvation was made to work! It’s not the way God’s plan for salvation was made to fail.

Now there’s another place I want to turn you to. It’s in the Course and you can remind yourself of it by going here: It’s [Workbook] …

I know, [chuckling] you don’t think God’s Voice does speak to you all through the day, but here’s something stating the truth to remind you of the fact.

Don’t have to become a monk, don’t have to go sit in a cave, don’t have to go sit in a church. You can wash the dishes. You can clean your house. You can mow the lawn. It is quite possible.

Now, let’s get something clear here: God’s Voice. You can listen to God’s Voice. What is God’s Voice? God’s Voice is the Voice for Truth. You’re more familiar with the Voice for Truth being the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is nothing more than your right Mind. Ah-h, God’s Voice is nothing more than your right Mind. That’s what It really is. God’s Voice is nothing more than your right Mind or your right Mind is nothing different from God’s Voice. Your right Mind is where union with God IS.

So, God’s Voice is with you all the time. God’s Voice is your right Mind. And even if you are insisting upon thinking for yourself, and not listening for the Holy Spirit, It’s still there and It is forever intending to register with you. In other words, It’s constantly knocking at your door. It’s constantly asking for your attention.

So the minute you decide to say, “Holy Spirit, what’s the truth here? Father, what is the truth here?” well, that means that you’ve walked up to the door that the Holy Spirit has been forever knocking on and you have your hand on the knob with an intent to open it.

Now, you see what I’m doing here? I’m letting you know that reaching for the truth, reaching for the Holy Spirit is never a case of you groping around in the dark for something you don’t know the location of—a very lonely thing that you’re doing all by yourself. No, the minute you desire to know the truth of the Holy Spirit or the Father, you have your hand on the doorknob of a door that the Holy Spirit—the Voice for Truth, God’s Voice—has been knocking on, is knocking on, and is with all enthusiasm waiting for you to go ahead and turn that knob and open the door.

Oh I know … you tried it and it didn’t happen.

“I–tried–it–and–it–didn’t–happen.” Seven words. Are you going to make a god out of those seven words? Are you going to bow down to those seven words? Are you going to serve those seven words? Are you going to believe them and not let any doubt whatsoever creep in? Why not do that with the real God. You don’t have to believe it. In fact, you must disbelieve it. You must abandon making the statement and go someplace like this and read:

… that would be the Holy Spirit, right?

… from the orphan mentality …

… the orphan mentality, the one who thinks for himself.

… or seven words.

[chuckling] Full of doubt—wavering doubt!

… pure imagination and we’ve talked about it endlessly.

Well it doesn’t matter how wild it is. A wild illusion or a passive illusion or a quiet illusion, is still nonsense. But nevertheless… [chuckles]

And you know what? I would suggest that you practice this whether there’s a problem going on or not. In fact, when there’s not a problem going on, your curiosity to know the truth and your reaching to the Holy Spirit for the answer will allow the connection to be made with less stress, with less doubt interfering. And even if you don’t hear immediately, I won’t hear you say, “I can’t do it!” You’ll just say, “Well, it didn’t happen then, I’ll just try again a little bit later,” you see, without any emotional impact or negativity.

It’s right there with you, every moment of every day.

… the Holy Spirit …

This is important.

Everything is geared to work. The Father’s plan for salvation was created to succeed.

You see? It’s a thing to be looked forward to. It’s a thing to be embraced. It is not something to look at as though eternity hangs in the balance, depending on how well you do. Being a lesson, it gives instructions:

Wise counsel. Do it more. Do it lightly. Do it willingly. Do it gladly.

… You, embracing and embraced by and unseparated from the Holy Spirit—which constitutes you in your right Mind, you sane, you letting the Father be all there is of You. You, thereby being co-creators with God because you’re not holding yourself separate and apart in any way from the Movement of Creation that He is Being as You. You see? Listen to this lesson in a book in the world:

Why would you do that? Why would you be told to do that if it weren’t possible? That would be evil.

Do you see why you need to have things to remind you of the truth? Because the truth is happy and the truth is uplifting and the truth is motivating and the truth removes you from the sludge and the slog of negativity that immobilizes you and causes you to feel that there’s no use—no point.

Again …

Listen to this:

You need to be reminded of this when you’re inclined to say, “I can’t do it.” And you’re inclined to believe those seven words, or … “I can’t do it” … those four words.

He wants you to experience all of your Mind, without it being split off into Holy Spirit and orphan ego. You see.

You must argue … You must disagree with … You must counteract the negativity that would say, you’re stuck, “I can’t do that. That doesn’t work for me.” Find some words that express God’s point of view, and bind yourself to them, tightly, and stand with them unyieldingly no matter how awkward or unnatural it seems to you. Why? Because, God’s plan for salvation was created to work.

… that go on in your mind … just thinking …

See, it tells you what to do, instead of complaining about it not working, instead of convincing yourself that it isn’t working and it won’t work.

And you know, to be even more specific, you can get past the sights by closing your eyes. But you want to get past, that in your mind that wants to tell the story about how the world works. And who’s it going to tell the story to? You … yourself. So you sit there and you tell yourself a god-awful story. And you rehearse it in your mind. And you make it more and more real, by the diligence with which you rehearse it. Rehearse a play long enough and you don’t need the script in your hand anymore—you know it by heart.

Quit rehearsing the lie or you’ll learn it by heart and you won’t need to say it anymore because, as you see, it will be written in your bones, it will be written in your very being. Well, it can’t be written in your very Being because that belongs to God. So it can only be written in your memory. But once memorized it’s difficult to abandon.

Where? In your mind where you’re rehearsing all of the illusion.

Well, again, God’s plan for salvation was created to work. So if this is what you are trying to do, you’re trying to do that which works. And isn’t it wonderful to have Lesson 49 to go to and remind yourself of all the different ways here in which God’s plan for salvation is guaranteed to work.

Continuing, back in the Text:

Remember, we talked about the fact that anger is a result of the frustration of experiencing ongoing fear and guilt. Anger is the means that orphans—those who are not joined with the Holy Spirit, those who are not experiencing any form of relationship with the Father—use to create safety, to create security.

And the anger doesn’t always come out with an angry voice. It very often comes out with a calm, even cultured voice, speaking with dignity and a sense of education, explaining to you what you’re guilty of and why you shouldn’t be at peace, explaining to you what you owe for your guilt. And if you’re not careful, you’ll believe it.

If it came out expressed as anger, you would become defensive much more quickly and then in order to be overcome yourself, the anger would have to be skillfully expressed in a way that would cause you to feel threatened significantly enough to cause you to yield, to buckle under and to serve.

So you see, it’s really important to be willing to look at this straight on, so that you don’t overlook anger in favor of noticing the cultured intelligent way in which a guilt trip is being laid on you and honoring the wondrousness of how intelligence can master a situation, you see, and cause you to believe a lie.

Whew …

That means, that it will remain attractive to you as a tool for you to use in manipulating others. And because it’s attractive to you, it will attract into your experience those circumstances which will cause you to have to cope with a guilt trip being laid upon you.

What you give you get to keep. What you find attractive is attracted to you. And then because you’re already in a guilty state of mind, you’re not likely to object to the guilt trip that’s laid upon you. You will just find the most effective means you can to not have to pay as much of a penalty. [chuckling] You might go get a good attorney who can get you off, even though you know you’re guilty. You see?

But that’s not emancipation, that’s not Waking up, that’s not moving beyond the liability to be guilty, into your native innocence.

… you know, like, for you to be at a movie with a date … or in bed with a lover …

… the Holy Spirit …

Continuing …

Remember, we talked about the fact that communication isn’t body-to-body, but mind-to-mind, so to speak. It’s actually an event in infinite Mind that isn’t broken down by body into individualities.

Listen …

… you see …

Now we discussed this earlier.

Communication—true communication—means abandoning the idea that bodies communicate, and that minds are not separated off, one-from-another, where there seem to be bodies separating you all off one-from-another.

There are no private thoughts. I know, that sounds interesting, it’s an interesting statement to make. It can be a topic of an interesting conversation. But the simple fact is that there are no boundaries, there are no limits circumscribing your mind or your neighbor’s or your wife’s or anyone in the universe or anything in the universe. And communication is going on and you can feel … you sometimes say, “Well, she’s more sensitive than I am,” or “I have an affliction of a sensitivity, where I can feel what’s going on with other people.” No. Some of you just aren’t as defended against it as others. But the fact is that that’s where communication really occurs.

… what?

And earlier we read:

What the ego wants is …

It’s the orphan mentality. It wants to become a real boy or a real girl, instead of a puppet. And in doing that it denies and actually attempts to cause God to be less than He is.

A real boy or a real girl, who became real from a prior state of being an orphan, who originally was the Son or Daughter of God, would cause God, the Father, to have two less children and therefore to be that much less Father, that much less God, which when we put it that way, you can see is absolutely idiotic. But you can see what the end goal would be if everyone managed somehow to become a real boy or a real girl in his or her own right from the environment of an orphanage—from being an orphan. That is what the ego really wants.

Okay, it’s not going to work. And when you can see it this clearly, it’s easier for you to be willing to abandon your interest in pursuing it further, and engaging in the holy instant.

Always, it’s a hundred and eighty degrees out of sync.

Remember, guilt is what must be used to bind two together in a special relationship—a relationship which wouldn’t naturally occur without the employment of guilt to bind it together and seal the union.

You’ve learned it so well, that when you try to break the illusion of being alone, by reaching out to the Holy Spirit, or the Father, or your Guide, it doesn’t happen spontaneously. It seems like it only happens under stress or with unrelenting persistence that in itself seems unreasonable at times. That’s how come you know that you have learned it.

Now …

And we began this section a few weeks ago with this very paragraph, so that when we got here today it would make more sense to you.

I’m going to start over and point out that we could just as easily read: It is God’s Voice’s teaching function, cause the Holy Spirit is the Voice for Truth, God’s Voice.

And here’s another reason you need materials like this, to remind you of the joyful news when you get depressed and discouraged. You need to hear the facts.

Listen:

… why?…

That’s the good news. The Holy Spirit and you are …

Overcome what? The idea that communication is damnation, when communication is salvation.

It is in the holy instant that radical idealism is translated into practical realism. You see? It’s …

And you could say that’s the beginning of education that transforms you. But you’re not going to see radical idealism translated into practical realism if you don’t contradict the cry, “I can’t do it! It doesn’t work for me! I did it and I did it and I did it and it doesn’t work for me!”

You won’t see it if you say, “Well, so-and-so is further along on their spiritual path and that’s why they can do it and why I can’t.”

And I’m here to tell you that holy instants are available to the worst sinner that exists. Because, a sinner is just a Son or Daughter of God, who’s temporarily believing a lie about themselves. And because it’s not the truth about themselves, a holy instant is available to them [snaps fingers] at any instant. And it’s through the holy instant that’s available to anybody…

And also, making it evident that the one that it happened to wasn’t the awful sinner—wasn’t a god-damned sinner. Because after experiencing the holy instant, they found that they were a God-blessed presence that now they can see, had to be the Son or Daughter of God instead of the sinner he or she believed he was or that everyone else believed he or she was. You see? Transformation!

… when you are in the holy instant … oh, you know what? the idea of using guilt as a tool to accomplish something won’t even occur to you. And so you won’t be attracted to it in any way. And in the absence of attraction to it as a practical tool, you won’t attract into your experience the attempts to make you guilty that you would have to cope with.

The experience of your wholeness has been restored. You, not an orphan mentality or an ego separated from the Holy Spirit, that is the rest of you—your wholeness, your integrity, your innocence, your flawlessness, your pure integrity is obvious and you know Who you Are without a doubt.

And remember, that in the holy instant God’s laws prevail. Those two sentences mean the same thing.

In the holy instant God’s laws prevail.

… integrity …

… listen to this …

Guilt has one purpose: To disrupt your direct communication with the Holy Spirit, an event which when it happens, reveals to you the fact that you and the Holy Spirit are One. And that One is the Holy Spirit, and you’re the Son or Daughter of God.

You see, you’re not thinking that bodies communicate when Minds do. And now Mind is communicating. Mind is in communion. Mind is aware of absolutely every aspect of Eternity, of Infinity, of Creation … whole.

See, you need to hear this. This is the good news. This is what you need to read when, and remind yourself of, when you say, “I can’t do it. I’ll never be able to do it … blah … blah … blah.”

… from your wholeness, from your completeness …

Everyone and everything is absolutely essential to your completeness, because it’s all part of Creation—Infinite Creation Itself—which is One, because it’s the expression of a purely singular Mind which has no fragments to it, which cannot be polarized and is therefore perfect harmony, pure Love embodied in every way.

You find that you invite and make welcome everyone, because that is what protects your wholeness. To exclude others, violates your wholeness and throws you right back into the orphanage.

Since God’s only need is to have you complete, well, that’s what caused God’s plan of salvation to be instituted, if you will, because God needs to have you be complete and know it.

Now you’ve always been His, but you haven’t been aware of it and you haven’t even wanted to think about it, because you’ve been too busy surviving on your own.

Now did you think we would ever get out of the section called, The Holy Instant And Communication? We did it. But you can see how packed and important it is. And what its goal is: The happy conclusion of God’s plan for salvation.

So, I encourage you this week to lighten up, even if you wish to be diligent, even if you really significantly desire to know the truth, and spend a great deal of your time giving your attention to the Holy Spirit or the Father to have the truth revealed to you. Do it without an edge of sternness and potential guilt. Do it without entertaining fear along with it, because God’s plan for salvation was not setup to be a strain. It wasn’t to be the way you paid the penalty for having abandoned Him. No, the Father’s plan for salvation was established out of Love, with Love, so that you might experience the way Home, as Loving.

So when you begin to feel depressed or discouraged, and negativity about you begins to voice itself in your head, you tell it to “shut up!” And then remind yourself of the truth in whatever way works for you.

I look forward to being with you next time. And with much Love I say to you, that I hope your paths of discoveries this week will be enjoyable. And if they aren’t and you must persist against what seem like unreasonable odds or unreasonable negativity, do it! Persist! But persist with whatever degree of light-heartedness you can introduce, because you don’t have to be obedient to those seven words. And you can be irreverent and have a happy curiosity in the face of it. You really can. Okay.