Teachings of Christ Mind

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

Again, I’m going to remind everyone that we’re reading from a chapter called, The Forgiveness of Illusions. And we’re in the last section of that chapter which is called, The End of Illusions.

I want everybody not to be too casual as we consider this.

“Oh, yes … we’re reading about the end of illusions. Yes, isn’t that wonderful? Some day the end of illusions will come. The concept of the end of illusions is an amazing concept to consider. What the actuality of it might be like is mind-boggling.”

Well, c’mon everyone, let’s stop all that bullshit! Because you can talk about and think about the end of illusions and actually end up being very casual about the end of illusions without ever experiencing them.

There’s nothing casual or simple or everyday about the end of illusions. And you know what? This week I want you to get a piece of paper and I want you to write the word, “Radical” on it. And I want you to put it on your refrigerator or wherever you can see it frequently. Put it on your dashboard. Be reminded that Waking up is a radical transformation of you. And it’s a radical transformation of the way in which you experience everything. My God, if you experience the end of illusions and you are not confronted with anything but Reality anymore, I promise you it’s going to be radically different … thank God.

Let the word, “radical,” shall I say, become less radical to you so that you’re willing to consider it as a possibility: Radical healing … radical transformation … radical wonder … radically perfect life … radically incredible unfoldment of Being.

I mean, after all, if you’re going to look at everything that you’ve been seeing and thinking was the “human condition” was “planet earth and the universe” and that’s all it was, well I promise you that to suddenly experience it as the Kingdom of Heaven without any aspect of its divinity escaping you, that is going to be radically different!

And you know what? If you’re not considering radical change, if you’re not expecting to be provided with the opportunity to embrace radical change, I promise you, you will stay bound to what you are expecting—to the less that you are expecting.

The holy instant. My God, we’ve been talking about it for more than a year … more than two years. Have you become numb to it? Are you casual about it? Is it a wonderful subject and is it one that since we have discussed it together, you can talk about more at length than you ever were able to before? Are you able to express ideas about it that make you feel better and make others feel better without your actually having the experience—without actually experiencing radical wonderful transformed Mind?

That’s the point! That is why you go to the trouble of practicing the holy instant.

In the holy instant, as we’ve discussed, God’s laws prevail. God’s Nature prevails. God’s Intent prevails. God’s Love prevails. And in that place where God prevails, there is no sin, sickness or death. To not experience sin, sickness or death when that’s all you ever have experienced, that is a radical change.

“Oh, I know … but it can’t happen to me. That’s why I like to think about it. I like to imagine that it can happen to me, I like to be able to talk about why it can happen to me and what it will be like when it happens to me … but, you know, [sighs] it isn’t going to … it hasn’t … and I don’t see how it can.”

Well, let me tell you: That’s not radical thinking. That’s not being radical. That’s not embracing the radical. All we’re talking about, all we’ve been talking about is embracing the radical.

When you say the Lord’s Prayer … and you say, “Thy Will be done …” don’t you realize that you’re saying, “I invite the radically different experience of being that You provide than the one that I’ve been providing myself while I’ve been claiming to be an orphan”? “Thy Will be done” is saying, “I desire to experience Something radically different from the best I’ve ever been able to come up with in my individual independent acts of creativity.” That’s what you’re saying.

Going into the book, and I want to point out to you that what we’re going to be reading tonight is like the frosting on the cake. It’s sweet, it’s wonderful, it’s beautiful … [sighs] … but in all likelihood, it’s not what’s happening in your life, at least not to any great extent. And so what good does it do for it to be beautiful? What good does it do for it to be sweet? So let’s not be casual as we read it. Let’s not let it just be sweet and consoling and encouraging.

… Why? Because there isn’t anything else to choose between. You are either choosing between what God is revealing to you and you are embracing and letting find expression through you, or you are choosing for illusion—which means, you are preoccupied only with your own best thinking or worst thinking. No matter what it is, you are impressed with your thinking, that’s what you practice. And that is illusion, because the moment you engage in that, you have withdrawn your attention from your connection with the Father. You have pulled the plug. No juice. No Source finding expression through you.

And so the experience is false. Simple.

… [whispers] one of two things …

Let’s not slip past that too quickly. Because, what’s being said there is, it happens only as you yield to Him, only as you yield to His Plan. And isn’t that the movement of the holy instant? Isn’t that the movement of the two-step? You hesitate. You shut up. You silence your thinking. And you turn from your independent stance toward your Father—your Source—and you say, “Father, what is the truth here?” and you join in that place of no orphan self-assertion and in that place of listening for the Father’s Will, the Father’s Perspective. What are you doing? You’re yielding your right to be assertive, independent, controlling—you’re abandoning that and yielding to the Father.

Now listen:

… see, that’s the frosting on the cake. That’s the unbelievable truth. That’s the wonderful truth that everyone of you hopes is true, wishes is true.

… what?

… where do you fit in to the plan of Atonement? Where do you fit in as the expression of God and not the expression of your will? You see? It …

… what? which is …

He’s the authority. He’s the Movement of Creation.

So, listen again:

… where God’s laws prevail, where God prevails, and where there’s no sin, sickness or death.

So in a way, it’s not really just sweet. It’s demanding. Because it puts it straight to you, what’s called for, so there’s no confusion. But, it requires something of you that you’re not inclined to do. It requires you to abandon self-will. It requires you to abandon authority that you think you have or ought to be able to have. It requires you to abandon acts that you have engaged in for the purpose of proving your worth, believing that if you don’t engage in them your worthlessness will prevail and be seen by everyone. And you don’t want that. And so you hold onto your right to be self-assertive.

But when you do that, you’re in the orphan mentality, you’re in the level of thinking, and you are not in that place where God’s laws prevail as far as you’re concerned. You will not be having that experience of His laws prevailing.

Again, this requires self-discipline. Because your habit is to immediately refer to your best conditionings, your best thinking, your best concepts and a capacity you believe you have to express or use logic so clearly and so well that it will cause you to be utterly safe because the structures of the logic are impeccable and don’t allow for anything unlike it to enter in. This is a concept you have about the use of your mind and what your mind can accomplish by being so perfectly orderly.

And yet, all the time you’re engaged in energizing that and giving your attention to that, you’re not listening.

Now I understand, you’ve not been taught to listen. And you didn’t know that there was such a thing as the two-step or a holy instant. But now you do. And that makes all the difference in the world.

… in other words, it’s all you need. You don’t need the added impetus of your will added to the Father’s Will to make God’s Will be … be … to make God’s Will be. You don’t need to add your will. You see?

… the Holy Spirit …

Meaning, the Father. It’s true.

… which is the Holy Spirit—which is nothing more than your right Mind—what you might call, the part of your infinite Mind that you have disowned in your act of independence.

… your right Mind understands …

It knows how to restore it to you because it knows that its, I’m going to say for lack of better words, merging with your little private sealed off part of the totality of your mind will cause your mind, your Being to be experienced in its totality. You see?

And that’s how the Kingdom is restored. It’s your sanity being restored. It’s your whole mindedness being restored. We could say, it’s your mind allowing for the ultimately radical to be possible first, probable second, and incredibly different from the best creativity you have been able to come up with, which has amounted to acts of denying reality—acts of denying the Kingdom of Heaven—because you’ve been so busy giving your definitions to what God already defined. And your definitions have been different from the Father’s. You see?

Again:

… God’s …

… the Holy Spirit …

… with God.

The Holy Spirit, in reuniting your parceled off part of your mind with It—with the wholeness of your Mind, that which is nothing more than your right Mind—causes Reality to be your experience and causes you to be utterly aware of the fact that what God is constitutes the totality of you, and therefore, your radical holiness, we could say… the experience will be a radically different experience.

… in other words, stop going elsewhere—meaning your best thinking and so on. Stop going elsewhere …

… radical change again …

You know, it doesn’t say, “It’s nice to know that you can find His message in the holy instant, where all illusions are forgiven.” It doesn’t say, “It’s nice to know that.” It says, “Engage in something.”

You know where all illusions are forgiven? In the seeking and finding.

“Oh, I’ll find it in the holy instant.” No, you’ll find it in the seeking and finding. You see?

So this wonderful sweetness has a little substance to it, a little bite to it perhaps, because it calls for something:

… what happens?

“Oh-h … her gallbladder is almost totally eaten up by cancer. It’s impossible for her to recover. Maybe someday medical science will be able to grow her a new one quickly and replace it, but until then it’s impossible!”

I’m sorry that’s not radical thinking. That’s fatalistic thinking—there is no God in it.

… you see? This is radical. This is why you can’t afford, in the face of your conditioning, to look at the world situation or your immediate situation in all of its chaos or all of its turmoil or all of its suffering and sort of collapse on the floor and not make any room for any radical stand—the embrace of any radical claim that challenges the seeming actuality of the distress or the illness or whatever it might be. From there …

… but the only way …

… is for you to …

… where? Not in your best judgment, your best reasoning, your best thinking, your best logic but in the holy instant. In that place where you abandon your independence, you abandon your self-confidence and you say, “Father, I want to know the truth from You. I want the whole truth and nothing but the truth from Your perspective. And I’m giving up my attempts to come up with my best solution or my best definition. I yield. I seek only my place in the plan of atonement arising from Your Love. I don’t choose to seek my place on my own in my independent locality.” You see? It’s simple.

… two things …

More sweetness:

Well it’s the truth. But how many of you are having that experience, or how many of you in the experiences that you’re having, read this and find yourself hard-put to accept it or perhaps you are in such distress that you sarcastically laugh at it? I understand. But:

How do you have the experience? You engage in being radical. You engage in going against the status-quo. You be that which doesn’t fit in with the norm. You object to what everybody else is agreeing to. And you object to it by not leaning into your own understanding. You object to it by seeking and finding His message in the holy instant.

… meaning something more than avenues of usury and manipulation, where you “best” each other for purposes of gain at others’ expense.

See? Again:

In a way, you have to become like the Prodigal Son who has to become sick and tired of wasting his abundance, of wasting his wealth, of wasting his Birthright, where the thrill of the quest to be independently somebody is just not interesting to you anymore. And you’re willing to say, “Father, I want to know what Your perspective is because I want to come back into my right Mind. And I know that Your perspective is my perspective, if I don’t object to it. It’s built into me. It’s part of me. I’m too tired to continue aggressive independence.

Right? The screws are being tightened down here causing things to be very, very clear.

… what?

You’ve got to be willing to abandon your relationship with: Oh, your special thoughts. Oh, your special relationships. Oh, your special skills. Oh, your best capacity to manipulate people and make them serve you and make you be credible. You see?

Again, as we started out:

… in your relationship with God …

In order to find out that the chaos, the turmoil, the suffering, the lack, the illness that seems to be binding you is an illegitimate imposition upon a Son or Daughter of God, which means it is therefore not actual but a distorted perception of something that is actual, which is Creation Itself, which is flawless, absolutely pure flawless God embodied. In order to have that experience, you’ve got to be radical enough to challenge it.

When you get to the end of a day—and, let’s say, you’re perfectly well, you haven’t had a symptom of any problem of any kind for months, you’re in the “pink of health,” as they say … and you come to the end of the day—you, let’s say, have worked out in the yard, you’ve done a lot of things that were laborious (it was invigorating to you while you were doing it) you’ve come into the house, you’ve showered, you’ve had dinner, you’ve sat down and you say, “Wow, I deserve a rest … you know … and when it comes time to go to bed I’m going to sleep beautifully.”

Well, wait a minute! All of that seems very reasonable, but it’s far from radical thinking. It’s far from the radicalism that would be involved if you stopped right there and said, “Father, what is the truth here about this?” Because as a divine Idea of the Father expressed, you have no capacity to be exhausted. As it has been said, “God rests in action.”²

So, you see how easily you’re sucked in. It doesn’t even have to be a physical problem, it doesn’t have to be sin, sickness or death. But just a mindset that says, “You know, I’m not as capable now at eight o’clock in the evening as I was when I got up and started the day at eight o’clock in the morning.” Well, wait a minute, why not? You could be. You see? Contemplate it.

Now, here’s the prayer that amounts to the two-step and its meaning:

… Oh, independence abandoned … Oh-h.

… what?

That’s significant. That’s because in the holy instant when you’re in that place, God’s laws prevail. And illusions cannot enter where God’s laws prevail.

In other words, I accept my Birthright. I accept that I am Your expression, Your Son or Daughter. I accept that all there is to me is what You’ve embodied of Yourself in me as Me. And that You have withheld nothing of what You infinitely Are in what You have embodied in Me.

And when I have chosen to be in the holy instant where Your laws prevail.

… “well, I’m too busy taking care of things myself.” You see?

… temptation to what? Temptation to be angry. Temptation to be jealous. Temptation to take advantage of your Brother. Temptation … temptation … temptation.

Oh, that is so insulting to the orphan mindset—to the ego. Yet, what are you doing when you do that? You’re letting God’s laws prevail and radically change your experience of being, bringing you back into your right Mind.

You have available to you, every instant, to let each instant be the holy instant. You are not short-changed in any way from having the opportunity to practice the holy instant—instants are abundantly provided.

Now, remember what I said. Keep the word “radical” in your mind and remember that what we’re talking about is not “ho-hum,” average, casual fair for contemplation and discussion and stimulating camaraderie that is nothing but a distraction from actually seeking and finding His message in the holy instant, in which you will find something happening because God’s laws prevail. And God’s laws prevailing will cause your experience to change radically. That’s the promise and that’s the truth!

I look forward to being with you next time. And I will be with everyone as they practice the holy instant in support of your not forgetting to expect the radically new.

Okay.