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Quite a long time ago, I shared the idea that questions are the leading edge of answers. And just recently, I shared the idea that when you are seeking Guidance—when you are inquiring of the Holy Spirit or your Guide or the Father, “What the truth is here?” or asking any question, that you should treat the question like a grace note. You ask the question and you get off of it quickly and shift your attention to listening for the Answer.
If indeed, the question is the leading edge of the Answer, it means that the emergence of inspiration is occurring, and let’s say, tickling your fancy, causing you to be curious. And so, when you bring your curiosity onto the scene, you are primed for the emergence of the Answer, which is in process of coming to mind to your awareness.
Now the tricky thing about it is, that when the emergence of inspiration is occurring and curiosity is experienced, it seems as though what you’re curious about is what is important. In other words, that the question is what is important. And even more, it suggests that there is someone asking the question, as though you, having a question, are initiating a movement out of which will come some new information. In other words, the suggestion is that you, as the questioner, are causing an answer to come forth rather than the fact which is, that an Answer coming forth is getting your attention so that you might become curious without becoming preoccupied with yourself as the questioner, or the question. So that the “ah-ha!”—the light bulb, can go on and the inspiration can be experienced—the Revelation—the clearer experience of truth can register with you. You see?
This is important.
God has not created you as an independent entity capable of functioning on its own of its own volition, and with capacities included within you causing you to supposedly function with total independence from anything. That is not … that is not what God did and that is not what you Are.
Infinite Mind, God—the Movement of inspiration—is what causes Creation … is Itself the Movement of Creation. You are here to observe It and recognize It for what It is, and not assume that you caused It or that you can take credit for It in any way other than, that you have fulfilled your Function, which is to recognize God in It.
So you see, there is no “you” as a questioner. You can imagine that there is, but there isn’t, because inspiration is eternal and it occurs for you to experience–not for you to think you have initiated. Now whether you recognize it or not, when it is accepted, when it is grasped, it is a great relief, because it means you’re not responsible for anything that you can be guilty for not handling well. There is no you of the sort that could be at fault.
You have a wonderful opportunity as the very nature of your Being to be in the flow—in the Movement of inspiration dawning … dawning … dawning … dawning … dawning, and you recognizing God in it … God in it … God in it. You see? You will find that when you let that be your function—which it is—but when you let it be your only function, sin, disease and death, dissonance, chaos, negativity of all kinds will stop seeming to present themselves to you.
The only thing that ever caused them to show up in your experience was you taking credit–you, thinking you were the initiator, or you were the one able to pose a question, the answer to which would change everything–change the world, contribute to the world, make a huge difference that would prove to you your value and your validity. You see?
Now when you realize that the question is not really a question, but a niggling awareness of something new about to present itself and that there is no questioner at all initiating the answer—initiating the revelation, what happens? Do you disappear? Absolutely not!
Oh-h, but the fear—the anxiety associated with the responsibility of being in charge yourself … that disappears. And together with that, the apparent physical effects that seem to accompany fear: self-doubt, self-criticism, self-judgment … that disappears.
Now, there is a flip-side, you might say, to this. When you’re experiencing a problem, there seems to be a problem that you need to address and there seems to be a “you” who has the problem. And just as with questions and the questioner, the problem and the one with the problem are illusions. But if you don’t recognize it, you can end up being snared—caught in the dilemma of being the one with the problem that maybe, you won’t be able to cope with, that maybe, will be too big for you to master.
But the key lies in not finding a way to master the problem. It isn’t for you, as the one with the problem, to find a way to master the problem. The answer lies in recognizing that the problem and the “you” who you think you are, that has the problem, are misperceptions—are illusory. In other words, as anyone who has studied metaphysics or spirituality knows, these things are said to be not real … which in many cases seems to be an unreasonable statement.
But they are not Real. Because when you abandon the stance of being one with the problem that must solve the problem, when you are willing to take a look at that and say, “Maybe this perception of a problem and this perception of a ‘me having the problem’ isn’t real,” you have a means of exit from the strangle-hold the problem has on you because you can at least conceive that there’s an “outside” of the problem that you can step into.
Just as with the fact that when you realize that the question is not what is important, and the questioner isn’t what is important, but that the Answer that is emerging is the only thing going on. Likewise, the “you” with the problem and the problem are not you and are not your perspective, even though you have claimed them as yours and believe that they are yours and believe that it is truly you having the experience and being responsible for it.
And it’s not true. Because if you will be willing to at least imagine that at the moment you seem to be embroiled in the problem, it is just a perception, just a mind-set, just a stance you have taken, you can conceive that you can abandon the stance.
And when you abandon it, do you disappear? No. Just as you don’t disappear when you stop claiming to be the questioner and you stop seeing the question as the initiator of answers, you find yourself to be in the pristine place of innocence and invulnerability. You see?
It all depends on what you’re going to let be your teacher. To what do you turn to learn? Well, this can be a sticky question also.
Do you get up in the morning and look out the window to see the weather, to see what kind of day you’re going to have? Do you get up in the morning and check the associated press releases on your phone or turn on the TV to find out what’s going on in the world so you might know how you should feel?
What do you let inform you about yourself? What do you use to determine who you are, what you are and how you must feel? Do you let the world inform you about you? Or do you do the two-step. Do you turn to the Holy Spirit to learn and inquire, “What is the truth here?” So the truth dawning in you informs your world as to what it is—what it divinely is—so that you might learn the truth of that Teacher and enjoy your day and see the Father illuminated more and more clearly so that you’re able to fulfill your function of recognizing God in your world.
Now we’ve talked about the two teachers a lot. And usually, the two teachers have been referred to as the ego and the Holy Spirit. But tonight I want to use two different words that will bring home the meaning more fully.
The two teachers and the only two teachers you have to turn to are memory or inspiration. The only two teachers there are that you can gather anything from, are memory and inspiration.
Inspiration you can have no control over whatsoever. Inspiration happens, doesn’t it. And I will tell you that it happens whenever you let it. It doesn’t seem to happen often because you don’t invite it, you don’t let it. You don’t realize that that is the Movement of Creation. That is the Movement of the infinite Mind that is God that informs Reality called, “Creation.”
But it’s a fact. But in order to experience inspiration you must be willing to lose your balance, you must be willing to be out of control. You must be willing to ALLOW what is Real to register with you because you’ve asked to know what it is. And you have declined to search through memory—your memory—to find out what the Answers are. You see?
These are really the meanings of what “the two teachers” mean.
Now, in spite of the truth of what I’ve said, most of you do let yourselves be informed by your world. And your world seems to be reporting to you chaotic, destructive, inconsistent, unloving actions and events.
And Oh-h … does it get to you! It depresses you or it makes you furious or it makes you feel like getting up on your hind feet and making something happen to correct it. It makes you try to take control.
But you see, what you have seen and the effect it had on you is not because your world has informed you, but because you have turned to memory and all of the meanings you have assigned to the world and all of the mutual agreements and rules that you have put into place that you rely upon absolutely in order to try to be in charge and keep a reasonable amount of order in place so that you will not be overcome by chaos and fear and sin, sickness and death. It’s that simple.
Now, here’s the part that needs to be understood very simply and very clearly. The you who has looked out at the world, the you who has turned to his or her memory in order to determine the meaning of the world he or she has looked out at, that one is an illusion—is an imaginary character! And you, who are employing that stance, have not yet truly seen the world, even though you’ve observed it to try to gather information about how you are, about how safe you are, and so on.
You are not an illusion. You are actual. But You are the conscious awareness of Being, the presence of Mind, which has only the capacity to be conscious of what Is. And what Is, is what God is Being. And part of God being All includes you recognizing God in All. You see?
It is as though you are the confirmation of Creation. It is as though you are the act of confirming Creation for what it is … by what? having asked of God what the truth is. And having asked of God because there is a niggling question [chuckling] that is occurring in you!
Now the niggling question may be occurring because you’re in distress and in so many words something in you says, “There must be a better way than this.” Where did that thought come from? It didn’t come from your memory. It came from the insistence of the Holy Spirit—that which is nothing more than your right Mind—insinuating the wholeness of You into your present limited awareness. It’s your salvation releasing you from an unreal bondage—an imagined bondage.
Now, when you arrive at this point where you seem to be caught and overwhelmed and hopeless in a problem, and you look squarely at the possibility that what I’m saying is true, and that the you that seems to be experiencing this, and whatever it is that you’re experiencing are an illusion, you’re likely to think, “Well that means I’m totally insane. It means that I am possessed by another presence … not me. And I am possessed by it so completely that I think it’s me, and I have no inclination to seek any other perspective. Now, if that’s not the definition of crazy, I don’t know what it is. And that scares me.”
You see, that line of thought could occur and cause you to stay bound. But I will reaffirm to you something you need to know. And that is, that separate and apart from your present fixation on a sense of self with a problem, and a problem that aren’t actually Real, is like an idea in the mind of you having the idea, and the you that is having the idea is not the idea. You see? Therefore, you can abandon the idea. You can abandon the idea in preference to saying, “Father, what is the truth here?” You see?
Now another aspect of all of this is, that the you who has the problem is not going to be able to work its way out of the problem, because the you that has a problem is imagined. It is an imagination and it’s not you. That’s how come you can escape from it. You see? That’s why you can escape from it. And that’s why you have A Course In Miracles to explain these things so that you might realize that the way Home is already predetermined, set in place for you because you are not what you think you are. You are divine, and every aspect of your Being is absolutely divine, invulnerable, absolutely perfect. And this perfect presence of Mind that you Are, is untouched at the very moment that you feel caught by a problem, or even overwhelmed by a question that you think there might be an answer to that you could figure out.
The you who has the capacity to Know exists untouched by the imagined self who has a problem, or who has a question … and who knows so much about the problem or so much about the question that it seems that an answer is absolutely impossible. And as a result of that conviction, locking yourself into the problem or the question without an answer, and all of it because you think that you are the questioner and that you are the one who has the problem and that you are responsible for only having questions or problems [chuckles] without answers. You see?
To what do you turn to learn … memory or inspiration?
So what do you do? You feel frightened. You feel tense. You feel grief-stricken. You feel misunderstood. You feel disrespected when you deserve respect. Well, wait a minute … where did those feelings come from? “Well, I don’t know where they came from, but I’m experiencing them. I am sad. I am angry. I do have hurt feelings. I have been mistreated” … and on and on and on.
Well, wait a minute … there isn’t any you who stands in the middle of problems and solutions, or questions and answers. There isn’t any you that stands between the Holy Spirit and an ego that you are. You see? You don’t have an independent valid place from which to be or do anything. But you imagine that you do.
In other words, at any given moment, a teacher is teaching you something. You are never in an independent place where you’re not being taught by something other than who you think you are. If you are experiencing fear or distress of any sort, or jealousy, or self-righteousness, a teacher is providing you with those dynamics, and of course, we have referred to it as the ego. And I have pointed out in the past that the ego never says, “You are feeling this way, or you are hurt, or you are upset.” The ego, we’ll say, in your mind says, “I am hurt. I am upset. I am feeling appropriately self-righteous.” You see? And you hear the words that a teacher is presenting to you and you hear them as though you are speaking them in your mind. And you claim ownership of something that a teacher is providing you with.
Is the Holy Spirit revealing to you the spirit of fear? No! But something is. And it’s not an independent experience you are having all by your little self, separate and apart from a teacher called the ego, or the teacher called the Holy Spirit.
I’m sorry to hurt your feelings and to tell you that you just don’t exist that way at all. You don’t exist with any independent, self-initiated selfhood. You are always being taught. You are always giving voice to a teacher. In other words, you are a puppet no matter what. And you’re either a puppet of your memory or you are a puppet of the inspiration of Being that is the Movement of the Mind of God called Creation. You see?
Pay attention to this: You’re never having a thought of your own. You are never having a thought of your own. Get used to the idea. Accept it. Acknowledge it. And that will release you. It will cause you to allow yourself to be what you Are—the puppet of the Father, the Expression of the Father, reflecting everything that the Father is Being, not initiating anything on your own. And in that experience is your salvation, your atonement, your Awakening.
Acknowledge and accept it as a precept that you have no ideas by yourself. As long as you think you do, and based upon your memory and the rules that you’ve set up there, you will believe that having thoughts of your own validates you and you will not be so willing to abandon that right—that so-called right—in favor of being the reflection of the wholeness, the infiniteness of the Movement of God.
Now again, you will never work your way out of the problem. In other words, you will never improve.
You can’t get to the truth from the bottom up. The emergence of Truth, the emergence of Reality, the emergence of Salvation, the emergence of Revelation is always from the top down. And the top-down movement is called inspiration.
When and if you are so caught by the morbid or negative energy of a distorted ego viewpoint, or orphan mentality—that which is separated from all that makes it valid—you must remember to stop trying to improve yourself and to engage in the two-step, address the situation at the top, “Father, Holy Spirit, what is the god’s honest truth here? I’m willing to abandon what the other teacher is teaching me. In fact, I insist upon it.”
The rules of memory, because you formed them by yourself and in tandem with others governs you absolutely. They are laws that cause you to say, “No, no I am so miserable I do not want to seek the Truth right now. No, I have been so badly wronged I refuse to get into a place where I might experience love or forgiveness or a non-judgmental practicality that allows me to deal with the situation constructively and harmoniously while correction is brought about. You see?
When you seem caught you must insist upon first of all recognizing that a teacher is teaching you and these thoughts and feelings are not your thoughts and feelings, the divine one that you Are. And then stop validating them by insisting upon turning to the Father, changing teachers with commitment. It will take purpose. It is appropriate to be ongoingly consistent in your insistence upon seeking the answer from God’s Teachers.
That’s the only way you can switch teachers, when you’re so upset or unhappy or fearful that you say it is hopeless to ask what is the truth here, that it’s hopeless to turn to God. “Well, nobody else has turned to God and made it!” Hey, don’t make commitment to that attitude. Don’t let that attitude rule you with the same kind of insistence and determination. Switch teachers! “Father, what is the divine fact here that uncovers the Truth—the perfect invulnerable Self that I Am at Your hand.” You see? But do it with the same amount of commitment that you bring to your willingness—your stubborn willingness—to govern yourself by the negativity you’re feeling.
Abandon your faith in the teacher that is teaching you to DIE. Amen.
I love you all. And I look forward to being with you next time.
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