Teachings of Christ Mind

Good evening. And welcome to everyone who is joining us on the internet.

Well, most everyone found our last get together stimulating, to say the least. Setting thought in new directions. Setting attention in new directions.

We discussed the fact that there is no independence whatsoever. Everyone is either the puppet of the ego or the puppet of the Holy Spirit. Or as we said, the puppet of memory or the puppet of inspiration.

And since that get together, someone expressed the idea that they didn’t really like the idea or the use of the word, “puppet.” They didn’t like the idea of being the puppet of we’ll say, the Father or the Holy Spirit. They preferred to think of themselves as the reflection of God.

Now that’s a wonderful idea—that’s a wonderful thought. But it leaves something essential out of the picture in this way: If you see yourself as the reflection of God, then you can say, “I, as the reflection of God, am this or that.” “I, as the reflection of God, can expect to have healing where I couldn’t have when I didn’t know I was a reflection of God.”

You can speak of yourself and what is true about you as a reflection of God but that isn’t being the reflection of God, that’s you thinking about and conceptualizing being the reflection of God.

Now, in the most practical of terms, here’s the difference: If you are the puppet of God and if you accept that as a fact, that you’re either the puppet of God—the puppet of the Holy spirit—or the puppet of the ego, then you know you have to make a choice between which teacher you’re going to use. And when you make the choice you’re going to have to what? Listen to that teacher. Which means that you’re going to have to shut up. In other words, the one who says, “I as a reflection of God am this or that or the other thing,” that has to shut itself up. Did you ask of the Holy Spirit or the Father, if you as the reflection of God were this that or the other thing?

You see, you can think spiritual thoughts without engaging in the connection with God that makes you the puppet of the Father which causes you to give voice to—not your best thinking—but the Father’s Perspective, the Father’s Words, the Holy Spirit’s words. You see?

As a reflection of God you may or may not hear anything except your best thoughts about what being a reflection of God is. You see?

And so you can believe that you are on the right track because you know you’re a reflection of God, when you’re not on the right track at all, because the intimate connection with the Father wherein you hear His Voice and choose to give expression to His Perspective occurs. You see? That’s where the actuality of it is.

You are the puppet of one of two teachers. There is no place where you are not a puppet, but are an independent free agent. God did not create you with free will to be on your own, on your terms, using your imagination and giving definition to everything yourself.

That is the fundamental mistaken belief. And the only way to get past that is to recognize that since there is no independent place and you are a puppet of one of two teachers, then you must choose the teacher you’re going to follow … you must. That becomes clearer and it helps motivate you to make the choice and to make it with commitment.

Now I gave clues to this when I was present on Earth. If you remember, I told my disciples, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”¹ Now, why would I say that? I said it to convey the fact that what was present and presenting Itself where I was, was the Father and not Jesus’ memory, not Jesus’ background, not Jesus’ thoughts. You see? If you have seen me, you have seen the Father, because in actuality the Father is all there is to the presence called “You.”

That was my task, because that’s my function. And that is your function.

Now in the Garden of Gethsemane, I said in so many words, “Father, if this cup can pass from me …”² In other words, if I don’t have to go through this I would prefer it, but nevertheless, thy Will be done. You see?

In other words, the bottom line was yielding to the Father. Letting myself be the presence of what the Father intended to be out of Love for His Sons and Daughters at that moment. I let myself be the unequivocal puppet.

Now that wasn’t the only moment. At every moment during what everyone calls “my ministry,” that is what I was doing. That is what I was Being. And I was setting the example.

Now you have the same task in front of you.

Now we must understand what the Holy Spirit is, because the Holy Spirit is one of the two teachers. The one sentence, the one important sentence that didn’t make it intact into the revisions of the Course but which was present in the dictation to Helen was, “The Holy Spirit is nothing more than your right Mind.”

Now I’ve described that when you got a divorce from the Father, when you said, “But Father, I’d rather see it my way,” you abandoned the infiniteness of you—the omnipresence, the omniscience of you—and in effect you circumscribed infinity and said, “This little part of It is me … this is the new definition of me.” And you excluded everything else as not you. And suddenly you were finite. Suddenly you were limited. Suddenly you were experiencing guilt and fear because you can’t help but be fundamentally uncomfortable when you’re in a state of self-denial.

Now I’ve explained that everything on the outside of this circumscribed area that you are now describing or defining as you, everything else—the rest of the infiniteness of you—became what is called, “The Holy Spirit.” That’s why the Holy Spirit is nothing more than your right Mind. The Holy Spirit is your Teacher. And the Holy Spirit’s function, just as mine is, is to reveal to you and disclose to you the Father’s Will. Why? Because It insists upon bringing you back into your right Mind. And in your right Mind, you are the presence of the Father’s Will in action Being the Movement of Creation.

Now I would ask you why would you not want to be the puppet of the Holy Spirit, if the Holy Spirit is nothing more than your right Mind? Why would you not want to be absolutely governed by the absolute puppet of your right Mind—your infinite right Mind—if that constituted you being sane and nothing else did?

You see? That makes it clear doesn’t it.

To this bound off little area of the infiniteness of you and the vulnerable perceptions that are experienced there, your yielding up your autonomy feels insane. Because it takes everything you have to keep a sense of order when you’re doing it all by yourself. And your belief is that if you abandon that you will collapse, chaos will ensue, order … whatever degree of order you are experiencing will be lost, and the very essence of you will disappear. And it’s not true.

What is true about you has already disappeared by virtue of your blocking it off and saying, “Here I am and I’m the puppet of no one and there is everything else and it’s not me.”

And so you’re living an untruth without knowing it. You have created for yourself an ego—a tiny separated sense of self. And you know what? As you have spent time in this separated off sense of self, you have not done it alone. You have done it with others who had the same goal and who are now experiencing the same vulnerability and the same need for self-defense and all of you together have established mutual agreements and definitions as to how things work. Each of you has created an ego for yourselves—structures of thought, structures of concepts, structures of beliefs—all of which you use to maintain a sense of relative peace or to use to regain peace when you lost it. You create an ego for yourself and everything you do is scripted.

You think you’re being original but everything you do is an expression of the decisions and the agreements and the definitions that you have put into place. And every single word that comes out of your mouth in one way or another, expresses the script of those ego structures. The script could be you being “Mr. Nice Guy.” Or as many of you know, you do employ different scripts at different times of the day. At one time of the day the script is one of a parent. At another time of the day, it’s the script of an employer. At another time of the day, it’s the script of a mate or a partner.

And you have rules that you abide by. “Mr. Nice Guy” has lots of rules of etiquette—of proper behavior. You see? And so you’ve created an ego for yourself.

Now the interesting thing, if I may put it that way, is that these structures govern what you see. They become a sieve through which life arrives at your attention, causing you to see according to the script you’re using. And so when you look at your Brother, you have a script for your Brother. The Course says that you created an ego for yourself and your Brother. You see? That’s how you do it. You have a script for yourself depending upon who you are supposed to be at any given moment. And that script governs how you see the world and it causes you to create an ego for your Brother or your Sister or your spouse or your parents or your children. And you will lock them into your definition and it will cause you to see what you have decided to see no matter what they’re doing.

So this simply elaborates on what we discussed last time … the fact that the questioner and the question are an illusion. The “you” has an ego and the egos it creates for everyone else and the made up definitions that get applied to Creation—all of these things are illusions. The illusions are the result of following the teacher—the ego—instead of following the Teacher, the Holy Spirit. You think you’re being original. You think you’re being creative. But it’s all going on through the sieve of the structures of belief that you are employing—the imaginative made up, artificial, untrue ideas. And you, if you are a student of the Course, are beginning to become aware that there’s another way to look at this.

Now let’s understand a little more about the Holy Spirit because students of the Course very often refer to the Holy Spirit in a very loose way that’s very misleading.

You have a problem and you say, “I turned it over to the Holy Spirit.” Or a friend and an acquaintance of his are having a great disagreement and you say, “I turned them over to the Holy Spirit.” Well gee, how dandy! What in the heck does that mean, you turned them over to the Holy Spirit? Is the Holy Spirit like a mail box where you send dysfunctional situations so that somehow they can be magically dealt with?

No. Look, here’s a clearer way to understand those words. When you are confronted by someone or something that is exhibiting problems and their behavior is a call for correction, you can turn them over to the Holy Spirit by not turning them over to your best judgment. In other words, instead of trying to figure out how to solve the problem by your independent “goody-two-shoes self,” you can do the two-step. You can shut up the goody-two-shoes self. And in the silence, turn to the Holy Spirit. You see? Turn it over to the Holy Spirit by turning your attention to the Holy Spirit and inquiring, “What is the truth here?”

Turning it over to the Holy Spirit is not a way of becoming relieved of having to be involved or having to be an active part of the correction of the problem. You turn it over to the Holy Spirit by turning your attention to the Holy Spirit and saying, “What is the truth here?” and letting your right Mind be, if I may put it this way, the hand with the strings that are attached to the wonderful puppet that you are so that you can hear the truth and give Voice to the Truth and be the Presence that heals. You see?

The Holy Spirit isn’t something “out there,” some wonderful fatherly presence, or brotherly presence who will help you not have so many problems if you will simply ask. No. The Holy Spirit is the Presence of Mind that is your right Mind which, when you embrace it without resistance, consumes you, overwhelms you completely with Itself, which is your right Mind and is therefore, your Self in its total Sanity being able to be the illumined Presence of Mind that is the Love of God which transforms and heals the situation. You see?

You don’t want to find ways to somehow have the benefits of the Truth without ever having to give your attention to It, invite It in and yield to It completely. That is what it’s about. That is what the Course is teaching. You see?

I know … everyone is used to going “willy-nilly” along their way having care-free fun with care-free thoughts thinking that they are experiencing freedom when every single care-free thought is a scripted thought carrying out instructions, I will say, that embody a concept of you that you are trying to create and maintain and establish and turn into a real you.

That’s the orphan mentality. That’s the ego mentality. And it’s all made up. It is all invalid. There is no such you!

Every single one of you has experiences that demonstrate to you that it isn’t you. And those experiences are what you call “inspiration”—sudden inputs of insight that go beyond anything you had embraced before that involve divinity, for lack of better words. You don’t have any other way to describe it to yourself. And that penetration of the divine into your current mindset—your current orphan mindset—is a demonstration of the fact that indeed there is another way to look at this. And you can specifically choose for it. And you need to.

Now this is being made explicitly clear. And as you embrace it and you dare to more consistently say, “Father, what is the truth here? Holy Spirit, what is the truth here?” and you listen for the Answer before you express anything, much less your best judgments, you will have the Answers coming more and more fluidly even though it’s halting in the beginning. And your new behavior, your choice—your conscious choice—for the Teacher that’s nothing more than your right Mind, that will transform you, and it will leaven the whole lump of mankind that doesn’t yet think there’s another way to look at this.

And this is important. And it’s worth engaging in. But you won’t engage in it until it really registers with you that you are not independent, you are the puppet of one of two teachers. You see?

You think there’s no penalty for being your wonderful independent self. Because you don’t know there’s an alternative and you don’t know that this wonderful independent self is an illusion, which is accompanied by sin, sickness and death. And therefore, you don’t realize that there’s a choice that can release you from those three things and return your Sanity to you … and your peace and your vital aliveness to Creation.

This is very important! It is very practical good news.

It really doesn’t do a lot of good to talk about A Course in Miracles. It doesn’t really do a lot of good to talk about the “Raj materials,” because they mean nothing if they’re not moving you to a place of making a choice—a choice to abandon the unoriginal scripted life that you have been living and you didn’t know you had an alternative to.

The benefit is too great. The detriment is too great. And the detriment is a useless meaningless side-trip that in the end has never affected the holy Son or Daughter of God that you Are. And has never affected Creation that all of you are calling “the material world and universe” and which you see through the lens of your definitions and which, as you are aware, also seem to embody sin, disease and death. You see? Deterioration, entropy, positive and negative polarizations … and on and on and on … this is the way it looks through the scripts you’ve written and adopted that govern what you see.

And you know what? You want to come back into your right Mind. You want to be dominated. You want the imaginary you to be over ruled by the Holy Spirit—that is your right Mind—because it’s the end of illusions and it’s the return of the experience of the glory of God that is inseparable from you in your right Mind … recognizing God in everything.

When you do that, you abandon the ego and you—you don’t overcome it, you don’t destroy it, you abandon the ego in you. And you also abandon the egos that you created for others and release them, which makes it so much easier for them to release themselves from the ego they created for themselves. It’s the way you witness for your Brother and your Sister and confirm the truth. And that is healing.

So let’s stay attentive and let’s stay grounded and let’s stay practical. And let’s not get airy-fairy and, “Oh, I’m the reflection of God.” Well, you know what, you’re not the reflection of God until you’ve turned to God and you’ve asked of God, “What is the truth here?” and you hear God’s Voice and you give voice to It instead of giving voice to yourself. You see?

Now there is one way in which you could say you are the reflection of God and that is in the sense that the word is used when you say, “He watched the incredible sunset and continued to sit there after it was over reflecting upon it.”

Reflection is a Movement of Mind, and you are the reflection of God. You are an Idea of God in the Mind of God. You are the Presence of His Mind moving. And in that way you are God’s reflection. But in order for that to be actualized you have to be willing to open up to that awareness—God’s Reflection.

“What is the meaning of me? What am I God, as you are seeing/being me. I want the experience—not the idea, not the words—I want the experience. I’m happy to abandon all of my concepts and all the pictures I have in my mind and all the rules of what’s true about me that I’ve been making everything fit into. I’m willing to abandon all of that for the experience of what I am as Your Reflection—as the reflection, the activity of your Mind being me. I am happy to be the puppet of the Movement of Your Mind by accepting that I am Your Mind expressed and expressing Itself. And I no longer choose to try to initiate and practice a contrary concept, viewpoint, perspective and so on.”

This is the truth.

I love you all. And I look forward to being with you next time.