Love's nature

Love's nature is to be known and shared as love.

You may hold thought of not-love and accept that in place of the guidance and joy of your own heart in love.

By this act you know love not - but suffer conflict, and pain of loneliness, where only Love is.

The love that Is, does not enter the conflict you make. Love can but 'Be and share Itself' and cannot be made into what it is not. In the belief that what you made has changed Love, you accept error at the foundation of your being because love is the foundation in which all is found.

You may think that you want the power of your own thought, to judge and define all according to its substitution for love, and while you persist, you are free to experience as your thinking gives you. But as you recognize this is not the fulfilment of your heart's desire, you are free to release what you made and allow Love to reclaim Its Own.

Always, by your own acceptance.

And so is Love free, even 'here' in the world of self-illusion.

Never, is Love coercive. When it seems love calls for sacrifice, look again and be not deceived by thoughts you made before. What is shown, is shown by the guide YOU ACCEPT. When you are ready to accept love as it is, you will no longer be willing to accept an asserted wish in place of simple willingness, and Love is welcomed - as it is - where it Is.

Never, are you locked into the mind you make but by an unexamined wish you accept as speaking for your love.

Love is not threatened, though the shared appreciation of Love is lost to thoughts that are of an unshared foundation.

Such a foundation acts out as if it is threatened - for it has no reality but yours - as you give it. And by this you believe you are threatened.

And so you keep this foundation hidden, lest you be undone of what you take for your being.

Now that you understand this is so, you bring willingness to be without defence amidst the experience of persecution and ask anew of the Guide that has not left you, and can never leave you. You ask in faith of love even where love seems denied or crucified - and thereby you believe and accept not, the insane foundation whereby Love seems to hurt and kill its own.

Persisting in renewed willingness for love, is denying the mind its capacities of distraction and defence, and so there will be an exposure or a coming to the surface of what had been hidden BY fear. But this is serving the opportunity to truly forgive your world and yourself - in the release of the thoughts that cause them to be experienced as distorted fragments of a broken love.

To be a part of is not to be apart from. The reflection of withheld thought is always fearful - even if it seemingly beautiful beyond measure, it will be held hostage to the fear of loss.

To be a complete beginner in love, is to let love lead the way. Whenever it becomes obvious that the mind is trying to push or pull love to its own thought, begin again.

To let God Be the Love that Lives you - is a matter of peaceful acceptance - whatever the apparent presentations or perceptions. God 'takes the last step' in a journey we cannot complete alone, because we come to realize that our first step away was but a thought accepted in error.

The 'journey' is the reversal or undoing of what was never really done.



In Peace

Brian 



 I wrote the above in commentary and response to reading the extract below from A Course in Miracles.


"You do not realize how much you have denied yourself, and how much God in His love would not have it so. Yet He would not interfere with you because He would not know His Son if he were not free. To interfere with you would be to attack Himself, and God is not insane. When you denied Him, you were insane. Would you have Him share your insanity? God will never cease to love His Son, and His Son will never cease to love Him. That was the condition of His Son's creation, fixed forever in the Mind of God. To know that is sanity. To deny it is insanity. God gave Himself to you in your creation, and His gifts are eternal. Would you deny yourself to Him?"            

                                

 ~ A Course in Miracles.
CHAPTER NINE : "THE CORRECTION OF ERROR"
XI. "The Denial of God"

To one who warned me of the traps of A Course in Miracles

A Course in Miracles seems to be a large book that can be read and perhaps - though not easily - understood. It was not designed to be intellectually understandable or accessible for it addresses the reader at a level behind or beyond such defences and strategies of self will. Yet the attempt to understand new wine in 'old bottles' persists, and yields frustration.

---

Everything in this world can be used against the sharing of love and thus seem to become a witness to a force or will that is false or evil - but in whose mind is this purpose active?
I celebrate your breaking free of an unquestioning following of the Course in Miracles - for the truth is not 'out there' - excepting that its welcome - (Truth's welcome) - is in our heart.
The Course is not originally intended to be used to set ourselves impossible goals - but to awaken the reader to that they are already doing so - and suffering the conflict and frustration of a split mind. So as to let it go.
The you that you think was misled and needs to protect itself from such danger is not you - but it is a sense of yourself that you have grown from image, thought and judgements. I do not attack this sense of yourself but merely invite you to look at it with me.
In the moments of sanity - you feel the peace and integrity of your being. In the times of self conflictedness you are tempted to seek for certainty amidst confusion - such as to put outside your mind the cause of what is troubling you. Thus conflict is shifted outside and a sense of yourself more oderly and in attempt to unify - is made within. But you will never be whole while it is chosen as your home.

It may well be that the A Course in Miracles book is no longer relevant as a tool or a path for you - but whatever path you do accept as a way of releasing the demand that the world serve your private need above all else - will be one in which you do not use IT to validate or prove you to yourself.
The release of this attempt allows God.
In God is a direct relationship - as Holy Spirit and as the Son or Creation revealed - not to thoughtful understanding but to your heart's knowing in silence.
This relationship is eternal - but in time is a step by step rewakening.
It is not the dream role that awakens.
It is you  - the dreamer who awakens - in the light of a pure awareness that is always present and from which you never can separate except in identifying with images and thoughts - in other words - imaginatively.

This email is a gift to yourself - both the one you sent - and my reply.
The one you sent is an expression of a teaching learning that you are in process of awakening through.
To see our 'self' in action is to shift to the perspective that isn't identified with the role we thought was our self.
This is a 'miracle' in that it doesn't operate within the laws that apply within the dream that we make for ourselves and others of how everything is and how it should be. It suddenly is free of these and opens to a different basis from which to live. Now it will be that whenever you live from this basis, your presence will in essence be a blessing, but it is not at all from any conscious sense of the world needing to be fixed. It is only our mind that has believed in loss of Light and Love and Peace. But this mind is simply wrong - not wrong as in punishable - but mistaken, misguided and missing the point.

The traps are never in the teaching - even if there were false teachings whose intent was to ensnare - the trap would still lie in the mind of the one who is not paying attention - and allows himself or herself to be persuaded of the reality of a form based meaning rather than the meaning of love.

Listen to your heart.
Listen to make sure it is your heart and not the chatter and confusion of your thought.
No one can take this away from you.
Nothing can take this away from you.
But in listening to and acting upon the confusion of our unevaluated thought - we experience ourselves as hurt, limitation and loss, from which arises a reaction of self protection.

The evaluation of our thought is the Holy Spirit - because of ourselves we cannot tell the true from the false - and often get them the wrong way round.
The Holy Spirit can be called anything or nothing - but in emptying yourself of the clutter and falsity of a mind involved only with itself, you will feel or know the stirring of a life that you did not make. It may seem to be thought or feeling or coincidence of event or meaning with persons or world - but it speaks to you and through you.

You are quite right to abandon a fruitless exercise - but the frustration is not the conclusion of the lesson - nor is placing responsibility onto A Course in Miracles a true path to resolving the sense of guilt you feel.

If you want to have opposition, then your will is done.
Because it isn't of God, you will have to do the work to maintain its reality for you - which must replace the awareness of God in your mind while you actively pursue your desire.

I tell you that this is not your true desire.
God must be your true desire.
For God is Truth.
Not excluding the truth of you.

(Postscipt 1)
"Let go and let God"
"Let go and let God Be you"
Yes - and as God is all that is truly be-ing you in this moment it is an allowing of what already Is - to Be (as it Is).
The 'let go' bit is the automatic result of truly seeing the mechanism of control for what it is.
The 'work' or hard part humanly is the willingness to look upon the ego rather than act according to its dictate.
This is like watching thoughts go past rather than becoming involved and distracted by them. Innocent perception can look on what would otherwise trigger fear and guilt and see or discern truth - which does not give rise to guilt or fear, (though our subsequent thinking about it may indeed trigger a blind spot and engage attention in distraction again.
The trap is always that of making an identity for oneself - whether out of spiritual or profane components.
When we experience the results of our false identity, we blame it on (insert scapegoat here).
The conviction that some thing or one or teaching is Truth is very likely if not always going to give rise to idolotry and a false sense of self because our images, symbols and concepts are at best reflections of truth - or Holy Spirit communication towards opening our mind to truth.

(Postscript 2) No ego - no problem?
Yes - when the problem seems to define or limit You - then the self-centric perspective is active.
When willingness re-aligns to truth, then wholeness replaces conflicting desires and the movement of being is expressed as actions or non actions - that bear or behold witness to wholeness.
The ego is quieted by truth as irrelevant. It doesn't matter whose ego it seems to be - if our peace is obscured then we are in a position to become willing to quiet the ego by our disregard. But the way of that is by giving our whole regard to the Living - or that which is revealed to our willingness for truth that we do not make,  can not control, and are totally dependent on.
In light of such a joy - we can discern limitation that before we were blind to but now are becoming responsible for.
We are responsible for what we think - or accept in our minds. But we are never to blame.
To accept the idea of blame is to starve ourselves of love.

(Postscript 3) To an expression of gratitude for this writing.

Yes. We meet in shared purpose and find ourselves in communication.
The ego perspective has a different purpose and 'finds' itself in forms that look like communication and may either seem devoutly following of - or oppose a teaching path of truth.
I felt to tell her she is right - for she cannot be wrong in her being - and I join with her in truth. In this context I offer correction for the error in what she is accepting in her own mind - not at the level of arguing 'teachings' and their 'meanings' - but in addressing to loss of peace and the restoration of sanity.
Because I was not identified with asserting or protecting the truth of A Course in Miracles, I do not need to react as if truth were attacked. How can Truth be attacked? It cannot - but colluding with the false will obscure the truth in our mind.
Though her mail is fearful in blaming teachings as false, there is much in it that is almost being shared with Holy Spirit that needs to come into the light to be undone or made clear. Sometimes we don't know how to ask - or are in a culture where speaking different from the accepted 'truths' is fearfully prohibited. So we only let it out in anger when we leave and slam the door - as a parting shot of self justification amidst a painful or emotional process of change.
This is just such an occasion where a human kindness may serve a greater good than to argue teachings.
I feel that our growing understanding of and awakening to the truth of what life is - and what we are - will from time to time occasion fundamental shifts in our awareness of mind that initiate a desire or need to shut down and back off.
If this becomes active, then panic and 'self survival' trample on and use - anyone and anything to maintain the separate self sense - and this does generate a sense of guilt - or love unworthiness - which is denied or hidden and at least partially offloaded onto God and Brother in such a way that isolates the heart in a private mind and a Lightless world of separation, conflict and density.
All that is needed is calm in which the truth can be felt.
For Truth is not the picture we make in fear - and when we let that realisation in - even as instants or steps of a 'little willingness' - we are awakened at least to a living path in which we can take our next step as a living step in which we grow in trust and our capacity of willingness and love.
It would be unwise to underestimate the capacity of the mind to deceive itself while the seed desire for a special self remains hidden.
My fellow man and woman are often helping me to become aware of - and to own - my hidden desire to be special. It is only when I see it as it is that I can also see that I do not want it. When I see it as the lens of the desire itself would have me see - I believe I do want it.
A Course in Miracles can be made a special relationship; a way to avoid a real relationship that shares from a prior wholeness.
But all such attempts to get for oneself are inherently self defeating - and break down. That's where we either seek and find another candidate for a special relationship (looking outside our self) - or open to truth because it is true.
I am grateful with you.


 in Love's blessing
Brian

Let guidance grow its expression by loosening your mind of rigidity

Clear guidance is known in peace - because peace is an undistorted receptivity that does not have an already asserted definition or problem in place - but is a willingness to put aside or release the interpretation of experience in the wholeness of trust.

Holy instants are called such (in A Course in Miracles) because even an instant of such active or practiced willingness allows a shift from the grip of the perspective of fear and control. They are also practical because the human mind actively defends its sense of control such that true insight is often only allowed an instant before the mind of 'me' is reasserted.

When we believe we are a mind in a body in a world that is untrustworthy or malign, we limit the truth to what can appear to us through the framework we ourselves have insisted and demand be true. No matter what it purports or seems to be - such a framework is all about ‘me’.

The mind in darkness that grows faith in light can be reached and guided within its experience of the world. It may at first believe it is to be protected and reinforced by a benign and active intervening God - and may well experience this as part of the process of opening to the light of truth. Yet after such instances of being 'protected' may come experience of being 'carried' through experience of travail - like being absolutely safe through an experience of apparent calamity rather than being saved from its appearance. Still further on may be the experience of Job - in which the intrinsic nature of the light excluding thought is experienced as calamity - without recourse to external remedy of recrimination.

To accept the atonement for oneself is to be undone in perfect love.

The awakening is but the natural expression of and appreciation of be-ing and in this writing seems to be a goal or alternative to an unnatural 'take' on being in which the mind experiences its own thought instead of direct appreciation of the truth. But this desire that seems to create an alternative 'truth' has become active as the current lens - excepting we refuse to use it.

The involvement of relationship as an act of faith and willingness is in human terms messy or chaotic - because it is not an experience of being in control, having the answer or even neccessarily being competent. But it is the willingness for peace as the condition in which truth of love and healing is served, made welcome, desired and joined with.

The Simplicity of Being.

What if everything were perfectly unfolding the awakening of love to its truth and nature – exactly as this life – but unrecognized?
What if everything that occurs is perfectly designed as an expression of Love to Love - awaiting recognition?
What if the only difference between the life in fear and hiding and the life of love sharing is acceptance of all as it simply is?

For who can hide within the acceptance of love?

Who can want to hide from out of the acceptance of love?

Non acceptance of love seems to be possible only because I asked love to wait.
By keeping a part of it I hid all of it.
Love waits where it is – while I play the drama of hiding.
In hiding, I am as a child with hands over my eyes – convinced that I cannot be seen.
But it is my own truth I hide from me – so I need but my own belief in hiding to make the desire.
Why would I choose this?
Because it was absolutely safe in the freedom of my being to choose to explore such thought.
There is no way thought can limit or define or oppose the Light in which all is as it is.
And no way to get truly lost – though the thought of lost-ness can be experienced to extremity.

Thoughts that are made from a place of hiding – witness and work to maintain the illusion.
Illusion is not a 'two dollar bill' – but works as substitution of appearance for the real.
Seeing the light in light, does not require anything to change except desire
In the light of Presence – thoughts of endarkenment do not serve my desire.
They may seem to want me to fight them.
But this is simply the residual desire to play alone in the dark.
The love of God in my heart is one with God.
Swimming in the pool is not different in principle from swimming in the ocean.

Discovering the support of my being in trust is not a way to survive more successfully in the dark.
The Light of my being is not the assurance that the divine will support 'my life in the world'.
To  attempt these is to dam the flow of awakening and to demand a greater alarm call.
For it simply answers my heart's call.
Awakening to the Real world – in which the light of Reality is accepted.
Peace becomes the nature of I, in knowing this heart's desire, in welcome – un hidden.

The light will bless – for such is the nature of light.
But it is this heart that is being homed – by abiding in the simplicity of being.