The Secret is not really a Secret anymore Here are the keys to understanding the SecretA Story by Niccolo` Van Vechten I'm sure everyone by now has heard of the Secret. The Secret is not really a Secret since it been around since the creation of the Universe. The individuals kept it a Secret because they wanted power;
I'm sure everyone by now has heard of the Secret. The Secret is not really a Secret since it been around since the creation of the Universe. The individuals who were aware of it and applied it back then also kept it a Secret because they wanted power; control. Today most everyone is aware of the Secret. What many people don't know is how to truly apply the Secret to create abundance in their life or think its a genie in a bottle. I will now explain what the Secret is; how to apply it. The Secret is simply the Law of Attraction which states: That which is like unto itself , is drawn. This is an Immutable Universal Natural Law that will impact you weather you're aware of it or not, weather you agree with it or not. Most people create through default or let others create their reality for them instead of creating you own reality. The power is with you to create your own experience. The Second Law is the Science of Deliberate Creation which states: That which I give thought to and which I believe or expect- is. To put it more simply You Are What You Think; Attract What You Emotionalize for better or worse. Your attitude towards life itself will determine you overall well being. Most people suffer from the Genie in the bottle syndrome and expect instant results in exactly the way they thought it and become disappointed when it fails work out. Just Thinking it, Wishing it, Praying for it doesn't make it so. Its the emotion/believe along with the thought that will eventually make it manifest. There's always a buffer period of time when you launch your intention until it actually manifests. This works both positively; negatively. The manifestation will be appear to you subtly; unexpectedly as opportunities for you to take advantage of that will lead you towards your intention. Many people miss this because they fail to trust their intuition. Trust Your Intuition !! The Third Law is the Art of Allowing which states: I am that which I am, and I am willing to allow all others to be that which they are. To put in simply Another person or event can't be apart of your experience unless you invite them in through your emotionalized thoughts. Be the change you want others to be. Your emotions are like a guidance system telling you weather you're on course or not with your intentions. Positive emotions tell you that you're on the right course. Negative emotions tell you that you off course. Simply change your thoughts and monitor your feelings to bring you back on course. Even the most rational humans experience feelings even if the like to deny it. It starts as a thought/idea and manifests through your emotions. Creating the intention When you hold an intention to create something new in your life, such as a career change, a new relationship, or better health, at first you may see no results at all. But as you continue to hold the intention, eventually it does begin to manifest, sometimes almost miraculously. A key to the intention-manifestation model is that you must keep your thoughts focused on what you want and avoid thinking about what you don't want. Even if you're skeptical about the power of intention, it shouldn't be hard to see that a disciplined mind brings benefits. A key to the intention-manifestation model is that you must keep your thoughts focused on what you want and avoid thinking about what you don't want. Even if you're skeptical about the power of intention, it shouldn't be hard to see that a disciplined mind brings benefits. What determines the goals you set (or don't set) is your context. Your context is your collection of beliefs and values. So if the values of money and freedom are part of your context, you might be inclined to set a goal to start a new business. It seems too overwhelming to think about making a big change and sticking with it every day for the rest of your life when you're still habituated to doing the opposite. The more you think about the change as something permanent, the more you stay put. Self-discipline is one of many personal development tools available to you. Of course it is not a panacea. Nevertheless, the problems which self-discipline can solve are important, and while there are other ways to solve these problems, self-discipline absolutely shreds them. Self-discipline can empower you to overcome any addiction or lose any amount of weight. It can wipe out procrastination, disorder, and ignorance. Just as everyone has different muscular strength, we all possess different levels of self-discipline. Everyone has some �" if you can hold your breath a few seconds, you have some self-discipline. But not everyone has developed their discipline to the same degree. Just as it takes muscle to build muscle, it takes self-discipline to build self-discipline. The way to build self-discipline is analogous to using progressive weight training to build muscle. This means lifting weights that are close to your limit. Note that when you weight train, you lift weights that are within your ability to lift. You push your muscles until they fail, and then you rest. Similarly, the basic method to build self-discipline is to tackle challenges that you can successfully accomplish but which are near your limit. This doesn't mean trying something and failing at it every day, nor does it mean staying within your comfort zone. You will gain no strength trying to lift a weight that you cannot budge, nor will you gain strength lifting weights that are too light for you. You must start with weights/challenges that are within your current ability to lift but which are near your limit. Progressive training means that once you succeed, you increase the challenge. If you keep working out with the same weights, you won't get any stronger. Similarly, if you fail to challenge yourself in life, you won't gain any more self-discipline. Similarly, if you're very undisciplined right now, you can still use what little discipline you have to build more. The more disciplined you become, the easier life gets. Challenges that was once impossible for you will eventually seem like child's play. As you get stronger, the same weights will seem lighter and lighter. Don't compare yourself to other people. It won't help. You'll only find what you expect to find. If you think you're weak, everyone else will seem stronger. If you think you're strong, everyone else will seem weaker. There's no point in doing this. Simply look at where you are now, and aim to get better as you go forward. Actions, not words, reveal beliefs. If you want to understand what you truly believe, observe your actions. This may take some courage to do, but if you follow the trail of your actions, it will lead you to a more congruent belief system. And once there you can begin consciously moving towards new beliefs that empower you, while your actions and beliefs remain congruent along the way. But you'll make no progress as long as you claim to believe one thing but consistently act in violation of it. Most people in such a situation will spend time trying to get their actions to better reflect their so-called beliefs… and meet with nothing but frustration. I say first get your beliefs in line with your actions and reach the point of being totally honest with yourself, doubts and all. Then you'll find it far easier to move forward. Don't be afraid to do this �" no divine being is going to smite you for being honest with yourself. And if one ever happens to show up, you always have me to use as a scapegoat. Although it can be a bumpy ride (it certainly was for me), you'll come out the other end a far more integrated and empowered human being. Internal incongruencies absolutely cripple us, forcing us to live on only a fraction of our potential. When our actions and beliefs are in conflict, we can't think as well. We become less intelligent and less resourceful �" easily manipulated by others. We have no clarity at all, and we can't seem to get moving in a consistent direction. We're like a rudderless ship, being tossed around by the waves. Congruency is clarity. When you get clear about what you truly believe about reality by observing your actions and admitting the deepest, darkest truths to yourself that you never wanted to face, you'll set yourself on a path of growth that will put all your earlier accomplishments to shame. Once you figure out what it will really cost to achieve your goal, you can then decide whether you're willing to pay that price or not. Often we fail to achieve goals quickly because deep down we feel the price is too high, but we don't want to accept that. So we try to cheat by under committing resources, hoping the goal can be achieved with far less effort. Soul energy is creative consciousness. I want you to remember that because it is of high priority that all of your conscious memories are constant within the soul consciousness. Each life time you go into, or you reincarnate into, or are placed into, or walk into, life consciousness. There are many ways in which you can come into life consciousness, not only by birth within the structure of life form on whatever planet that gives life form. You have to remember that the total expansiveness of your soul consciousness is in constant travel form, or motion. So, through your meditations you should start to concentrate because that is like putting on the armor of God. You should start concentrating on light in its purest and purification by allowing yourself to be permeated and surrounded by a brighter light every day. This will increase and permeate your electrical magnetic field. It will allow the expansion of consciousness into these other dimensions. "So, it is of great importance that you start to concentrate on the purification of your thoughts and permeate them and start the cleansing of the astral. It is like the butterfly and the cocoon. "Once you have reached the fifth dimension of consciousness then what will happen is that you will have no feelings the way you have your Earth feelings at this particular time. "What will happen as you gradually graduate into the sixth consciousness, or dimension, you will find that you will be able to levitate with your thoughts. So thought permeation will be like a sword to fight the spirit with. You will have, as we call it, the two edged sword. "When your thoughts are purified, this will allow you to be able to permeate through other people's thoughts and to allow the evacuation of all of these thoughts that are in the astral plane at this moment. The spirit is an unconscious form of all intelligence. When you give this unconscious form of all intelligence a form of matter, or a form of exemplifying this unconscious energy, in whatever birth structure throughout any of your light energies, which is into light forms in places throughout the entire universe, you are getting this unconscious spirit, which is constant in life form. This unconscious spirit requires consciousness in order to express its growth and in order to allow itself, through its self expression, to whatever form to become as consciousness of awareness to its totality of its completeness in existence of that form. Every one of you here has, what you call, a kundilini force that goes up and down your spine. It opens up, what you people have learned to call, the chakras or psychic centers. We call them centers of light understanding. Each center that opens up gives you a different understanding.” You have to remember that there are two distinct things and factors here that you have to take into consideration. The soul body is the encasement of the soul consciousness. So to completely release the soul consciousness you have to project your consciousness through your thought projection. A lot of you are practicing this on a very small scale through, what you call meditation. "So thought projection is the vehicle for the soul consciousness to travel into direction. So always, when you are in this kind of meditation, select a place in the galaxy and meditate from that place to where you are now. This is why, and then in this concept, you will travel faster because your consciousness is at thought point rather than from the thought to the travel point. "So create, not from imagination, but from the expansion of consciousness through the projection at the point where you are not; from that point to the point where you are at. You have to remember this in your meditation because this is very important. "To do this meditation, you are imagining in your eye, two pointed little; as we call them, light blue balls and a very silver line connecting them. Imagine that you are at the top line by breathing hard from the top line. Does not worry about grounding yourself from the bottom ball because that is where you are now and that is not where you want to be? To be in your total consciousness you have to become part of, what we call the ejection light around the soul of the energy field that is in constant motion. "Every one of you in your life form, play a very important role of giving birth. You see, the energy fields within your own souls are called soul lights. They also give birth within other consciousnesses to live consciously and courageously, to resonate with love and compassion, to awaken the great spirits within others, and to leave this world in peace. PRAYER is Asking for guidance from the Father within for WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW IN ORDER TO SUSTAIN IN HIS SERVICE, "AND IN ALL THINGS, FATHER, NOT MY WILL, BUT THINE WILL BE DONE." MEDITATION then is RECEIVING that information from the Father within to sustain in HIS service. Eventually, YOU will ALL be in a constant state of meditation and communion (mutual participation or sharing) with the Divine Father within. "So you are architects at this time with your thinking. You are the architects of those energies that are going to be projected from the now into the tomorrow. I want you to think about this very carefully because when we deal with energy, it is very important that you understand that energy is real purity that allows the thoughts to awaken to these kinds of purities and understanding and reasoning
What are you thinking about right now? The Law of Attraction states that "whatever we think about, we bring about". This law may initially seem like new age fluff but believe it or not, there are scientific merits to this proposition. The top quantum physicists of our time have discovered that our universe and our reality is very much directed by the "observer". When studying quantum particles (the smallest observable unit of matter), these scientists discovered that such particles behave in accordance with the person conducting the experiment. It the scientists "predict" that quantum particles behave in a certain way, they do. And yet, if the scientists "predict" that quantum particles behave in another way, they do. It is the "observer" that dictates the outcome of the experiment! What does all this mean for us normal people? Well actually, these scientific experiments has far reaching implications for us as our world is made up of these same quantum particles! In this case, we are the "observer" the director and hence the creator of our reality, our world and our experience. So, be careful of what you think about! for example, have you thoughts ever begun with the following phrases: I don’t understand… I don't want... I’m frustrated that… I hate my… I can’t figure out … I’m stressed about… I’m worried that… I should be able to… but I can’t… Why am I having so much trouble? The Law of Attraction is indifferent to the words preceding your thought. Whatever you think about you will attract into your life. When you think "I don't understand why bad things always happen to me?", you are "attracting" bad things into your life. When you think "I want to get out of debt", you are attracting more debt into your life. When you think "I'm worried I will get sick", you are attracting sickness into your life! The Law of Attraction brings about what you focus on even if it is not what you want. Get it? If you understand this principle, here are some examples of how to make the law of attraction work to support you rather than to act against you. Try observing your thoughts and changing your thinking in the following way: "I want to get out of debt" to "I want to earn amazing riches" "I hate my boss" to "I look forward to owning my own business" "I don't understand why he is so lazy" to "I love it when he helps out around the house" "I'm stressed about this project" to "I always create amazing results in my projects" "I'm worried about getting sick" to "I experience vibrant health daily" Now that we have a better understanding of the Law of Attraction, it is no surprise why so many people struggle with regards to money. It is been said that "the rich get richer while the poor get poorer". This is actually the Law of Attraction in action. Because the wealthy have money, they often think about how to best use their money and hence they attract more money. The poor on the other hand often think about their present lack of money and unfortunately, that also attracts lack into their lives. Currently, 96% of the world's wealth is being earned by just 1% of the population!
First you can’t get love; people don’t make love. Love has nothing to do with behavior nor is it found in any ritual. In reality, it’s what you are. Let me ask you to give up your normal way of seeing things & imagine with me that the reality of you is not the physical body as it appears, but is the energy that keeps the body functioning. We’ll call this energy love. That’s who you are. You have all the attributes of love much the same way a ray of sunlight contains all the attributes of the light that the sun produces. And you are connected in the same way that a ray of sunlight remains connected with the sun, and through its source is connected to every other ray of sunlight. You never have what you get you only have what you give away. The world would have you feel an attraction for another body. You see love in them which you want so desperately, so you try to get love from them. You are told the way to do that is to possess them(more accurately, possess their body).
You can only give love, share it or extend it. And only if you share love do you have it (i.e., become aware of it as your reality), and as you share it, it increases ( re-enforced in your awareness). You literally choose themeaning or purpose of everything in your life and it becomes that for you. “Nothing I see means anything.” It’s just setting there innocently waiting for us to express our dominion over itspurpose in our life and effortlessly it becomes “the If I hadn’t believed it, I never would have seen it nature thereof.” If that’s not easy to accept yet, be patient,
The Course states that there are only two emotions, Love and fear. Love is Real and cannot be threatened. Love is all encompassing and our Reality. Fear is the opposite of Love and is “made up” and therefore doesn’t exist in Reality
Each time we criticize, condemn or ridicule anything, we too are in a state of fear, calling for Love in the only way we know how. And when we experience criticism, condemnation or any form of fear as an attack instead of a call for Love, we have misinterpreted what someone was trying to tell us in the only way they know how. Our greatest problems come from misinterpreting or misunderstanding what is happening in our world. Today, we're going to talk about perception, the way in which we recognize anything, including miracles. Recognize means to know again and we see many things that we don't recognize. There must therefore exist a memory of anything we perceive before we can recognize it and I think that's especially true of miracles.
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Perception is a process by which we interpret what our senses bring to our awareness and compare it to a memory. What I'd like us to become aware of is that we see what we believe is there and we believe it because we want it to be there. So let's talk about how that works. First, we become aware of something "out there" mostly from light or sound stimulating our receptors (eyes and ears). However, our eyes don't tell us what is there, they merely send an electrical impulse to the proper section of the brain for interpretation. The brain compares the impulse with all the previously stored data and with lightning speed the mind says, "Here is what you are seeing." Let's stop here a moment and read this paragraph out loud: Now is the time for all good men to come to the the aid of their party. If you're like most people, you didn't notice that the sentence says, "come to the the aid of the party." Now the question is, Why? Our eyes see it correctly. In fact the healthy eye reports everything flawlessly to the brain but the eye doesn't tell the mouth what to say . Our mind does. Our mind interprets according to a process abstracting what is seen out there and the result is recorded in our computer as what we see. Abstracting
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simply means taking from available information only what is relevant and saying, "that's all there is. " This is the first step of distortion in perception. In the interpretation process, we actually change what is reported so it will fit into a pattern of compatibility. We then end up with what should be, rather than that is. Our eyes saw what the trick sentence said but our mind decided what it should say, and what it should say is what we experienced. Burtism: When our mind has a choice to report what is or what should be, if there is a conflict, it will always report what should be. Let's do another one. This is not a trick, it is simple test that an optometrist might conduct to test your "blind spot." This will work for everyone. Put your hand over your left eye and concentrate on the dot on the left. Hold the page about 8 inches from your nose and move it slowly away and toward you until the dot on the right disappears. You have just found the blind spot in your right eye. Where the nerve attaches to the back of the eye there are no rods and cones to receive the light:
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.... and so there is a spot in each eye where you literally see nothing. But wait a minute . . . look around the room. you don't see any black "holes," everything seems complete. How can that be? Well, our mind "fills in" that space with the surrounding colors and shapes, to make your sight appear complete, as it should be, not as it is. Most of us know that the lens in our eye inverts the image it receives, so that an image of a tree on the back of the eye is actually upside down and backwards:
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But very early in life our mind learns how the image should be and mentally interprets the visual signals so you can perceive things as they should be. This may explain why some children have trouble with their letters "b" and "d" getting reversed. At a university in California, tests were conducted by putting special glasses on a subject that inverted everything so that the world appeared upside down and backwards. Within two to three days the mind made the necessary corrections so that, once again, everything appeared as it should be. After tak-ing the glasses off, though, it once again took the poor guy a couple days to get back to normal. I was a policeman for four years in Los Angeles as a reserve and one experience I had illustrates what we're talking about. Three of us were called to the scene of a crime. Each of us took a report from a
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different witness. Upon returning to the station to compile our reports, we discovered that although there were similarities, we had what appeared to be three different crimes. It was clear to me that the crime happened not "out there," but in the minds of the witnesses. Burtism: Perception is not a fact, but a reflection of the beliefs of the perceiver One of the benevolent functions of our mind is it keeps from us those things which totally don't fit in our belief system. The television series "Quincy" illustrates this. Sometimes at the beginning of a show, a group of recruits are standing in front of a table upon which lays a body covered with a sheet. Quincy pulls the sheet off and says something like, "Welcome to the world of forensic medicine." You've seen what happens. One of the recruits faints, one turns around, one throws up and one just stands there. For each recruit the scene represented different levels of acceptability and the mind took immediate control of the body, in different ways, according to what fit. Many years ago, when our oldest daughter, Kelly, was five months, we flew to Colorado. I had just received my pilot's license and had more enthusiasm than good sense. We were overweight with fuel and luggage at 9,500 feet, where a low-powered plane
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should never be, close to the mountains. Well a strong downdraft forced me to make an immediate landing in a cleared area. Everything went well until we reached the edge of a steep ravine and headed down to sure destruction. From the time I saw that very unacceptable scene until maybe a minute later, I didn't perceive anything that went on. My next awareness was of the plane, half way down the hillside, upside down, baggage thrown everywhere by me, and standing outside the plane with Kelly in my arms. I was never unconscious but my mind did not let me see what was a very unacceptable and fearful sight. I'm sure many of you have had a similar experience. Burtism: Our mind does not let us see what doesn't fit. I have said that your perception is a reflection of your beliefs. It is in fact your beliefs projected out onto the world much as a movie projector puts an image on the screen. Psychology tells us that two factors make up our belief system and subsequent behavior: heredity and environment. We inherit through the intelligence of each of two cells that come together to form the life that we become certain noticeable characteristics of our ancestors, such as blonde hair, square chin, big feet, etc., which have an effect on our behavior. A greater
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and continuing determinant of our behavior is the environment in which we grow, everything we learn from experiences with our parents, peers, teachers, doctors and so forth. The belief system that results is what I call our PREMISE. Our premise is the total of all we believe about life, ourselves and our relationship to everything. Here are some important facts about our premise: 1. It's not Truth. If it were it would remain constant and would be the same for everyone. 2. We made it up and it changes every moment of every day, so it is like a fantasy or illusion. 3 . Because we made it, we love it and must defend it at all cost. We can criticise and ridicule what we make, and frequently do, but if anyone else does, we become very defensive. If you've ever visited England, you know that a common pastime is criticizing Royalty and the archaic tradition that it represents. But if an outsider wants to remain healthy he'd better not join in any criticism of anything so beloved as the Queen. So what we make, we love. It may not be real and usually is not, but we think it is and we made it, so must defend it.
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Our next step is to become aware of how our premise about life affects the choices we make in everyday happenings. Choices that we make a thousand times a day are mostly automatic or without much forethought. If I receive an invitation for Nonnie and me to go to a play, my computer with lightning speed reviews my premise about my reactions to plays, the people inviting us, my feelings about Nonnie's attitude toward these things and maybe nineteen other considerations. I'll respond with a joyful "Yes, thank you very much" or "No, I don't think we can make it" or "I'll have to ask," etc. And my experience will vary according to the choice I make. Let's take a more extreme example. Let's say that I'm standing on the side of a lake and John is standing beside me. About one hundred yards out a friend of ours is drowning. Neither John nor I can swim. Now I'm a logical person (my premise) and I feel bad about what I see, but I know that if I jump in the water, we'll both drown and that won't help anyone. So I may seek some alternative way to help. Now John, fin the other hand, is more concerned about his fellow man than logic (John's premise). When a friend is in danger, he must help at all cost so he jumps into the water. I may try to reason with him, to stop him, but if his will prevails, I've lost two friends. We occasionally read accounts in the newspaper of this exact sort of thing.
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The choices we make (based on premise) will always have the purpose of supporting our remise, regardless of the cost. And sometimes we pay a very dear price indeed. We'll sacrifice our peace to argue a point. We'll squander a fortune over a principle, and we'll lay down our life for a cause. It doesn't matter what is really so, what must be proven right is what our rational mind thinks is so. Burtism: The sole purpose of the rational mind is survival of what it thinks it is. (our premise) One more point to complete this picture. We've heard and pretty much agree that we are a victim of our choices, which simply means that whatever we experience in life will be a result of he choices we make, as life presents us with various happenings. Here we'll make a distinction between what happens to us and our experience of it. As we will see, they're not the same thing. If it started raining right now, that's what's happening. Half of us may be delighted and half may be unhappy; That's our experience of it. The experience of the rain is a result of a conscious or unconscious choice, based on how I feel about rain right now (my premise) made by me alone, on which others may have an influence, but no power.
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My belief about rain, and whether or not it should rain right now is my premise and will cause me to adopt an attitude over which I have complete control. The attitude or feeling is instantaneous, automatic and may seem out of control because of that. But it will be in accordance with my belief about rain (premise) and my beliefs, I made up and so obviously, I control. Our circle becomes complete when we understand that the experience that results will always substantiate the premise. Here's how it looks: From day-one of our life, our experiences determine how we see life, what we believe about ourself and our relationship to others and every thing. We believe it to be true, it's our premise. Our premise will consciously or unconsciously provide us with only those choices that will result in the experience that will sup-port our premise. My beliefs have such an effect on how I perceive what's happening, that they act like filters. They let some things through and block out others, based on how compatible the information is with what I think is so. It works much like the filter on a camera, designed to give us the picture we want rather than the picture that is. And the subconscious mind that receives the perception is much like the film. It accepts completely, without question, everything it receives as true, and spits out our fabricated picture of life in all its glory,
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just as if it were real. But then it uses that as the basis for judging the reality of the next perception. If I believe I am alone in the world (premise), when people call to include me in activities, I'll decline for a variety of reasons (choice). Also I'll be unaware of social groups advertised in the paper and so forth (choice). As a result, I'll sit at home every day, lonely (experience), which proves I'm alone in the world (original premise supported). If you're wondering what your premise is, just look at your experiences. If you're happy with what you see, great. Keep it up. It is honoring your right- mindedness. If on the other hand that seems like a cruel thing for me to say, it merely means you've chosen in error and can choose again. Into the circle of premise-choice-experience you can insert a discipline, a training that will give you another set of values by which to measure what happens to you. A new thought in our belief system will change our premise and literally change the way we see life. A change in perception is the miracle. We'll have a whole new list of choices that we never considered before and the miracle experiences follow effortlessly. Where once we perceived a grievance we can now see a blessing. Where conflict abounded, there can be harmony. Where hostility seemed real we can see peace. Fear can be replaced with love.
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I live in a peaceful world that is peopled with friendly loving people and every experience, for me, is a blessing. Now, did I just make that all up? Yes. Is it true? Absolutely. Here's how it works. Because that's my premise, it becomes my purpose and when I honestly believe something to be true, my rational mind must perceive everything that happens as a witness to that belief. We rationalize events to prove we're right. We began by saying that we give the purpose to everything in our life. When a particular aspect of our life becomes very difficult, it's because we gave it a purpose that is not in harmony with our Reality. We've all had experiences where some things we've attempted just seemed to flow effortlessly and others just were not meant to happen and the more we forced them, the more resistance we felt. If we don't know who we are, our purpose can not be very consistent with our Reality. When we defend a premise that is false (out of harmony with Reality), our success will depend upon a very unreliable strength (looks, charm, wit, muscles, etc.) with very inconsistent results. Try this exercise, using any word you like in the blank. Examples: money, relationship, thought, time, guns, body, etc. A faulty premise about our Reality will give _________a purpose that results in a misuse of __________ with unhealthy consequences. We certainly can see why it is so important to "Know Thyself."
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CHAPTER 2 Who Am I, Really? I have said that perception is the way I interpret what my senses tell me is happening. That which is doing the interpreting or perceiving is what I call the ego and define as what I think I am. (If we insert a comma after the word think, it becomes a profound statement of how my identity is formed: What I think, I am.) The ego is not a fact, but a system of beliefs that I have accepted and said, "That's me. " It is not what I am, but it is what I think I am. I made it up, based on experiences from the day I was born and it changes every moment. I don't see myself the same as I did ten years ago, last year or even yesterday. Because it changes all the time, it is not Real, I made it up based on appearances. It is a fantasy, an illusion. Today, we'll talk about who we are in Reality and the difference between who we are and who we think we are. My greatest desire is to not add to the mountain of myths and superstitions under which we labor to try to understand Truth. The search for understanding of Truth permeates the history of man and what the ego can't understand, it fears, so it tries to give an identity to it that is acceptable, whether it is true or not. So we Love is not a feeling; It’s a decision Von Hansen
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have developed religions and philosophies out of fear. I am not saying that finally I am about to reveal the long sought after Truth, this is a continuation of man's search for Truth that is motivated by the belief that there "must be a better way." LOVE There is something from which all things derive their existence. It is the first cause. What results from it is effect. Cause and effect are one. Unless you created yourself (and you didn't) the miracle of life that you are is the result of something. That something is called many things: God, First Cause, Energy, Life, Brahma, The Force, Universal intelligence, Love (and so forth). You can call it what you like, it doesn't care. It cannot be offended. It is Perfect and feels no threat or challenge to itself in any form. Total respect is appropriate, not for Its benefit, but for ours. Today we'll call it Love. And what we've heard is true, "Love is all there is. " It is infinite. It is the life force in and of everyone. The Reality of you is Love. There have been many attempts to ascribe attributes to It and define It, but I don't think we can define what is infinite with our very finite use of mind. There are some things we can know, and that is what Love is not. These seem to be the things we try to substitute for Love because we don't know what It is,
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and we fear what we don't know. The attempt to understand what we want so desperately to experience has given us an endless list of attributes of human behavior. None are Love. Some are positive reflections of Love and others very poor substitutes. Let's not let fear try to give Love more identity in an attempt to understand it, and so create more myths and superstitions. Let's accept that the tools we've chosen with which to think and judge limit us, and prevent us from truly knowing what Love is. They do not, however, prevent us from becoming aware of Love's presence and its ability to express through us. Just because we don't know what electricity is, doesn't mean we must remain forever in darkness. Love's presence and power cannot be weighed or measured or analyzed under a microscope. That does not negate its Reality. Love can be perceived only when present in the mind of the perceiver. Love is therefore not found "out there" but extended from within the perceiver to the form (the perceived) from which its presence is reflected. What ever results from Love can be considered its offspring or child. You are a child of Love. You may not like the way that sounds, so say it some other way. But don't deny it, for it is your Reality. It would be arrogant to disclaim your true identity and claim that you are something other than what you are. Humility is the acceptance of this Truth: we are nothing more
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or less than a child of Love. Love is spirit, which only means that It is a power and not a thing and cannot be seen with the physical eye. You are made in Its image and likeness which means that the Reality of you is spirit and cannot be seen with the physical eye. (One of man's problems has been to try to create God as physical, made in the image and likeness of man.) Note: Go back through the last couple of pages and substitute for Love what-ever word is more meaningful for you. It won't change the message. CAUSE AND EFFECT Love is first cause. Cause and effect are one. Your source and you are one. You are an extension of Love as light rays from the sun are extensions of the sun and can not be separated from it. You are one with every other child of Love (in spirit) joined at your source as one light ray is connected with every light ray through its source. Karma means cause and effect. Thought attracts experience for its fulfillment. An unloving thought will produce an instantaneous and continuous attraction of an experience for its fulfillment, and will continue until it is corrected. A loving thought will likewise attract an experience after its own kind forever because it needs no correction. SPIRITUAL-PHYSICAL
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About here it becomes obvious that things are not as they seem to be, judging by appearances. Nothing could be more true. Remember from our last discussion that everything you interpret from appearances is really a projection of your belief system or premise. You made it up. It is a fantasy. Yes, something is out there. Something is happening, but how you perceive it is an illusion. We think we are a physical body, limited in experience to time and space, a victim of a world over which we have little or no control, and our ultimate experience will be suffering, pain and death.... Wrong! All that is a fantasy that we have made up or accepted. And only if we believe it does it appear to happen that way. All that is really True is beyond what can be perceived with our finite use of mind, but we can surely get a lot closer than that. All that is True is eternal, never changing, can't be added to or taken away from. The description we have just made of ourselves doesn't fit any of this so it is not True. The Truth is that we are a spiritual being, one with our source, which is Love, and every other extension of that source. Spiritually we are perfect and eternal. ATONEMENT For thousands of years, man has suffered from an unloving idea that he made up. why it happened is
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unanswerable. What seems to have happened is that he made up an infinite, omnipotent, omnipresent Creator that is a complete contradiction. Infinite and yet he imagines in form, omnipotent and yet in constant battle with opposing forces. Truth and yet changing, Loving and yet vengeful and jealous, Omnipresent and yet separated from what It created. Our Bible and science give different accounts of what happened and in many respects, they agree. Genesis describes a time when man lived in a state of bliss, without lack, called the Garden of Eden. This is an awareness of perfection and oneness which most of us get only glimpses of under ideal conditions. We're told that this was lost when man partook of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It is accurately described as man's own fault but labeled as a sin worthy of punishment rather than an error which only calls for correction. Science agrees with the original mental state of man. We've found that there was a time when man did not have the capacity for abstract thought that he now enjoys. Intelligence is measured in man and animal two ways, by the size of the brain and the functions for which it has developed. Man has a larger brain relative to his body than other animals except perhaps the dolphin and one or two others, but that's only one measure. How it is used is the other. In
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birds, the visual section of the brain and in fish, the part used for smelling is highly developed. Like a muscle, it develops as the demand is placed on it. We've found that in Neanderthal man, the size of the brain is the same as in modern man, but the front part called the neo-pallium (new-cortex) was significantly less developed. That's the part of the brain we use for abstract thought, "to know good and evil," to judge right from wrong as well as to understand language, math, music and other complicated thought systems. Perhaps Neanderthal man lived in that state of bliss, a world free of judgements, a world of oneness to which we long to return. Along with our new capacity for thought, came a belief system about who we are which we made up that I call the ego. The ego asked all the unanswerable questions about life which we then answered based on appearances which we perceived. To appease our fears, we created gods of those things we feared so we could blame them for the experiences which we made up. The Bible is a history of man's search for Truth after we developed a monotheistic belief (one God). In it we made up a vengeful God who wants to punish us for an error, our belief in separation. The atonement is a plan devised to correct the error in our thinking but we have given it characteristics appropriate to guilt of an alleged sin. Our connotation of atonement
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is retribution, punishment and sacrifice. And so begins the story of man's attempt to avoid the alleged wrath of God whose only attribute is Love. Abraham wanted to sacrifice his son Isaac hoping to appease the source of Life, as a symbol of his willingness to give up his most prized possession. Fortunately, a glimpse of sanity convinced him that it would only take his prize ram to do the job. From that, a complicated system of retribution was developed whereby a man could bring his two most prized sheep or goats to the priest who would butcher one and burn it on the altar and on the other, the priest would place his hands while the man confessed his sins. Then an able man would lead the goat out into the wilderness. Hence the term scapegoat; one who bears the blame of another. Then came a man named Jesus who was feared by the establishment and put to death by what was then the common means for criminals. (The cross, now a holy symbol, has the same meaning as a gallows or an electric chair.) Later this became described as the sacrifice to end all sacrifice. And we thought this atrocity would surely make our God of Love pleased with us and shower us with his favor because we killed one of His sons. If this appears to be a vicious attack upon sacred ground, please forgive me. No one could hold more love for Jesus and His teachings than do I. But I want to show how the rational mind
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can fabricate something into what it thinks should be and then believe it is true. What is true is that nothing we can say or do will get us back into God's good graces. No amount can purchase our good. No sacrifice, however great, will be enough. No punishment can be severe enough. God can not be bartered with, bargained with or coaxed into taking us back into His bosom. Because we were never separated . We made it up, based on appearances. It all started in our mind as we started to know "good and evil" and it became real to us that we had to develop a way to overcome the fear it caused. It should be clear that one first step back to the Garden of Eden would be to give up judgements of good and evil based on appearances. The infinite life source we call Love, creates only like itself and nothing else. It is in and of everything that is. We don't have to take this on blind faith, we can experience it as we become aware of Its presence. We (spiritually) are it. When we look to it within for the answer to all our questions, we know it. Not our body, but we are perfect, sinless and one with That which created us. About here the ego might be yelling at you saying, "That's not so. I'm horrible and worthless, " but take a moment to listen to that still small voice within that knows your reality, your perfection and
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your oneness with Love. There is something within you that knows, and it knows that it knows. QUESTIONS Many times a person will say, "I understand what you are saying, but how can I make it work in my life?" This can be a real situation of knowing something is true and not believing it (premise). This one is fairly simple. We learn what we teach, so determine very carefully what you can commit yourself to learn and teach it, and if appearances don't seem to reveal immediate results, don't give up. A baby doesn't stop trying to walk just because it falls a few times, or even a few hundred. What we have learned very completely in error may take some time to unlearn. Paul Steinberg uses the phrase, "I'm gonna fake it 'til I make it." The world has determined (based on appearances) that we are a body, that we are separated, and most importantly, that we are guilty. These are not true, but they are what the world must have us experience because that is its premise and thus becomes its purpose. The ego is the voice for the world and must counsel and guide us to those choices that will prove through experience that the world is right. Love's premise is exactly the opposite; i.e., our Reality is spiritual (Love), we are one in that reality and most important (on that level) are innocent. Love
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has a voice also, called Holy Spirit (which we'll discuss more later) whose only purpose is to prove Love's premise is true. One of these voices will agree and support us in anything we want to do. The ego will yell at us with guidance toward conflict and separateness. It must prove we're right, they're wrong, we've been victimized, and they're to blame (guilt). When asked, the Holy Spirit can only counsel us with the choices that will lead to an experience of oneness, harmony and peace. Let us recognize that our individual ego differs from the world's ego (what Jung called the collective unconscious) to the extent we disagree with any of the details of the world's beliefs. To the degree our personal premise differs from another, we will appear to have a separate purpose in our life, supporting the world's premise hat we are separated. Because the ego is only a belief system of 'what I think I am," we will never get rid of it or transcend it. We can only transform it. We will always have a belief system, but it changes all the time. We simply change it from the world's beliefs, and therefore a servant of the world's purpose, to Love's belief (truth) and hereby a partner with Holy Spirit. Another form of this question is, "I believe what you say, but why do I still have so many problems (frustrations, etc.). " The answer is, of course, that you really don't believe it. Your experiences will always reveal your premise. I don't mean what
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happens to you, but how you experience it. We all have seemingly unreasonable things happen to us, and only our premise will determine whether our experience of it is a blessing or a grievance. If we teach the world and ourselves, by our actions and words, that everything that happens to us has in it a blessing, that is what we will learn and then perceive. The next obvious question is, "What do I teach?" And from A Course in Miracles, the answer comes loud and clear . . . "Teach only Love, for that is what you are."
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CHAPTER 3 How Do I Teach Love? There is something within us that knows our wholeness. It’s an innate wisdom which if used as a guide, will always lead to an experience of peace, harmony, and Love. There’s nothing magical or special about it, it is in everyone. It may seem mystical, but that’s only because it is little understood and seldom used. In traditional terms, it is called Holy Spirit, but again, it doesn’t matter what you call it. You can call it intuition, higher self, spirit, or whatever is comfortable and lets you communicate with it. It is that spirit or essence of us that knows our wholeness or Holiness. We will call it Spirit. It will not typically tread where uninvited, so we must ask it and when we do, it will respond immediately. The awareness of spirit seems to come in different ways. To some, a voice, to others a knowing or urging and to still others, a feeling, impression or thought. Because we are used to listening to only the ego's voice which is very loud and arrogant, in the Fear no man, neither tall nor wise. Call on me; I will equalise This reference to the Colt revolver Also seems appropriate for the Voice within
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beginning it is sometimes difficult to discern when it is the right answer. Here are some guides. Spirit's answer is always immediate, always gentle and always results in a peaceful experience. Of course, you can't judge it by its results until after you follow it and so the awareness of the peaceful aspect only comes afterwards. However, this tells us when we have chosen correctly and builds confidence in making that kind of choice again. Why does a choice seem necessary? Because we will hear two voices. Ego will yell at us with the answers the world would normally follow and Spirit will answer softly, gently and usually with a logic that is contradictory to the thinking of the world. Spirit is usually not heard because its voice is too gentle and we'd like a blast of trumpets and a Hollywood type flash in the sky. Another reason is that the answer from Spirit will seem illogical. But just a moment's reason tells us that we're asking because we are really puzzled and the logical thinking of the world hasn't worked. So the answer that will lead to peace must seem illogical. The next question is, "What do I ask?" That depends solely on what you want to teach. Let us imagine that I'm in a great big mud puddle of confusion and frustration and a little anger. In my splashing around, trying to get the upper hand all I get is more muddy. Let's say someone has tried to take advantage of me (my perception). My goal could be to try to get the upper hand and prove I'm right and he is wrong and
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maybe teach him a lesson so he doesn't try it again (fear). And maybe throw in a little anger that could make him feel guilty, by which I could manipulate his behavior in the future. Guilt, anger and fear are teachings of the ego not of Spirit. Ego would have us teach those so they would become our experience and our apparent reality. But we have determined that our Reality is Love, so if we teach guilt, anger and fear, we are teaching deceit. We'll be trying to prove that we are what we are not. our experience will truly be confusion, anxiety and frustration. If what I really want is peace, and can totally commit myself to this, then there is one question to ask Spirit. "How do I teach Love in this situation?" We think now that guilt, anger and fear will buy us something we want. Only when we're ready to give up our investment in this pain and revenge, can we ask this question and experience the peace that follows. WHY One of the first questions the ego comes up with is Why? Such as, "If we started perfect, why do we have to go through this nonsense to get back to perfect?" " Why do people appear to be born only to die?" "Why me, Lord?" These why questions can effectively derail our progress toward Truth unless we can change them to a how question. For instance, not, "Why doesn't this work," but "How can I make this work?" Instead of, "Why am I in this mess?" we
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ask, "How can I get out of this mess?" The "Why Me" syndrome implies an unfair pain or loss which only indicates that for someone else it would be fair. Why is an unanswerable question, bred in fear, nurtured in perplexity, whose goal is confusion. When we convert it to a How, tremendous progress can be made. If we refuse to paint until we find out why blue and yellow make green, we will never be able to express the beauty that's within us on canvas. If we refuse to turn on the light until we know why electricity works, we will remain in darkness forever. Change that to a how and the whole of creation is our slave. How can we mix colors so as to express our beauty? How can we make electricity work? How can I use the apparent mess that I've created to teach Love? I'm aware that this may seem to be a cop out, leaving one as confused about life's eternal questions as other ideas one has studied. Well, I've studied them, too, and there are a lot of attempts to answer the why's of life's mysteries. Some are beautiful, some are crackpot and some are highly complex and seem reasonable at the time but don't hold up. All are conjecture and just one step beyond mythology. Yes, we'll have moments of revelation with a warm feeling of bliss and wisdom where all doubts are suspended and in those moments, never once does Why raise its ugly head. The mysteries of life are
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accurately called imponderables. They are mud puddles of the mind hat keep us from seeing clearly. Let others ask the Whys and try to answer them. Some make interesting reading, but when we come up to a why, if we will immediately change it to a how, instead of adding to the confusion of the world, we'll create a benefit for everyone around us and a sense of peace and well-being for ourselves. We may never be able to answer, "Why did I get into this horrible situation?" The only question that will bring us the sense of peace that we so strongly desire, is, "How can I teach Love in this situation?" Last August we had over a hundred people at our farm in Sweet Home, Oregon for a "Miracles" festival. In preparation for this I asked Spirit, "How can I insure success for this weekend?" The answer came to me immediately and clearly, "When it's over, ask yourself, 'Did I teach Love?' " What a relief to find out that we could do anything we wanted. All kinds of unexpected things could happen as they do. Control and efficiency were no longer crucial. I now had but one criterion for success. "Did I teach Love?" That became the overriding influence in every decision I made in preparation for what turned out to be a very beautiful and satisfying experience. Because our premise determines what we experience in each happening, we can tell what we believe about
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ourselves and our relationship to life and others by just looking around at what we see. When someone doesn't respond to us as they should, are we disappointed, annoyed or angry? When we don't respond as we should, are we filled with guilt and remorse? When someone else receives a blessing that we desire, do we feel jealous and resentful? All these are equally destructive to our peace and call for correction, because they are attempts to teach the world and ourselves that we are what we are not. To correct this, we don't have to understand the aspect of our thinking that is in error (which would be dwelling on the problem, trying to make sense of our fear, and fear doesn't make sense). All we need do is teach Love. When we ask Spirit, "How do I teach Love in this situation?", the answer may be, "Be understanding," or "Don't be concerned," or some similar idea that will lead to peace. Here it's important to note that if we're not committed to peace, we'll disregard the peaceful idea for some ego reason. That's alright, don't worry about it, we'll get another chance to learn that lesson. Every day, life gives us hundreds of chances to teach and, as a result, learn who we are. When we teach guilt, anger and fear, we are being deceitful and experience mental anguish and frustration. Many times this immobilizes our creativity and puts a stress on our body that results in pain, suffering and diseases. When we teach Love, we are being honest and experience peace and fulfillment. When the
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result is peace, it is an honor to our right-mindedness. When it is other than peace, it just means we've chosen in error and will get another opportunity to choose. The question frequently comes up, "Shouldn't we teach this to children?" The answer is a true paradox. (It's through Dr. Ken Wapnick that this amazing insight was shared). Carl Jung stated that every question past the midpoint in life is a spiritual one. That midpoint is usually around thirty five, but can be any age at which we're "grown up. " This means that the first half is (and must be) spent establishing an ego, a belief system of "what I think I am." We develop talents, abilities, personality and a clear relationship to the world and others. Autism is an example of absence of ego or not being able to relate in the world's terms. Then when we "get our act together" we're confronted with a new set of questions that can't be answered by the world. They are spiritual questions that become new motivation and establish a new purpose in our life. Those who address these questions prematurely become social dropouts and those who refuse to confront them experience what is called "midlife crisis." The paradox is that we must spend the first half of life learning who we are and the rules the world made up and the second half correcting our concept of Reality. The most loving thing we can give a child is a clear understanding of the game they've chosen to play
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with us. Then at mid-life they simply take the talents and abilities they've nurtured and like everything else in life, change their purpose from teaching fear (what the world believes in) to teaching Love. In a conflict, the greatest threat comes from one who knows all about the enemy and the most effective teachers of Truth that I know have had an extensive variety of experience in the illusion. There are boundaries in this world that we all must learn. The saddest experiences I had as a policeman were imposing the social boundaries on teenagers (with handcuffs) because they didn't learn them at home. Boundaries and limitations are of the world and don't exist in Reality, but the most unloving thing we can do is allow a developing ego to "think for himself. " This approach with our children seemed to work well for me. 1. Establish clearly your child's boundaries in your own mind and make sure the child understands (this can begin at three to four months old!) 2. You must accept that the child will, and must, constantly test those boundaries and you must see that as a call for Love. 3. Assure the child that you love them and can be trusted by consistently enforcing the boundary when it is tested. 4. Consciously expand the boundaries as growth permits and requires.
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Forgiveness is the key to Love. For a child, forgiveness is natural. Let us teach the children well the rules of our game and in Love allow them to become our teacher.
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CHAPTER 4 Miracles in Prosperity Today, we're going to talk about prosperity, and a couple of points of clarification are called for right away. First, prosperity is a feeling and, second, it is not just having our needs met, but a feeling of abundance of that which we want in life. This includes the areas of health, harmonious relationships, creativity, awareness and, yes, even things. And I'd like to get specific so, to start out, I'd like you to take a piece of paper and make your own list of wants. This will be very helpful to clarify where we are today. So take a couple minutes right now and make a list. If you were given a treasure chest, with everything in it you want, when you opened the lid, what would be there? Alright, let's look at some of the problems we have with prosperity, and then we'll present some solutions and then some "How to" ideas for achieving what it is we want. There seems to have been some gigantic conspiracy for thousands of years to keep the masses of the world from wealth and, I guess, subsequent power. Well, it's worked. We've been fed If poverty doesn’t buy it for you, try prosperity.
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a bunch of superstitions, myths and garbage which we've generally accepted. Here are a few. 1. It's more blessed to give than to receive. Now we all want to be spiritually blessed (and no one is exempt from that desire), but we think this means we must sacrifice something we want for this and immediately, we have a conflict. To show how much we have accepted the idea of being less blessed as a receiver, think about what we do when we receive something. We say, "Oh, you shouldn't have, " and with great humility try to express how unworthy of the gift we are. And as though to repay an indebtedness, we devise a scheme to give something in return. Through all this, the appropriate display of appreciation is required on both sides and thus have we reduced unconditional giving to a barter. (If I have just attacked one of your sacred cows, please be patient. It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.) 2. Give to get. This conspiracy knows how painful it is to give up something we want so it devised a clever "Bargain Belief" that promises that if you give to the conspiracy, and "have faith, " enough will be returned to you to soothe the pain and fear of giving. No concept could make more clear their agreement that giving represents a loss to you and something is necessary to justify your doing without. It amazes me to see the various ways this concept has been dressed up in an attempt to sanctify it and thus make it more convincing.
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3. From thousands of years ago, we've been taught that we must earn by the sweat of our brow. And someone who is financially well off is admired only if "he earned it. " It is frequently said, "He worked hard for his money, so he's entitled to it. " 4. We're taught to ask and it shall be given, which is true, but we don't because of our belief of loss associated with giving. We think we're taking something away from God, which, of course, means a loss somewhere. So we don't do it unless our need is so great that loss somewhere else is justified. And so we join the thinking of the conspiracy and attempt a barter. Such as, “Please, Lord, if you do this, I promise I'll . . " or we try to slide it through by asking for something very small such as "I'm not asking for much, Lord, certainly you could see your way clear . . . " And when all that fails, we try to close the deal promising never to ask again, Please Lord, just this once, could you . . . " 5. We are jealous and resentful of prosperity everywhere we see it. Whenever we see someone really pretty or creative, or surrounded by friends at a party or one who has fancy clothes or a fine car, we think, "Why them and not me?" In sports, we'll hope for a bad shot for others and a good shot for us. Those who are very wealthy or famous become objects of scandalous rumors in an attempt to bring them down. The magazine stands are filled with stories debasing them. It's not the publishers' fault,
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they only print what sells and- we buy it because we want to believe it's true. This same sickness takes the form of joy when another person fails. Some years ago I sold office equipment for a large American company in Los Angeles. In five years I saw a lot of salesmen come and go. Each time one failed and was let go, those who were just barely hanging on showed a sense of uplifting because they would get to share the accounts of their fallen brother and they had survived the sack. This is also an example of the erroneous concept that we can gain from another's loss. Alright, let's look at some solutions to the beliefs we've accepted. First, let us clarify what we really want. Burtism: we really want only what we can give without a sense of loss. Does that include cars, boats, campers, clothes, money, jewelery, etc.? It could, but it's not likely. And yet we think these are the things we really want. These are the things the world would have us believe we want. But none of these can we give away without a feeling of having less than before. So what can we give away and not lose? Friendship? Yes, of course. Kindness? Sure, and what else? Joy, peace, harmony and love. In fact, as we give any of these, they seem to increase in our awareness. And these are the
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things we really want. These are what everyone really wants, and there are no exceptions. When we give any of these, let's say joy, for example, the recipient is receiving a blessing indeed and our awareness of joy is increased by so doing and so we are both blessed. It is not more blessed to give than to receive, but neither is it any less. The giver and receiver are not separated, but spiritually one in the experience of joy and thus equally blessed. We are giving only to ourselves, in Reality, and so giving is better understood as sharing. Prosperity requires a consciousness of sharing. Why is giving really sharing? Everything is a reflection of, or a result of, a thought or idea, including prosperity. Let's see how this works with thoughts or ideas. If we share an idea, we haven't lost anything. In fact, it is all still ours even though we have given it all away. And if it is accepted, it is reinforced in our mind and thus increased. This is why the teacher is the one who really learns, why we should clarify what it is we want to learn and teach it. Teach joy to learn it. Give joy to have it. This is why having rests on giving, not getting. What we can't give, we don't have. This is why having and being are the same thing, to have joy we must be joyous, which is sharing, and an equal blessing to us and all who receive it. We don't give to get, we give because we have and want to keep. We can keep what we really want, only by giving.
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Rather than accepting the idea that we are less spiritually blessed as a receiver, we can be proud of the part we're playing in the sharing and increase of prosperity. Rather than saying thank you when we receive something, we should say thank you to those to whom we give because they are helping to reinforce and increase our prosperity. Now, let's take a look at the list of wants you have. Probably some of them are what you really want and some you only think you want. What's important to be aware of is how we usually sacrifice what we really want (peace, harmony, joy and love) in our endeavor to get what we think we want. About here you might say, "I can see where this would work with friendship or joy, but I sure don't want to give away all my money." We can't give away all our money. We know how it makes us feel good to give something to someone. When we are giving, we raise our self-esteem closer to the level of our Reality (which is Love, and Love's only nature is giving) and open our awareness to all the good that is ours, just waiting to be accepted. It is impossible not to have, but we may not know we have. Giving means sharing, sharing increases. As you give so shall you receive means, the cost of giving is receiving or the cost of sharing is accepting. As we share, our acceptance increases. Before we could give all our money away, it would have increased.
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It amazes me that we can accept what seems to be a universal Truth and be willing to apply it to everything but money. Let us remember that prosperity is a feeling. It comes from the awareness that we have an abundance of everything we want. I do two things to maintain that awareness for me. First, before I undertake any project regarding money, I mail a donation to some charity. This is like buying insurance and the donation is my "prosperity insurance premium. " This may not work for others + but for me it creates within me an atmosphere of prosperity that flavors all my efforts in the project. Second, we all experience cycles in our life. When doubt or anxiety enter my financial thinking, I immediately make another payment on my "prosperity insurance premium." I don't mean for this to appear as a gimmick. We make up our feeling of prosperity and what we truly believe, manifests in our life. From basic psychology we learn that when our behavior is not in agreement with our thinking,, we will correct our thinking to fit our behavior (called cognitive dissonance). We are not a victim of this, we can use it. If we behave prosperously, we will believe we are. That premise of prosperity will cause us to make choices of prosperity that will produce experiences of prosperity in our life to support our premise. I wrote a poem in 1974, part of which seems appropriate here. There's a law that rules the universe,
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Controls the earth, the stars, the sun. It doesn't bless me and overlook you, But works the same for everyone. If you fight it, it's your master, From the cradle to the grave. When you learn to use it wisely, It's your everlasting slave. Now let's deal with the most imprisoning thought I have ever encountered, that you must earn by the sweat of your brow. It is simply not true. Some people earn a tremendous amount of money and have nothing and others on a very meager income feel quite comfortable and prosperous. I've known people who, working three jobs, could not make ends meet and others who fly using their power within demonstrate prosperity effortlessly. We don't earn prosperity by hard work or clever business acumen. What we manifest in feelings and things is merely a reflection of the prosperity we accept. Because we were taught we must earn by the sweat of our arrow, for some of us, hard work lets us accept more prosperity. Why? Because now we feel worthy of it. What prosperity we see and feel in life is ours by right of consciousness (premise). Let me give an example of "right of consciousness." When Theodore Roosevelt was president, he was to participate in a high level dinner meeting. The waiter, not wanting to make an error, asked the counselor where he should seat Theodore Roosevelt so he
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would be at the head of the table. The counselor confidently replied, "It doesn't matter, wherever Teddy Roosevelt sits will be the head of the table." He was a leader, he knew it, everyone else knew it. He didn't have to earn it or prove it to anyone. We cannot work our way into a reality that is not ours. And only we can deprive ourselves of one that is. When we have a prosperous consciousness, material reflections of that awareness must manifest and do so effortlessly. We somehow think it is unfair for someone to receive something they apparently haven't earned. And any laborer can tell you it's impossible to become a millionaire through back-breaking work. And so we conclude that there must be something very questionable or crooked about someone who is very wealthy. Because he couldn't have earned it by the sweat of his brow. That belief doesn't imprison him, only us. So we try to justify our poverty by thinking we'll get to heaven and he won't because he can't get his camel through the eye of a needle. It is true that we often sacrifice what we really want (the consciousness of heaven, i.e. peace, joy, harmony, etc.) for what we think we want (money, power, prestige.) It only means that we must clarify what we really want and SEEK YE THAT FIRST, above all else. Establish firmly that peace, joy, harmony, etc., are our only goal. Measure every choice we make by whether it will add to or detract from them and then act accordingly. Then the second
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half of that admonition is ours by right of consciousness, ALL THINGS WILL BE ADDED UNTO YOU, and if I may add, EFFORTLESSLY. Let's look at that admonition "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness, and all things will be added unto you. " What is the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven? It must be Love, and nothing else. Now we can understand that, as Jesus said, "The Kingdom Heaven is within you." Love is within you. So it says, seek Love first. We know that what we're looking for, we'll find. If we're looking for conflict, we'll find it, etc. We must commit that first, or above all else, or desire is to look past appearances and see only the Love in everyone and every situation; to constantly seek guidance from Holy Spirit for the loving response in every relationship, to teach only Love. "And His Righteousness" is understood by Charles Filmore as Right-use-ness. Use means purpose. We then seek Love's purpose for everything in our Life. A good exercise might be for everything that comes into our awareness, to ask Holy Spirit, "How can I use this to teach Love?" Look around the room and apply that question to what you see (a chair, this book, your body, a pen, a telephone, etc.). That would determine its purpose in our life and could be considered the "Righteous judgment" of it to which Jesus referred. Now let's get specific and ask what use (purpose) we have given to our money. Most people use it to teach fear, not Love; that is to prove that the world's
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premise is true. We use it to feed, comfort and adorn the body (to make the body real). We use it to teach separation (this is mine, that is yours). We use it to teach guilt (in a lawsuit, the one to blame must pay). Money is neutral, like everything else, we give it a purpose. The use (purpose) we decide reflects the value we place on it. What we value little will diminish in our life through misuse. What we value highly will increase through "right-use-ness." The right use for harmony, peace, Love, etc. is sharing which causes them to increase. The right use for the body (and every material thing including money) is as a tool to communicate our Reality which is Love. When we use money to teach Love, we have honored it with this righteous purpose and in the truest sense, have placed a high value on it. This can be misunderstood. Think in terms of the value you would put on a piece of bread if your child were starving. That's the value money has when used to teach Love. By using money to teach Love, I don't mean spending or donating. We all experience conflicts over money. Do we let a conflict reveal our belief in vulnerability, lack and separateness? Or can we use it as an opportunity to teach that the other person's interests are the same as ours, that we are one, whole and complete, regardless of the conflict? A line in the Course says "you put the value on what you receive and you price it by what you give. " Only you can determine the value you put on life, and you
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price it by what you give to life. You cannot value something highly and put a low price on it. Imagine someone locking themselves up in a small room giving nothing of themselves to others. What value could life represent to them? We want our church or spiritual center to be of great value in our life and we create that value through our gift of our energy, talents and money. The same is true of our job, our home and our family. And here's the payoff, "all things will be added unto you" to teach only Love, for that is what you are.
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CHAPTER 5 Healing & Miracles Anytime something is out of harmony, a healing is called for. The cause of disharmony is erroneous thinking and the correction or right- mindedness is the healing. It doesn't matter what appearance the disharmony takes, there is only one answer and it is always the same. Disharmony or disease in any form is an expression of fear which is a call for Love. The body is a tool and its purpose is to communicate who we are. When we don't know who we are, we will use it to teach that we are what we are not. This misuse causes stress as it does with any tool. Depending upon how committed we are to misusing a tool, the stress can result in a breakdown. If we insist on using a pair of pliers when the job calls for a wrench, we'll end up with busted knuckles. If we continually run a machine beyond its limits, it will break down at it’s weakest point. Let's take a look at stress. We live and grow by stress. Every action creates a stress somewhere. We Healing is an exercise invented by man, to overcome disease, which a condition invented by man
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build our muscles by subjecting them to stress and they increase in size and strength to meet the demand. Our intelligence has increased through the stress of constant asking and searching for knowledge. But, like fire, what can be used constructively, when misused, is destructive. It is unrelieved stress that destroys. After working hard all day, a night of restful sleep is the body's relief. When caught up in confusion and conflict, a few moments' stillness and quiet can be a relief for the mind. However, a constant unrelieved stress on a muscle will cause it to fatigue or cramp and immobilize it. Unrelieved mental stress can be emotionally and physically immobilising and destroy our health, our relationships and our creativity. FIGHT OR FLIGHT In a very tense situation, we all experience an 'adrenalin rush" which at one time in the history of man was necessary for survival. It's called the fight or flight response. When confronted with a hostile, fearful or threatening situations certain things start to happen in the body. Adrenalin and other hormones and chemicals are shot into the blood stream which start a series of complex systems to be activated. Glucose is mobilized for quick energy. Metabolism increases. Heartbeat accelerates, blood flow and volume increases. Blood pressure jumps. Body temperature, oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide
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production all in-crease. Blood leaves the extremities and rushes to the body core so if a hand or foot is lost, blood loss is reduced. Feet become cold and palms sweaty. Throat and anus constrict. Mouth is dry, pupils dilate, neck and back tense up and shoulders raise. The mind races, becomes very alert and paranoid. This and much, much more was vital in preparation to fight for his life or escape. Those who were the fittest survived. Nature weeded out those who were unable to adapt. So we can credit our very existence today to the fact that our ancestors were the fittest. We inherited a very finely tuned, highly complex system of behavior designed for survival in a jungle. Unfortunately, the very mechanism which at one time insured our health and well-being is now destroying it. Few of us have life- threatening experiences that would justify the fight or flight response. And although the daily encounters of conflict produce the physical preparedness for fight or flight, society does not allow that to happen and it remains bottled up in us as unrelieved stress. In fact our system misinterprets our inaction as lack of preparedness and increases the dosage in an increasingly destructive spiral. Only strenuous exercise can purge the body of the residue from the hormones released during conflict and perceived attack. But most of us in a day's work
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have many conflicts that we must just sit and take. So we add caffeine, nicotine, aspirin, Valium and alcohol to relieve the effects. When the hormones and chemicals released during the fight or flight response are not expelled from the body through strenuous exercise, the residue collects at the joints causing stiffness. Imagine the number of times during a workday we experience a tense or threatening situation multiplied by the number of days in a year. Could this help to explain why over 50 million people in the United States suffer from Rheumatoid Arthritis beginning at an average age of 35 years? It is not yet, however, on the increasing list of stress-related or psychosomatic disorders which today make up 50 to 80 percent of our diseases. Why do some people succumb to an epidemic of an infectious disease and others don't? We all have potentially dangerous germs in our bodies all the time which are rendered harmless by a very complicated and effective immune system. There's a lot that science doesn't know about our immune system, but one thing they're finding out is that its effectiveness is hampered by stress. And, like a machine that works fine normally, under too much stress will break down at its weakest point. Research on animals has shown that various forms and intensities of stress have enhanced their susceptibility to neoplastic disorders and viral infection. (Cancer is a neoplastic disorder.) This may explain why students frequently get a cold
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at exam time. And why someone who has had a longtime remission of cancer after a tragic experience could easily experience a recurrence. Nature weeded out of the jungle those not able to respond to conflict with instant fear and paranoia (fight or flight). Today, once again, nature is weeding out of the modern jungle those not able to respond to conflict with instant understanding, harmony and Love. The cure for unrelieved stress is its prevention. Remember that perception is a wish fulfilled. We see what we want to be there and then respond as if it were real. First, establish clearly that our only desire is Peace, Joy, Harmony and Love. Then enter into each activity with that as our goal and measure each success against no other yardstick. See criticism as a call for Love. See anger as a form of fear that will vanish in the presence of Love. Don't get me wrong, if we perceive an attack as an attack, we better react accordingly. But if we can truly see it for what it is, a call for Love, we can be guided to the appropriate expression of Love which will cause the fear that it represents to immediately disappear. MEDITATION Relief from mental and emotional stress can most effectively occur through meditation. I don't mean doing some cult thing on a mountain top with your
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legs crossed. I mean devoting some time daily to restoring your mental and emotional energy the same as we devote time each night to restoring our physical energy. Sleep itself is not enough for relief of mental and emotional stress. We frequently wake up with the same fears and anxieties we went to bed with. There are many techniques for effective meditation but the same four elements exist in most all of them. First a quiet atmosphere, free from disturbance. Second, a comfortable position other than lying down (so you don't go to sleep). Third, a passive attitude or feeling of letting go. And, fourth, an idea upon which to dwell (such as Peace, Harmony, etc.). A frequent comment I hear is, "I don't have time to meditate. " Well, my dad taught me how to farm and every time he'd hook a piece of equipment to the tractor, he'd give it a generous going over with the grease gun then he'd always say, "Son, grease don't cost money, it saves money." Meditation doesn't take time, it saves time. When we've established clearly that our desire is Peace, Harmony, Joy and Love, all those excuses will drop away. Until then, we'll just go on fighting our way through life, a victim of the world. Burtism: I will be free of disease when I no longer see a benefit in it.
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How can I possibly see a benefit in disease or pain? Imagine that I find myself in a difficult situation and can find no way to resolve it. (It may seem like nothing to you from outside the mud puddle where you can see more clearly, but for me it is overwhelming, with no relief in sight.) Now, through life, I have been taught a long list of escape routes beginning with alcohol and tranquilizers, including many forms of illness, and, of course, the ultimate escape route being suicide. So I subconsciously choose a painful but effective way out. The most obvious might be an ulcer flare-up, an asthma attack or a migraine headache. (If this seems illogical, maybe you've never been there. Remember, fear has no logic.) Whatever incapacitation results is OK because it frees me of the responsibility which weighs so heavy at the time. Now my boss, my family and myself expect less of me and modify their demands accordingly. Illness has postponed or maybe even prevented confrontation with the impossible. Unfortunately, what works effectively once can tend to become a pattern or even a way of life. But now let's wait a minute. If you're really sick and I say you're sick because you want to be, you must disagree and even discredit everything else I say. That would render this message meaningless. It is totally ineffective for me to tell you when you are
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drowning that it's just an illusion or that you're there because you want to be. For these ideas to be a benefit, you must avoid applying them to any disease you are experiencing now, because you can't view it objectively. If, however, you can accept these ideas about someone else, they will become a part of you and will affect your own condition. For this reason please avoid applying these ideas to any condition you find yourself in now. Even we who can intellectualise responsibility for our illness are demonstrating lack of conviction by our condition. We have given permission for the body (matter) to be isolated from the healing power of the mind. We are saying that here is a piece of matter that has more control over a condition than mind. It is giving to the body the power to make decisions. It is our misuse of mind that has put an intolerable stress on the body, causing the malfunction. It is through correction of erroneous thinking, restoration of right- mindedness, that healing can occur. PURPOSE OF ILLNESS The purpose of illness is to prove that I am what I am not. That pain, suffering and death are the inevitable conclusion to life. (There is no conclusion to life.) That I am the body, alone in life, separated from everyone else. It is an attempt to find strength in weakness. (We do experience a power over others that we don't
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have when we are healthy.) It is giving the body power and therefore reality. Healing would be a repudiation of all that sickness stands for and, therefore, stands out clearly as our enemy. We could go on with many theories on why we get sick, but in a larger sense the purpose of illness is irrelevant. We simply can not know why in this dance that we made up we chose particular steps of fear, separation and immobility. Preoccupation with an effect gives it power and enhances the error. Awareness that the cause itself (fear) has no power or Reality, other than that which we give it, shows how inefficient it is to try to make correction on the level of the effect. At this point let's remember that healing applies not only to the body, but disharmony in any form. Disharmony is an expression of fear or call for Love. Just as darkness can not exist in the presence of light, fear can not exist in the presence of Love. Our Reality is Love, so when we teach fear we are misusing our communication tool. To the degree we are committed to do this and insist on teaching that we are what we are not, the stress of misuse will cause a breakdown. Healing occurs when we see no more value in pain. When we are totally committed to healing, we will teach only Love, for that is what we are.
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CHAPTER 6 Miracles in Relationships Remember that miracles occur in the mind. A miracle is an error in thinking corrected that results in a change in perception. What was once the basis for a grievance is now seen as a blessing. Nowhere will we see such an immediate result of corrected thinking as in our personal relationships. It's from miracles in this area that we learn that we are Love, that we are one, that there is something within us that will guide us to peace and that we communicate with others all the time on a higher level whether we're aware of it or not. This is where it's at. This is the dynamic, spontaneous, exciting part of our life that is the motivation for me to share all that we've talked about so far. Changes in our physical health and material possessions seem sometimes very slow. But a sour relationship can be healed right now with immediate benefit. As a matter of fact, it can't happen in the past or the future, it can only happen right now. If the idea of miracle thinking hasn't clicked yet, now is the time to get it, to try it and prove that it works. What we teach, we learn. Each and every person we meet in every situation and at every moment in the He came to learn, and stayed, and he became our teacher
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meeting provides an opportunity to teach miracle mindedness, unconditional acceptance and Love so that we can learn it and experience it as a reality in our lives. Each person is our student, pleading with us to teach what we both want to learn. Each question is an opportunity to demonstrate that the answer is always waiting for us within. Each problem is only the introduction to a revelation that we're ready for right now. Think about this. If suddenly in a flash of brilliance I was presented with the revelation that the answer is four, so what? It is totally meaningless unless I first had the problem, "How much is two plus two?" Have you noticed how we can find simple solutions to other people's problems? And others just don't seem to understand when we get into a mess? We are each ready for different answers at different times. My wife Nonnie pointed out to me that whenever we perceive a problem it is because we're ready for the answer it introduces, and we'd have no other way to become aware of the answer except through dealing with the problem. Burtism: We're given no problem unaccompanied by a loving solution within. Can that explain why it is said that we attract certain people into our lives? Could it be that on a higher level we've asked them to help us learn something?
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And if we fail to learn what they are trying so desperately to help us with, do we get another chance? You bet we do, over and over again. Because that's what we're ready to learn right now. John Watson says, "How thankful we should be for our dear loving students who devote so much time and energy and sometimes endure so much pain just to help us learn!" Burtism: Everyone, without exception, wants to learn to express and experience Love. Sometimes we macho, beer drinking, tobacco chewing cowboys won't admit to that last statement (there was a time I couldn't even use the word in a lecture.) That's alright, when we're ready, some dear, loving student will agree to devote the necessary time and energy and endure the pain just to help us learn. If we learn by teaching, how do we teach Love? The age-old answer to that is this: the key to Love is forgiveness. To avoid misunderstanding, we'll discuss the real meaning of forgiveness. Unless we agree that what we perceive is really our beliefs projected, it will be hard to accept that when I have a grievance against someone, it is really only something I made up and all that is called for is a correction of my thinking. I must see that what I perceived as an attack is really a call for Love. A
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situation I attracted to help me learn how to teach Love. When a baby, because of a bad dream, is screaming and kicking, we can correctly interpret that as a call for Love. So we pick him up out of the crib, extend Love and the fear is dissolved. But when we see a thirty-year-old who is (awake but living in a bad dream) screaming and kicking, we see that as an attack and we must defend ourselves or counterattack. Our belief system says it's alright for a baby to act that way so our perception is that it's a call for Love. But an adult should not act that way and so we see it as an attack. When we correct that error in thinking (the miracle) and can honestly see it as a call for Love, first we will be guided to the appropriate way to extend Love and the fear which that action represented will dissolve. Second, there will be nothing perceived for which a grievance is justified and forgive-ness is not needed. But we have a lot of memories of experiences in our life where we misinterpreted what was happening, judged something to be real that wasn't, and upon that based justification for a grievance. Now is forgiveness called for. Forgiveness not for what we thought someone did but for the judgement based on perception. If you're saying right now, "But he really did do a horrible thing with intent to do me harm," go back to
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page one and delay your peace of mind a little longer. We have called this person into our awareness, asked for his time and energy to help us learn and then said, "No, you're doing it all wrong." Burtism: There is no relationship in which we cannot teach Love. If you're saying, "I just can't accept that," that's alright. We will all learn it, but it's our choice when. It takes seventy-eight daily lessons in the Course in Miracles to be prepared for this turnaround in thinking. So be kind to yourself. If it doesn't fit, just put it on the shelf for now. You'll have many opportunities to look at it again. And each time one comes to us, we get a chance to decide whether we want conflict or peace, sadness or joy, fear or Love. We will always respond according to what we value most. In every study group, when we get to forgiveness, someone will share a result something like this: "I chose my father for the forgiveness exercise because we weren't getting along too well and when we saw him last weekend, he had changed." "I chose a former friend and three days later I received a card from her in the mail." "I chose a person who I thought disliked me. I felt compelled to meet with her for a cup of coffee where I found out that she thought I disliked her. Now we both feel great." Forgiveness is never asked for what is Real. Only Love is real. Where there is a need for forgiveness, it
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just means we've perceived in error. All that is needed for peace is a correction of thinking, a change of perspective. That's the miracle. Peace, joy and harmony are the results. BURT'S BEAUTY TREATMENT Love has been defined as unconditional positive regard. Another way of saying that is total acceptance. I think these terms will help explain what I want to share now. We've had the experience of meeting someone with whom we didn't seem to have much in common. And usually the feeling is mutual. It didn't seem to be anything specific, we just wouldn't go out of our way to visit with them. We've also occasionally met someone with whom we feel an immediate affinity. Seemed to strike it off well from the beginning, felt very comfortable in their presence, and looked forward to each meeting. This person seemed to understand and support whatever we did or said. We never felt threatened or criticized by them. It seemed that in their eyes, we could do no wrong. And the feeling we had for them was exactly the same. We shared an unconditional positive regard and experienced total acceptance. (The first one of these we met, we usually tried to marry but that's not relevant here.)
My point is this: that person appeared to us literally beautiful regardless of their physical features. This is a case where, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." I mentioned earlier that when our behavior is not in line with our thinking, we will alter our thinking to comply. For some reason, we like to associate with beautiful people. We certainly like to associate with this person (behavior) and will perceive them as beautiful (thinking to comply). Some things to note when this occurs: 1. We can be totally open and honest, sharing our desires, our joys and our fears and concerns. 2 . We can't fake it. If it's not there, it can't be conjured up to be there. 3 . It can work in reverse. Sometimes, after some years together, this unconditional positive regard starts to wane. And the relationship is reduced to a "Garbage by agreement." That is you put up with my garbage and I'll put up with yours. The couple begins to replace mutual acceptance with criticism. Where each could do no wrong, now each can do nothing right. What happens to our perception now is that we must start to see that person as ugly, regardless of their physical features. Our perception (thinking) must alter to support our behavior.
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So how can we use this constructively? If we're in a relationship that's faltering, we can be pretty sure we are participating in some criticism and condemnation either overtly or subtly and probably both. (And how do you think we're beginning to look to the other?) If we want to experience fulfilling relationships, we must understand the biggest stumbling blocks which the Course refers to as special relationships (again, Dr. Ken Wapnick made this awareness possible for me). The most important concept in the world's belief system is that we are guilty. Most of us are not sure of what, but that's not important, we've all bought into it to some degree. And for the world to survive, as we know it, that belief is essential. Guilt calls for punishment, and there is nothing we fear more than the promised punishment for the guilt we think is real. So there's nothing we want more than to be free of this guilt. If you can't relate to the term guilt, (so you won't feel left out) perhaps you can recall feelings of unworthiness, unacceptance of Self, lack or incompleteness. Now if my job were to keep you convinced of something you didn't want to believe, I'd be most effective by showing you ways that would apparently free you but, in fact, would only bind you tighter. I might convince you that you were lacking something and guide you to search for it where it could never be found. This is exactly the technique of the ego for protecting the world's belief in guilt.
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The ego (counsel for the world) teaches that ere are only two ways to be free of guilt, neither of which work: repress it, and project it. Holy Spirit (counsel for Love) teaches that the only way to be free of guilt is forgiveness. That's why it's said that forgiveness is the key to Love. The ego would have us create special love and special hate relationships which only means that we give things a meaning that they really don't have (the Course calls this magic). What we have a special love for, we see as the source of our happiness and must have in our life. What we have a special hate for, we see as the source of our pain and must avoid in our life. The special hate relationship is pretty easy to understand. We assume the posture of victim, suffering at the hands of another, upon whom we can place the blame for all our pain. By placing the guilt for our pain outside yourself (projection), we sometimes experience momentary pleasure followed by what psychology calls depression, which is simply the guilt enhanced in us. Most thinking people can see the futility of getting freedom from guilt through the victim role, but it's not as easy to see why the Course calls special love "the home of guilt." Ego's guidance is to find things that help us keep guilt out of our awareness (repression or denial). So we create a special love for things that make us feel good such as various forms of recreation, alcohol and drugs, arcade games,
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television and especially fun people. The guilt then becomes like an iceberg, bobbing up and down in our awareness with ninety percent kept hidden by our distractions. The fun person we want always to be near is a tool to protect us from our guilt (we give them that meaning and it thus becomes their purpose in our life). Here's the twist. What we've given them the job of protecting us from, they become the symbol for! Believing that we are incomplete, the ego guides us to find our completeness where it is not, out there in someone else. We become dependent upon them for our completeness. Dependency breeds contempt. If this sounds a little far-fetched, look at our love songs, "You light up my life," "Only You," and "I can't smile without you." Where two "half-people" come together apparently finding their wholeness in the other, the ego (world) labels it a "Marriage made in heaven." When we're with this person, they "make us feel whole," "they give our life purpose." They seem to accept us completely and thus keep from our awareness the horrible self image we have of ourselves. We call it "in love." Unfortunately, we're not in love with them, but they're capacity to protect us from our imagined guilt and incompleteness. Everything is fine so long as they can perform in the role (purpose) we've given them. But what happens when they inevitably fall short in meeting our needs? When they no longer help us repress our guilt, we
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must invoke the other ego tool and project it onto them. They who used to be the source of our happiness are now cause of our pain and heartaches. It's their fault we're so miserable and special love quickly becomes special hate. The ego now convinces us that one of its other premises is the only solution: separation. Our love song now becomes "Please Release Me." Remember that our premise determines our purpose. Our social problems indicate that, in many cases, the ego's purpose for relationships has been pretty successful in proving its premise that we are separate and guilty. If you're still with me, we do have a solution. Just like every other area of life, we must consciously decide to change the purpose of our relationships. We entered a relationship believing the world's premise: we are guilty, separated and incomplete. Our premise becomes our purpose. Ego says we're incomplete and guides us to find our completeness in another, which we can not. The result is a greater sense of incompleteness which appears to prove its premise. (W)Holy Spirit knows only that we are whole (complete) and so that we might experience that wholeness, guides us to share our wholeness with another. A Holy relationship results when we change the purpose of our relationship from one of trying to find our wholeness in another to one of sharing our wholeness.
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Question: I've decided to teach only Love, but why does the universe keep sending me turkeys? Because you wouldn't learn anything if you got only rainbows and butterflies. The plan is perfect. Above all else we want to free ourselves of our sense of guilt. The world is a mirror showing us people that reflect our belief about ourselves. Let's say we have something we don't like about ourselves, maybe deep down we would like to escape from life and we're not too proud of that desire. So we see some "turkey" who's an alcoholic (trying to escape life) whom we can easily criticize and condemn. We may not choose the form of alcoholism, but the form doesn't matter, the content is the same. He has (with our consent and maybe even at our request) helped to bring to our awareness (from the iceberg of repressed guilt) something from which we can now free ourselves (which we want above all else). The ego says, "repress or project." Since this "turkey" foiled our attempt to repress, we are now guided to project. And it goes onto him. "He's to blame." Result: guilt enhanced. Holy Spirit, when asked for guidance, says "Let's change our perception of this through a process called forgiveness." Result: by freeing him of blame, we have just freed ourselves (which we want above all else).
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THERE IS NO OTHER WAY! By projecting guilt, our guilt is enhanced. Through forgiveness only are we forgiven, not for anything Real but an illusory perception. And here's the payoff, the "turkey" doesn't have to do it anymore. Through our learning forgiveness, the objectionable behavior has fulfilled its purpose and the "turkey" freed of the need to reflect our guilt becomes transformed into a rainbow or butterfly. Class is never over. We create our universe of rainbows and butterflies only by transforming the "perceived turkeys" in our lives into opportunities to keep on teaching Love.
http://www.triadbooks.com/Ebooks/hotchkis2.pdf.
Be true to thy self . We often settle for what we believe we ought to be. I believe we must take back control of our selves & only through knowledge of self can that be achieved. I thank you for your inspiration & hope I look forward to your response.
Respect ARES
© 2010 Niccolo` Van VechtenAuthor's Note
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Niccolo` Van Vechtennyc, NYAboutnovice writer venting thoughts that answer questions I try to understand more.. |
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