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A Course in Miracles for the Simply Common Folks By Michael Carluccio
In the late 80’s, while I was working as a school psychologist, I wrote and published a series of three booklets to help adolescents understand what is taught in ACIM. Since I was using them in the public schools, I omitted Christian and God references. The original booklets are out of print, and I have rewriting them as one book with three sections. They were called “Teaching Sanity in an Insane World.” (A Course in Miracles for Adolescents). The subtitle has been changed to “A Course in Miracles for Simply Common Folks” since this book is now meant for adults as well as adolescents. The material is copyrighted, but I give permission for anyone to use these as the “loving spirit of us all” directs. Michael
lNTRODUCT10N
Do you ever feel there is something wrong with the world in which we live? Do you and your friends make fun of others? Do others make fun of you? Do you feel upset frequently by parents, friends, and enemies in your school and home?
This is the way most of us view the world in which we live at least some of the time. There always seems to be people fighting with one another, we never seem to have enough of the things we all need to live, our safety is threatened by the weather, the pollution of our air, water and earth. We are threatened by each other. It is as if all sorts of unknown creatures and monsters are lurking and waiting to catch us off guard, threatening to devour us. Yet we have a longing for peace, safety and love.
The intention behind this book is to teach us how to honestly look at how this world doesn’t work and then learn together to make it work for us all, with no one left out. Our goal becomes to experience a world characterized by well-being, abundance, safety, joy and peace.
The form of these lessons is very simple. The words are as basic as they are practical. The message is profound: We are asleep to our own insanity. We need to unlearn all that we have learned about being happy. The simple path to this happiness is through learning forgiveness. The way to learn forgiveness is through teaching forgiveness. The best way to teach is by example. This book is a training manuals for forgiveness. You will be asked “to become like little children,” not knowing anything for sure and eager to learn with complete confidence and certainty. Many of the teaching methods and examples used for this book come directly from the author’s experience and training as a school psychologist and his work with thousand of young people and their parents and teachers. His inspiration comes from his willingness to learn as he writes and teaches, not knowing how or what is going to come out, but sure of his purpose and intention. The content of the lessons is modeled on the content of the lessons in the workbook of A Course in Miracles. No claim is made, however, that this material is channeled or that all the concepts are the same as those in ACIM. The first two sections are mostly a simple walk through what I am calling the “unholy trio”, our ego/mind, our perceptions and our belief systems. Don’t hurry through the walk. Take your time to smell the flowers and also to smell the rot that exists all around them. (illustration) #1
No formal method of using this book is necessary. It is suggested that you take a quick look through the book, and if it feels right to you, plan to do all the lessons as suggested. You may, however, do it differently. You are always to be the one choosing how you will awaken to your sanity. You should feel free to set your own pace and your own methods of learning these lessons
Lesson One
Value
Do you know where value comes from? Have you ever thought about what makes something valuable? Why is something of valuable to some people and not to others? For example, most boys like bugs, most girls go “ug” to bugs. Most girls like shopping, most boys stick out there tongues to shopping and think shopping sucks.
When we think about these questions we realize that we are the ones who put value into things. They have no value until someone says they are valuable. We like the way something smells, the way it looks, the way it feels, the way it tastes, etc. Or we think and feel that it can give us security. Money and collectibles are examples of this kind of valuing.
Make a list of the things you value. Put the list in an order from the highest to the lowest priority. Keep this list. You will be asked to use this list later in our journey to the world of well-being, abundance, security, joy and peace.
Lesson Two Meaning
If something has no value for us, we will pay little or no attention to it. It just doesn’t hold our interest. We sometimes say it is boring, but what we probably mean is that we are not interested in it. It seems meaningless to us.
Can you see the connection between what we value and what we find meaningful? If you do, you might see that when you put value into things, (and notice that I said when YOU put value into things) you are putting meaning into these things as well. If you withhold thinking something is valuable, it has little or no meaning for you.
List some things you do not value (don’t like) and notice how you see little or no meaning in these things:
Would you mind if the world did not contain these things on your list? Would you like it if the things you consider valueless and meaningless did not clutter your life?
What about those things you listed in Lesson One as valuable? Would you be upset if they could never be in your life again?
Go to each of the items on the list in Lesson One and after reading each item out loud say: “I AM the one who puts value and meaning into this.”
Then go to the items you wrote for the list in Lesson Two. Read them out loud and say after each: ”I AM the one who withholds value and meaning from this.”
Now go back to both lists and read the items once again out loud saying after each “I AM the maker of value and meaning in my life.”
Write here any thought, feelings or reactions you have to these exercises:
Lesson Three Judgment and Understanding
It is obvious that we place value in things and find meaning in them by judging and evaluating them. Can you, on the other hand, see that we can not make judgments and evaluations about things without putting meaning into them? It’s something like the chicken and the egg dilemma. It’s hard to see which comes first.
Understanding is also connected to judgments and evaluations. My understanding is sometimes clearer when I see the meaning and value I have placed in these things. Meaning, value and understanding seem to go together. Things mean something to me when I have put value into them. I only put value into them when I have judged them. So without judgment I would not be able to see meaning in anything, and without meaning there is no understanding. All of these mental activities go together.
Judging often involves understanding things as good or bad, right or wrong. This is the way most of us think when we are making judgments. We are often upset when we have judged things in our life to be bad or wrong. It is painful for us to be upset. Therefore, when we judge things as bad and wrong our peace is gone, and we become preoccupied with fixing what appears to us to be bad and wrong. If it is something we have done or a way we are being, this also results in guilt and sadness.
This is the only way we seem to understand what our life means. Not a very pretty picture of life, is it? Thank God, there is another way to come to finding meaning in our life. This course, I am leading you through, will teach you that other way to use your mental activities so that you do not have to use dualistic thinking, like right and wrong, good and bad, to come to meaning for your life. This may sound strange to you now, but I promise it will become clear if you are willing to live with a bit of uncomfortableness that not knowing and not understanding sometimes brings.
The kind of learning about your mental activity that you will get by doing this course will bring you meaning for your life and a peace that surpasses the understanding of life based on judgmental thinking.
You will not be asked to believe anything without the experience of knowing it to be true. You are only being asked to follow the reasoning and do the exercises and processes suggested in this course. The only judgment you will be asked to make will be to examine your feelings as you go through the course. Are you feeling happier, more peaceful, and more certain of life’s purpose? Never will you be asked to blindly agree or believe what is said. Always you will be asked to check with your own feelings.
For now, I ask you to be like a true scientist and make no pre-judgments as to what your results will be. Simply follow the suggested reasoning and exercises to the best of your ability. It is your willingness to do this that will give you the results I promise.
Throughout the day say the following whenever you feel upset or unhappy: “The pain I experience is connected to my way of judging, and my way of understanding. I am willing to have peace in my life. I am willing to see things differently.”
Stay with this lesson until you feel urged to go on to the next. Lesson Four Love
If things don’t have any meaning in and of themselves, how can we really understand anything? How could what has no meaning be understood?
We know that we can put meaning into things; therefore, meaning, understanding and value are possible. We also know that meaning and understanding come from the way we judge. What would happen if we no longer used our familiar way of judging? This can be a frightening thought. It seems as though all meaning would go out of our life, therefore, all reason to live would be gone.
This despair overcomes us because our identity is tied to the process we use for valuing and understanding our world. If our world is meaningless, we must be as well. Our special personality and our rugged individualism must stand alone. It must stand against this hostile and meaningless world if we are to survive. If not, then we feel we will be swallowed up by the meaningless of what is going on all about us. We frequently will fight and even die to preserve this separate and special identity. In a general sense we call this specialness our ego. It is that part of our mind that we think defines us and our relationship to the “real world”.
Do you think you understand what is meant by ego? Most people have some idea of what this term means, but nobody has a clear idea. This is because ego is a mind construct based on confusion, uncertainty and fear. Ego is a hard character to pin down. The way I am using it here is what you generally think yourself to be. It is your sense of being a separate and distinct individual. This ego is a result of a thought I have that I can exist and act as an individual thing or individual in a world separate from me.
You will discover as you go through these lessons that it is impossible to separate yourself from other things and other people in your world. We will discover that we are related to all living and non-living things in our world. We will further discover that there is a power in the universe out of which we are created. By giving up knowing what is right or wrong, good or bad we will give up our identification with this ego and allow this creative power to flow through us.
Love is the name I am giving this creative power. Here is a drawing to illustrate how this relationship to the power of love’s creative force might influence us.
Now I would like you to invent and create other ways to illustrate what I presented to you in this lesson. Share these drawings here with me and any one with whom you feel comfortable sharing. Tell us what it is you are feeling as you do this.
Lesson Five Ego-Mind
Review lessons one through four by remembering that meaning and power come through acknowledging that love is your reality not the ego. We are upset, depressed, sad, angry, frustrated when we forget this.
We are discovering that without love our ego becomes a tyrant. We need help in breaking away from ego’s tyrannical ways. It is very helpful to ask for support to do this. Frequently, support comes from a friend, a family member, a teacher, a support group or anyone who understands how impossible it is to get out of the ego’s grip on your own. You see, as long as you think you can do it alone, you are in your ego-mind. You identify with the very thing you are trying to get rid of.
Support works best when this support comes from a source that remembers we are connected to love. We can only feel joy and happiness when we acknowledge and cooperate with this sense of belonging to this love source.
In contrast to love’s way of connecting everything and everyone, my little ego would like to grow BIG by itself. It thinks it can do this by gathering things into its grips. It tries to take control of more and more stuff and more and more people. It thinks it becomes BIG and POWERFUL this way.
It would like other egos to become afraid of it. It acts brave and strong, but it is secretly afraid of other egos too. (Illustration)
Our ego has to find a way to protect itself and the things it gathers. The best way to do this, it reasons, is to identify itself with the body that it shows to the world. This identification with the body, it thinks, keeps it separate from all other egos. (illustration) Other egos have the same idea. Conflict, competition and war are the only way to survive in this scenario. Winning these battles with other egos gives temporary feelings of satisfaction and safety. These feelings never last as other egos are always trying to get one up on us. This seems to be the way of the world. It is an “As the World Turns” soap opera that never seems to end. We are constantly in a guarded state of living to protect what we have identified as valuable from those who are trying to take our valuables from us.
Each ego-mind has to invent reasons to explain why it should keep what it has gathered to itself. This process of rationalization and justification strengthens our identification as an ego-mind. This process also even has us identifying with the possessions the ego-mind thinks it has acquired.
This ego-mind will even use reason to attack others, if what it has identified with is threatened. It secretly becomes guilty about this, because it attacks others to protect its own invented identity yet knows somewhere within its mind that this is not its real identity. Can you see how convoluted and confusing the ego’s reasoning is?
Now that the ego has taken us to this dark place of attack and guilt it has to find a way to rid us of the guilt. Voila! Let’s find a way to punish ourselves. We can get sick, have an accident, lose our possessions, or even die. This, it reasons, will punish everyone for not giving it what it wants. And on top of this, it doesn’t even know what it wants. Is all of this giving you a head ache? Of course, it is. It is insane! It is all nonsense! When you really look at the ego’s way you can only laugh! Don’t spend any more time thinking about this nonsense.
We are now going to learn another way to get meaning into our life. It is often called meditation. Meditation takes many forms. It essentially is just listening for another voice other than the ego’s voice within your mind. Try this now by sitting in a comfortable chair and relaxing. Close your eyes, and focus on your breath. Allow whatever thoughts you have to be there. Don’t force anything. Do this quiet listening until you get a prompt from within to open your eyes. In the beginning, this may not last more than a few minutes. As you practice, you will find that the time will be extended.
Intermission
After all the head stuff it is time for a break. Enjoy these poems:
A RABBIT NOTICED
MY CONDITION
The Rose
The rose is without why It blooms because it blooms It cares not for itself Asks not if it be seen
Angelus Siessio
I Surrender
I surrender to love stuff is thrown away love transforms me returning me to itself joining me with love itself all meaning ego summoned to disguise fades to reveal the truth of oneness and the joy of sharing self with self
michael
Lesson Six Reality
Does it upset you when you don’t understand something? The more mature you think you are the more likely you are to be upset by not understanding something
It often upsets adults when they don’t understand something. Children are not usually upset by this. They don’t have to know everything. They generally think it is fun to learn new things. Children ask many questions so they can learn new things. Many adults don’t want to be like children. However, a wise and holy man once said, “Unless you become like little children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven”. In modern words this is like saying that you can’t be happy unless you are willing to change the way you know things and the way you see life. You have to see things differently if you are feeling unhappy, sad, angry or upset in any way, because it is your way of valuing and putting meaning into useless things that is at the root of your unhappiness.
Unless you are willing not to know what will make you happy, you will not learn what will bring you this feeling of joy and contentment. We often do not understand what our own best interests are or what reality is. What we think we know is often a distortion of reality, an illusion of reality. To learn what reality is, we must be willing to let “what is” (reality) teach us. When we attempt to impose what we know upon reality, it becomes hidden from us. Then we are unhappy.
How do we change from unhappiness to happiness?
When we have these feelings that bring us down, we ask for help from the voice for love within our mind. Simply by doing this we allow a new understanding of reality to become available to us. You see, love is the only thing that is real in and of itself in our world. Everything else is only partially true and partially false. That’s the way it is in a world that is made up of opposing sides like good and bad, right and wrong. We call this the world of duality. Only unconditional love, which is One and Whole and Complete, without parts, is real in such a world. You can get in touch with this love by calling for it and by practicing the meditation suggested in the last lesson.
Nothing that is real can exist outside of this love. Therefore, anything that appears to exist without love is like a dream or an illusion. We know that when we are dreaming we think dreams are real, but when we wake up we say, “It wasn’t real. It was only a dream.” Waking up to the reality of this unconditional love will happen as quickly as we give our willingness for it to take place.
One way we can speed this up is by being willing to learn forgiveness. The ego-mind doesn’t want you to learn how to forgive. It would like to keep you in the dream, in the illusion of reality. Ego-mind would disappear if you learned to totally forgive everything and everyone because then everyone and everything would have come back to love. The ego is the thought that you are separate. If all is known and experienced as love, then there is nothing separate, hence, no ego.
The ego-mind constantly manufactures illusions to make us believe real what is unreal. This may sound foolish for us to do, but we have bought the ego-mind’s deception and do think often that illusions are reality.
The ego-mind also would have us think that love is its rival and that if we gave into love it would be the end of our freedom and our life as an individual. Our ego-mind has us fear love telling us that we don’t deserve love because we have selfish thoughts. These are the very thoughts that make up our ego-mind. Can you see the circular and nonsensical thinking here? What we deserve according to the ego-mind is to be punished and controlled.
Since we were created out of love, this is our true essence. Believing the ego-mind, keeps us from experiencing our true self. Love would include all in its concern and care. Love could not wish harm to anyone or anything. Love knows that nothing can exist outside its drive for union or finding its true self. Therefore, we are natural, complete and wholly sane when, and only, when we experience ourselves as an extension of the creative force of love.
How or why would love seek to hurt us? Would love want to harm an extension of love? Since our ego-mind is manufactured out of our faulty perception of separate things in our world, we know that what we call our ego is not real. It is nothing but a figment of our imagination, a toy we invented to play with for a while. Only if we identify with this toy can we experience fear. When we fully accept ourselves as an extension of love we will no longer be afraid of anything.
This may be the most difficult lesson to learn so far. Please read it again. If you feel you need to, read it once more. Ask for help from your voice for love within to help you understand what reality is. Continue to practice meditation on a daily basis.
Lesson Seven Calling for Help
The past is everything we have learned by ourselves or others have taught us about what they have learned. In other words, the past “is history.” It is from the remembering of those past events that we learn what is threatening. We avoid what we remember as a threat and seek what we remember as pleasure. We do this all the time even when we are sleeping. We call this process perception.
Now remember that perception comes from our past thoughts/experiences and feelings about these thoughts/ experiences. Perception by its nature is personal. By that I mean we only remember the experience as we personally placed meaning and value into what went on in our life. We could not possibly have understood all that went on from this personal or perceptual point of view.
Is knowing the truth about what is going on starting to sound a bit complicated? I’m sure it must be for you. This is the ego-mind’s system. It spreads confusion and misinterpretation and has us think we can only know the truth through long study with its help and then only know partial truth. It wants us to spend all our time thinking about things like this and trying to figure out what we should do. It likes analyzing, planning, scheming and figuring. The ego-mind likes nothing better than to keep us worrying and doing things to avoid getting in touch with Love.
Not getting in touch with Love keeps us from knowing who we really are. It keeps us from knowing the “whole truth and nothing but the truth”. Who we really are is an extension of Love, Love’s child. Love is the source out of which all things flow and as such the connecting link or glue that links us all together. Love is manifest in our world of duality by happiness, joy, well-being, abundance and peace.
Do this exercise now to get in touch with the Love that is always present within you:
Close your eyes and relax. Sit as still as you can. Take four or five deep breaths. With each inhale say “IAM LOVE”. With each exhale say “I SEND LOVE TO ALL”. Do this for as long as it is comfortable for you. During the day watch your mind and your feelings to see what new thoughts and feelings of love come to you. Share these by writing them here or drawing pictures here to show what new love thoughts and feelings you received.
Lesson Seven, Part 2
Calling for Help
The voice for Love can be called our spirit of Love. It is within us all so we can call it our wholly shared spirit. Some think of it as a holy spirit or our inner self or our higher power. Doesn’t matter what you call it as long as you are willing to listen to the voice for this Love within your own mind.
It is always within us, but we don’t always hear this gentle voice because of the ego/mind’s ravings and screeching. It is always waiting for us to call upon it. Times of worry and trouble, when our ego-mind is obviously not working for us, are times we are likely to call upon this voice and be willing to listen to its suggestions. It never demands. It only gently suggests. This is in respect for our free will to choose for Love or whatever in any moment of our consciousness.
This gentle voice never gets into a fight with our ego-mind’s voice. It just patiently waits for us to call upon it for help. Our call is always answered. This answer may not always be understood or welcomed by us, especially when the ego-mind has us feeling very frightened and defensive. But it is always understood and welcomed by that part of our mind that remembers who we truly are. Eventually it will be heard and welcomed by the whole mind.
When you are worried or in trouble, call for help from this voice for Love. Say something like, “Help me see this differently,” or “Show me another way to do this.” You will be asking to see the whole truth of your present experience and not be reacting out of past experiences and past perceptions. You are asking your spirit-mind to help you choose today, this moment, to move out of the past and into the present moment. The presence of Love is what is always in this present moment if you are willing to see and feel it by being present without your past perceptions.
When we make this request it is always granted. Herein lies our complete peace and happiness.
Lesson Eight Thinking
Where and when does thinking take place? Our ego-mind would like us to believe that it takes place in our brain and in linear time. Modern science is questioning both of these assumptions. It questions the limitations of this isolated and temporary view of what human thought involves.
Thinking can not be in the past since the past is gone. It can not be in the future since the future does not exist in our experience as yet. Do you then believe that thinking exists in the present? Let’s try a little experiment to show how this is impossible.
Write down what you are thinking now:
No matter what you write down you can not write what you are thinking now. You can only write (speak) what you were just thinking not what you are thinking now.
Thinking can not exist in time, because it flows with time as if time were part of a stream of consciousness. To believe that it can be stopped and held onto is to believe that unreality or illusion of reality is real.
What about thinking existing in a particular place like your brain? This is absurd on the face of it. Modern science knows that time and space is part of a space/time continuum. One does not exist without the other. Space is nothing without identifying a particular and specific time and a unique event.
Therefore, if thinking is real it can not exist in time or in space. What we are aware of as thinking is our ego-mind’s attempt to hide real thinking. Real thinking comes from the knowledge that the ego-mind’s claim that we are separate from one another and our world is a false claim. To believe that we can pursue separate interests and have separate purposes from everyone else and from our world is an absurd and insane thought.
Using the reasoning and the thought system of the ego-mind requires much analysis and complicated figuring. Using the reasoning of the ego-mind has our head spinning and hurting.
(illustration)
One way to really think is to be as quiet as you can and let thought come to you without any figuring, censoring or controlling effort. Some people call this method meditation.
Using meditation, we can call upon the voice for love to speak to us. You have experienced this in a previous lesson. This I am calling thinking with Love’s mind or meditative thinking as contrasted to the figurative thinking of the ego-mind. You see, to truly think is to be present without controlled thought.
Try meditating now. Use the method described in an earlier lesson or invent or find one that works for you.
Lesson Nine Concepts/Beliefs
We can only see based on our past experiences. These experiences form in our mind what we call concepts or beliefs. We can’t see concepts and beliefs, but we depend upon them for what we do see and hear or what we call our perceptions. What we see and hear is a projection based on these concepts and beliefs. Our perceptions are a product of these concepts and beliefs we have in our ego-mind. They are just a picture on the screen of our neutral world.
Naturally, our perceptions are limited by what our ego-mind uses for forming these perceptions. Some scientists call this the perceptual principle of non-allness. The system of non-allness works similar to the way pictures are put on a blank screen by a movie projector. We call this whole process “projection”. In psychology, it is found that some people who have distorted concepts and beliefs about what is going in the world (concepts much different from most of us) often have mental and emotional problems. The truth is that the whole process makes for an unreal or illusionary world. Just because many of us share the same illusion does not make this illusion truth or reality.
Projection depends upon our past experiences and the experiences of our ancestors as stored in our DNA. It also depends upon what we have extracted from these experiences to form our concepts and beliefs. Remember, the past does not exist, so if we project out of this non-existent or unreal place what we perceive is nothing but an illusion or, at best, a partial view of reality.
In spite of the insanity of this process of depending upon concepts/ beliefs and the resulting projections of these to know what is going on in our world, we don’t want to give up this system. To do so would be extremely frightening.
Try this experiment: You will need a buddy to do this experiment and a blindfold. 1. Blindfold your self. 2. Ask your buddy to lead you around the room . 3. Do the same for him/her. 4. Then, without discussing how you felt or what you experienced, write out your feelings and experiences.
Whatever you discovered I’m sure this is part of it: “When I know I am blind, my job becomes to learn to trust someone or something that I can follow. I can not do it by myself if I am blind to the reality of my surroundings.”
This is the end of Book One of the trilogy called “Teaching Sanity in an Insane World”
Summary
This booklet introduced you to the unholy (un-wholly) trio of ego-mind---- concept/belief-----perception. You discovered that; 1. We are the value makers of our world. 2. Meaning, value and understanding are intertwined and inseparable. 3. Judgment of right and wrong, good or bad leads to pain, suffering and upset. 4. We are all connected to each other through unconditional Love. 5. By identifying ourselves with the ego-mind, we live in a threatening world and proceed toward death and decay with much effort, pain and struggle. 6. Freedom from the fear generated by this identification with the ego-mind is possible. 7. This freedom takes a willingness to trust the voice for Love within each of us. We may call this voice whatever we like. It is not what we call it that produces the effect we desire but our willingness to call within for help. 8. This Voice can free us from our history and help us see what truly is in our world. This true world presents itself to us in our moment to moment acceptance of what is.
Teaching Sanity in an Insane World (Part two) Ego-Body Does His Stuff (The unholy trio)
Introduction
In the first booklet I introduced you to the unholy trio of ego-mind, perception and concept/belief. This booklet will show us how this trio gets us to identify ourselves as our body using this trio’s dirty tricks. These dirty tricks are called “defense mechanisms” by psychologists. Here are the names they use: identification, projection and dissociation. I told you about projection in booklet one. The other two I will talk to you about in this booklet.
We will discover that if we buy into these dirty tricks we will make ego/body something very real for us. We will identify ourselves as a separate body (ego/body) who needs to project blame and wrongness outside of itself onto other ego/bodies. Projection is how we then get rid of the guilt we feel for making this identification. This is what I mean by dissociation. In other words, once we project blame unto others, our ego- mind says we no longer are guilty. BIG MISTAKE!
The way to counter these dirty tricks is through another mind process called forgiveness. This allows us to take back what we have projected without the guilt and blame that had us project it in the first place. When this forgiveness process is done, we will discover our true Self. Our true Self is an extension of the love from the source of our creation as a living being.
It is helpful here to tell you what I mean by ego/body. I can’t really define what it is because it is not real. It is made up from the bits and pieces of thoughts that come to us from the system of thought we call figurative thinking. Figurative thinking depends upon believing in time. It has us believe that we can control our present and future if we understand and learn from our past. WRONG! This is just part of a game of duality and time-lining we choose to play together. We really have nothing to learn, we just have to unlearn the rules of the game we made up. Once we do that, ego/body goes PUFF! No more ego/body, now only a spirit/body which can still be in the ego/body game but knows it is playing a game.
These booklets, in general, and this one in particular are meant to expose the ego defense systems for what they are: smoke screens for our limited perception of who we are in relation to our world and universe. Thinking we are an ego/body and thinking with an ego/body makes us imposters and game players who don’t even know we are playing a game. Awakening to the truth of what is going on will enlighten us to the beauty and magnificence that we are as sharers of the creative spirit of love.
Lesson Ten Worry
Have you ever worried? What did you worry about? Are you worried about anything right now?
Write out some of the things you worry about:
Look at your list. Does the source of your worry come from experiences you had in the past? Are you worried about what might happen in the future? Can you see that worry is not about what is present for you NOW? NOW is the only thing that is real. The past is gone and, therefore, unreal. The future is not yet so, also, unreal.
The present might be described as “that which is now and now and now and now-------- for all eternity”. You see, you really can’t experience the past unless you bring it into the NOW. The future can’t hurt you unless you also bring it into the NOW. Now is all that exists in reality. If you don’t quite understand all of this, don’t worry. Ha! Ha!
Seriously, if you do worry, try this simple three step process: 1. Notice your worry. 2. Accept your worry as what is a true experience for you right NOW. 3. Ask the voice for Love within your mind to show you another way to perceive your situation so that your worry can be released. Say something like “Help me see things differently”.
We will go over this three step process many times and in many ways before we have finished learning the spirit/body’s system called forgiveness.
Spend as much time as you can catching yourself in worry thoughts and scared feelings. Each time you notice these, use the three step process to help you release your worry and fear.
Don’t justify worry and scared feeling by blaming them on something or someone in your world.
Don’t repress worry or scared feelings and try to be brave in the face of danger. Learn the “Three Step” and dance yourself to peace and joy. You will be calling upon the voice for Love to show you a way to a worry free NOW!
(illustration)
Love Casts out All Fear
Lesson Eleven Trusting
Reading children’s stories appeals to the child in each of us. Being open to such stories is one way to “become like little children”. Here is a story written by me and illustrated by my step-daughters, Alison and Becky when they were 12 and 14 years old. Remember this story when you feel in danger or trouble.
Learning to Listen
Once upon a time there was a young boy who lived in a peaceful and prosperous family. His favorite activity was exploring. One day he was invited to a party at a great mansion. (illustration) There were many rooms in this mansion. The party was being held in the largest of these rooms. (illustration) He was having a wonderful time in this grand room until he started to get restless. He decided to explore the rest of the mansion. He was having much fun and excitement doing this. (illustration) Everywhere he went he would see new things and in every room there were servants of the master of the house who would show him around. In one of the rooms, he even met the master of the mansion himself. Finally, he got tired of exploring the mansion and decided he would like to go home. He looked for a way out of the mansion. He went up this hallway and then that and then this again. He kept bumping into walls with no doors leading out of the mansion. He even bumped his head when he thought he had found a way out, and it turned out to be an illusion. Now he was getting angry and a bit scared but he wouldn’t admit that he was afraid, and he was too proud to ask any of the servants for help. (illustration) After a while the fear took over, and he started to cry. He just didn’t know what to do. (illustration) A thought came to him, “All I have to do is ask one of the master’s servants or the master himself how to get out of the mansion”. They had been very pleasant in showing him around. He timidly asked, “Can you show me the way to get out of here so I can go home?” The answer came in a clear calm voice. The way out was so easy and so clear to him NOW! He was very happy and grateful. He thanked the servant who showed him the way out. As he was leaving the mansion, he realized that it was his own stubbornness and wanting to do things on his own that had made him so angry and frightened. A willingness to follow the directions of someone who knew the way was all that was needed to get home. He whistled and sang happily all the way home.
Have you ever acted like this young boy? I know I have. I have often tried to do things “my way”, in spite of the obviously poor results. All of my solitary attempts at finding happiness have failed. A wise man once defined insanity “as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results each time”. That’s what all of us seem to do sometimes.
What do you do when you find yourself in trouble, unhappy, afraid, angry, etc.? Do you try to figure a way out on your own? If so, you are being like the young boy in this story. If you don’t want to have all these yucky feelings, you can sit quietly when you feel upset about anything, close your eyes and relax. Ask the master or one of his servants (the voice for love within) to show you the way out of this upset. You will be calling upon Love to show you the way Home.
IF I TRUST, I WILL BE LEAD OUT OF TROUBLE. (ILLUSTRATION) IF I TRUST, I WILL BE LEAD HOME.
Lesson Twelve Fear
Do you enjoy playing games? If you do, then you know how exciting it can be to compete against someone else or against another team. Many people, however, don’t like playing games because when they have competed, they have lost repeatedly. Losing many times does something we don’t like to our feelings.
How do you think it would feel if you lost every time you competed? Think about this for a moment. Describe what it does to you or what you think it would do to you.
I bet you said that you would avoid playing competitive games. When we avoid anything, it is because that thing or event poses a threat to us. This is what fear of loss does to us. Fear has us go into a defensive or avoidance mode.
In the example I used, it is the loss of a game that is a threat to our self-esteem that we avoid. Can you think of other things you might be afraid of losing?
Do you remember in the first booklet the list of things you made of the things that were important to you? Revisit that list again. These were the things you thought had value for you. Go over each one and sense how it would feel to lose that thing forever. Most likely you will experience some form of fear. (illustration)
Describe your feelings for us now. If you are doing these lessons in a group, describe these feelings in the group. If you are doing this lesson by yourself, write out your feeling or draw some pictures to describe them.
Do you remember what we learned about our ego/body? It likes to feel important by gathering as many things as it can. It identifies with these things. (illustration)
We call these our possessions. These can be psychological as well as physical possessions. The ego/body wants to hold onto these possessions at all costs. It will build many defenses to control others so that it does not lose any of these possessions. (illustration)
Any time it looks like these defenses won’t hold it becomes very threatened. When it is threatened, it feels afraid and sometimes very angry. When it becomes afraid and angry, it builds more defenses. This goes on and on and on for what seems like forever.
Our ego/body, you see, by building these defenses, is in direct opposition to the love that our spirit/body longs for. Love seeks to share. Fear seeks to separate. (illustration) Our ego/body’s greatest fear is the death it thinks will take away all it values. Our ego/ body is in a constant state of fear and defensiveness because in believing in death it must eventually lose everything it values and all of its possessions.
Look again at the list of things you said you valued. Only those which last forever are worth having. Only love fits this bill. And the only way to increase love is to be defenseless and share yourself and your possessions with others.
So now we see ego/body’s game plan. Keep us from others by avoiding them and defending against them. Ego/body is really afraid that love will burst forth. The truth is that eventually love will burst forth because love is the truth of who we are and eventually we will all awaken to this truth. When we find ourselves afraid, we can call upon the love that is within us to enlighten our mind and fill our heart with the radiance of its magnetic force. Today, and each day, ask love to cast out the fear that will always seek to keep us in darkness. Ask love to plug us into the great rays of light that shine upon us this day and all days. (illustration)
Lesson Thirteen Contrast
One of the laws of logical thinking is this: “Something cannot be and not be at the same time and under the same circumstances.” This is called the law of contradiction. Can you see how this law could apply to holding the thought that you are separate from everyone else and everything else and also at the same time united with everyone else and everything else?
When we try to do this, we get what doctors call stress. Stress is a conflict that the mind can’t resolve. Either we are separate or we are not. The pain and mental discomfort that results from holding these contradictory thoughts in our mind is the price we are willing to pay for this compromise with reality. Actions can only flow easily when they come from a unified mind. Actions coming from a conflicted mind are filled with effort and struggle. This is what we call work.
The truth is we are connected to all of life. So actions coming from the thought that we are connected to all life results in a seamless, effortless, and harmonious flow of movement. Things happen to us in a synchronistic way. Everything just seems to work together to bring us what it is we think we need and desire. When we act from the thought that we are separate from each other and other parts of life, we have to compete with others for the things we need and want. This situation has us trying to control what it is impossible to control. This causes conflict and war.
Ego/ body is the way we represent competition. Spirit/body is the way we represent unity. Ego/body struggles and seeks to control. Spirit/body loves. Our way of being in the world is determined by which body is directing our actions. When we come from the conflicted purposes of the ego/body’s mind we: · Try to hold on to our possessions, · Try to take from others and the world for ourselves, · Seek for love but never find it, · Try to accomplish things but never completely to our satisfaction, · Sacrifice our joy for working for things that never satisfy, · Suffer, get sick and eventually die.
When we come from the thought of unity, a united purpose is possible. Spirit/body can flow in love’s synchronistic sea: · We act as if all possessions are only temporarily held by us · We freely give of what we possess, knowing that this is the way we receive everything we need and want · We bring joy to whatever we are doing · We ask for what we want and need · We use all our experiences to learn how to forgive To be stress free we can only pick the mind which is not conflicted and is not in opposition to anything else or anyone else. We can only pick the mind whose will is to extend love. We will then be happily swimming in a sea of synchronicity with everyone else and everything in our world who has the same intention. What fun this is!
Do you know that most people, most of the time, pick ego/body’s mind? This is the insane world in which we live. The reason most people choose insanity is because they identify themselves with their ego/body. They imagine that any brief pleasure they can have in such a world is better than no pleasure at all.
We can learn to teach sanity in this insane world if we wish. When you teach sanity by coming from the thought of unity, you show that you can be completely happy no matter what seems to be happening around you. You are like a light that shines in the darkness. When enough lights are shining, of course, the darkness will be no more. In the meantime, you are just asked to be that light if you wish to teach yourself and others sanity. To be the light, you will be exchanging pleasure/pain for joy and happiness. Is the exchange worth it to you?
For as long as there is time, each of us has the free will to accept or reject this offer. The truth is when we have had enough pain and suffering each of us will finally be willing to give up our ego/body’s way of seeing things. This could take many lifetimes. Are you ready to choose NOW! If you are, just say “YES” to love. If you are not ready yet, that’s okay. Not being ready yet is not being bad. You don’t want to be forced to choose. This has to be a freely or willingly given choice. It only takes a little willingness, however. Once you say “yes” all the spirit/bodies in unison come to help you out of the darkness into the light.
You will know when the time is right. You will probably say something like this, “I’ve had enough of this merry-go-round of misery. Stop! I want to get off! I want my world to be peaceful. I want everyone to live in abundance, joy, well-being and safety.”
Are you ready? Let’s find out. Close your eyes now and relax. Look deeply into your mind. Don’t open your eyes to see what choices others are making. When you are sure of your choice, open your eyes.
This has to be your personal choice. Remember this, however, if you choose for the ego/body don’t sweat it! You can always choose again. Those who have awoken to their true self will be waiting to greet you when you do.
Lesson Fourteen Untraining
In the previous lesson we asked love to speak to us. Love doesn’t have a particular body so I have referred to its body as a spirit/body. This spirit /body is always in relationship. Spirit/body is not like ego/body which tries to stand alone and acts for itself alone. Spirit/body, because it knows itself as in many relationships, acts out of love to help and serve others. The goal of our spirit body is to offer unconditional service and care to everyone and everything. It longs for a world that works for everyone and everything with no one or nothing left out.
Spirit/bodies don’t identify with a particular body. Essentially spirit/bodies are formless but like shape shifters can take many forms.
Ego/bodies identify with the physical body that you inhabit. Spirit/bodies may inhabit the same body but they do not identify with it. Spirit/bodies just use the physical body to express the love that they know themselves to be in relationship. Their relationships naturally take many forms.
Since love itself is formless, it can be imagined in many ways. Close your eyes again, and try to imagine love. Open your eyes, and draw or write what you imagined.
If you are doing these lessons in a group, share what you imagined with the group. If you are doing this on your own, share what you imagined with some friends and ask them how they imagine love.
Let’s now go back and see if we can undo ego/body’s grip on our mind. Do you remember that we looked at the unholy trio of ego/body, perception and concept/belief? We noticed how tricky they could be. We also noticed how complicated and insane their system is. What we didn’t pay attention to was how they seem to exert power over us. They seem so powerful in our lives that they have had us mis-create the entire world in which we think we live. This world of separate bodies and separate objects is nothing more than a parlor trick. It is unreal. It is an illusion of reality.
The unholy trio has done this to hide us from love. They did this by tricking us into believing that the thoughts they manufactured are our thoughts as well. We have to undo this connection if our real thoughts of love are to be seen. This I am calling an untraining. Once we are untrained the real thoughts and the REAL WORLD WILL JUST NATURALLY EMERGE. It will be like swimming in a pleasant and seamless sea of love. I call this the sea of synchronicity because we don’t have to do anything particular to get what we need and want. It just shows up for us.
As long as we fear letting go of our ego/body, this undoing will be impossible. To undo the ego/body’s grip, we have to continually tell ourselves that we are not this ego/body. We have to trust that we are free to do this and will be protected by love.
Just a little bit of willingness is all that is necessary to start this undoing process. You see, our willingness is necessary because love never forces, manipulates or tries to control. It simply allows. Love knows all the time that love is a choice we must eventually make because love is who we are. So love has eternal patience with us, because love knows we cannot fail.
On the other hand, ego/body, the master of the unholy trio, is like an alien creature who doesn’t have any place to live or any form of its own or capable of creating any form of its own. This is true because ego itself, the thought that we are separate from all life, is impossibility. Ego, the impossible thought we had, therefore, jumps into the body form that spirit created and tries to take over as an ego/body. Ego’s attempt won’t work, but while it is trying, it makes a lot of trouble for us. It sort of drugs us and puts us to sleep for a while. Ego/body and its friends keep us in the darkness of sleep for a while. We will all awaken someday and again experience the unconditional love that was always available for us in the real world.
In the meantime, this unholy trio mis-creates lots of things that cause us to be unhappy. They then try to get us to use their system to get out of the mess they have made for us. It’s kind of like a dog that chases his own tail. Even if it could catch it what would it do with it if it did? (illustration)
Ego/body tries to make us feel good by telling us things like this: “Life is tough---you work hard for things that do not last and then you die. So take what ever you can out of life and forget how meaningless it all is.” What a depressing thought!
Love counters such thoughts by telling us that the ego is not real. The ego is an insane thought. We are not simply the form we call our body. We are not this separate thing that the ego would have us believe we are. Its system of living and dying is a joke and to be laughed out. Laughter is the best medicine here and a prime way to undo the ego’s insane thought. Laughter will drive the bugger right out of existence.
Once this body snatcher (the ego) is laughed at, it slinks to the back of the bus that our spirit/ body is riding and talks in a weaker and weaker voice until its voice is no longer heard. Love is now our tour guide on the bus and showing us the beautiful scenery. We are happy and joyful. The entire world is abundantly fruitful. Nothing threatens anything or anyone. Everything is there for the asking and giving. This is so easy because we learn that giving and receiving are one and the same. To receive/give, all we have to do is ask.
ASK FROM THE HEART OF LOVE AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE ALL THAT LOVE HAS TO OFFER WHICH IS EVERYTHING
Make a list of everything you would like to receive from a relationship that expresses unconditional love.
Which of those things in your list are you willing to ask for now? Mark these with an X. Put a date next to every other thing on your list to indicate when you expect to get it. Keep this list. Check it frequently. Share with others what love has brought you.
Teaching Sanity in an Insane World Introduction to Booklet Three You Win
In booklets one and two, we learned that when we identify ourselves with the unholy trio of ego/mind, perception and concept/belief, in the long run, we get nothing but misery, pain, suffering and death. When we identify with our spirit/mind and come from wanting a world that works for everyone and everything with no one and nothing left out, we experience a world where everyone wins. This is a world that can be viewed like a sea of synchronicity. The sea of synchronicity is a place where we play and live seamlessly without effort and struggle. We work for the good of everything and everything works for our good. It is a place where all things happen in the interest of all without us having to plan, figure, calculate or analyze.
The Sea of synchronicity is a place where the improbable is constantly happening, a place where the underdog miraculously wins the game, a place where just the right person and the right things show up in your life to help you get what we want. Things just seem to fall in the right place and at the right time for you and everyone else.
Two questions then arise. · How do we get out of the insane and crazy world we seem to be part of when we follow ego/mind’s directions and ego/mind’s friends? · How do we get to this new world? The answer to this question is simple. We have to learn how to forgive. Don’t think you know how to do this. Approach this new learning as a little child. Be like a little child with trusting and loving parents, siblings and friends. Be like a child who knows that he doesn’t know. Be like a little child not knowing but trusting in loving companions. Be like a little child trusting you will be told the correct way to learn how to forgive if and when you are willing to learn. Know that every step along the way you will be miraculously surprised in your sea of synchronicity as you learn this new method of forgiveness.
Here are the lessons you will be learning as this new way of forgiving unfolds: · Building trust · Accepting what is · Allowing all things to be just the way they are · Feelings · The Power of Declarations · Becoming aware of our thoughts · Mind watching · Being love and seeing love in all things
You are ready to begin this new learning. Yes, you are. You would not be reading this booklet if you were not. We don’t need a full commitment just yet, only a little bit of willingness to begin. You will never feel quite ready or sure you can do this. Just fake it till you make it
Lesson Fifteen Building Trust
Whenever something happens to you to make you frightened, angry, frustrated, upset, worried or the like, remember this: You are loved by and protected by loving spirit/body parents, brothers/sisters and friendly companions. This is true even if your ego/body doesn’t perceive loving parents or loving others as being around.
Here is what your spirit/body helpers are asking you to do: ·Ask for help. Say something like “Help me to see this situation differently.” ·Trust that what is happening is in your best interest even if you can’t see how this is true. ·Be confident that if you just persist you will discover the truth. ·This truth will set you free from all circumstances. · Know that you will be creating your life the way you want it to be. ·Know that this trust you give will always lead to your feelings of joy and contentment.
Exercise: Get a special note book. Get a special pen. Keep a record of the miracles that seem to be happening as you trust as instructed in this lesson. Review what you wrote each day. Do this without fail for seven days.
(illustration)
Lesson Sixteen
Allowing
What I mean by allowing is to realize that your upsets and
sufferings are caused by your resistance to the flow of life. Allowing releases
these
This is an early step in learning that you don’t need to control
others or your circumstances to be safe and happy.
A
song sung by the Beatles in the Seventies was called “Let it Be”. It went like
this: “Let it be. Let it be. This will be the answer. Let it be.” Find this
song and download it on to your mp3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oZYqAeIdYk&NR=1
When you feel stress, sing this
Beatle's song.
“When I feel myself in times of trouble
Shine until tomorrow Lesson Seventeen Accepting
The time for learning is over. Not because you are a “know it all”. Not because you have nothing to learn. Learning is over because no one can teach you anything that you cannot discover by allowing the truth to flow over you and to reveal what is in your spirit/mind to you. In the world of separation of things into dual parts like teaching and learning it seems that you are a blank slate that others need to write on in order for you to learn. We are moving out of this world of duality into a world of synchronization. We are moving into a world where things are not separate. We are moving into a world where learning and teaching are not separate and different.
Teaching/learning are just a way we are being. Teaching/learning is facilitated not by gathering information from the outside as contrasted to the inside, because there is no outside/inside. In the world (sea) of synchronicity there is only a seamless flow of creation and that flow is us as One creation of the Source of all creation.
Accepting, therefore, what we perceive as going on in the world is just a form of accepting ourselves. Can you begin to see how holding grievances hurts yourself by blocking out a part of yourself from yourself? So we are forgiving not because we are better than someone else or holier than someone else but because we selfishly want to bring all the denied parts of ourselves back to ourselves. We want to heal our self from the pain, from the suffering and from the deaths we have repeatedly inflicted upon ourselves in the mistaken concept/belief that we were born into a hostile world alone and die alone to get out of this world.
Notice for the next week all the things that annoy you. Keep a list of these in your notebook. Each evening review your list and after each item say: I am willing to accept this as good. I am willing to learn to love this. Please show me how. (You are talking to the spirit/mind that all of us share in our sea of synchronicity).
Lesson Eighteen Feelings
Honor your feelings. Honor all of them, no matter what form they take or from where they seem to come. Sometimes they may just seem to be urges you have. Sometimes they seem to be reactions to things you experience from others. Sometimes they are overwhelming and seem out of control. This may especially be true for so called sexual urges and anger reactions.
Accept and allow all your feelings, emotions, gut urges and the like. Initially you may want to make a distinction between those that come from reaction to perceived threat and those which propel you to express your will in a new and creative experience of love and trust in our sea of synchronicity, the place were we commingle with other loving souls. Eventually these distinctions will disappear as you honor all feelings. All will be seen as coming from love.
The strongest feelings will be expressed as sexual desires and anger reactions. The desire for commingling of spirit is what both sexual urges and anger reactions are all about. Repressing them or blindly following them into physical expression will just bring you misery and pain. You honor them by accepting and allowing them and noticing how they urge you to join your spirit with another’s spirit. This is easier to see with sexual urges but notice that anger arises when your acceptance from another is threatened. If you find you feel strong emotions such as anger out of reaction to others, no sweat! Nothing wrong has happened but you might want to choose to look again at the situation that triggered the emotional (feeling) reaction and perceive it not as a threat but as a call for love. If you can’t see it as a call for love from the other person, at least see that you want to be loved and the apparent threat seems to be preventing you from getting this love. Ask for help here from the spirit/mind that wills for a world that works for everyone with no one and nothing left out. Then look again at what feelings, emotions, urges gut feelings emerge.
If these newly emerging feelings should be more peaceful and satisfying don’t judge them as better or good compared to the first that came up for you. Just notice the result of joining with the spirit of unity. Notice also that each spiritual commingling is more likely to bring joy rather than the guilt and anxiety that often results from physical expression of sexual urges and anger reactions. In all events remember, however, to always honor your feelings by accepting and allowing them to flow freely. You are to honor all feelings. But it makes sense to follow those urges that bring joy. Does it not?
Say this whenever you experience feelings that frighten you or seem unwanted: “I choose to accept, allow and acknowledge these feelings as coming from my desire to commingle my spirit with all other spirits.” Say this as many times as you seem to need it.
Lesson Nineteen The Power of Declaration
A little review first. Do you remember lessons one and two, value and meaning? In those lessons we learned that we are the ones who put value and meaning into things. Without our declaration that something is valuable or has meaning for us, it does not have any value and meaning for us. In and of itself nothing can have value and meaning without someone declaring that it does.
Here is a very clear example of what I am saying about the power of declaration. Let’s take a look at what psychologists and psychiatrists call mental and emotional illness.
When I was first learning to be a psychologist I was taught that homosexuality was a mental disease. This was supposedly true because a group of prestigious psychiatrists in their highly respected manual for mental and emotional disorders declared that it was so. A famous psychiatrist, Harry Stack Sullivan, studied young homosexual men who went into schizophrenic states and committed suicide as a result of acting out their sexual urges. They chose to die rather than suffer these urges. When enough people disagreed with this declaration and made their own declaration that it was not an illness but a life style, this no longer was considered an emotional and mental illness. They changed the manual. Now most people declare that homosexuality is a choice and that everyone has a right to make or not make this choice. Now it is no longer a mental and emotional illness.
Can you see how foolish and dangerous this whole game of labeling
and declaring ways people are being as mental and emotional illness can be? That
is why I declare that all mental and emotional illnesses are just as bogus as
the example I just gave. There probably are some who agree with me, but most don’t. So, my declaration is only
creative for me and those who agree with me. When a critical mass of people
agree with me, there will no
longer be such a thing as mental and emotional illness. Can you see how
foolish and dangerous this whole game of labeling and declaring ways people are
being as mental and emotional ill
What you declare about yourself is what is true for you. Now, if you choose to get out of the insane world I described in Booklet One and Booklet Two, you have to declare something. You have to declare that you are not your body. You have to declare that you are free to create your world anyway you choose. You have to declare that you cannot be harmed by anything or anyone in your world because you are created as a spirit/body by a life force that loves you and will always protect you.
You wouldn’t still be reading these lessons if you were not ready to do this. Make these declarations NOW! Make them out loud! Make them to yourself if you are not confident enough to make them to others. Eventually you will become more confident. Take this first step NOW! It only takes an instant to change from an insane world to the world of sanity. This sane world is characterized by the sea of synchronicity I have been telling you about. Experiencing this sea will strengthen your resolve to declare your sanity from the roof tops to all who have ears to hear and eyes to see. You will become the teacher of sanity to others who do have these accepting ears and eyes. You by your declaration and the changes it makes in the way you are being in the world will become the teacher of sanity in an insane world.
Lesson Twenty Becoming Aware of Our Thoughts
In the last two lessons we looked at the power of our feelings and the power of our words. Looking at our feelings we can discover our will. That is what powers our desires and our passions.
Our word is an expression of what we think ourselves to be. Expressing in words the truth of what we are does not make it the truth, because the truth of what we are is always the truth. Expressing it allows a wholeness to be present in our mind. Denying the truth causes confusion and conflict. The truth is that we are One. The thought that we are separate from each other is at the root of our insanity.
So, we have feelings, words and thoughts that can help us be happy and sane or contribute to our misery and insanity. Let’s now look at our thoughts. I am asking you to use your notebook again. For the next three days carry this notebook with you wherever you go. Whenever you have a strong feeling like sadness, anger, joy, delight, frustration, excitement, happiness, love etc, I want you to look to see what you were just thinking or are thinking. Write the feeling and the thought in your notebook.
If you are working in a group, you will be asked to share the connection between your feelings and your thoughts. If you are working by yourself, you will be asked to read what you wrote and notice the connection between your thoughts and your feelings.
What you will discover is that thoughts of separation and aloneness occur simultaneous with yucky feelings. Thoughts of being together with others in some way occur simultaneous with pleasant feelings, feelings of joy, love and happiness.
We don’t want to make circumstances responsible for our feelings. By seeing the connection between our thoughts and our feelings we can see how it is possible to increase the “good” feelings and decrease the yucky ones. This can be done by changing our thoughts of separation and aloneness to thoughts of joining and union with others
A willingness to forgive others when it seems they are responsible for our yucky feelings is the quickest way to break the connection we place in our mind between circumstances and feelings. Forgiveness opens us to the truth that we create our own happiness by seeing threw the thought of unity.
Lesson Twenty One Mind Watching
I am going to ask you now to watch your mind by noticing and honoring your feelings, especially your strong feelings. I don’t want you to judge your feelings as good or bad, right or wrong. I only want you to notice them. Once you notice them, quickly look in your mind to see what you were thinking. If you notice a judgment about yourself or someone else, say: I am willing to see myself, the other (use his/her/there name) differently. Ask for help from the Voice for Love within your mind to help you do this. Do this as many times as you notice these strong feelings and reactions within yourself.
This is not a one day exercise or one week exercise. This is to be done from now on and on and on. This practice is all you need to do to fully awaken to your own sanity. This is the only practice you need to enjoy your life completely. You need do nothing else. You need learn nothing else for your complete happiness.
Sound too easy? Try it. You might like it!
Summary of All Three Booklets
What we think is true and real is not, because it is based on our perception and our formed concepts and beliefs from these perceptions. Perceptions only give us partial truth and bits of reality. There is, however, a whole truth that is within us that can be accessed when we are willing to join with the “Voice for Love” within our mind.
Other people and all events in our life are for one purpose. They are there to help us bring the parts of ourselves that we have denied back to ourselves. We do this by practicing forgiveness. We are not forgiving others for what they have done bad or wrong. We are simply giving our willingness to forgive what we think is bad and wrong. We give our willingness to the love within us. We learn to trust that love will have us see what happened through different eyes. We will see all through Love’s eyes and then all of ourselves will be returned to ourselves, and there will no longer be any need for forgiveness.
I thank you for your willingness to awaken to your sanity. Michael
For more of my writings visit: http://miraclescenter.us/carluccio.htm
Copyright by Michael Carluccio. All Rights Reserved. |
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