___________________________________

..

And What This Really Means . . .

~~~~oOo~~~~

Paul: Good evening, Raj.

Raj: Good evening, Paul. I know you’re stuck. So, first of all, let me assure you that you aren’t alone. You aren’t isolated, even though it feels like it. Our connection can never be broken, and if I’m with you, then you are safe. Not because I’m with you, but because if I’m with you, you are with me. And if you are with me, you are Here at Home. And that’s why you’re safe!

What this means is that in this apparent state of isolation, you are creating it by looking with the commitment of emotion at “being stuck,” and thereby refusing to let yourself be aware that we are still side by side where I am.

It all has to do with attention! It all has to do with what you’re giving your attention to! Give your attention to me, and my perspective becomes available to you. And what that really means is that your natural Perspective as a Son of God begins to register with you.

But when you give your attention to the narrow focus of pitiful, helpless inadequacy and your ego’s reaction to that, it is a dead end, an eddy at the edge of a stream or river, a repetitive rehearsal of “going around in circles” and getting nowhere — an unresolvable stuckness within the confines of the eddy . . . because that’s what an eddy is!

And that’s what the arena of thinking is!

Thinking is an act of independence. No matter how much you dislike it, that’s the fact! No matter that you have spent a lifetime doing it, it is an act of independence which blocks the experience of Reality — the experience of real Self, the experience of Life, Truth, Love, intelligence, Soul, Spirit, Mind, Principle . . . of indivisibility and therefore invulnerability, of omnipotence which is not a tool, a weapon or a means for self protection, but is the state of singularity in which there is nothing to use it on and no “you” to use it for!

What if you just abandoned self-protection?

If you abandon self-protection there is no occasion to think! Thinking, at the bottom line, is preparation for defense — always, without exception! — whereas the silent giving of attention, which is the natural state of curiosity, makes room for Knowing to occur . . . for the natural sequence of Consciousness to occur.

It is this which is normal . . . not thinking! It is this which constitutes the experience of Identity. It is Consciousness which is Self. Not what Consciousness does! And without a “doer,” there is no Fall. And without a Fall there is no Heaven which requires a Hell to promote the return of a Fallen One.

Just Heaven!

So, what is it you are stuck in? Fear of the Unknown . . . which is another way of describing the fourth Obstacle to Peace: the fear of God.

One “thinks” in order to be prepared for the Unknown, and he uses reason to calculate the future based upon the past . . . as though the Now was set into motion in the past and is a continuation of the past, instead of arising out of the Now in the Act of God called Creation, which is ever now new!

What this really means is that the Act of God is ”the Presence of Mind,” the presence of divine Attention, which invites, makes room for and lets Knowing happen! This is “the sequence of Consciousness” which is the experience of Identity . . .

. . . which is Self!

What is so frightening about this? It is the giving up of the “self” which supposedly provided safety by being prepared for the Unknown. How? By constantly preparing for it!

The constancy of renewing defenses, instead of relaxing into trusting attentiveness, has been the anchor in “safety” which has made the “self” engaging in it respectable, worthy . . . and ultimately “real!”

And so, it isn’t really the fear of the Unknown which is the problem. It’s the giving up of this so-called “real” identity . . . developed, formed and “real”-ized “out of nothing but imagination” through hard work, skill and unreasonable effort, while convincing everyone else as well.

What is the fear? That if one gives up the ethic of becoming a fully-realized Prodigal and instead returns Home to His true relationship with the “sequence of Consciousness” which constitutes true Identity, it will prove that he had forever been a fool, instead of actually exonorating him and holding him in the acknowledgment of, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” — which, as the Course says, is the Father taking the last step of the Atonement for us!

As I have paraphrased the statement in Genesis before: “And God saw everything that He had made” — that’s Part 1 — “and behold, it was, verily, God” — and that’s Part 2 . . . Self-recognition!

THAT IS THE “SEQUENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS,” THE ACT OF CREATION!

Likewise, your attention — Part 1 — which allows Knowing to occur — Part 2, is the act of co-creation with God which the Course refers to. But, using the words I must use in order to describe it, makes it sound as though you are engaging in an act independent from God, but paralleling His, which isn’t true.

It isn’t until you do it that this confusion is cleared up and you Know that you are not God, but God is all there is of you, and that it is this which is the Original experience of Identity, of Self!

Your dilemma stems from a misunderstanding about “who” is giving voice to the Voice for Truth. If you are constantly deferring to me, letting me respond to everything, then “what about Paul?” What about you? Are you just my delivery boy? My messenger service?

Here’s the clarifying fact: There is no “who” giving voice to anything! There is the Voice for Truth expressing Itself because there is no imposter doing “voice-overs” in place of the Voice for Truth.

A lifetime of “speaking on your own,” and never discovering that it is divinely natural to Know before you do anything on your own, has suggested in the form of experience, that there was a “you” doing the speaking . . . and you have come to believe it.

Now that you are learning otherwise, now that you are getting the message to “Be still . . . and Know . . . that I Am” . . . and the message is signed “God,” this “self” you have come to believe is real, together with its function as a thinker, feels insulted, slighted, put on the sidelines and ignored in favor of the Christ or the Holy Spirit which you have been willing to give voice to. And now it wants to know, ”What about me?” And it accuses others: “How dare you use me, at the expense of my presence, so that you can relate to the Christ, the Holy Spirit, or the Voice for Truth . . . whatever you want to call it!”

You know what? It’s called disillusionment!

You were taught to think! One of the opening statements in the Christian Science textbook says, “The time for thinkers has come,” and this formed a lifetime premise for the “sequence of Consciousness,” even though elsewhere Mrs. Eddy wrote, “Thus may each member of this church rise above the oft-repeated inquiry, What am I? To the scientific response: I am able to impart truth, health, and happiness, and this is my rock of salvation and my reason for existing,” which the Course echoes from cover to cover.

You are not a “who” or a “what,” but a capacity of Mind to pay attention — being the presence of curiosity which, simply because of what it is, invites, receives and “imparts truth, health, and happiness,” and that is your “reason for existing.”

That which uses the mind to accomplish anything, is not a “self.” It is not “who” you are or “what” you are. And I know I’m being repetitious here. But you are not used to hearing those words, or their meanings as I am using them now. In a way they are not foreign to you, as a student of the Course, but it is foreign to you to find them literal instead of figurative, and that they require you to truly alter what you are doing with your mind.

There is a difference between thinking and Listening. It is the difference between the Fall and the Atonement. Thinking is aggressive, authoritative — the mode of accomplishment. Listening is passive, receptive — the cooperative willingness to give expression to the revelation of Truth and Love, called Creation, in their ever present Originality, where you stand in wonder at Them, instead of “creating” their equivalence and standing in wonder at your own amazing “creativity” without ever experiencing Them.

Yes, I am saying that the mode of “accomplishment” is an entrapment in “the human condition,” the Fall, and that no matter how outrageous it sounds, its abandonment is the way out of illusion, Maya, or whatever other words used describe the meaning. You are conditioned to be “creative.” It has even been coalesced into the word “Imagineering,” capturing the delight of the child mind in the “use” it can be put to.

What are called “forward steps” have always been the result of an “A-ha!” — a spontaneous, unpremeditated revealing of something unthought of. That doesn’t mean it was or will ever be “a thought,” but rather that it was something which had nothing to do with thinking!

When the realization occurs that nothing “progressive” has ever involved thinking, then steps will be taken with greater dedication — as is being required of you — to consciously practice thoughtlessness, the silence of the mind, with appreciation for it, inspiration associated with it, and no insulted or hurt feelings because no one wants to know what you think.

You can see that it is “natural” to think the Course is something to understand and practice in order to “demonstrate” abundance or health or Atonement — a new more spiritually accurate way of using the mind to accomplish good — when it is exactly the opposite.

I might suggest that after what I’ve said here, there are those who will think that as students of the Course they are no better off than those who are taught that they were born in sin and are therefore sinners to be saved by accepting me as their Savior.

After all, in light of what I’m saying, a lifetime spent “accomplishing” things through using the mind in a way which blocks the experience of Reality is to be in a state of profound ignorance and separation from God . . . calling for redemption — the correction of something one did not choose, but which one is suffering from, nevertheless.

Disillusionment, however, is always the same, no matter what words or belief systems are involved. It’s the call for repentance — the recognition that something is being indulged in which is counterproductive and which must be abandoned! But one cannot “accomplish” this without the inspiration of the influx of Truth and Love. And the influx cannot occur when one is in a state of self-defense . . . which thinking is the practice of.

I can tell you to stop thinking until I’m blue in the face and accomplish nothing! It is not possible for anyone to do it by means of an act of mental discipline. It has to be done as a manifestation of desire — desire borne of the need to be free of suffering in one form or another; desire borne of the recognition that self-interest and self-gratification create suffering because they are unnatural denials of what Love is . . . both given and received; desire borne of humility allowed because of exhaustion or realization; desire borne of the practice of the holy instant.

Again: Redemption will not occur by taking the bull by the horns, but rather by releasing the bull — the imagined authority of the “thinker.” And more specifically: the imagined authority of the “thinker” you think you are!

So, here is the situation: You are caught in the trap of the “normalcy” of thinking, complicated by the degree of success you have experienced as a result of your thinking, and then being convicted by whatever pride you have taken in your imagined success.

Letting go of all of these is the cost of regaining your divine Sanity. And at the very least, it is an insulting, depressing proposition. Now you can see why. But you can also see that the “insult” is to an imaginary “self” which has no real existence.

You know enough and have had enough experience with me to be able to make this shift without anguish. But what has been unclear to you, and what you did not expect, is that at the last stages of the apparent return Home — the place where your cherished ego, together with all the effort you put forth into “making it real” hangs in the balance — you will have to face “The Ego’s Last Stand” . . . whining and whimpering . . .

. . . as well as mean-spiritedly demanding respect!

But it won’t demand the latter from you as much as it will present itself AS YOU ACCUSING OTHERS of lack of deserved respect and understanding . . . keeping you in a state of misery when just the opposite is the threshold you are actually standing upon.

Be with this, and we will talk further.

Paul: Thank you.

~~~~oOo~~~~