PAUL: So, here it is, listing day. The Foundation‘s home is officially on the market, for sale, and yet you have indicated that the title of this post is, “This house is for sale! We want to buy it! Will you help us?” Will you provide us with some perspective as to what you are doing?
RAJ: I certainly will. What you are really asking is: Is this counterproductive to or inconsistent with the steps I have previously shared? And the answer is, not at all, if one remembers the need.
So, let’s be perfectly clear on what the need is: The need is to keep the donor whole who kept the Foundation whole and functioning during a transition twelve years ago, at which time he loaned the Foundation $500,000 to purchase, in full, a new home base, which would be repaid by selling what had been the Foundation’s original home for 10 years.
Permissions to hold weekly and monthly meetings were gotten from the Homeowners Association where the new property was located, but as we resumed our activities, others in the vicinity began to complain and the Homeowners Association ultimately revoked permission for the Foundation to hold meetings in the new residence.
At that point, there was no further attempt to sell the original property, and yearly extensions by the donor were given relative to the payback of the original lien.
Then, last October, demand for repayment by means of the sale of the original property was made, which was to be accomplished by a certain date that could not be met because, as most of you know, on November 13, Paul went into the hospital and extended care, where he remained for two months until January 13.
During this period, further extensions were allowed, clearly stating each time that by the last day of each extension, a legitimate, active listing for sale be published and provided or foreclosure would begin.
I began almost immediately to inform everyone of the need, on the Foundation’s mailing list and website, and have continued, never wavering on the meeting of the need. It may seem as though I have, because I clearly said that I need Paul and Susan where they are. I also need Chris and Judy to be where they are, in what has been and still is the Foundation’s home base, an at-home workplace, plus meeting space for gatherings when gatherings can resume.
Today the Foundation’s home has been listed for sale and published on Zillow, which you can see by clicking here. And this has happened at my direction, in spite of what I have just said.
Why?
Because the need is for the one who gives to be kept whole, and one must be willing to do unto others as he would have others do unto him. Put a little more kindly: One must be willing to do for others what he would have others do for him. That is a subtle but profound difference! And it makes all the difference in the world!
Henry David Thoreau said: “If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.”
Just be with the idea for a moment.
To do good things to another is like using good manners. You do not have to know him at all! But to do something for someone requires you to be in touch with him before you do anything.
Doing something for someone involves intimacy, while doing something tosomeone requires none at all. To do something for someone relieves him of having to do it. And there’s the rub! The profound idolatry of the ethic of Independence says that such behavior is teaching him not to be self-responsible. It means he is being taught to be dependent. It means that the strength of his individuality is being weakened. It means his initiative is being undermined, and therefore his ability to lead. And a world without leaders is like a people without vision. It perishes!
Is that will I am teaching? Is that what A Course in Miracles teaches? Is that what Christianity teaches?
“Thy will, not mine be done.” “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” “Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things shall be added unto you.” “It is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” “To have, give all to all.”
What does all of this mean? It means there is something else to teach beside independence, self-sufficiency, authority, competency in your own right, earned respect, personal wealth, power. That which teaches these is arrogant pretense, and that is why it is not only accompanied by fear, it is generated by fear.
I’m going to ask a question, and there is actually an answer to it: What is left in the presence of dependence, insufficiency, loss of authority, incompetency, no respectability, no accumulation of wealth, and powerlessness?
Unpretentious presence of Mind.
That is what you have left when you “let that mind be in you, which is also in me”. . . that which has no illusions about itself and no longer holds everyone else to those illusions, but recognizes the unpretentious presence of Mind in his brothers and sisters and automatically recognizes himself in them, and them in himself. This is intimacy. This is Brotherhood. This is the experience of safety without justification, “just because”. . . just because you are looking with innocent eyes—another characteristic of the unpretentious presence of Mind.
What is left is care instead of fear, care instead of self protection. Then the gift of “doing for” comes forth spontaneously, because you understand each other truly, instead of through learned and practiced behaviors arising out of looking into your brothers eyes and not remembering God, not knowing Who you Are and bouncing off of your “best” and personally-developed ignorances (definitions).
Christianity teaches that the Fall is a divorce one gets from the Father by joining a brother or sister and saying, “But Father, I’d rather do it myself.” “But Father, I would rather give my own names to everything.” And then doing it at the expense of your anchor in Reality.
So, what is Paul learning? What is Susan learning? What are Judy and Chris learning? And what are you learning? Everyone is learning that the miracle of Awakening is moving everyone off of “the mortal basis of belief”(personal definitions), and uniting everyone with the one Mind.”
You are learning that I am not here, and the Holy Spirit is not here to comfort you in “the mortal basis of belief,” but to motivate you to look for and expect to find how Wholeness gives itself definition in the “unpretentious presence of Mind,” which is What you Are. And then to stay with Us as the bucking bronco of arrogant pretense tries to reengage you as you are abandoning your faith in it.
As I began this post, I will end it: “This house is for sale! We want to buy it! And it can be “bought” for $527,000. Will you help us?”
It has been the Foundation’s home for 22 years. It met the need, and it still meets the need, but it cannot meet the needs at the expense of the holder of the lien.
Rajpur
Kingston, Washington
July 27, 2021