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An Imperative Question

Are you good enough to deserve your good? It is a very good question to take a look at—an imperative question to look at—but never a question to actually ask!

And an even more imperative question follows: Is your brother, is your sister, is your friend or even your enemy good enough to deserve the best you have to give? And this question must be asked and answered!

They are questions that matter! And they matter because your experience of Reality depends on them, and so do your brother’s and sister’s. Or, shall I put it more bluntly, less kindly, more meaningfully:

They matter because they determine
whether you experience the awful misery
of the “human condition”
or the miraculous, invulnerability
and harmony of divine being, and
of the Kingdom of Heaven,
which is the only thing
confronting you.

You are the Sons and Daughters of God. You are, as I said, experiencing Creation, Reality, the Kingdom of Heaven, either clearly or through a glass darkly. Each moment is the threshold of “Behold, I make all things new,” OR the threshold of “Behold, I make all things new.” And the only difference between the two will exhibit what you are willing to embrace . . . or not.

Now we are going to refine it a little further. 

What is it that shades Reality, casting an ominous pall over everything which is perfectly beautiful when seen, “clear as a bell” in the fullness of Light? What makes That which is One appear to be two—not by creating a second, but by obscuring the only One there is—and inviting the imagination to misinterpret what is seen and call the misinterpretation real.

It is very simple.

In the vernacular it would be put this way: When two or more gathered together and decided to give their own definitions to everything, they “threw shade” on Creation, casting a pall upon It, but affecting It not at all—just their perception of It. And, as we’ve said before, two unexpected things arose—fear and guilt. 

At first, the fear and guilt were a “thrill”—a challenge to be overcome; an invitation to use their free will . . . which they then determined was given to them by God to prove their excellence and thereby “live up to” His expectation . . . earn His acknowledgment of them . . . not realizing they were forfeiting their God-given Function of acknowledging Him. 

Choosing not to own the fear and guilt as the “sensation” of being out of their Mind, they attributed it to what they were seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and touching of the Kingdom of Heaven—what is called “projection” at this present time.

I will say it again in a different way: The “human condition”—sin, sickness and death—is today’s best experience of the Kingdom of Heaven when shade is thrown at it, and it is not sin, sickness and death which need to be overcome. It is the practice of “throwing shade.” And it is not “the world” or one’s fellow man who must do it. It is you!

What started out to be a mutual adventure in self-government—for the purpose of independent “greatness”—became competition with each other. And becoming equal with God—claiming one’s “inheritance” and fulfilling God’s reason for creating Sons and Daughters—became domination of each other—a constant battle for superiority.

Today it is called egotism, and it is this which each and every “mortal” must do the work it takes to not overcome but to abandon. And as difficult as that may seem, the fact is that it is easier to abandon what isn’t real than what is.

A Course in Miracles makes the demand on everyone who reads or studies it to stop “throwing shade,” to abandon the addiction to what amounts to nothing more than trying to change the Kingdom of Heaven into the Kingdom of Heaven instead of doing the “work” necessary to “undo the Fall,” to undo it by withdrawing from the mutual agreement with a Brother or Sister to stand at odds with the Father—to stand at odds with That which is the Integrity of their very existence—and thus stop “throwing shade.”

If your brother is not required to deserve his good before he can have it, then neither are you. Neither one of you has ever fallen from his high estate. Believing that you have and using each other to prove you are worthwhile is, itself, a state of misery which no one deserves and is unjustified, and when you let your brother off the hook, you let yourself off the hook, and you come Home together! That’s the way it works.

Evil is not real. It does not need to be overcome. You may be wearing the most fantastic pair of shades to cut the glare of Truth, Love and Soul, but Reality is just as “bright” as It has always been. And no matter how long it takes for you to realize that it was just you and a few friends “throwing shade,” and that there is nothing to change except the way you were choosing to look at everything, you will discover that just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, all you had to do was click your heels together three times (take off your shades), say “there’s no place like Home,” and do it with a Brother (your fellow man).

And so, it is important to understand the role or Function of Gift—its place in and as the scheme of things. It’s more than a novel way of embodying Love “here on earth.” It’s the means of undoing the Fall! It’s the means of undoing mental conditioning which, like an accent, goes unnoticed by the one who has the accent. 

The invitation to learn how to speak with an accent feels like putting an accent in place where there was none, when there actually was. And likewise, when I constantly speak about “the Foundation’s needs” in conjunction with Gift, it may sound like a new financial methodology is being promoted and put into place—a new way to talk about “transaction.” But I am not talking about transaction at all! 

I am talking about caring. I am talking about involvement. I am talking about “having” without “getting.” I am talking about Love being reflected in love. I am talking about God being reflected in man. I am talking about heaven on earth. I am talking about two being One—not ever having been two! I am talking about behavior arising from actual intimacy with each other, not intimacy arising out of mutual agreements, protocols, good manners, or rules applied.

Being truly civilized is not something acquired or learned. It is something felt! Doing unto others as you would have them do unto you means being with humility, defenselessness—defenseless genuineness—without a trace of self-seeking or manipulation. 

Being truly civilized is not an accent. It is not “good behavior.” It is being with another in a way that causes the other to like himself because your behavior is not a defense of yourself against him, and he can relax and be safe. Being truly civilized is not skillful manipulation, so smoothly done that the other doesn’t recognize that you are artfully protecting yourself against him. Indeed . . .

Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God
in their Brother’s eyes
and will not look there
for themselves!

There are needs which have prompted Paul to seriously listen, late last evening and early this morning, for what I might have to say. And this has been my response. Although “transaction” has never been part of our “work,” the current significant needs, coupled with his relative inactivity during the past four months has “thrown shade,” suggesting that the work we do does involve “transaction,” hidden in the modus operandi of Gift. Obviously “No Gift, No Get,” and he is fooling himself to think otherwise.” 

In other words, “Has he been good enough or done well enough to deserve otherwise?” And he took the bait and asked the question! And he tried to answer it, himself! Then, last night, he decided to abandon his self-rightousness and asked to look at it with me. As a result, his learning is becoming your learning as well.

In the next 48 hours, approximately $4,000 will be needed to pay for utilities, taxes, two of seven unpaid paychecks, and other essential expenses which are overdue from three recent months.

If anyone wonders why he didn’t let this be known until the last minute, it is because we have an agreement—he and I—that he will not post anything that we haven’t done together. And he reminded himself, by his behavior and its consequences, that when he is being self-righteous, judgmental, feeling unfairly put upon and angry, he cannot hear me, even when he wants to . . . as well as when he refuses to. 

To want to experience Guidance more than hearing only oneself is a prequisite to experiencing Guidance, and since our last conversation on the 4th, which we shared on the blog, that did not happen until now. I am grateful that it did, and he is, too. And I have been able to share with you some things which he was not willing to hear until now.

Not only am I inviting everyone’s continuing support, I thank all those who responded to our post on the 4th. Brotherhood is involvement, and it is continuing. Thank you again.

Rajpur
Kingston, Washington
March  8th, 2021

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