Wow, and you heap argument upon argument against the holy instant.  You heap argument upon argument against letting yourself into that void where you’re no longer asserting your definitions and meanings and your so-called authority, and you’re inviting God’s authority in so that you can find yourself in that place where God’s laws prevail and nothing else does, and you experience the enlightenment you need. 

“Well, I know, you know a few people who have had maybe a little taste of what Raj has talked about, but nobody’s Woken up yet . . . look at Paul, he hasn’t Woken up yet” . . . argument upon argument upon argument. 

Happy New Year!  Happy New Year!  Don’t let those words be hollow words.

Well, here’s another threshold for you, a bigger one than New Years:  It’s the Second Coming!  Wow, . . millions of people look forward to that.  Well, in some ways, A Course In Miracles is a part of that.  It’s the clarity of the Christ entering into the human picture again.  And I have to say again, that it hasn’t happened so that you can have pleasant words to make life more pleasant between birth and death without ever altering that illusory experience that seems to begin with birth and seems to end with death and simply constitutes, for lack of better words, a period of confusion which none of you need to be suffering from and it’s time for everyone to Wake up out of . . . that’s why.  And yet, you may have been studying the book for twenty-five years already.

Well, let me ask you this:  If I appeared . . . if the Second Coming happened and I appeared on your globe, do you think that it would be so that all of you could take another two thousand years to absorb and assimilate and wonder about, and be amazed at everything I might say and everything I might do? 

No!  The point would be so that the dream, the illusion of mortality and the ignorance of your divinity might cease.  When?  Over a long drawn out period of time?  No!  [snaps fingers] Instantly!  This isn’t a tease [points to ACIM].  And it isn’t just an accommodation to the human condition.  And isn’t it wonderful that God has given us these inspiring teachings.

So, here we are, New Years Day with change on everyone’s mind, newness, the turning over a new leaf, the becoming new, the being made new to whatever extent any of you might allow, even though the majority of you will only allow just a little bit. 

Hey, what about great abundance, regardless of the economy?  Can’t happen?  Oh, okay.  But you lie.  And you believe your lie.  You believe the mutually-agreed-upon-definitions.  Why you can’t possibly experience your holy Birthright until the “gray men” are dealt with, until the great financial families who are really governing things behind the scenes somehow die off or kill each other, or a great act of God wipes them out.  We lie.  That’s not the truth.  You see? 

Holiness is not circumstantial . . . wholeness is not circumstantial.  Put that under your belt this New Year Day. 

Your wholeness is not circumstantial. 

It doesn’t depend on anything else or anyone else doing or not doing anything.  But in order to experience it, you’ve got to abandon the orphanage activities and you’ve got to join in the holy instant and say, “Father, what is the truth here?  What is the true perspective?  I am willing to give up my confidences about what everything is and how everything works in favor of letting in Your Perspective which is the truth because it is the Perspective about Creation, which You are the Source of.  And I am going to stop turning to any other apparent resource to gather the facts about life.”  You see?  That’s how you stop doing what constitutes an argument against being aware of the truth.  You see, it isn’t so much something that you need to do, it’s something that you need to stop doing.  That’s where the simplicity of it is. 

And so I’m going to keep pointing your nose in the direction of the simplicity and I’m going to keep saying, “Are you seeing the evidence?”  And if you say no, you’re not seeing the evidence, and if my asking you if you are and you’re saying no that you aren’t makes you feel incompetent and discouraged, well just remember that’s a ploy of the ego, it’s a ploy of the orphan, it’s part of the mutually agreed upon appropriate behavior.  You see? 

Oh-h-h . . . but if you look at it simply and honestly, you’ll see that it’s just a ploy, it’s a tactic to distract you from engaging in what will actually make a difference.  It is a tactic that immobilizes you and makes you uninterested in looking for the evidence, looking for “Happy New Now”!  You see?

And so, you could say that you find yourself in the attitude of somebody in the nineteen fifties, you know, halfway between the change lines . . . the “Happy New Millennium,” . . you see? . . the time when real changes can occur and when you’ll allow for the changes to register with you because you’re not saying that the impossible can’t happen.  “Oh, but in the nineteen fifties, you know, they’re sort of the doldrums, you know, sort of a place of ignorance, not a whole lot of new ideas and blah…blah…blah, you know . . . well . . . yep . . . so . . .”

Don’t let any part of your day be halfway between change lines.  Don’t let them be a place where it really is an important thing to be a dumb shit-head, to just lays around in immobility and lack of interest and play stupid.

Now, we’re talking about getting out of special relationships.  And special relationships are, if you’ll remember, relationships you enter into with people or things when you don’t know who you Are.  In other words, when you, thinking you’re an orphan, enter into a relationship with another or some thing absolutely confident that there’s nothing more than a happenstance effect right there where you are . . . born to die and to struggle in between. 

When that happens, that’s called a special relationship.  And you get out of special relationships, not by improving them, but by doing the one thing that will re-illuminate in your mind your awareness of what you divinely Are.

Now, continuing in the book, I’m going to back up to the beginning of the paragraph that I said we would be reading from.  And it says:

Fear not that you will be abruptly lifted up and hurled into reality.¹ 

See?  See, that’s what I want to make clear with you.  You come to this day, “Happy New Year” . . . but you’re confident that you won’t . . .

. . . be abruptly lifted up and hurled into reality.

Or abruptly hurled into whatever it is you’ve resolved to be.  You’re not afraid of that.  You think that can’t possibly happen.  And so you’re safe.  But you have the right intent, correct?

Fear not that you will be abruptly lifted up and hurled into reality. Time is kind, . .

. . . New Year or not . . . 

Time is kind and if you use if FOR reality, it will keep gentle pace with you in your transition.

Well, I’m saying, allow for it not to be a gentle pace.  Allow for the possibility  that you might possibly be able to be hurled into and abruptly lifted into Reality.  You see?  Because all that’s happening is you’re letting yourself be returned to your right Mind, you’re letting the Holy Spirit register with you, which is nothing more than your right Mind, your divine Mind, your inseparability from the Father. 

So although you need . . .

Fear not that you will be abruptly lifted up and hurled into reality.

Realize that it can happen as quickly as you’ll allow it.  And why delay?  That’s what I’m saying.  That’s the thrust or the intent that I will be sharing this year and hopefully not for very much of it because you’ll get it.  You see?

The urgency is only in dislodging your minds from their fixed position here.

Meaning, here in your definitions, here in your ignorance of who you Are and the definitions you have developed about who you are as an ignorant one.

This will not leave you homeless, and without a frame of reference.

Waking up and becoming free from all of the little mean-spirited small-minded rules that you’ve bound yourself by won’t cause you to be homeless.  You know what?  It won’t constitute going insane.  It’s the return of sanity.  And to any degree that any of you have ever let any of that in, you have experienced groundedness that was unbelieveable.  And yet the groundedness was of something infinite, something huge: You, you in a much larger experience of yourself a more infinite experience that didn’t cause you to feel as though you were floating around but rather more firmly anchored in invulnerability. 

So:

The period of disorientation, which precedes the actual transition, is far shorter than the time it took to fix your minds so firmly on illusions.

You see?  Happy New Now!  Happy New Instant!  You see?

The period of disorientation, which precedes the actual transition, is far shorter . . .

. . . it can be shorter than anything you’re expecting.  You can let it be quick.  You can let it be happy, now!

Delay will hurt you now more than before, only because you realize it IS delay, . .

. . . well, does that mean that what I’m going to be pushing for this year is going to cause you to feel more hurt because I’m not going to be letting you forget that it’s a delay for nothing and you’ll be aware that you’re delaying when you don’t have to?  I guess you could use it that way.  But don’t.  I guess you could use it and your subsequent attempt to get into the holy instant and experience the transformation without experiencing it, you could use that as a means of justifying abandoning the task, because you don’t want to be in that place where you’re feeling totally incapable.  But you’re going to have to be willing to go there and stand there with the intent to be at odds with it, to not agree with it in order to move through it, in order to watch it simply give up its bluff and dissolve.

And so, you might feel during this coming year that I’m going to be pushing you into an uncomfortable place and asking you to do something that you don’t feel at all like doing.  But that’s the way it works.  And that’s the way Waking up occurs.  And that’s the way the purpose of the Course is fulfilled.  And that’s the way the function of the Holy Spirit accomplishes its task of returning you to your right Mind.

Find hope and comfort, rather than despair, in this: You could no longer find even the ILLUSION of love in any special relationship here. For you are no longer wholly insane, and you would recognize the guilt of self-betrayal for what it IS.

You see?  But then you say, “Okay, but I’m doing what Raj is saying and it’s not working and I’m not getting anywhere and nothing is happening and everything is the way it always has been, therefore these words are about me  in another time in another place and in another frame of mind.” 

You could no longer find even the ILLUSION of love in any special relationship here.

“Well, I seem to be and I don’t seem to be able to change it, so you must be talking about when I’m Awake or something that doesn’t relate to where I am right now.”  No, it talks about where you are right now and the fact that you must stand in that place of feeling incompetent, where it seems nothing you are doing to practice the holy instant is having any effect.  And you must stand in the face of your discouragement and watch its bluff dissolve.

So it’s not totally fun.  But you know what?  You’re not ignorant of the process now.  And I’m going to be behind you, in front of you, saying, “Come on . . . go on . . . this is the way.”

Find hope and comfort, rather than despair, in this: You could no longer find even the ILLUSION of love in any special relationship here.

In any relationship that you’re in without knowing who you Are divinely speaking.

For you are no longer wholly insane, and you would recognize the guilt of self-betrayal for what it IS.

It’s like, maybe for the first time you know what the purpose of a New Year resolution is, and what a Real New Years resolution is:  Practice the two-step, engage in the holy instant and stand there in the face of all that seems awful until it dissolves, because you are no longer wholly insane.

I’ve shared the truth with you.

Happy New Year!  Happy New Now!  Happy instant!

And I look forward to being with you next time.

.