Viewing a thread - Transcript of ACIM Study Group with Raj 9/24/11

That’s sort of a heavy trip to lay on you. It makes it sound as though everything depends on you.

Well, we’ve got to remember, there’s only one thing you can give. There’s something you can withhold, but there’s only one thing you can give. The one thing you can give is your willingness to abandon your independence and join with your Source—join with the Father—join with that which defines you by virtue of the Birthright It/He has established in you.

That’s the only thing you can give in any situation. And the only thing you can withhold is the joining.

You are in a dream at the moment. You are in the middle of the Kingdom of Heaven misperceiving It—frightening yourselves with your definitions of It—and the conclusions you have come to about It.

Your choice to see It as it is not, is faithlessness as we discussed—your willingness to abandon your authorship and your authority to author definitions of the world and universe . . .

. . . your abandonment of your authority, your abandonment of the apparent capacity to authorize things is the abandonment of faithlessness.

Doesn’t matter what anyone else is or isn’t doing. It doesn’t matter what the universe is doing or not doing, because I promise you, that as a long as you have established yourself as an independent author of things and you are giving definition to everything, you are in a state of faithlessness. And you cannot help but see your fellowman and the universe doing or not doing things, being or not being things through the lens of your own insanity.

As an independent author, as an orphan—that which has no Father/Mother, no Source—you will see everything and experience yourself in an absolutely distorted way. You will not be able to see everything grounded in anything—meaning a Source, Something eternally valid.

And so as long as you are dealing with your fellowman or as long as you are dealing with your world from the independent orphan standpoint, you are not giving yourself the opportunity to see everything as it Is. You are withholding that which will allow you to see clearly. It’s that black and white. And it’s that simple.

As a result, when you give the one thing that you’ve withheld, when you give the only thing that you’re able to give, which is an invitation to your Father and an acknowledgement of your Father as your Father, and the willingness to accept the Birthright that belongs to you because of this Father you’re acknowledging as your Father, you will begin to see everything differently, whether the world had been up to mischief, whether your fellowman had been up to mischief, whether it had been destructive or constructive, you will bring the one thing you are able to give. And it’s the one thing that has caused you to be unable to see the world and your fellowman clearly, correctly, and thereby in a manner that allowed you to have no other thing to share except love . . . and an acknowledgement of the absolute grounded worth and value of every part of the universe and every single one of your Brethren.

“Well,” you say, “Raj you’ve told me before that you can’t force people to change. So, you know, how can it all be up to me? How can it be, that only what I have not given can be lacking in any situation? And you know, be real with me Raj . . . okay?”

Well you know what? You cannot choose to do the two-step, you cannot choose to hesitate, become still and enquire of your Father, “What’s the truth here?” and practice the holy instant for the purpose of changing your world and your fellowman.

If that were possible, then you would be caught in an unavoidable recognition of a great power that resides in you and it would be impossible for you to be put in a position of having to yield authority, of having to become humble, of having to have a purpose that isn’t self-serving as you move forward in your Awakening.

If there is any element of self-serving, if there’s any self-serving aspect in the process of Awakening, Awakening…will…not…happen!

So, in a way you could say that the one thing that you have not given is the one thing that makes you feel like there’s a demand to give something. The one thing that you have not given is causing you to have problems that force you to find solutions which bring you to the point ultimately of finding out that the problem is that there’s something you haven’t given. And the answer is that you’re called upon to give it.

You’re called upon to return to your sanity by doing the only thing that works. And that is, again, so simple . . . abandon your independence. Abandon your apparently self-authorizing authority. Abandon your attempts to be in charge. Let go of control and do it as a foundation for saying, “Father, what is the truth here? Father, what is Your Perspective?” because you’ve been told that your Father’s Perspective is established in you as your perspective. And your letting yourself experience it is the way your sanity returns to you.

Now, anywhere in there, did I say sanity returns to your Brother? Did I say that order returns to your universe? No I didn’t. But I will tell you that will happen. And if it doesn’t happen instantaneously, you will be providing the environment in which your Brother or Sister can more easily yield as you have.

The thing is, that when you abandon your partnership in the orphanage, in the house of orphans, or the senate made up of orphans, or the federation of orphans (whatever you want to call it)—the community and the organization of orphans in the orphan mindset—when you abandon that, you withdraw your energy from it and it’s more difficult for all of the rest in the federation or the senate or the house of orphans to maintain their orphanhood.

Now, that isn’t because you’re forcing them, it’s because you’re not enforcing an artificial concept of togetherness. Okay?

And you only have one thing you can withhold and not give. And that is your union with your Father, your devotion to and obedience to the Holy Spirit—which is nothing more than your right Mind. You see?

That doesn’t mean that you’ve not given something like the best “con job” in the world or the best and most sly manipulation of a Brother’s mind or a Sister’s mind so as to bring about something good. But the something good came about because you were so exquisitely perfect in doing this subtle sly manipulation that went right by them . . . they didn’t notice it . . . they took the bait and wow! . . they had an “ah-ha!”

Because what I just described is what you’ve been giving all along. It’s the way you operate right now at the moment. You see?

And like I said, the only thing that you’ve withheld from any situation is your presence in it joined with your Father. Your presence in it saying, (not to it) “Father, what is the truth here in this situation? I want to join with You and in the immediacy and movement of that joining, I want to behave with complete compliance to Your Perspective and “the way things work” as a result of Your authorship as Creator.” You See? That’s what you’re not bringing. And that’s the only thing you can bring.

. . . now why do you suppose that’s there? Because it’s very easy to think that the goal of holiness was set for you. The goal of holiness was set for you to benefit by and for you to Wake up as a result of . . . for you to Ascend as I did . . . be special as though what I did was special, and as though what I did was to say something about me, when it wasn’t. It was a Gift that said, “You’re no more bound than I am. Take hold of your freedom.” I said, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” ²That means, if someone has seen you they have seen the Father. I know when I look at you that I see the Father.

But as a general rule, you don’t look at your Brothers and Sisters and see the Father. You see something else. You see your best judgments or your most crafty judgments, your most sly judgments—whatever judgments you can apply to another to best be able to manipulate them to get them to build you up, to make you great, to get their mutual agreement and to get them to vote for you.

. . . that means you and your Brother. What you would call a win-win situation where you both manage to yield with faith, in faith, by joining in the holy instant and being infilled, not by each other’s crafty sly incredible capacity but rather because you were filled with the influx of the Father’s Perspective . . .

. . . you’re just not going to be able to do this by yourself. It isn’t meant for you to do this by yourself. It’s about looking in your Brother’s eyes—not in the mirror at yours—but looking in your Brother’s eyes and remembering God.

The goal is there. It was established for your relationship, but it was not established by you. While you’re practicing faithlessness, while you’re coming from the place of independence, the goal is set by you. And of course, everyone else’s goal is set by them. And that means that you are the brunt of the goals that other people have set for you based on their fear and guilt and their sense of worthlessness that causes them to need you to bolster them up which gives them the difficult task of convincing you that they’re worth it.

So you see this is daily life, isn’t it. And it hasn’t caused Awakening, has it. But Awakening is your Birthright. And Awakening is what we’re talking about. And so you need to bring to the situation what you haven’t been bringing.

So one of the things you’re going to have to bring that you haven’t been bringing is a willingness to abide by rules that you didn’t make up, by goals that you didn’t create which naturally and easily happens when you humble yourself and you say, “Father, not my will be done, but Thy Will be done . . . Thy Will be done.” You’re not saying, “Thy Will be done [chuckles] on Joe or Mary . . . yeah, get ‘em, Thy Will be done. . .” No. It means, “Thy Will be done in me. Thy Will be done so that my will becomes willingness to let Your Will govern me and provide me with the Perspective that causes me to be able to honor Your Will and which is so inspiring to me that Your Will spontaneously flows from me because it is so wonderful I can’t withhold it. That’s what I want. That’s what I haven’t been bringing to the situation—to any situation here in the orphanage. And that’s what I want to bring to the situation now.”

. . . now remember, we talked about the difference between faith and faithlessness. Faith is you in the act of truly saying, “Father, what is the truth here?” and joining with your Father. That is faith. To say, “Father, I’d rather do it my own way. Father, I’d rather define everything myself.” and imagining that you’re being from that framework, that’s the conscious practice of faithlessness.

Are you beginning to see how simple it is? It’s black or white. It’s this or that. It’s on or off. It’s actual or non-existent.

. . . each of you . . . your faith in each other, like from you to the other one in the room . . . you know, in the little house on the street, in the city, in the state, in the country, on the planet . . . you know, it’s really miniscule this little link between you and your Brother because your faith in your Brother is only coming from your best assessments, your best judgments, your favorite theories and so on.

So your faith in one another unjoined with the Father, Whose Presence in you illuminates faith for what it actually is and inspires you with it enough that you just behave with faith, not as a tool you’re using and applying to your Brother or Sister, but as a behavior of the presence of Love that does what it does because of what it Is and not because of what it can accomplish.

It wasn’t the result of being joined with your Creator, which revealed your divinity to you by revealing your Brother’s or Sister’s divinity to you. That kind of understanding and experience of the meaning of everything and of your Brothers and Sisters with you . . . that’s what it’s all about. That’s being in the state of faith and it’s the absence of faithlessness.

What goal? The goal that wasn’t set by you, the goal that’s the ultimate, you might say, the infinite perspective about your Brother, which automatically includes you. You can’t be left out of that awareness.

. . . not you. Nothing that you do will call it forth. But by your not claiming an independent existence, separate and apart from the way everything actually works, your faith will grow, it will enlarge because it—the goal that was set from the beginning—will bring it forth, will call it forth.

You can’t! Because in the environment, in the arena of faithlessness of being un-joined, you are in, first of all, a frame of mind—the boundaries of which you could say are fear and guilt—and everything you perceive is misperceived, is not seen for what it Is. And because you have lost your groundedness in your Source because you’re enjoying this free fall of independence, you find everything dangerous, you find existence to be a call for ongoing defense.

You can’t remain faithful to each other because you are busy defending yourself, protecting yourself against each other. You see?

. . . the middle of the Kingdom of Heaven where you are, but which you’re not seeing as the Kingdom of Heaven . . .

The Kingdom of Heaven . . . every aspect of the Kingdom of Heaven, of Reality . . .

For all relationships. It’s the goal of holiness. It’s the goal of truth. It’s the goal of peace that’s inseparable from yielding to the Father’s Perspective, because you want that more than your best judgments and your most familiar habits of behavior and of thought processes.

Set in place by the Father. Set in place by “the (capital ‘W&rsquo

Way things work.”

You see? To see it as something else, you must divorce yourself from your Father and from His Perspective that He has instilled and established in you as You. You must abandon It. So:

“I don’t have to practice faithlessness. I’ve always been free not to. But I got a lot of encouragement to do it. And then I got a lot of excitement out of doing it. And yes, I created some real nasty problems for myself. But you know what? I love the feeling of threat and danger from being in free fall.”

And oh yes, it will enter, because it’s the way you think at the moment. You don’t tend to think holy. You don’t tend to behave as though you’re holy. You don’t tend to conceive of yourself that well.

Just notice it when it happens, like when you’re meditating and you’re saying a mantra and then a thought appears, and you forget about the mantra and then you say, “Oh [snaps fingers] yes, I can do this later,” and you return to your mantra. That simple. You don’t have to think the thought at that time.

What is faithlessness? Faithlessness is the state of being un-joined with your Source, consciously ignoring your Father/Mother and consciously practicing a very imaginative style of living, called “independence” and “personal power” and “personal improvement” especially at the expense of others.

Well, yes, . . or keep you in the illusions you’re in. And you’ll still continue to see your fellowman as the result of a sperm and an egg joining. You’ll still see them as mental processes that have been nurtured, or healthy, or have been mistreated and have been damaged, that causes this organism to behave from memory in ways that are difficult for everyone else. You see?

You see? You can get caught up in concepts, which are senseless, but seem quite valid and important to you, examples of which abound in . . . well, a number of governments. And it interferes, not with the goal, but with the value of the goal to you. You can get caught up in pet theories, pet projects, pet biases. But they won’t work. And in the process of doing it, you stop thinking about what the value of the goal is for you.

And like the lemmings, you run headlong into the sea just because somebody else was doing it and it felt good to do it together with them.

It’s like you lose your Soul because you let yourself drop out of the picture, you let what you value drop out of the picture for the thrill of the ride, for the thrill of the run.

Now you can remind yourselves throughout the day to remember to join with your Father. You can set an alarm to go off. When it dings, you say, “Oh, yeah, I’m supposed to be joined here and I’m not. Okay, I’m going to join.” And you go on and awhile later it dings again and you say, “Oh, yes, I’m supposed to be joined. I’m going to have to do it again.”

Now, that’s a good practice. But I want you to pay attention to the experience when joining happens, because that’s where your divine integrity becomes illuminated to you so that you feel it. I want you to pay attention to that! Because that will be more impelling than the ding of the timer, the experience, the feeling of the integrity of Being and the holiness of you, and therefore, the value of it to you. That is what will make it easier to persist and need less and less dings to get you to do it.

You see, overcoming the situation or overcoming your opponent, or overcoming your Brother, who has seemingly little character or low morals . . . overcoming them—straightening them out, getting them to behave seems to promise you peace. Because if you can get them to behave, if you can truly get them to understand why they don’t need to do it and feel why they won’t need to do it, then you will have less to maintain, you will have less to oversee and coerce into behavior that will give you peace, because you don’t have to supervise them anymore. You see?

You do that in faithlessness. In faith you don’t manipulate your Brother to give you peace. You don’t try to do good to him as a skill, a personal skill of yours that will make you better. That’s faithlessness. Those are the practices of faithlessness. And they will keep you busy endlessly, because there’s one thing you haven’t given: You haven’t given your mind to your Father so that you might remember Him and thereby your Self and thereby your Brother as your Brother divinely is.

So that, that recognition, like the ding of the bell, can cause you to shift your attention back to your Father. Not so that you can sit in quiet bliss, unmoved by all the illusions that are going on—in a state of blissful peace. No. But so that you might in the vital, I’m going to say, productive active Movement of Being, which God Is and which you are the witness of, you might engage more fully in Life . . . but from the place of faith . . . from the place of being joined so that your every action, your every feeling, your every movement communicates the truth.

I invite you to read the transcript or listen to the audio tapes of tonight’s get together or just read the material that we’ve gone through. And don’t be discouraged because I haven’t revved you up and given you a challenge that: “Go out there and whip the world with the truth” or “go out there and do this or do that and it will make you Wake up [snaps fingers] quickly!”

I want you to abide with it quietly, because practicing the two-step, practicing the holy instant, engaging in it is something that will “work” only when willfulness is absent, only when willingness is present, only when you bring the only thing that was lacking—only what you have not given can be lacking in any situation.

Look at it quietly. Look at it soberly. But look at it. And understand that none of this is a means to escape life or to escape what’s going on. It’s a means of getting past that which causes the Kingdom of Heaven, which is what is going on, to appear to be unlike the Kingdom of Heaven—a place that engrosses you with its awfulness, with its absurdities as though being caught up in them is more important than going back to where the mis-step occurred—that place in you where you said, “Father, I’d rather do it my way, I’d rather define things myself”—which is how you move back into faith.

So please consider it quietly, softly, soberly. Abide with it so that you might find in you the place of willingness that doesn’t require an enthusiastic pep-talk to revved it up and activate it. Very important . . . a valuable lesson.

A Course In Miracles (reference pages)
Chapter 17 – Section: THE NEED FOR FAITH
¹Sparkly Book – p.418, Last Par. / JCIM – p.175, 5^th Full Par. / CIMS – p. 352, Par. 67
Chapter 17 – Section: SETTING THE GOAL
First Edition – p. 343, 2^nd Full Par. / Second Edition – p.368, Par. 4
²John:14

A Course in Miracles Study Group with Raj, September 24^th 2011
© by The Northwest Foundation for “A Course in Miracles” a non-profit corporation.
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PO Box 1490 / Kingston, WA 98346-1490 / USA
Phone: 360-638-0530 Fax: 360-881-0071
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E-Mail: paul@nwffacim.org

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