Now, we read last week that:
The power set in you in whom the Holy Spirit’s goal has been established . . .1
. . . because you decided to let it in . . .
. . . is so far beyond your little conception of the infinite that you have no idea how great the strength that goes with you. And you can use THIS in perfect safety. Yet for all its might, so great it reaches pas the stars and to the universe that lies beyond them, your little faithlessness . . .
. . . it doesn’t take a lot . . .
. . . your little faithlessness can make it useless, if you would use the faithlessness instead.
Faith is you joined with the Holy Spirit—you joined with the Father’s Perspective having invited It in. It is you abandoning your independence—your capacity to think. Which is the means you and your Brother have adopted for establishing yourselves as independent agents and therefore orphans and therefore ignorant of the truth.
Now, the simple small practice of thinking on your own without enquiring as to the meaning of everything from That which gives it Meaning—the Father—causes you to experience everything in a totally distorted fashion. And although you seem to be in partnership with your Brothers, you are independent from them, behaving independently together and therefore apparently in concert, in union with them without being joined with them at all because you’re in a total state of self-protection. That’s what we’ve been talking about and that’s what Waking up is the departure from—that little bit of thinking is really a full act of independence from God. You can have the shortest, tiniest thought, but engaging in it is a total disengagement from your Father.
Now, Waking up—the practice of faith—means joining again. But not just joining with the Father, not just saying, “Father what is the truth here?” Not just saying, “Holy Spirit, fill me with the knowledge of truth that it’s my Birthright to be experiencing,” that isn’t all there is to it. You need to be asking to know the truth so that you might from that basis of experience and understanding, relate to your Brother because you…love…your…Brother.
At the bottom line, in order to Wake up, your Brother has to be the reason you want to Wake up. It’s beautiful. But not the typical attitude and not the attitude that any of you engage in constantly. In moments of inspiration, in moments of passion . . . yes.
Now, . .
. . . your little faithlessness . . .
. . . it says . . .
. . . can make it useless, . .
. . . the power that’s setting you by the Holy Spirit, . .
. . . if you would use the faithlessness instead.
Yet think on this, and learn the CAUSE of faithlessness: You think you hold against the other what he has done to you.
You see? It’s one thing to talk about recognizing that a leaf, a flower, a tree, whatever, does not have faithlessness in you, does not express faithlessness in any way, but presents itself unadorned with thoughts, opinions, attitudes as what it truly is, letting the Father’s Purpose shine through to you. And so He loves you truly. But your Brothers don’t for their own reasons and so they bring faithlessness into the picture . . . as well as you.
Now . . .
. . . think on this, and learn the cause of faithlessness:
Where does this willingness, I’m going to say, to approach your Brother on the basis of your best judgments and thinking come from? Why do you do that instead of approach your Brother with faith, joined with the Father in his Perspective?
You think you hold against the other what he has done to you. But what you really blame him for is what YOU did to HIM.
[Repeats] . . . what YOU did to HIM.
Well, when you choose to be unjoined with the Holy Spirit or the Father and you are basing everything on your best thinking, your best reasoning, your best judgments . . . well, it’s very simple: You’re in a mean-spirited frame of mind because you are in a defensive frame of mind, because you’re afraid. You are experiencing fear and you’re experiencing it because you got a divorce from your Father and you’re feeling the vulnerability of it. You see?
It is not HIS past but YOURS you hold against him.
Now, here’s the other aspect of it: The first part is that you hold against him the reasons he is providing you to be afraid. And yet the reason you’re afraid is not because of what he’s doing, but because you’ve chosen to look at him and be in a state of independence from your Father—unplugged from your Source. And that is an experience of vulnerability.
And so . . .
. . . what you really blame him for is what YOU did to HIM.
What you did to him and what you’re doing to him is you’re looking through the lens of your so-called independence and through the lens of your fear and your guilt and you are determining what he is on the basis of your lousy frame of mind. That’s what you’re doing to him. And so you project on to him your mean-spirited, negative, self-protective attitudes. And then you believe your attitudes and you say he’s responsible!
Now, he’s the holy Son of God just as you are. But when you look at him and when you look into his eyes, you see his past, you see his humanness, you see his foibles. But the foibles you see are the ones you’ve projected onto him, because you’re not having an actual connection with him.
It’s not love. It’s not a union. It’s not a partnership. It’s not even a relationship. It’s an attempt to be out of relationship with someone. It’s an attempt to be out of relationship with someone. You see the craziness of it? It’s an attempt to be together independently.
You’re doing that to him and that’s what you don’t like about him. That’s what you’re afraid of him for.
. . . what you really blame him for is what YOU did to HIM. It is not HIS past but YOURS you hold against him. And you lack faith in him because of what YOU were.
You, the one who got a divorce from your Father . . . you, the one who chose to be independent . . . you, who chose to behave as though you could be independent and become something important.
Yet you are as innocent of what you were . . .
. . . you are as innocent of what you believe you are and what you want to be . . .
. . . as he is.
And there’s the miraculous answer: You are as innocent as he is.
Why aren’t you willing to see that? You need to ask yourself that question.
And I’ll tell you, there’s only one answer: There is no good reason. So don’t even bother to get out a sheet of paper and write down the list of the reasons. The only answer is, there is no reason. And there’s your salvation and there’s his because that keeps you from going down an endless road that goes nowhere.
. . . you are as innocent of what you were . . .
. . . or what you believe you have been . . . . . . as he is.
That idea can be very demanding. It can knock the breath out of you. It can make your mind expand or let go of some of its limits. You are as innocent as he is. He is as innocent as you are.
You are simply called upon to release yourself and him from the mean-spirited, small-minded perspective that you’ve been engaging with him from, and that you’ve been using to determine the meaning of your relationship.
You must be willing to say, “There’s no good reason for me to be doing this. I don’t have to go look for the reason I’m doing this. I simply need to consider the possibility that my Brother is as innocent as I am, that I, the Holy Son of God, am as innocent as he is, the holy Son or Daughter of God that he or she is.” You see? You need to shift to a different perspective and simply abandon the one that is meaningless.
What never was is causeless, and is not THERE to interfere with truth.
Whatever you saw about your Brother that you’re holding against him—whatever negative that you have projected on him that you are holding him responsible for—is causeless. It’s not actual. It’s an imagination. That’s all!
What never was is causeless, and is not THERE to interfere with truth.
Therefore, truth hasn’t been interfered with. Therefore, Reality, the Kingdom of Heaven, that you are in the process of becoming willing to let register with you, is waiting to register with you. Nothing has to be improved. Your “bastard” Brother does not need to go through some improvement to become a holy Son of God. He simply needs to be recognized for the Son of God that he is, with genuineness by you. That’s your part in looking into your Brother’s eyes and remembering God. Being open to and in a place where his divinity can register with you. That’s all.
There IS no cause for faithlessness, . .
. . . there is no cause for it. But there is a cause for faith. That’s like saying there is no cause for darkness, but there is a cause for light. Darkness is just the absence of light. It has no presence to it. Faithlessness has no presence to it either. It has no cause. There is no cause for faithlessness but there is a Cause for truth—for faith. That Cause has entered any situation which shares its purpose.
Now I must say, that any situation that exists shares God’s Purpose because in actuality, the situation is God Moving—God Appearing. But that doesn’t mean that any situation which shares God’s Purpose is experienced by you as that which shares God’s Purpose, when you are intent on determining what the purpose of everything is from your private personal standpoint. And so you don’t see the truth and you’re not in a position to relate to the truth—to the reality of the situation, the reality of the relationship.
The light of truth shines from the center of the situation, . .
. . . whatever situation it might be, because it’s either the Kingdom of Heaven appearing to you as the Kingdom of Heaven or it’s the Kingdom of Heaven appearing to you as whatever you’ve defined it as—a material universe. You see?
But . . .
The light of truth shines from the center of the situation, and touches everyone to whom the situation's purpose calls.
Do you understand that this world and universe that you see is not just sort of a passive reaction to evolution? It is an active Presence of God infinitely expressed and expressing . . . extending Love, extending uninhibitedly its Meanings to you, embracing you on purpose. Not just because it’s supposed to radiate what It is. It radiates what It is because It is built into It to do it in relation to you so that you might experience It for what It is, exactly!
The walls . . . the floor . . . the carpet . . . anything in your presence right now is, because of its divinity, loving you—embracing you with the intent to communicate to you its Meaning—the Meaning set into place by the Father at this very moment to express Himself and for His Expression to be experienced.
You are constantly in an environment or a situation, which is a circle of love, an embrace of love, a giving and receiving of love, if you are doing your part. If you’re doing your part of looking into your Brother’s eyes and seeing God, or looking into the flower and seeing God, if you’re doing your part then the giving that the world is embracing you with, is received by you and your recognition of it is the Gift back to it of the love you are sharing, by not introducing any other concepts, any other definitions, any other mean-spirited, small-minded meanings that you might otherwise present. You see?
So it’s a circle of giving and receiving.
That Cause has entered any situation which shares Its purpose. The light of truth shines from the center of the situation, and touches everyone to whom the situation's purpose calls.
What is the situations purpose? It’s the purpose set in place by the Father in the establishment of the situation. It’s God reaching out. It’s God extended.
The light of truth . . .
. . . or God . . .
. . . shines from the center of the situation, and touches everyone to whom the situation's purpose calls. [And] It calls to EVERYONE.
And therefore, it touches everyone. But not everyone experiences it. If they are inserting their definitions in the face of it—in the face of the Gift—and turning the Gift into something it’s not, thereby causing the one changing the meaning of the Gift to miss seeing God.
It calls to EVERYONE.
The purpose in the situation. And not only that, like I said, it is a call of love, it is a conscious embrace of love in which you are blessed by the Gift of love.
There is no situation which does not involve your WHOLE relationship, in every aspect and complete in every part. You can leave nothing of yourself outside it, and keep the situation holy.
You see? As long as you are introducing your own thoughts and opinions and beliefs and serving them totally, you’re leaving something of yourself outside of the circumstance—the situation, the Kingdom of Heaven. You’re holding a part of your mind separate and filling it with your own definitions and meanings and applying it to the situation. You see? So you’re not bringing all of yourself to the recognition of God in your Brother’s eyes, or in the flower or the beetle or the clod of dirt.
You can leave nothing of yourself outside it, and keep the situation holy. For it shares the purpose of your whole relationship, and derives its meaning from it.
Enter each situation with the faith that you give to each other, or you ARE faithless to your own relationship.
Now here we’re speaking of your relationship with your Brother or your Sister and not the flower or the rock.
Enter each situation with the faith that you give to each other, . .
. . . faith . . . meaning you being from the joined place with the Father seeking His Perspective on whatever it is that’s happening.
Enter each situation with the faith that you give to each other, or you ARE faithless to your own relationship.
You see? And you will not get into the Kingdom of Heaven, which means that you will not see transformation in front of your eyes: Where illness is replaced by health, where lost limbs and organs, through surgery, are restored, where wholeness takes the place of partiality. You see?
Enter each situation with the faith that you give to each other, or you ARE faithless to your own relationship.
That’s the way you continue to dream. And that’s the way you avoid returning to your sanity. That’s the way you avoid the call from every situation—the call to you to recognize in it, God—so that you might be in harmony with the Father’s Perspective, having released your insistence upon your own will.
Your faith . . .
. . . your joined state . . .
. . . will call the others to share your purpose, as this same purpose called forth the faith in YOU.
You see? Oh-h, here we are back to this word, “involvement.”
Now, you’re all very aware of what is happening on your globe presently. It’s a call for involvement. It is involvement expressed. In other words, the call for involvement has brought involvement forth. And some of you think it’s messy, and some of you think it’s negative and some of you see it as salvation.
Well, the point is, that not everyone is sitting home in isolation with their own private thoughts, thinking, “Well, I’m glad the Egyptian Spring is happening in Egypt and not here. My God, I might have to become involved. I might have to get off my couch and I might actually have to make telephone calls or go down where the group is gathered to be counted, so that what is happening can be seen as something worth paying attention to by those with the cameras that give attention to things. You see? Oh yeah, involvement.
Your faith will call the others to share your purpose, . .
. . . your joining with the Father and wanting the Father’s Perspective because it’s your own sanity . . .
. . . will call the others to share your purpose, as this same purpose called forth the faith in YOU. And you will see the means you once employed to lead you to illusions transformed to means for truth.
Well, who is the means you once employed to lead you to illusions that might be the same that would lead you to truth? You employed the use of your attention. In both cases, it’s the use to which you’re putting your attention that makes the difference. Using your attention, applying your attention to your best thinking, your private thoughts, leads you to illusion. But taking that very same attention and giving it to the Father, or saying, “Holy Spirit, what is the truth here?” and abandoning your isolation, that leads you to truth. You see?
So . . .
. . . you will see the means you once employed to lead you to illusions transformed to means for truth.
You see? You see how simple? You don’t even have to be educated or learn something new. You just have to turn your attention from here . . . to there. And you already know how to employ your attention. You don’t have to learn anything there. You see? It’s so simple.
When the Holy Spirit changed the purpose of your relationship by exchanging yours for His, the goal He placed there was extended to every situation in which you enter, or will EVER enter. And every situation was thus made free of the past, which would have made it purposeless.
So the changes going on, on your globe are the means of abandoning the past. But just having objection, just speaking up, just joining together in concert in itself is not enough. The joining together needs to be illuminated by everyone—each one, as many of you as are willing to do it—to be involved while asking, “Father, what is called for here? Father, what is the transforming truth? Father, what is the simple pivot point—not the complicated one—the simple pivot point upon which this whole picture could shift. Inspire me, because I want to know and I want to share it, because I want there to be peace. Tell me, illuminate to me the truth, the simple answer.” You see?
Why? So you can sit on your couch and know about it and say, “Wow, if you guys knew, you would be amazed and this would stop”? You see?
So the practice of the holy instant and learning to see the truth means nothing if it isn’t brought into your relationships actively.
Your faith will call the others to share your purpose, as this same purpose called forth the faith in YOU.
“Oh, you mean, I have to have enough faith that it will actually involve me with others and it will call them to share my purpose, which is really the Father’s Purpose? You mean . . . man oh man . . . you know, I have a job, I have responsibilities, I have things to take care of. You know, I have set up my life very logically and very intelligently and there’s great order to it, and involvement will upset the whole thing! If something I do will call the other’s to share my purpose, which now is God’s Purpose because I asked to know what the Purpose was . . . why, you know what? I didn’t sign up for that . . .” Well, you know what, the moment you said, “Father, I want a divorce . . . Father, I’d rather see things my way,” . . why you did set yourself up for it, because you’ve got to come back Home. You can’t stay insane forever. And there’s no way you can justify being insane even just for a second.
When the Holy Spirit changed the purpose of your relationship by exchanging yours . . .
. . . the one you made up . . .
. . . for His, the goal He placed there was extended to every situation in which you enter, or will EVER enter. And every situation was thus made free of the past, which would have made it purposeless.
Well, what’s happening right now is making what was purposeless end.
You call for faith because of Him Who walks with you in EVERY situation.
Him has a capital “H.” That’s the Holy Spirit. That’s the Father and that is your Brother and Sister.
You call for faith . . .
. . . you insist upon, you desire to join and be joined . . .
. . . because of Him Who walks with you in EVERY situation.
The Holy Spirit, the Father and your Brother. But your Brother is the key, because without him you won’t go Home. And without him and you together he won’t go Home unless he finds someone else to do what you’re unwilling to do—who will bring to the situation the one thing that hasn’t been brought to the situation.
You are no longer wholly insane, nor no longer alone. For loneliness in God MUST be a dream.
Now mind you, you’re never alone. But you think you’re alone and you feel like you’re alone, but that’s because you’ve said, “Father, I’d rather do it myself . . . you know, back off! I’m not comfortable, but I’m not so uncomfortable that I would abandon my destiny that I’ve put in front of me. I’m not ready yet.”
But you know what? That doesn’t justify anything and it won’t any longer. You know, I’m going to tell you that Waking up is imminent and you’re not going to have the choice, because the rapidity with which Awakening is occurring, the rapidity with which the transformation is occurring, is such that there is a rapid decrease of those joined in maintaining the illusion of separateness and the validity of it. And it’s just going to become harder and harder to maintain the status-quo.
You’re seeing some of that on your globe right now. And don’t be too quick to discount it, because there’s no order to it, because there’s no plan to it. Stop discounting it and start listening for what the plan is, start listening for what the purpose is, what the goal is, what the call is that’s coming from the situation, because God is in the center of every situation. Because every situation is the Kingdom of Heaven perceived clearly or misperceived.
So stop engaging in judgment, because that’s misperception. And start inquiring, “What is the answer, what is my part?” And I invite you all to be willing to actually do something, actually get up off that couch and touch someone else with the ideas that we’re talking about, with the ideas that . . . hey, it’s time to be looking for the answer and stop being obsessed with objecting to the way the answer is occurring by virtue of people being involved with each other and saying, “We want the truth.”
You whose relationship shares the Holy Spirit's goal are set apart from loneliness because the truth has come.
[Repeats] You whose relationship shares the Holy Spirit's goal . . .
. . . you whose relationship with your Brother or Sister or your world.
You whose relationship shares the Holy Spirit's goal . . .
. . . because you’ve said, “Father, what is the truth here? Holy Spirit, what is the truth here?” You . . .
. . . are set apart from loneliness because the truth has come.
If you’ve asked and you meant it and you listen and you didn’t abandon the listening until the clarity came, then truth has come.
Its call for faith is strong.
[Repeats] Its call for faith . . .
. . . what’s the “it”? Your relationship . . . your relationship with your fellowman. Your relationship with your fellowman in Italy, or your fellowman in Cincinnati, or your fellowman in Seattle, or Japan, or India, wherever.
Its call for faith is strong.
Faith in what? Not faith in something, but it’s call for joining. Remember faith is the Meaning of joining and it is the Meaning of what is revealed to you as an inspired and Awakened conscious experience as a result of joining. That’s faith.
Its call . . .
. . . the situations call, your relationships call . . .
. . . for faith is strong.
Why wouldn’t it be? The goal, the call of any situation is the active, living Presence of God pulling for and inviting, we’ll say, the recognition of God, so there’s no misunderstanding that distorts the experience into one of sin, sickness, death and a material world.
Its call for faith is strong. Use not your faithlessness against it, for it calls you to salvation and to peace.
[Repeats] Use not your faithlessness . . .
. . . use not your independence, use not your private thinking, use not your best concepts, use not your justifications for avoiding involvement.
Use not your faithlessness against it, for it calls you . . .
. . . what does? The call of faith in the situation . . .
. . . it calls you to salvation and to peace.
Now, there is certainly an unmistakable call for joining, not joining against Brother and Sister, not joining country against country, not joining where one economy is trying to best another economy, but joining with the Holy Spirit, joining with the Father, asking to be inspired with the truth, with the answers that will specifically contribute to the healing of inequity, of dishonesty, of all of the things that undermine the experience and the expression of human decency.
You’ve got a part to play in it, just in terms of being humanly decent yourselves. And you have a part to play in it by virtue of actively, consciously choosing to become involved with your Brother for the purpose of seeing God there and remembering God by virtue of your involvement with your Brother. Because it’s in the joining with him and the invitation to him and the simple parity of truth expressed by you that can be embraced by him that allows the two of you to be transformed and go Home together. Which means: Stand right where you are in the middle of the Kingdom of Heaven, that looks like the world and universe, and being in it in an entirely new way, with an entirely new perspective, the motivation of which is, I’m going to say, overwhelming love. And I only mean overwhelming in the sense of so huge that it overflows you. It cannot be contained by you. And you must let it out. And you must let it be the call, the circumstance that everyone else experiences as that which causes them to say, “Not my will be done, by Thine . . .” and join the Awakening.
I love you all. And I look forward to being with you next time.
. A Course In Miracles (reference pages)
Chapter 17 – Section: THE NEED FOR FAITH
1 Sparkly Book – p.419, Last Par. / JCIM – p.175, Last Par. / CIMS – p. 353, Par. 71
Chapter 17 – Section: SETTING THE GOAL
First Edition – p. 344, 2nd Full Par. / Second Edition – p.369, Par. 8
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A Course in Miracles Study Group with Raj, October 15th 2011
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