There are a couple of things that were discussed last time which I want to make sure we understand clearly before we move on.

The first thing is, that I said that what fulfills purpose is always a decision.  And that could very easily be construed to mean that decisions fulfill purpose.  “Decision” is a word that everybody likes because it implies power, it implies a capacity to direct things—cause things to move in a certain way. 

The power of decision is a concept promoted in New Thought, metaphysical thought, New Age thinking and it is glommed onto by almost everyone because everyone wants to be able to feel secure.  And if the power of decision will supply that security, it is something worth learning about, acquiring and practicing.

And yet, when I said what fulfills purpose is always a decision, it didn’t have anything to do with any single one of you making a decision as some form of practice of control.  And this is important.  It’s important that I make it clear because the practice of decision-making is well established and well valued and yet it is that practice of decision-making that one has to abandon in order to Wake up, in order to enter into the holy instant, in order to break one’s autonomy, which is what holds one in a state of orphanhood, mortality . . . period.

Now there are really only two choices of purpose:  One is actual and the other is imagined.  But nevertheless they are both treated as real.

One of the practices of purpose, one of the choices of purpose is one that keeps you asleep—still dreaming, still incarcerated in the orphanage.  It is a practice of decision that arises out of your logic, that arises out of your need to be in control, not only of your own mind so as to have a certain degree of peace, but also as a means of controlling your fellowman—your fellow inmates in the orphanage.

And so that practice of decision is one that ensures the continued dream—the continued unconsciousness of truth—because it’s used to establish your private goal to become a real valid human being even though you’re an orphan.  And it will be done by making sure that your fellow orphans continue to believe that they are orphans so that they might be subject to your decisions, which will of course be only in your best interest and the sub-heading of that is that you will do things that make your fellow orphans feel like they are benefitting—not because you really want them to benefit, but because you want them to value you and validate you.

And the way to do that is what A Course In Miracles is about and is what we have been dealing with all along.  But even more pointedly, recently, it’s the practice of the two-step.  It’s a practice where you abandon your personal private decision-making, which arises out of your use of your logic and where you shut up and you stop all the processes you normally used in order to arrive at a valuable decision.  And in the absence of that, in the silence, you ask, “Father” or “Holy Spirit, what is the truth here . . .” followed by the words, “about my fellow man? What is the truth here about that which I’m in relationship with?”  You see?

You ask not to know yourself better, but to know your Brother better.

And in the answer as to the truth about your Brother, you learn the truth about yourself automatically, spontaneously.  And you and your Brother are healed, and  Heaven smiles.

Now I also read from the Course:

You have no purpose apart from each other.¹

And I said that statement is the answer to all of the problems on your globe.

Now to a certain degree you do believe that you have no purpose apart from each other.  And the purpose you have together is to control each other so that you don’t all kill each other, and so that you don’t hold each other down, and you are able to become a success at the expense of your Brothers.  And of course, your striving for your success means you’re confronted by your Brothers’ attempts to keep you from your fulfillment and benefit them.  And so, social existence is a constant contest, which because you have a certain amount of intelligence, you’ve managed to develop a style of, that is fairly peaceful.

But that isn’t what I was talking about.

The simple fact is:

You have no purpose apart from each other.

And it’s more like the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.²  The goal is to extend to your Brother love, not fear and control. 

You have no purpose apart from each other.

That means, that you have a purpose and the purpose is: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  In other words, the one focus you have before you at all times is to extend caring to everything you’re in relationship with.

“Oh, well if I do that, so-and-so is going to get angry and is not going to accept me, is not going to accept what I’ll say.  He’s a stubborn one!” or “They’re a stubborn lot!” 

And you categorize them as something to withhold love from.   And you think in your spiritual stance, that you’re not to “cast pearls before swine,”³ you’re not to extend yourself.

Well I’ll tell you something:  Sometimes the extension of love requires doing something that seems to put you at risk.  Sometimes you have to stand in the Presence of Love that the Father extends to you—infills you with—and you are required to extend it whether it is received well or not.

“Oh, well that’s not reasonable!”

Well, you know what?  You don’t have the spiritual luxury to make such off-handed, mean-spirited, love-withholding statements.  Because you know what the fact is?  When the atomic reactors in Fukushima melted down, there was no healthy way to correct the problem and if the problem wasn’t corrected it could affect the whole island.  And so it had to be corrected and people had to walk into the mouths of danger and contradict the danger and continue to contradict the danger through faith until the danger is clear.

Now there are life situations that cause all of us to become very practical and get off our “metaphysical or spiritual high horse” and become involved whether it seems reasonable or not. 

You have no purpose apart from each other. 

And you’re going to need to roll up your sleeves and participate in the correction.  How?  By continuing . . . by persevering in doing the two-step so that there are no more flip, off-handed thoughts or comments that roll off your tongue or out of your mind, that fool you into believing that you have nothing to do and that you can’t do anything and that there are other things that it’s more appropriate for you to be doing.

Love meets needs.  But not if you’re ignoring the need, not if you’re claiming “time out.”  But that’s not your task.  Your purpose is to be the holy Son or Daughter of God.  That means, it’s your purpose for your mind to be the Mind of God because you have not held out room for anything else, called “your piss-ant little presence” on your own.

The need is to be willing to see your Brothers’ needs so that you can see the answer to your Brothers’ needs and how to be part of the resolution of the need by practicing the two-step, by engaging in the holy instant and persevering until your mind is changed and you see the truth.

Now you’re all too logical.  You are all too intellectual.  And we’re at the time, at the point of abandoning it so that you might experience some progress and so that you might experience some Grace.

When I spoke a few times ago about Paul’s experience in the living room of a friend, where the walls were covered with flocked wallpaper, I shared that he had a transitioning experience of it and learned from an inner experience, that the substance of the wallpaper and indeed the walls and everything else, was Living Love.

Now, do you think Paul was anticipating that? If he had wanted to know the truth about it, might he have expected an explanation?  As I told you, yes.

Well now, let’s turn this on your Brother who seems to be a heathen, or who seems to be a bastard, or who seems a druggie, or who seems to be a mean-spirited, unfriendly cuss.  What if, in the willingness to let yourself be infilled with “what the truth is here,” your Brother, the mean-spirited cuss, or your Sister suddenly, obviously becomes to you the Presence of Living Love, let’s say that where he or she is, their body doesn’t disappear but you have an experience of an oval light—the shape of an oval illumination in which you realize you’re seeing that one for the first time truly.  And again, the Light is living Love.  And although it doesn’t have the characteristics of the human body that you’re familiar with, you recognize that one clearly, perfectly as the holy Son or Daughter of God.  And what? You find your concept, no matter how good it had been, transformed beyond what you would expect.

You may have thought you were asking, “What is the truth here about my Brother so that I might heal him?”  But what if the truth of the matter is, that you learn what the truth is about your Brother so that you see that you don’t need to heal him?  There you go.  You see, it doesn’t have anything to do with logic. 

As I said before, you may after the fact, have to find words to describe the meaning, the truth that you have learned.

Stop being so sure that you know what your thinking is for or that you know exactly what the Course is meaning.  Because I’m telling you, that although the Course uses logic and it uses words and it expresses ideas beautifully which trigger transformation, it is the transformation beyond or out of your present sense of things that is its goal.  You see?  And the practice of the holy instant is the means by which, in this moment . . . and this moment . . . and this moment, you manage to escape the bonds of limitation—the limitations of the definitions you have given to everything.

It’s an utterly simple thing.  The call for Awakening is answered in the holy instant.

I am not meaning to be monotonous but you are not getting it completely and  so I must say it over.

Relating to everything that exists is something you do when you are listening for the Father’s reply, the Father’s communication to you of the Meaning He is embodying in everything.  And what that means—the simplicity of that is—that you really had nothing else to do all day long, no matter what activity you’re engaged in than saying, “Father, what’s the truth here?” or being the presence of inquisitive attention as though you don’t know, as though you are a child. 

That is the simplicity of it.  And what makes it difficult is, that you have developed means of staying out of the silence, staying out of the place where you’re quiet enough so that you might hear something else.  That’s the simplicity of it.

As I’ve said, it’s not attractive because there’s nothing stimulating about it as far as your having something to be excited about that relates to your credibility.  You see? 

To Know the truth is peace.  To Know the truth, occurs in the peace.  The peace is not stimulating, but in peace and arising from it is the Movement of Creation and you have not for a very long time experienced the awesomeness of that.  And I promise you it is far more exciting than what you experience in the business of your mind.

Now what is it that is exciting?  Oh, guilt is exciting!  Guilt is stimulating!  Guilt makes you stand up and try harder.  Guilt makes you attempt to improve yourself.  And so you equate it with the stimulus of Life. 

Be quiet with that for a moment . . .

So it’s very difficult to imagine being totally alive when you’re just letting Life happen.  When you are not giving Life direction by means of decisions.  But this is what you must begin to engage in, if you want to Wake up—if you want to experience your Birthright and be freed from sin, disease and death and a Godless universe.  That is a constant stimulating struggle.

The new section is entitled:

THE ATTRACTION OF GUILT

Well there you are.  The attraction of guilt is, it’s stimulating nature and the fact that it keeps you on your toes, keeps you from dying even by causing you to engage in overcoming problems, which of course are occurring because you’re not taking the time to be silent and do the two-step. 

The attraction of guilt produces fear of love, for love would never look on guilt at all. It is the nature of love to look upon only the truth, for there it sees itself, with which it would unite in holy union and completion. As love must look past fear, so must fear see love not.

Now it’s important to understand that if you did not validate guilt, if you did not practice it, so to speak, by not objecting to it, if you did object to it and neglected to practice it and instead practiced Love, the experience of guilt would disappear because it doesn’t exist in the clarity of Love. 

You can’t misunderstand flocked wallpaper that is the presence of Living Love, nor can you be afraid of it, nor can it do anything less than provide you with the sudden knowledge that the substance of everything is Living Love, right then, right there in your brand new experience of it. 

You suddenly have universal Knowledge, universal Knowing about it.  And if you would stay with that experience, stay with the Vision and not jump back into the driver’s seat yourself, the Vision would persist and Atonement would have occurred.

As love must look past fear, so must fear see love not.

[chuckles]  If fear could see love, everything fearful that it was experiencing would become nothing and fear would cease to exist.  And that’s the point.

For love contains the end of guilt, as surely as fear depends on it. Overlooking guilt completely, it . . .

. . . Love . . .

. . . sees no fear.

Well, you say, “That’s nice to know what it’s like for Love, but it’s not that way for me.”  No, and that’s why we’re talking, because it’s supposed to be that for you.  And it can be that as simply as you’re neglecting to validate fear when it clutches you in the solar plexus. 

When you neglect to validate it, when you dismiss it with an abiding conviction that it is illegitimate, it will leave and there will be no fear to deal with and there will be nothing to goad you into improving yourself.  And if you have neglected to validate it because of the persistence of Vision, which you are having because you are actually engaged in the practice of the holy instant, you will have secured the stability of your clear Godlike Vision.

Being wholly without attack, it . . .

. . . Love . . .

. . . COULD not be afraid. Fear is attracted to what love sees not, and each believes that what the other looks upon does not exist.

Of course, Love Knows that fear does not exist.  And the actuality of it is that fear doesn’t exist to know that Love wouldn’t see it.

Fear looks on guilt with just the same devotion that love looks on itself. And each has messengers which they send forth, and which return to them with messages written in the language in which their going forth was asked.

So, what is your task?  What is your purpose?  Your purpose is to decide not which messengers to send forth, but to decide to send forth Love, the messengers of Love to look for Love and return with confirmation of Love.  And you thought I was going to say something about doing the other . . . no,  not doing anything else.  I’m not going to say, send out the messengers of Love and stop sending out the messengers of fear or hate.  I’m going to say, send out the messengers of Love.  And if you discover that you’re not, [snaps fingers] stop!  And send out the messengers of Love. 

Love's messengers are gently sent, . .

. . . in other words, without the excitement of thrill of sending out fearful ones, messengers of guilt that will prod your Brother into doing something or stimulate your advance.  No.

Love's messengers are gently sent, . .

. . . you might say, boringly sent, but full of the Meaning of Love . . .

. . . and return with messages of love and gentleness.

You have no purpose apart from each other.  And the purpose you have with each other is to send Love’s messengers.  To go into the meltdown no matter how dangerous it seems to be because your Brother and the truth about him is that important.  And what you give you get to keep.  And so your endeavor in spite of the danger, the so-called danger, will reveal to you no danger at all.  And both of you will be held in perfection, healed or let us say, not in need of healing because perfection prevails.

On the other hand:

The messengers of fear are harshly ordered to seek out guilt, and cherish every scrap of evil and of sin which they can find, losing none of them on pain of death, and laying them respectfully before their lord and master. Perception cannot obey two masters, each asking for messages of different things in different languages. What fear would feed upon, love overlooks.  What fear demands, love cannot even see.

Logic and your backgrounds would cause you, as you read the Course, to expect to find ways to cope with the awfulness of fear and guilt and to learn how to be the active Presence of Love that can be transformational all by yourself, on your own.  And that can’t happen.  And that isn’t what is called for. 

What is called for is the silencing of that in you that wants to be great at your own hand, and join with the Father because your Brother is in need.  Being willing to walk into the meltdown of whatever sort it might be because the truth about your Brother is that there could never have been a meltdown that makes him unworthy of your attention or that could in some way harm you by bringing your attention to your Brother by asking the Father, “What is the truth here?  What is the meaning here?  What is the experience here?”  You see?

There’s too much of an expectation that you’re going to have to change someone else’s mind, instead of becoming defenseless enough yourself in your joining with the Father to have the Father reveal to you the truth that’s been there all along, in spite of your beliefs to the contrary and your convictions and the decisions you’ve arrived at on the basis of them.

It’s time to be healed.  It’s time for every one of you to be healed of your misperceptions and your commitment to them.  It’s time for the Grace of God to rest upon you and inspire you so that you might be that witness for the truth about your Brother that heals.  Not because you knew to begin with what would heal, and through your great skill practice it.  But because in your innocence and your willingness to go into the meltdown with your Brother, you were in that place where the Father’s Love could show up once again because you weren’t blocking it.  That’s the simplicity of it.

What seems not to be so simple is to have the courage to practice the two-step, to actually shut up, to actually bring your attention full of curiosity to hear the Meanings that the Father is Expressing, by means of the Father revealing them to you and giving you a direct experience of communion with Him.

Now it’s going to be too easy to listen to these words and think that they are “holy jabbering.”  I’m not talking spiritual talk.  I’m talking about something in each one of you, as an experience of commitment, in the face of meltdown or danger or whatever, in the face of the limitations you’ve placed on everything.  Taking the time to do what’s out of the ordinary for you and silence the streaming words that tell you exactly why something can’t happen or tell you exactly what there is about your Brother or your neighbor or another country that justifies your not listening, that justifies your not engaging in an act of caring.  Because if you’re not engaging in the act of caring, you’re not engaging in the act of joining.  And you’re not engaging in the one and only means you have available to you for coming back into your right Mind.

Most of Waking up is a process of shutting up. 

Why do you like to think?  Why do you like to engage in all these things?  Because the excitement of guilt is the engine that moves you to become something in your own right, at your own hand so that you can prove your validity.  And all the time you’re wasting your time attempting to do what has already been done FOR YOU!

I love you.  I love every single one of you.  And I will persist in turning your attention where it needs to be.  And I will continue to encourage you to abandon what isn’t working, even though you might think it is.  It is my task to inspire you to at least experiment with commitment, to see whether what I’m saying is the truth.  To have the experience that proves that it is the truth and which will inspire you to persist by listening more closely within, more consistently and Wake up . . . experience the Atonement.

I look forward to being with your next time.

A Course In Miracles (reference pages)
Chapter 19 – Section: THE ATTRACTION OF GUILT
 Sparkly Book – p.461   /   JCIM – p.193   /   CIMS – p.389
First Edition  –  p. 382   /    Second Edition – p.410
² Mathew 7:12 and Luke 6:31
3 Matthew 7:6

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