Last week we talked about Family and Brotherhood and covering one’s back.  And we did talk some about what I’ll call, “economics.”  Except that I was not talking about the economy of the world.  It was more of divine economics and not everyone gleaned from what I said, the fullness of what I meant.

Someone during the week expressed the thought that, “Well, here Paul is talking with Jesus and he has to beg for money every month.  If he can’t demonstrate fulfillment of finances and he is talking with Jesus, what chance do I have?”

It seems like a reasonable question.  However, I need everyone to understand that the request for support isn’t a means of generating income.  It’s a way of functioning in harmony with the means of coming Home – of Awakening.

Now, here I am . . . here I have been and I have been speaking with you through Paul in this way for many years.  What is my purpose?  My purpose is to invite you back Home – to remind you of Home and to share with you the means of returning.  And in all respects, in order to return home there are some basic changes that need to occur.  And all of those changes are mental, all of those changes . . . um-m . . . involve the abandoning of false concepts – of beliefs that are false – and replacing them with perceptions that are true.

Now the nature of Home – the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven – is Love and peace and life and truth.  Anyone coming Home from their time off as a prodigal Son or Daughter must allow his or her mind to begin to be in harmony with the nature of the destination.  And so, selfishness, greed, egotism, jealousy . . . all of these things that all of you employ at one time or another in order to maintain your balance, in order to control the situation so you’re half way safe, all of these things must yield to other things. 

Jealousy must yield to Love.  Limitation must yield to the embrace and acceptance of abundance.  Not because it’s deserved or earned, but because it’s the Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.  Not just everything you might need, but all that is.

Now, if I were to relate to you and share what I’m sharing with you, and if the sharing were charged for, if there were a price put on it and you could not have it if you could not pay the price, then I would not be teaching you how to have a new mindset that would put you in harmony with the destination you’re headed for.

The only way you can come Home is if you understand the meaning of Gift.  Because until you understand the meaning of Gift you will cling to “getting.”  You will cling to  having  getting  this  for  that – an exchange instead of a wholeness shared.  And until this “growing up” I’m going to call it, occurs, until this level of maturity kicks in, you will not be able to come Home.  You will still be operating as an independent agent among other independent agents.  And you will all barter with each other and fight with each other over how to have the most that you think you need to have in order to get to the place that’s  important.

I cannot teach you how to come Home without teaching you how to grow up – how to shift into the attitude of giving.

Now there is a new paradigm of economics manifesting on your planet among your economists and your forward thinking professors in the Universities.  It is showing up in the way musical artists are sharing their work instead of going through the normal channels of contracts and guarantees and manipulation of the market by raising or lowering the prices on the musical products.  And it’s having an effect.  In actuality, it is causing some upheaval because those who are caught up in the old paradigm who are still committed to it, cannot see how there could be equity when control isn’t being exercised.  And yet, that’s the only way equity can be arrived at.

What does this mean?  It means that those who are faced with the imminence of change are going to have to stop griping about the new way to experience equity, which they can’t understand . . . and explore it . . . be quiet with it so that they might begin to understand how it works at the level of Love.

It indeed requires re-education, because in order for it to work, people are going to have to begin to care about what they haven’t bothered to care about before.  When a price is put on an item and you know you must pay the price before you can have the item and you’re obedient to that structure, it never occurs to you to bring love into it because love isn’t required.

But in order for everyone to come back Home, to “get back into the Kingdom of Heaven,” the shift from getting to giving has to occur.  And along with it has to come the grasping of how that works and what the meaning of things is in that paradigm.

And so, one has to look and somehow recognize – if I’m not here to share it with you – somehow recognize that the element that has to be brought into play is Love. 

Umm . . . what does that mean?  It means involvement.  It means coming back into the true understanding of Family and of Brotherhood, where the motive for your behavior with each other is not self-defense, but the sharing of optimal infinite wholeness.  Why?  Not so that you can get.  But because it’s your nature to do that and as the Presence of Love, it’s natural for you to do that.  And when you naturally do it because you’ve adopted that as normalcy, the manifestation of Wholeness appears.  And it appears in a context of intimacy, of Family, of Brotherhood.

Now, let’s say that a band of “students of truth” are proceeding forward in a group on the road to the Kingdom of Heaven, and they come to the Pearly Gates, we’ll say.  In order for them to go through the Pearly Gates they have to have been approaching on the road to the Kingdom of Heaven with a certain attitude, with this maturity that I’m talking about, where nobody is jockeying for a better position so that they can be the first to go through the Gate and where there is no back-biting or competition with each other, where Gift, where caring, where involvement have replaced the aloofness of human economics, and the unlovely characteristics of the nuclear family that have developed as the thought of independence has taken hold and become all-important.

This group must have abandoned independence.  In abandoning it, what do they find has happened?  Well, they find that it’s a lot easier to have fun.  It’s a lot easier to be happy.  It’s a lot easier for the creativity of the infinite Mind of God that is their Mind to express Itself because they’re not having to protect the incredible ideas that are coming to them, and where everyone is able to stand in full appreciation of the incredibly creative ideas that are shared.  You see?

I am teaching how to be in a new way . . . for what purpose?  For the purpose of your coming Home, for the purpose of your coming into alignment with the divine way things work.

Now, if I am the Christ and I am present in the world in this fashion, then what I am teaching must be consistent with what will actually allow you to come all the way Home.  And so, Paul and Susan and Chris and Judy join with me in behaving in the way that illustrates how things divinely work.

And so we have always shared the things I’m saying and made them available at no charge.  And loving responses of appreciation in the form of money have found their way through the mail into Paul’s hands so that they might be put to use to continue to make these things available freely. 

There is a teaching in this.  There is something to be learned from this.  It’s on purpose and it’s not just some novel way to create income for Paul who is doing some kind of work just like everyone else is doing some kind of work and ends up being paid for it.  You see?

This isn’t about generating income.  This is about behaving in a way that teaches how to come Home, and teaches what is of value in terms of coming Home through new behavior, which Paul, Susan and Chris and Judy are exhibiting, embodying, practicing.  You see?

Now, this is important to understand, because it lays the groundwork for you to what?  Have a new way of generating income like Paul does?  No.  It puts you in a position of caring to cover your Brother’s back, of caring to do it because you care about your Brother.  You see? 

When you’re in business, you don’t have to care about your brother when it comes to the transaction of it.  But you’re not going to be able to get away from the necessity of caring for your Brother, of being involved in that intimacy without self-protection.  Because, you see, self-protection puts a shield up between you and your Brother that causes you not to be able to be aware of your Brother’s need or of what would truly answer his need so that you could respond with that, that does answer it.

You must be defenseless with your Brother in order to be able to let his need register with you so that you might respond with what answers his need, rather than responding with whatever truth you think everyone ought to hear, which doesn’t involve communication or intimacy at all.  You see?

And so, the request isn’t there to generate income.  The request is there to trigger or inspire remembrance of what means something and what is natural to you as a holy Son or Daughter of God, so that you might bring it back into play after its significant absence, while you pretended to be orphans working each other over, protecting yourselves against each other.  You see? 

That’s what this is about . . . that’s what this is about.  You see?

Now, I’m going to leave it at that tonight, because it brings into crystal clarity and simple focus something very fundamentally important.  And it is fundamentally important because when it is embraced and learned and your behavior and your attitudes are changed, it opens up the gates of Heaven.  It will cause the way in which mankind on your globe behaves towards each other.  And it will support, nourish and magnify the integrity of every one of you.  That is significant!   

And even if you didn’t think that that would pave the way for you to regain entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven, it’s something worthy of, for lack of better words, achieving, going for, because everyone deserves to be feeling the integrity of their Being, which is being illuminated and supported by all of their Brothers and Sisters.  You see?

You see the harmony and the excellence of the Brotherhood of Man when you look at it this way.  It’s worth looking at with new eyes, even when you can’t grasp what it will mean or how it will work.  In fact, everything in you says, “it can’t work.”  Everything in you says, “that chaos will be the result!”  But it will not be.

Everyone can afford to dare to risk the chance that there is a God and embody what God Is, by reaching for that which is not understandable yet, reaching for a practical grasp of how giving instead of getting can bless everyone instead of driving them into chaos and poverty . . . because until you take the time to dare to look at what you don’t understand, but which is obviously worthwhile, such as the ever-present expression of Love towards your Brothers and Sisters, you will put yourself in alignment with the experience of Revelation and insight that will allow you to behave in a new way, that inspires others to embrace it as well. 

And that’s the Meaning behind this unique function of Gifting instead of the typical one of engaging in commerce.  Be willing to be with this within yourselves, because it’s inseparable from Waking up.  It’s inseparable from the illumination of your salvation.

I love you very much.  And I look forward to being with you next time.

A Course In Miracles (reference pages)

Raj did not read from the Course tonight