 
Location: The Kingdom of Heaven | A COURSE IN MIRACLES
STUDY GROUP WITH RAJ Okay. Tonight we will not be going into the Book. And so before we begin, let’s take a few moments to be quiet together. [Quiet time]
Good evening. And welcome to everyone who is joining us on the internet. How many of you had a difficult week since we last met together? How many listened to what I had to say last time and experienced extreme clarity – understood the utter simplicity of what I was saying, and therefore, the utter simplicity of Waking up, of ending the dream, of ending “the human condition?” How many, as a result, looked forward to an incredibly different week from past weeks expecting the clarity to open up vast new doors, or at the least, an incredibly enhanced daily experience? And how many of you diligently and conscientiously reviewed the transcript of the meeting and did your utmost to bring the principles into play during your day and found yourself thwarted – found things not transforming, we’ll say, positively?
How many of you found that the situations actually seemed to get worse? Well, it’s not because your clarity was flawed. It was not because you misunderstood what you had heard. But rather, it’s something called inertia.
You know what inertia is? Inertia is the tendency of a body in motion to continue in that motion. And you experience it when you’re riding in the passenger seat of a car and the car is moving straight forward. Your body is a body in motion moving straight forward. But if the driver goes around the curve to the left, you find yourself pressed against the right-hand door of the car. And the reason is, that your body is continuing to move straight forward and the car, moving left, is getting in the way. And so you feel yourself pressed into the door of the car. Simple . . . easy to understand. Now, where has the inertia come into play as you have been really, truly, endeavoring to practice the two-step and engage in the holy instant and experiencing Guidance – hearing or feeling the impulse or the direction to act in?
Well, the inertia is and always will be your thinking. You’re not used to not thinking. And so the tendency to think will persist when you are engaged in abandoning it. You see? It will persist. So don’t be surprised. You will find that in one way or another, your practice of the holy instant will arouse intellectual responses – habitual intellectual responses. “Well I can’t do that!” or “that doesn’t make sense” or “that sounds interesting but I’m not quite ready to do that” or any part of the “I can’t syndrome.”
“I can’t do that. I can’t believe that. I can’t see how that would be helpful in the slightest.” And you introduce thinking instead of paying attention to the Guidance, which is clearly presenting itself. And then listening to Guidance as it is presenting itself . . . and then listening to Guidance as it is presenting itself and not once engaging in speculative thoughts – doubts, intelligent concerns. Now, even if you do have an intelligent concern or a doubt, you don’t have to persist in a straight line. You can bring that concern or doubt to your Guidance. “I don’t see how this can happen. I can’t do that. Tell me the truth about it. I want to know why I can do it. I want to know, since You see that this is an appropriate step to take, how that step is to be accomplished,” because You must be able to see it.” And so you don’t activate the inertia of the doubt or the concern. You use it as a continued reason for not thinking and returning your attention to the Guidance that can clarify for you how it can be done or why it is not dangerous. You see? The inertia comes as a result of abandoning listening for Guidance. It comes as a result of abandoning listening to the Voice of truth. It comes as a result of abandoning your intent to connect with That which is nothing more than your right Mind – the Holy Spirit. Now if you will catch the moment in which you’re willing to abandon listening and re-engage thinking, if you will catch yourself when that happens, you will find yourself continuing to be released from the perceptions of yourself and your world that you have been taught, that you have acquired and that you have placed faith in. Now as you do that, you will find that what could have ended up being an impasse, because inertia set in, will demonstrate to you the value of not valuing your thinking. And then it will be easier the next time inertia sets in to abandon the inertia. This is a learning process. And it can be described as becoming disenchanted with your thinking. It’s not a happy thing to become disenchanted with your thinking. In fact, that can be part of the inertia to ruminate about, the fact it’s not pleasant. And therefore, this can’t possibly be contributive in any way to any positive result. You see? There’s the inertia. The tendency to continue as you have been gets in the way of being free of preconditioned patterns, free of habits – mind habits, mental habits that keep you bound. Thinking is always based upon the past. It’s always based on your experience. And that’s usually considered good – to be able to base your actions on experience. “Oh, he’s had a lot of experience and it shows in everything thing he does." "He’s excellent in his work and it’s a result of his experience.” You see? But I’m going to tell you something: Your experience has always been colored by or based in learning that reflects not being joined with your right Mind. Your experience in the world, in life as its generally perceived, is a result of being conscious of events without realizing that they have a connection with God – with a Prime Mover of pure intelligence. Not only that, that the Prime Mover acts always in the “Now,” and therefore the experience is always brand new and never based upon the past. Without that conscious awareness, the Reality of what one is experiencing is lost, and what one is left with is illusion – is memory imbued with, colored with, nothing but misunderstanding and misperception. You see, becoming disenchanted with your thinking means something significant. And you end up, in your disenchantment with your thinking, in a place where you can experience no self-appreciation because of your thinking – something which for most every one of you has been a source of pride and has lent you credibility and recognition. Oh yes, "He, she, you have quite a bit of experience and it shows, and you’re to be honored, and you’re to be respected because you don’t base things on your imagination, but rather on your experience. Now it’s time for the word “experience” to mean something new. It’s time for the word “experience” to mean what happens when you’re in the Silence and you are not asserting a personal private intent or sense of self. And in the absence of a sense of self, but the presence of Mind that you Are, Truth is revealed to you. Clarity comes. Behavior arises out of It – not out of your best thinking, not out of your best judgment, not out of your vast experience. And that behavior arising out of the absence of personal private self-assertion, provides you with an experience of what your right Mind truly is: the Holy Spirit, the Presence of the Mind of God Being all there is to the Presence of Mind that you Are. New identity is revealed to you, which is really your original identity and your only identity. But it’s an identity that has been covered over by your thinking, coupled with the idea – the radical and crazy idea – that you are a free agent, an agent with a capacity to enact things, to be a “cause.” That’s where the problem lies. And the solution to it lies in the practice of the holy instant and the successful disenchantment with your thinking. To the point where you no longer give preference to your thinking, but you give your preference to persistent listening, persistent joining with That which is nothing more than your right Mind, which just happens to be the Holy Spirit. You see? It’s all right for your thinking to become meaningless. It’s all right for you not to know the answer. It’s all right not to have the foggiest idea of what to do, if in the absence of a foggy idea you are consciously paying attention with curiosity to know what the truth is that you’re not presently aware of and which isn’t presently defined by your best or worst thinking. It’s no wonder that it has taken so long for so many to Awaken. It’s not a very appealing prospect from the current perspective, which tends to continue to be the perspective even when the intent to change perspective comes into play. Because when the changed perspective occurs, you experience resistance to it because you tend to not abandon your current habits. That’s the only reason. You tend to resist abandoning your current habits, your current mindsets, your current mutual agreements . . . and the promises from everyone that, if you agree to this or that or the other thing, they will provide you with some goodies, some appreciation, some recognition, some acknowledgement of your worth. You see? You have to let go of those things in order for inertia not to prevail. You really need to become like a little child. You need to be glad to abandon your preconceptions. Oh, [chuckles] and as many of you know, you can have preconceptions about something you’ve never heard about or thought about before. You begin to open up to spiritual things. You begin to open up to the Bible, A Course In Miracles – inner, honest inquiry of that which is outside the box. And you find out that you can expect healing. And you pursue it and you experience healing, except that it seems to be gradual. And it doesn’t take very long for you to discover that you have a concept about that. “Well, if this is truly spiritual healing it’s not going to take awhile. If it is truly spiritual healing, if God has anything to do with it, it’s going to be instantaneous.” Now where did that come from? How is it that you have this concept when the genuine idea of being able to experience healing was something you never thought about before? I will tell you: The private sense of self protects what it calls “its integrity” – keeps its boundaries clear by virtue of having concepts. Concepts provide the structure to what we’ll call “your ego.” And because the ego is nothing more than a defense mechanism, concepts are the tool – the tools that the ego uses to protect itself. And it has the capacity to provide opinions about something that you’ve only just discovered. It is as though the opinion has been waiting in secret for the opportunity to present itself, even though it hasn’t. You see? It can be tricky, it can be sticky, it can seem to be complicated, but only if you’re willing to be affected by inertia, only if you are insistent upon continuing to practice thinking – thinking based upon the past, thinking based upon perceptions arrived at through nothing more than ignorance . . . perceptions arrived at only in the absence of a conscious connection with one’s Source, one’s true Source and therefore, without the conscious awareness of your own divinity that is and always has been outside of the box. Inertia keeps you in the box. It’s that simple. What gets you out of the box, what gets you out of inertia is to listen for Guidance. Desire of the Father or the Holy Spirit to Know what the God’s honest truth is, what the truth is from the Father’s Perspective of His perfect Creation and to listen for it and let it in. And then no matter what form inertia takes to distract you and to get you to think about it, or to think against it, or whatever, continue to ask, “Father, Holy Spirit, what is the truth here? Father, I’m experiencing a doubt. What is the truth that eradicates the doubt? I don’t want to magnify the doubt. I don’t want to emphasize the inertia. Father, what is the truth that negates the inertia?” And do it, and do it, and do it because the only alternative you have is to think about it, and that will keep you bound, that will prohibit healing, that will prohibit revelation. If things seem to get worse, ask, “Father, what is the truth that invalidates, proves to be unreal, the worsening of the situation?” Don’t ask the Father what’s causing the worsening of the situation. Always your inquiry in the holy instant has to do with your wishing to abandon your perspective in favor of the Father’s Perspective about whatever it is you’re confused. Remember, the only thing going on is Reality. The only thing going on is the Kingdom of Heaven. And if you’re seeing anything different from that, you’re seeing a misperception. Understanding the misperception won’t help a thing, when all you need to do is to abandon it with the Father’s help or the Holy Spirit’s help as They reveal to you that part of the Kingdom of Heaven that you were seeing unclearly and showing it to you in Its totality as the spiritual original of what you were seeing unclearly. You see? Persistence is now what is called for. Don’t be taken in by the experienced of inertia. And as you begin to realize that your thinking is your own worst enemy – you’re not your own worst enemy – but when you realize that your thinking is your own worst enemy, well, if you want to be sad about it, go ahead and be sad about it, but just for a moment. It accomplishes nothing. And then abandon the sadness and get on with the joy of clarity. You see? Don’t be afraid to be present in your daily experience during this coming week. And if it doesn’t seem to show the promise that I’ve been describing or that you can even clearly see and feel is a real promise, notice that somewhere in there you started thinking. You had an opinion that was at odds with, that disagreed with clarity that was forthcoming, or that came into play before the clarity had a chance to register with you. And look at that and see how impractical and useless it was for you to engage in it, so that you can see that it’s something you don’t wish to employ and you will let go of it spontaneously. Just realize what the culprit is. The culprit isn’t that what I’ve been telling you isn’t true and doesn’t work. The culprit is that inertia, the tendency to remain with your current mindset and perspective blocks the influx of the experience that will prove the thinking false and make it obviously unattractive and worthless. When that happens you don’t even have to throw it out, it will fall away from you because you will find no interest in it and you will not value it in any way. And nothing stays in your experience that you find valueless. That’s a promise. That’s a fact. This is a simple lesson tonight, but a very significant lesson. It’s very single pointed. And I’m going to leave it that way so that there’s no chance to become befuddled about it. It’s your Birthright to be Awake. You are already the holy Son or Daughter of God. And I’m here to promote your experience of It, by creating clarity rather than adding confusion. I love you very much and I look forward to being with you next time.
A Course In Miracles (reference pages)
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A Course in Miracles Study Group with Raj, September 15th 2013
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TRANSCRIPT & AUDIO 09-15-2013
General Discussion -> Transcripts & Audio 2013-2014
