Held In Fear By The Past

Cesar Milan, “The Dog Whisperer", (whom I mention often in these writings) tells us he rehabilitates dogs and trains people. He observes that dogs live in the moment. When he is helping people to understand a dog which seems maimed by past experiences in its life, he always tells us that feeling sorry for the animal is of no benefit. How can this be? The dog is hurting and we're being asked to deny that? Yes!! This is why we are learning that it's necessary to give up all beliefs -- not just those we deem to be "bad", but all material beliefs. By letting them go and replacing them with an openness of thought which allows us to hear the Truth of our Being, we experience the miracle which is the natural order of Life. It may not seem logical to say that we can simply release feelings of fear and anger. They can appear very real to us, but if we stop and examine them, do they have any purpose other than to bind us to the past? One dog Cesar worked with slid into a glass door. The dog was now afraid to walk on any floor without a carpet. Upon investigation of its people's reactions, they had immediately reinforced the dog's fears by petting, and commiserating, and talking about what a horrible experience it had been. They held the dog in fear by acts they thought of as compassion. What Cesar explains is that dogs live in the moment, unless they're held in the past by everyone around them. I’m so grateful for every experience which helps me to discern between belief and reality -- especially when it's shown to me by a dog!

“When an accident happens, you think or exclaim, 'I am hurt!' Your thought is more powerful than your words, more powerful than the accident itself, to make the injury real."

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 397:12-16

“The present now remains the only time. Here in the present is the world set free. For as you let the past be lifted and release the future from your ancient fears, you find escape and give it to the world. You have enslaved the world with all your fears, your doubts and miseries, your pain and tears; and all your sorrows press on it, and keep the world a prisoner to your beliefs. Death strikes it everywhere because you hold the bitter thoughts of death within your mind.“

A Course in Miracles W-132.3:1-5

An Offering of Contentment

Art by Lucy Almey Bird

For years, my fondest wish was to be content. For decades, it seemed this was an out-of-reach dream. I didn’t find peace by myself, nor when married, or in a roomful of friends, or with a comfortable companion. It felt as though something was missing and I couldn’t find it. Then circumstances brought me to Eureka Springs and a serious study of Christian Science. Every day brought a deeper understanding of my relationship with everyone and everything by way of the universal flow of infinite Love. Years of running a business in a tourist town showed me I needn’t agree with everyone in order to empathize and feel compassionate when faced with disagreeable attitudes. Raising children taught me to feel the joy of learning, while developing patience in trying circumstances. Being associated with spiritual groups has shown me that diversity of thought is a wonderful thing. The peace and contentment I feel this evening has been learned through surrender to not knowing everything — perhaps not even anything. Thank you greatly …

“Better is the frugal intellectual repast with contentment and virtue, than the luxury of learning with egotism and vice.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 452:15-17

“Be not content with littleness. But be sure you understand what littleness is, and why you could never be content with it. Littleness is the offering you give yourself. You offer this in place of magnitude, and you accept it. Everything in this world is little because it is a world made out of littleness, in the strange belief that littleness can content you. When you strive for anything in this world in the belief that it will bring you peace, you are belittling yourself and blinding yourself to glory. Littleness and glory are the choices open to your striving and your vigilance. You will always choose one at the expense of the other.” 

A Course in Miracles T-15.III.1:1-8

Retraining Our Thoughts

“Vain are the beliefs and teachings that make man miserable, and false is the goodness that leads him into sorrow and despair, for it is man's purpose to be happy on this earth and lead the way to felicity and preach its gospel wherever he goes. He who does not see the kingdom of heaven in this life will never see it in the coming life. We came not into this life by exile, but we came as innocent creatures of God, to learn how to worship the holy and eternal spirit and seek the hidden secrets within ourselves from the beauty of life. This is the truth which I have learned from the teachings of the Nazarene.”
Kahlil Gibran

“When we fully understand our relation to the Divine, we can have no other Mind but His, — no other Love, wisdom, or Truth, no other sense of Life, and no consciousness of the existence of matter or error.”
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 205: 32-3

“Truth is a savior and can only will for happiness and peace for everyone. It gives its strength to everyone who asks, in limitless supply. It sees that lack in anyone would be a lack in all. And so it gives its light that all may see and benefit as one. Its strength is shared, that it may bring to all the miracle in which they will unite in purpose and forgiveness and in love.”

A Course in Miracles W-92.5:3-7

Joined In Peace

https://youtu.be/ZWqT1OPvI7I?si=rMWv023JZKDLEpw7

When a horrible event happens, why must we find someone to blame? Why can’t we simply say this is awful and it must stop? The priest at the church where I play keyboards opines it is because we go to our tribe for consolation, and then we end up banding together with them, which sets up an us-against-them situation. I remember when the terrible attack occurred on 9/11, I felt this was a turning point in which the world would band together and stand against terrorism and other heinous crimes. I saw us all coming together for goodness and love, overwhelming the forces which want to cause harm to others and the world at large. We didn’t see that happen, not visibly, but I still feel the great majority of us are standing on the side of love. If we can only see ourselves as One, created in the image of Love, as the reflection of divine Mind, then we can easily unite for the Universal Good, knowing that differences of opinion are no more than that. Reaching out in Love allows true forgiveness into our hearts. We can release judgment and blame, and pray that “walls of pride and prejudice shall cease when we are instruments of peace.” [from Make Us Instruments of Your Peace]

“This scientific sense of being, forsaking matter for Spirit, by no means suggests man’s absorption into Deity and the loss of his identity, but confers upon man enlarged individuality, a wider sphere of thought and action, a more expansive love, a higher and more permanent peace.”
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 265:10-15

“All forms forgiveness takes that do not lead away from anger, condemnation and comparisons of every kind are death. For that is what their purposes have set. Be not deceived by them, but lay them by as worthless in their tragic offerings. You do not want to stay in slavery. You do not want to be afraid of God. You want to see the sunlight and the glow of Heaven shining on the face of earth, redeemed from sin and in the Love of God. From here is prayer released, along with you. Your wings are free, and prayer will lift you up and bring you home where God would have you be.”
A Course in Miracles S-2.II.8:1-8

Projecting a Quiet Mind

Morning Coffee - Art by Mary Bradish Titcomb

“The world is a reflection of our internal state. If we dwell on turmoil, anger and confusion then that is how the world will be perceived to an individual. A quiet mind and an open heart are important attributes to project into the world.” Ram Dass

“Progress takes off human shackles. The finite must yield to the infinite. Advancing to a higher plane of action, thought rises from the material sense to the spiritual, from the scholastic to the inspirational, and from the mortal to the immortal. All things are created spiritually. Mind, not matter, is the creator. Love, the divine Principle, 

is the Father and Mother of the universe, including man.”

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 256:1-8

“Peace, then, be unto everyone who becomes a teacher of peace. For peace is the acknowledgment of perfect purity, from which no one is excluded. Within its holy circle is everyone whom God created as His Son. Joy is its unifying attribute, with no one left outside to suffer guilt alone. The power of God draws everyone to its safe embrace of love and union. Stand quietly within this circle, and attract all tortured minds to join with you in the safety of its peace and holiness. Abide with me within it, as a teacher of Atonement, not of guilt.” 

A Course in Miracles T-14.V.8:1-7

Purr-fectly Calm

“I have lived with many Zen masters — all of them cats.” Eckhart Tolle

“Can you imagine what it means to have no cares, no worries, no anxieties, but merely to be perfectly calm and quiet all the time? Yet that is what time is for; to learn just that and nothing more. God’s Teacher cannot be satisfied with His teaching until it constitutes all your learning. He has not fulfilled His teaching function until you have become such a consistent learner that you learn only of Him. When this has happened, you will no longer need a teacher or time in which to learn.”
A Course in Miracles T-15.I.1:1-5

“Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and calm trust, that the recognition of life harmonious — as Life eternally is — can destroy any painful sense of, or belief in, that which Life is not. Let Christian Science, instead of corporeal sense, support your understanding of being, and this understanding will supplant error with Truth, replace mortality with immortality, and silence discord with harmony.”
Mary Baker Eddy Science & Health Page 495:16-2

Freedom of Speech?

Long, long ago, when learning the meaning of free speech, I recall being taught that this freedom didn’t mean that we could say anything we wanted, no matter the harm it might cause others. For instance, we could not yell “FIRE” in a crowded theater, because it would cause a panic and people would be injured. Somewhere in the past few decades, we seem to have forgotten the do-no-harm maxim. People seem to think they can malign others and propose outlandish possibilities with no thought to the consequences. Is freedom of speech repeating lies until they seem like truth? And why do we not feel free to refute lies? Isn’t that freedom of speech, too? If you decide to teach your baby that “war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength” [George Orwell] is that your right to do so? Shouldn’t someone tell you that is wrong? In much the same way these metaphysical teachings are showing us, thoughts and words are how we create our reality — even if it is not true. We make up illusionary worlds for ourselves all the time. But must we accept what others create for us?

“The illusion that shallow roots can be deepened, and thus made to hold, is one of the distortions on which the reverse of the Golden Rule rests. As these false underpinnings are given up, the equilibrium is temporarily experienced as unstable. However, nothing is less stable than an upside-down orientation. Nor can anything that holds it upside down be conducive to increased stability.”
A Course in Miracles T-1.V.6:4-7

“Against the fatal beliefs that error is as real as Truth, that evil is equal in power to good if not superior, and that discord is as normal as harmony, even the hope of freedom from the bondage of sickness and sin has little inspiration to nerve endeavor. When we come to have more faith in the truth of being than we have in error, more faith in Spirit than in matter, more faith in living than in dying, more faith in God than in man, then no material suppositions can prevent us from healing the sick and destroying error.”
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 368:10-18