Shielded From Illusions

The selling of disease is big business in the United States. While it has been for as long as I remember, it’s much more aggressive than before the onslaught of technology. Nowadays, pharmaceutical companies have permeated the airways with advertisements for medications to treat diseases which we may never have heard of. As a child, all they sold us was the common cold and perhaps headaches – maybe pop-pop-fizz-fizz for the relief of an upset stomach — but nowadays, it’s much more serious. We must “Stand porter at the door of thought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results...” It doesn’t take much for the power of suggestion to become our reality. Almost everyone I know is ill with something. Even if they had never heard of it before, the power of the collective is visible all around us. Join me in being diligent in shielding ourselves daily from the illusions of the world. And the way to do that is to wrap ourselves in Love. Let’s wrap ourselves from the inside out, so thoroughly there is no room for fear to enter. 

“We weep because others weep, we yawn because they yawn, and we have smallpox because others have it; but mortal mind, not matter, contains and carries the infection. When this mental contagion is understood, we shall be more careful of our mental conditions, and we shall avoid loquacious tattling about disease, as we would avoid advocating crime. Neither sympathy nor society should ever tempt us to cherish error in any form, and certainly we should not be error’s advocate.”
—Mary BakerEddy -Science & Health Page 153:25-2

“Miracles enable you to heal the sick and raise the dead because you made sickness and death yourself, and can therefore abolish both. You are a miracle, capable of creating in the likeness of your Creator. Everything else is your own nightmare, and does not exist. Only the creations of light are real.”
—A Course in Miracles T-1.I.24:1-4

Glimpsing the World of Love

Photo Courtesy of Blake Lasater

The Age of Aquarius. Harmonic Convergence. The Shift. Ascension. Activating DNA Strands. What do these things have in common? They are events which herald a change in thought which has been happening for as long as I can remember. We have been seeking and hoping that a way will open for us to understand, to experience, the meaning of Life, and to demonstrate this reality. A Course in Miracles helps us see that the world we experience is meaningless. You may wonder why anyone would want to see a meaningless world. I'm not sure we would, but that's certainly what we're doing. As we begin to glimpse the difference in spiritual realities and material illusions, we see that the world we hold in place through belief and misperception is meaningless. In order to see spiritual reality, we must give up the beliefs and illusions we have created. A single glimpse of this world of Love is enough to make me want to throw open the door to more!

“Since the thoughts of which I am aware do not mean anything, the world that pictures them can have no meaning. What is producing this world is insane, and so is what it produces. Reality is not insane, and I have real thoughts as well as insane ones. I can therefore see a real world, if I look to my real thoughts as my guide for seeing.”
—A Course in Miracles W-53.1:2-5

"Spiritual attainments open the door to a higher understanding of the divine Life." 

—Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 10:15-16

Lifting Consciousness Into Truth

Our hearts cry for children, animals, adults, trees, insects — all of life is in need of our higher thoughts and positive actions. When we see a heartbreaking situation and translate it into Love, we are helping. Everything we say or do is either a reflection of Love or of fear, and fear seems to attach itself to us with every new travesty we witness. Fearful responses get us nowhere and only cause the situation to be more solidified in our thoughts. We are flexible and easily-influenced, but we are also smart and intuitive. The choices we have may seem overwhelming sometimes, but when we realize there is only one real choice, Love, it becomes easier to see truth. We all want to be loved, to be safe, to be comfortable, to be at peace. It may seem as though hatred spreads like wildfire, but Love puts out the flames of hatred as surely as light brightens a dark room. It may hurt our eyes at first, but those reflective organs are made to adjust. I hope you can do something joyous today. Love as strongly as some are fearing, because it's an incredibly strong and unstoppable force, one which we hold right here in our hearts.

“Neutral thoughts are impossible because all thoughts have power. They will either make a false world or lead me to the real one. But thoughts cannot be without effects. As the world I see arises from my thinking errors, so will the real world rise before my eyes as I let my errors be corrected. My thoughts cannot be neither true nor false. They must be one or the other. What I see shows me which they are.”
—A Course in Miracles W-54.1:2-8

“Lulled by stupefying illusions, the world is asleep in the cradle of infancy, dreaming away the hours. Material sense does not unfold the facts of existence; but spiritual sense lifts human consciousness into eternal Truth. Humanity advances slowly out of sinning sense into spiritual understanding; unwillingness to learn all things rightly, binds Christendom with chains.”
—Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 95:28-3

The Body Cannot Contain You Who Are Life

Photo courtesy of Chris Flanagin

During a nap this afternoon, I had the most wonderful dream! A lifelong friend and I were taking a writing workshop with the prolific writer, Stephen King. It felt really good, and I didn’t want to wake up. But my phone was notifying me of something happening in the material world, plus it was time to do other things. The text message informed of the untimely passing of a friend’s son. After speaking with a couple of people and shedding a few tears, I found myself imagining what his loved ones were feeling, how they were reacting, how they would go forward with their lives. Suddenly, Wayne Dyer’s words came to me. To paraphrase them, he tells us that we can't feel bad enough to make anyone feel better; we can't be confused enough to un-confuse one person; we can't get sad enough to bring joy to a single being on this planet. Once this realization comes, the next step is asking myself what can I do to help the situation. And so the last hour has been spent reading quotes about Life from my go-to books. Here are a couple of quotes, which have brought about the positive “vibes” I’m sending to anyone who is grieving. Namaste …

“When your body and your ego and your dreams are gone, you will know that you will last forever. Perhaps you think this is accomplished through death, but nothing is accomplished through death, because death is nothing. Everything is accomplished through life, and life is of the mind and in the mind. The body neither lives nor dies, because it cannot contain you who are life.”
—A Course in Miracles T-6.V-A.1:1-4

“In proportion as the belief disappears that life and intelligence are in or of matter, the immortal facts of being are seen, and their only idea or intelligence is in God. Spirit is reached only through the understanding and demonstration of eternal Life and Truth and Love.”
—Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 279:16-21

The Vanishing Dream

River Otters Relaxing

Photo from Don Matt

Wouldn't it be great to live in a world where losing is impossible, where love lasts forever, where hate does not exist, and vengeance has no meaning? It would be grand if we never had misunderstandings, because communications were clear and precise, without the burden of forming words to tell others what we mean. There would be no hard feelings between people, as we wouldn't blame others for thinking differently than we do, because we know that at our core all of us are One. The world we have created is wonderful in many ways, but there are also horrors beyond words, and that causes people to lose faith in this thing we call God. We have created an un-God-like world and blame an unknown deity for what we think we cannot change. What if we're wrong and what we see is not true creation? Imagine that!!

“That which material sense calls intangible, is found to be substance. What to material sense seems substance, becomes nothingness, as the sense-dream vanishes and reality appears."
—Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 312:3-6

“What I see is a form of vengeance. The world I see is hardly the representation of loving thoughts. It is a picture of attack on everything by everything. It is anything but a reflection of the Love of God and the Love of His Son. It is my own attack thoughts that give rise to this picture. My loving thoughts will save me from this perception of the world, and give me the peace God intended me to have.”
—A Course in Miracles W-55.2:1-6

Why Read The Odyssey?

What is the purpose of studying the humanities? If you’re going to college, you want to be able to get a job when you get out — don’t you? In an era when plumbers make more cash than music teachers, is there a reason for reading The Odyssey and exploring the maze of great writing? Daniel Mendelsohn explains it this way: “When your father dies, your accounting degree is not going to help you at all. But having read great authors IS going to help you.” Perhaps this is the reason so many people are having a difficult time coping with the everyday events of life. What if not reading books has more of an impact on society than we’ve realized? The arts open up avenues in our brain which allow us to develop critical thinking and empathy, things which many folks seem to be missing. As Anika Prather puts it: “We’re always on this journey of self-discovery and eventually coming back to the roots of ourselves.” Those roots need to be grounded in something solid: nature, humanity, Love. And our journeys change us, readying us to do more, to do better, to love more purely. Happy reading, dear Friends!

“A miracle is a correction introduced into false thinking by me. It acts as a catalyst, breaking up erroneous perception and reorganizing it properly. This places you under the Atonement principle, where perception is healed. Until this has occurred, knowledge of the Divine Order is impossible.”
—A Course in Miracles T-1.I.37:1-4

“The history of our country, like all history, illustrates the might of Mind, and shows human power to be proportionate to its embodiment of right thinking.”
—Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 225:14-1

Living From Love

Photo credit: Aaron Springston

I have often been asked if Christian Science is a cult. Having been affiliated with this life since childhood, it’s easy for me to say it assuredly is not. I've never been controlled by anyone, or asked to worship anyone, or any of the other criteria necessary to qualify for this categorization. I'm sure Course in Miracles students often get the same type of questions, as a quick search of the internet indicates. What we do ask of ourselves is a radical reliance, a wholehearted acceptance of Love as the only power, and the desire to let Spirit lead every action. Both of these schools of thought ask us to give up material beliefs and rely on Truth. And this may not be as difficult as it seems. Shouldn't it be easy to allow spiritual principles to guide our actions, rather than accepting material rules which make no sense? Living from the Truth within, rather than made-up rules of material existence, this is the free thought which will lead into harmonious peace for all.

“When I see the world as a place of freedom, I realize that it reflects the laws of God instead of the rules I made up for it to obey. I will understand that peace, not war, abides in it. And I will perceive that peace also abides in the hearts of all who share this place with me.”
—A Course in Miracles W-57.4:2-4

"The conceptions of mortal, erring thought must give way to the ideal of all that is perfect and eternal. Through many generations human beliefs will be attaining diviner conceptions, and the immortal and perfect model of God's creation will finally be seen as the only true conception of being."
—Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 260:7-12