February 26, 2013 - Radical Reliance on Truth

"Altai Mountains"
photo by Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #57:

Today we review Lessons 31-35 

I have often been asked if (or perhaps told that) Christian Science is a cult. Having been affiliated with this way of life since childhood, 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 category of action. And I'm sure that Course in Miracles students often get the same thing, judging from what a quick search of YouTube videos reveal! What we do ask of ourselves is a radical reliance on God, a wholehearted acceptance of God as the only power, to recognize that Love leads every action. This is the goal I set for myself at every moment. And this is why I see such a strong interaction with these two disciplines: they both ask us to give up material beliefs and rely on Truth. And this may not be as hard as we'd like to make it out to be! Think back on the so-called laws of life you have adopted in the past. Shouldn't it be as easy to allow spiritual principles to guide your actions as it is to accept material rules which make no sense? For example, why should being cold and wet give you a cold? What silly admonitions we have heard about things that will cause us to "catch cold". This is only one example, but I'm sure you can think of many you have heard and lived by in your life. This quote from Lesson 34 says it 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." And the rules of God are simple to hear when we have cleared out the cacophony which hides them from our thought. To live from the Truth within rather than the made-up rules of material existence, this is the freedom which will lead into harmonious peace for all. 

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"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."

Science & Health Page 260:7-12

February 25, 2013 - See It and Live It

"Utah Morning"
photo by Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #56:

Today we review Lessons 26-30

Once we develop the habit of seeing everything in Love, it is jolting to hear someone speaking from a space of fear and attack. One of my neighbors has become so sure that everything is attacking him, that everything is attacking him! For almost 20 years, I've watched him as he goes from one drama to the next, including divorces, lost jobs, personal attacks of various types. All of his thoughts seem magnetized to attract more of the same. Many of us have been there to some extent, and most of us reading these words have made a conscious choice to see Love, to see the Reality of our being rather than the attacks often envisioned in uneducated thought. Wanting to see differently more than anything else is the key to finding this open secret. The acknowledgement that God is everything, including my true self, is the first step in demonstrating Truth. Closing the door on the illusionary images we have become accustomed to thinking of as reality allows us to see true Reality. And when we see it, we can live it.  As soon as we allow ourselves to not only observe this truth, but to actualize it in daily practice, we start to notice synchronicities in various surprising ways. It may be that we're in the right place at the right time in order to meet people we need to meet to facilitate projects and other related things. Or maybe we notice we are where we need to be in order to help someone else by the utilization of a particular skill or resource that we have. The only thing more satisfying than noticing these parting-of-the-veil experiences in ourselves is watching this light come on within others. It's with childlike wonder that we relate these events to each other, until they become such a part of our lives we expect nothing else but good, God, to be manifest in our experience. There is nothing to fear in this change of thought. Embrace it and feel joy!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“Here let a word be noticed which will be better understood hereafter,--chemicalization. By chemicalization I mean the process which mortal mind and body undergo in the change of belief from a material to a spiritual basis.”

Science & Health Page 168:30-2

February 24, 2013 - Aghast at Nothingness?

"Skiing in Utah"
photo by Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #55:

Today we review Lessons 21-25

This review is so exciting that I want to write about each and every one -- but I've already done that! So I'll just go with the first part of the review from lesson #21: "What I see now are but signs of disease, disaster and death. This cannot be what God created for His beloved Son." Christian Scientists are often criticized for using Spirit to heal disease. Obviously, this would be impossible. Alternatively, we are chastised for doing nothing when faced with this thing called disease. If you have a so-called disease, it does no good to pretend it's not there. While affirmations, visualizations, different psychological techniques are often effective at changing matter, that is not what spiritual healing is all about. Some people think that the metaphysical treatment of disease is trying to affect a change in your experience. It is not. And some think that spiritual healing through prayer is asking God to heal disease. It is not. Yet others feel that prayer is doing nothing. It is not. Seeing past the material illusion to a single moment of spiritual Truth, that is what spiritual healing is about. This knowledge and demonstration thereof is available to anyone, anywhere, anytime. This Principle is changeless and eternal. All we need do is awaken to it. Today I am determined to see!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"Human sense may well marvel at discord, while, to a diviner sense, harmony is the real and discord the unreal. We may well be astonished at sin, sickness, death. We may well be perplexed at human fear; and still more astounded at hatred, which lifts its hydra head, showing its horns in the many inventions of evil. But why should we stand aghast at nothingness?”

Science & Health Page 563:1-7

February 23, 2013 - First Thought of the Day

"Principia Group in China"
photo by Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #54

Today's review is of Lessons 16-20.

Upon awakening today, I had about 20 inane and/or insane thoughts before I realized what I was doing! "What day is this and where am I supposed to be?" was quickly followed by a chain of remembrances which took me from a lovely cooking store to my childhood home, then zoomed over to a friend's house and a remembered conversation, before zipping back to a neglected household chore. This illustrates why it is so important to guide my first thoughts of the day to paths of Spirit. Without this discipline, I could spend all my time with meaningless thoughts which create turmoil rather than peace within.  I have found that leading first thoughts to Truth helps to keep my mind in tune for the rest of the day, rather than thinking of all the material insanity which comes at me from every direction once I leave the sequestered world of my home. We so often feel bombarded by thoughts of fear and hostility, lack and disease, error and disharmony. What if our thoughts of peace and harmony could still the seeming turmoil of the world? Then would it be worth the effort to pull our thought away from error and hold steadfastly to Truth? Everything true we think or speak or do is shared with all. How important then to see Reality rather than the beliefs we are taught by the repetition of them. What I see is what I think; what I think is what I see. Every thought is important. Join me in taking a stand for Truth today and every day and experience the transformational power!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"Through discernment of the spiritual opposite of materiality, even the way through Christ, Truth, man will reopen with the key of divine Science the gates of Paradise which human beliefs have closed, and will find himself unfallen, upright, pure, and free, not needing to consult almanacs for the probabilities either of his life or of the weather, not needing to study brainology to learn how much of a man he is."

Science & Health Page 171:4-11

February 22, 2013 - Open Wide the Door

"China Through the Great Wall"
photo by Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #53

Today is the third of a ten-day review of the first lessons

In this five-lesson review, there is much talk of a "meaningless world". One of the top ten frequently asked questions I hear is, Why would you want to see a meaningless world? I'm not sure we would want to see a meaningless world, but that's certainly what we're doing! By the realization that the only reality is the world God created, we come to see that everything we are seeing through mortal sense is unreal, hence meaningless. God did not create a meaningless world, and so to see the world as God did create it, we must give up the belief and illusion we have created. And why should we do that? To give ourselves a chance to experience Reality. It seems like we've been reaching for that as long as I can remember. The Age of Aquarius. Harmonic Convergence. The Shift. Ascension. Activating DNA Strands. 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.  These exercises we're doing are designed to prepare us to accept the knowledge which wakes up this Vision. We're tempted to be afraid because this is an unknown. But a single glimpse of the Light is sufficient to make me want to thrown open wide the door! 

Mary Baker Eddy quote: "Mortals will some day assert their freedom in the name of Almighty God. Then they will control their own bodies through the understanding of divine Science. Dropping their present beliefs, they will recognize harmony as the spiritual reality and discord as the material unreality." Science & Health Page 228:14-19

February 21, 2013 - To See or Not To See

"Glacier National Park"
photo by Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #52

Today is the second in a ten-day review of the first lessons. 

We who are practicing metaphysicians often hear words like these: "Get real! Face facts! Pull your head out of the sand!" I usually just smile and say, "You may be right", and politely wander away. Trying to explain my actions to the spiritually-deaf ear would be akin to explaining purple to a blind child. But if I were asked to do that, it would have to be through feeling the color and allowing that sight to pass to the sightless. And so rather than explaining -- or worse, arguing! -- I will feel Love, the spiritual reality, while allowing the material argument to pass through and be gone. I have not always been so easy to get along with! Recently I've had a chance to spend time with an old friend who will be moving far, far away. A number of years ago, she and I had an altercation which was deeply interconnected to lots of areas in our friendship. If either she or I had held onto the past, we wouldn't share the palpable Oneness we feel today. As this lesson tells us, it's not a choice of seeing past or present, but a choice to see or not to see. Where I've chosen to shade my thoughts with unreality, I will choose again and flow in Oneness with God.

 Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"Spiritual causation is the one question to be considered, for more than all others spiritual causation relates to human progress. The age seems ready to approach this subject, to ponder somewhat the supremacy of Spirit, and at least to touch the hem of Truth's garment."

 Science & Health Page 270:22-27

February 20, 2013 - Illusion to Truth

"Bonfire in Mongolia"
photo by Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #51:

Today we begin a ten-day review of the first lessons. For a guide to this review, and a short description, please go to 

www. acim.org

In the first 50 lessons, we have begun to make the distinction between reality and illusion. We are learning that what we think we see is actually taking the place of true vision. By realizing that nothing means anything, we are giving ourselves permission to drop beliefs and accept spiritual facts. Everything I think I see is colored with judgment, both my own and that of others. This judgment has given me whatever meaning I've placed on anything. These meanings make no sense and cannot be understood because they have been interpreted through erroneous thought and belief. By looking through the illusions we've made, we free ourselves to see Truth. When we accept that these thoughts mean nothing, we can let go the self-importance we've attached to everything. Then we are able to release these thoughts and replace them with the inner knowing which is God. We also have been asked to see that when we become upset, it is never for the reason we think. In order to justify these incomprehensible beliefs we have set up, we make up a complex defense system of attacks and retreats, which only serve to leave us in a state of disharmony. I don't want this crazy fantasy to be my life! I want to follow the leadings of Love, to hear through Spirit, to see with Soul, to live Life!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“Spiritual perception brings out the possibilities of being, destroys reliance on aught but God, and so makes man the image of his Maker in deed and in truth.” 

Science & Health Page 203:13-16