February 26, 2014 - A Radical Reliance

Love Glows
created by Aaron Springston

A Course in Miracles 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. 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?  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, 2014 - Synchronicity

ACIM Workbook Lesson #56:

Today we review Lessons 26-30. 

Many of us 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. Once we make this shift, we start to notice numerous synchronicities occurring around us. 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. Today, for instance, I found a teakettle in a thrift shop that I rarely go into. It perfectly replaces one whose handle fell off last week. And right next to it was a glass lid for a saucepan which I use to make popcorn. I had dropped that lid the week before and broken it, too. 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, 2014 - Metaphysical Healing

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 of the five topics -- but I've already done that! So I'll just go with the first part of the review, which is from lesson #21 in the Course in Miracles workbook: "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 attempting to use 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 metaphysical  healing is all about. Some people think that the metaphysical treatment of disease is an attempt 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 the 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, 2014 - Every Thought is Important

"Mongolia Sunrise"
photo by Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #54

Today's review is of Lessons 16-20

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 we think or speak or do is shared with all by virtue of universal Oneness. How important then to realize Truth rather than erroneous beliefs we think of as reality. To this end, I find it very important to monitor and control first thoughts of the day. These daily beginnings seem to set the tone for all that follows in the next hours. If I wake up and immediately begin to worry about things, or allow myself to squander valuable time on inane memories and/or fantasies, then those things carry through to the rest of the day. So I insist that I declare spiritual Truth as soon as I open my eyes, then spend morning meditation and prayer affirming this Truth and listening for the still, small voice. What I see is what I think; what I think is what I see. Every thought is important!

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, 2014 - Throw Open Wide the Door!

"Great Wall of China"
photo by Aaron Springston

A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson #53

The Age of Aquarius. Harmonic Convergence. The Shift. Ascension. Activating DNA Strands. What do these things have in common? They are events which herald the 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. In today's ACIM workbook five-lesson review, there is much talk of seeing a "meaningless world". You may wonder why anyone would 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! 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 a meaningless world. God did not create a meaningless world, and to see the world as God did create it, we must give up the beliefs and illusions we have created. These exercises we're doing are designed to prepare us to accept the knowledge which wakes us up to this unseen Reality. A single glimpse of this is enough to make me want to throw open wide the door! 

Mary Baker Eddy quote: "Spiritual attainments open the door to a higher understanding of the divine Life." Science & Health Page 10:15-16

February 21, 2014 - Get Real!

photo by Heather Magnan

ACIM Workbook Lesson #52

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

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. So when someone doesn't understand where I'm coming from, rather than explaining -- or worse, arguing! -- I will feel Love, which is the spiritual reality. I have not always been so easy to get along with! A number of years ago, a dear friend and I had an altercation which was deeply interconnected to many 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 the unreality of inharmony, 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, 2014 - Learning to See

"Ozark Moonset"
photo by Arthur Lau-Sed

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, go to this link: http://A Course in Miracles.org/Lessons/lesson.html?lesson=51 

The first 50 lessons in A Course in Miracles workbook show us how to determine the difference in reality and illusion. We have learned that what we see with material sense is colored with belief and judgment. We have been experimenting with dropping the meanings  placed on things, thereby allowing spiritual facts to become evident.  Everything 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. As these meanings make no sense  -- because they have been interpreted through erroneous thoughts and beliefs -- they cannot be understood. When we learn to look through these illusions, we free ourselves to see Truth. If we accept that our thoughts mean nothing, we allow ourself to release the self-importance we've attached to things. When we are able to release these thoughts, we can 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 which 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 quotes

“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