Acceptance

Sawadee Khrap

My “oracle” selection from ACIM today was Chapter 9 : The Acceptance of  the Atonement – 1. The acceptance of reality

This excerpt really stood out:

“Fear of the Will of God is one of the strangest beliefs the human mind has ever made.  It could not possibly have occurred unless the mind were already profoundly split, making it possible for it to be afraid of what it really is.  Reality cannot “threaten” anything except illusions, since reality can only uphold truth. The very fact that the Will of God, which is what you are, is perceived as fearful, demonstrates that you are afraid of what you are.  It is not, then, the Will of God of which you are afraid, but yours.”

and continues:

“You have set up this strange situation so that it is impossible to escape from it without a Guide Who does know what your reality is.  The purpose of this Guide is merely to remind you of what you want.  He is not attempting to force an alien will upon you.  He is merely making every possible effort, within the limits you impose on Him, to re-establish your own will in your awareness.

You have imprisoned your will beyond your own awareness, where it remains, but cannot help you.  When I said that the Holy Spirit’s function is to sort out the true from the false in your mind, I meant that He has the power to look into what you have hidden and recognize the Will of God there”

God knows the “right guide” I need and has provided for me , all I need do is listen and concern myself with the lessons “I” need to learn. 

In my case that guide or Master is Jesus, and as he said “My sheep know my voice”.   I need not concern myself with other shepherds and their flocks – they know his voice.   As Jesus said,”In my Father’s house are many rooms. I go to make a place for you.” 

Here in Thailand, Buddha is also a guide –  showing a path to reduce suffering and finding peace and understanding,  in this world.  Only through a peaceful mind can enlightenment or atonement be accepted.

God Blesses    Christ Blesses     I Bless

Ciao

Equanimity, attraction and aversion

Sawadee Khrap

Here’s a great talk “Is Homosexuality FORBIDDEN in Hinduism? A Scriptural Perspective” by  Swami Tadatmananda  a traditionally-trained teacher of Advaita Vedanta, meditation, and Sanskrit at the  Arsha Bodha Center.

Note where he discusses proper judgment.

“To understand why, consider how the Bhagavad Gita and other scriptures place great emphasis on spiritual values like tolerances, equanimity, and on graceful acceptance of things that cannot be changed.   The Gita famously says. “samatvam yoga ucyate”, yoga is equanimity. Properly understood, equanimity is to refrain from judging all the people, things, and events in life because what’s good for you may be bad for someone else, and visa versa. Good simply means what you like, and bad means what you don’t like.  In Sanskrit, these two notions are called raga and dvesha, attraction and aversion, or more simply, likes and dislikes. Raga and dvesha compel you to chase after whatever you think is good.  These two urges keep your attention firmly fixed on worldly matters, and prevent you from gaining a higher spiritual perspective. Raga and dvesha are huge obstacles to spiritual growth.  To overcome them you have to drop your habitual judgments of good and bad.  You have to develop equanimity.   You need an impartial, unbiased, and completely objective view of life.”

Recall  Genesis 3:4,    KJV   Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Be “LIKE” God – have the power of judgement.   To be able to change reality to our liking instead of accepting it as it was created.   The result of Sin, missing the mark or understanding,  is Death.   Non-equanimity or Spiritual DEATH.

Spiritual death is the birth place of illusions,  separation, and specialism.   The birth place of DUALISM.   The thought that there is existence  other than ONENESS, a tiny mad idea of separation, a dream – actually a nightmare, we call the Physical/Material World,  where pain, sacrifice and death rule over Love, Truth, Spirit, and Eternity.

The ancient Hindus knew it, Jesus taught it and made it personal, and it is repeated again in ACIM.

Thank you Father of providing me a way Home to You.

God Blesses      Christ Blesses      I Bless

Ciao

  

Monotheism or Non-Dualistic

Sawadee Khrap

Yesterday had a great conversation on the differences between Mono-theism and  Non-Duality.     Monotheism says that there is only ONE God but also implies that this God is apart and distinct from its creations, whereas Non-Duality states there is only one REALITY, inclusive of God and any and all creations.     “I AM”, is Non-Dualistic statement.   Anything beyond this statement  introduces limits or a finite nature and is Dualistic.  Non-duality also expresses the true relationship of PEACE, TRUTH and LOVE for there is nothing in opposition or to be in conflict with. 

Only the desire to name, limit or be special, in any way,  would produce a dualistic view and possible Mono (or Poly) theistic worlds.   And of course, this is exactly what the Bible story is about.  Sin is the desire to be “special” and have the power to make judgments. Adam wanted the power to know good from evil and to name all the animals – but what is this but the perceived power to judge or change reality,  knowing Adam was not the Creator. 

In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus summed it up:

(#22)  Jesus saw infants being suckled.  He said to his disciples: “These little ones being suckled are like those who enter the kingdom.”  They said to him: “Then will we enter the kingdom as little ones?”  Jesus said to them: “When you make the two into one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside and the above like the below —  that is, to make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male will not be male and the female will not be female —  and when you make eyes instead of an eye and a hand instead of a hand and a foot instead of a foot, an image instead of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom].”   -and-  
(#29)  “If the flesh came into being because of the spirit, it is a wonder.  But if the spirit (came into being) because of the body, it is a wonder of wonders.  Yet I marvel at how this great wealth has taken up residence in this poverty.”

And ACIM Lesson #284:

I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt

“Loss is not loss when properly perceived. Pain is impossible. There is no grief with any cause at all. And suffering of any kind is nothing but a dream. This is the truth, at first to be but said and then repeated many times; and next to be accepted as but partly true, with many reservations. Then to be considered seriously more and more, and finally accepted as the truth. I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt. And I would go beyond these words today, and past all reservations, and arrive at full acceptance of the truth in them.

Father, what You have given cannot hurt, so grief and pain must be impossible. Let me not fail to trust in You today, accepting but the joyous as Your gifts; accepting but the joyous as the truth.”

God Blesses    Christ Blesses   I Bless

Ciao

Sleeping or Awake

Sawadee Khrap

Sleeping or awake  – Dreaming or Reality – Separate/Special or ONE – Duality or NON-DUALITY.

When you have seen this real world, as you will surely do, you WILL remember us. But you must learn the cost of sleeping, AND REFUSE TO PAY IT. Only then will you decide to awake. And then the real world will spring to your sight, for Christ has never slept. He is waiting to be seen, for He has never lost sight of YOU.  He looks quietly on the real world, which He would SHARE with you, because He knows of the Father’s love for Him. And knowing this, He would give you what is yours.  In perfect peace, He waits for you at His Father’s altar, holding out the Father’s love to you, in the quiet light of the Holy Spirit’s blessing. For the Holy Spirit will lead everyone home to his Father, where Christ waits as his Self.

Every child of God is one in Christ, for his being is in Christ as Christ’s is in God. Christ’s Love for you is His Love for His Father, which He knows because He knows His Father’s Love for Him.  When the Holy Spirit has at last led you to Christ at the altar to His Father, perception fuses into knowledge because perception has become so holy that its transfer to holiness is merely its natural extension.  Love transfers to love without any interference, for the two are one.  As you perceive more and more common elements in all situations, the transfer of training under the Holy Spirit’s guidance increases and becomes generalized. Gradually you learn to apply it to everyone and everything, for its applicability is universal.  When this has been accomplished, perception and knowledge have become so similar that they share the unification of the laws of God.

What is one cannot be perceived as separate, and the denial of the separation is the reinstatement of knowledge.  At the altar of God, the holy perception of God’s Son becomes so enlightened that light streams into it, and the spirit of God’s Son shines in the Mind of the Father and becomes one with it.  Very gently does God shine upon Himself, loving the extension of Himself that is His Son.  The world has no purpose as it blends into the purpose of God.  For the real world has slipped quietly into Heaven, where everything eternal in it has always been.  There the Redeemer and the redeemed join in perfect love of God and of each other.  Heaven is your home, and being in God it must also be in you.”     (ACIM    Chapter 11 “God’s Plan for Salvation” – section 6 “The Vision of Christ”   UrText (Unedited) version     or      
ACIM   Chapter 12 “The Holy Spirit’s Curriculum” – section 6 “The Vision of Christ”  Published version)

Jesus said “I and the Father are one, If you see me you see my Father”.  May I realize the same vision.

God Bless     Christ Bless      I Bless

Ciao

NON-DUALISM

Sawadee Khrap

Most all religions teach DUALISM.,  they consider this world as Reality and some, but not all,  believe in a separate Spirit world or visits by aliens.   Most all Gnostic teachings lean toward a non-dualistic view but in all cases they try to justify,  what they still feel as this world expressing good and/or evil.    It wasn’t until I was introduced to “A Course in Miracles” that I began to consider if there was any truth in a full belief in non-dualism.

Non-Dualism, what does it mean?    I love the way the  ACIM states it:

“Nothing real can be threatened.   Nothing unreal exists.   Herein lies the Peace of God.

There’s only ONE REALITY – GOD, expressed HERE by many words – All, Truth, Love, Mind, Idea, Thought,  One, Elohim, everything else is but a denial of God’s presence or ONENESS and is an illusion or dream of Separation or the desire or belief in specialness and doesn’t really exist.

The author of the  ‘Course’ is purported to be Jesus, ‘Is this the same person as expressed in the Bible?’.    in the Bible,  Jesus, taught using the words and symbols of a Dualistic religion, BUT, did He express ‘NON’ Dualism?

Consider what  Jesus stated   “I and the Father are One”, “I AM”, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.”.   “My Kingdom is not of this world,” and more specific in the Gospel of Thomas-# 3

“Rather, the kingdom is inside of you and outside of you.  When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will realize that you are the children of the living Father.  But if you do not come to know yourselves, then you exist in poverty, and you are poverty.”  and  #29

“If the flesh came into being because of the spirit, it is a wonder.  But if the spirit (came into being) because of the body, it is a wonder of wonders.  Yet I marvel at how this great wealth has taken up residence in this poverty.”

Jesus is the Light of TRUTH,  – He brings the illusion of this world to the Truth of the Non-Dualistic God. “Elohim”

God is ONE,  –  Father, Son and Holy Spirit – “The Elohim” is ONE  Another name for the Son is Christ – “The Son of the Living God”  

Here’s a great explanation by Kenneth Wapnick  about ACIM’s  non-dualism.

kind and gentle 

God Blesses   Christ Blesses   I Bless

Ciao

Last night’s dream

Sawadee Khrap

Last night I had a lucid and reassuring dream – I was lost somewhere but when I looked up I saw a bus stop and knew it was the last stop on the route but also the bus that would take me back to where I had come from.   I watched it arrive and ran to catch the bus and asked the driver if it would take me back, he said yes but that it was a public bus and he would not hurry up or deviate from the set route..  I agreed and got on.  Then I woke up.

I don’t put a lot of stock in using dreams as oracles or considering them anything except dreams but after reading this morning’s, Oct 1st  ACIM  Lesson  # 275    I am amazed but calm and ready to ride, so to say.

God’s healing Voice protects all things today.

1. Let us today attend the Voice for God, which speaks an ancient lesson, no more true today than any other day. Yet has this day been chosen as the time when we will seek and hear and learn and understand. Join me in hearing. For the Voice for God tells us of things we cannot understand alone, nor learn apart. It is in this that all things are protected. And in this the healing of the Voice for God is found.

2. Your healing Voice protects all things today, and so I leave all things to You. I need be anxious over nothing. For Your Voice will tell me what to do and where to go; to whom to speak and what to say to him, what thoughts to think, what words to give the world. The safety that I bring is given me. Father, Your Voice protects all things through me.

I  will  learn what Christ’s Forgiveness means.

God Blesses   Christ Blesses    I Bless

Ciao