predencia

‘Give me your blessing, holy Son of God.’

Today we practice differently, and take a stand against our anger, that our fears may disappear and offer room to love. Complete abstraction is the natural condition of the mind. But part of it is now unnatural. It does not look on everything as one. It sees instead but fragments of the whole, for only thus could it invent the partial world you see. The purpose of all seeing is to show you what you wish to see. All hearing but brings your mind the sounds it wants to hear.

It seems that the body that we feel limits our freedom, makes us suffer, and at last puts out our life. Yet bodies are but symbols for a concrete form of fear. Who sees a brother as a body sees him as fear’s symbol, and he will attack.

Today we practice in a form we have attempted earlier. Select one brother, symbol of the rest, and ask salvation of him, ask this of him that he may set you free:

Give me your blessing, holy Son of God. I would behold you with the eyes of Christ, and see my perfect sinlessness in you.

And he will answer whom you call upon. For he will hear the voice of God in you, and answer in your own.

I had plenty of opportunity to ask my brothers for blessings today, in fact it was hard to pick just one. I seemed to have pissed off a lot of people in the last few days and vice versa, been feeling pretty pissed off myself. Not surprising really as we get back what we give out.

Since Thursday I’ve had a weird kind of energy hanging around, making me tired and irritable. That, coupled with the corroboration with ACIM by David Icke that our physical eyes show us what we want to see, has had my brain cells on permanent red alert. Everything I’m looking at is but a projection of my own mind, therefore to see something different I must project something different. This is a big responsibility. It means I’m totally in control of the crap I’ve been looking at and complaining about.

Tonight I went to a Violet Flame meditation event. There was a strong emphasis on unblocking our DNA of negative energy, and healing any issues carried from our past lives inEgypt. Violet Flame uses a lot of chanting to raise energy and increase the vibration in the body, which leads to healing. My friend and I both had sore throats when we went, both of which was cleared by the end of the evening, as was her bad back. There was a suggestion that in a previous life we were afraid to speak our truth for fear of being punished, which was creating our sore throats. Now that the clearing had happened the fear had gone and we could go forward and speak our truths.

It will be interesting to see if the novel, which is in part autobiographical, flows a little easier. It’s been like wading through treacle trying to write it.

‘I am at home. Fear is a stranger here.’

Fear is a stranger to the ways of love. Identify with fear, and you will be a stranger to yourself.

There was a lot more than this but essentially it says the same thing over and over. When you fear you move out of your own house and give it up to a stranger. The only way to oust the stranger is with love because, as the course tells us over and over, love and fear cannot exist in the same place.

I’ve been pretty involved with the David Icke book and still marvelling at the similarities between it and ACIM. In a section on time he writes:

‘Past’ and ‘future’ are states of mind and emotion, not states of ‘fact’. People have a very different relationship with reality when they go into any form of deep meditation and move beyond the realm of perceived time.

In other words, there is no past, no future, only NOW, and NOW is the only time in which we can create. Without any fear of the future we are awesome.

‘I give the miracles I have received.’

No one can give what he has not received. To give a thing first requires that you have it in your own possession. Here the laws of Heaven and the world agree. But here they also separate. The world believes that to possess a thing , it must be kept. Salvation teaches otherwise. To give is how you recognise you have received. It is proof that what you have is yours.

You understand that you are healed when you give healing. You accept forgiveness when you forgive.

I’ve had so many discussions about the concept of this lesson, ‘that you cannot give what you haven’t got’. People will generally accept it about physical things, like clothes and money and food, but they find it harder to accept that if they don’t love themselves that cannot love anyone else. I was once in a situation where I was being told how much love someone had for me, but in the same breath accepting that he had very little self love. He could not understand that he could only truly love me when he was able to love himself.

We’ve somehow come to admire people who profess love for others, do great deeds to ‘prove’ the love, become martyrs to their ‘loved ones’ but lack love for themselves. Those who find it hardest to forgive others also find it incredibly difficult to forgive themselves.

We’ve also adopted a belief that self love is selfish and narcissistic, a great way for the ego to ensure that as little love as possible circulates in the world, because in a previous lesson it talked about miracles being expressions of love, so each time you/we/us share love we are creating miracles, giving what we’ve received and opening the stores for more to pour in.

I had a quiet, meditative day, and was hugely disappointed to learn that Birmingham City Council has now reduced to one hour only, the free admission to its leisure centres around the city. Have the citizens ofBirminghamsuddenly become so healthy we can afford to reduce their access to free exercise facilities? Or is it that the leisure department doesn’t want to have to bear the brunt of the budget that it perceives the NHS should be forking out? Well, I guess I’ll be running over the weekend instead…weather permitting.

‘Today I learn to give as I receive.’

What has been given you? The knowledge that you are a mind, in Mind and purely mind, sinless forever, wholly unafraid, because you were created out of love. Nor have you left your Source, remaining as you were created. This was given you as knowledge which you cannot lose. It was given as well to every living thing, for by that knowledge only does it live.

The revelation that the Father and the Son are one will come in time to every mind. The time is already set. It appears to be quite arbitrary. But there is no step along the road that anyone takes but by chance. Time is a trick, a sleight of hand, a vast illusion in which figures come and go as if by magic. Yet there is a plan behind appearances that does not change. The script is written, and we but see the journey from the point at which it ended, looking back on it, imagining we make it once again; reviewing mentally what has gone by.

A teacher does not give experience, because he did not learn it. It revealed itself to him at its appointed time. But vision is his gift. Christ’s vision has one law. It does not look upon a body, and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation. 

Thus we learn to give as we receive. This lesson is not difficult to learn, if you remember in your brother you but see yourself.

I had to read this long lesson through a couple of times to get my head around the meaning. Essentially I understand it to mean that there is no forward time, that whatever journey we think we’re on has already been taken and we’re only really watching the replay. That time is an illusion, and because it is an illusion we cannot be separated from other people because we all occupy the same space at the same time, it just appears that we are separated – therefore, anything I do to you I’m also doing to myself, and anything you do to me, you’re also doing to yourself.

The bit in the Bible that says ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ is what this is about. Would you punch out your own eye? Would you undermine and belittle yourself? Would you brutalise and terrorise yourself? According to this lesson that is exactly what we do to ourselves if we do it to someone else.

 And the only reason we would do that is because we can no longer see the light in ourselves, which obscures it in the person we attack.

I spent the day at a spa relaxing for a friend’s birthday before going to see the 3D version of Marvel Avengers Assemble. Despite being 12A rated I was appalled by the amount of violence, violence which would not be allowed in other films that are not based on cartoon characters. Although the 3D effects were stunning I was disappointed with the predictable plot and ending. I wonder if I was the only one that spotted the hidden message of how much humans really want to be ruled over, how they don’t really want freedom, and are happiest when someone else is making the decisions for them? And when they are attacked, they are helpless to defend themselves, and have to rely on Superheroes…was I reading too much into it?

Maybe I would have been a little mellower if I’d paid the four pounds they were asking for a small box of popcorn. I’m not mean, but how can that ever be value for money?

I came home and started to read David Icke’s book Remember who you are… and was astonished by the similarity of the first few pages and the messages in today’s lesson.

‘Into his Presence would I enter now.’

This is a day of silence and of trust. It is a special time of promise in your calendar of days. It is a time Heaven has set apart to shine upon, and cast a timeless light upon this day, when echoes of eternity are heard. This day is holy, for it ushers in a new experience, a different kind of feeling and awareness. You have spent long days and night in celebrating death. Today you learn to feel the joy of life.

This is another crucial turning point in the curriculum. We add a new dimension now; a fresh experience that sheds a light on all that we have learned already, and prepares us for what we have yet to learn. It brings us to the door where leaning ceases, and we catch a glimpse of what lies past the highest reaches it can possibly attain.

Today it will be given you to feel a touch of Heaven, though you will return to paths of learning. From this day forth, you ministry takes on a genuine devotion, and a glow that travels from your fingertips to those you touch, and blesses those you look upon.

It’s kind of weird to think about my life as a ministry, and although on some level I’ve known it for a while, to be told the ministry has, effectively, to go up a notch now was a little daunting. It was certainly not a day of silence, I spent a total of five and a half hours on the phone either being counselled or counselling others. Plenty of trust was required from everyone concerned, because this was real work, where we bared our souls to each other and trusted that the other would hold us in a place of non-judgement and help us to heal.

Yes, for me this is the meaning of true ministry, and if this is what I’m required to devote my life to….BRING IT ON!!

‘I walk with God in perfect holiness.’

Today’s idea but states the simple truth that makes the thought of sin impossible. It promises there is no cause for guilt, and being causeless it does not exist. It follows surely from the basic thought so often mentioned in the text; ideas leave not their source.

There is a light in you which cannot die; whose presence is so holy that the world is sanctified because of you. The light in you is what the universe long to behold. All living things are still before you for they recognise Who walks with you.

Who walks with me? This question should be asked a thousand times a day till certainty has ended doubting and established peace. Today let doubting cease. God speaks for you in answering your question with these words

I will walk with God in perfect holiness. I light the world, I light my mind and all the minds which God created on with me.

Today I held a two week old baby. I’d forgotten how small and delicate they can be. He was eight pounds, so tiny, so fragile and totally trusting. He has no concerns whatsoever that his needs will be met, he just knows that when he cries he will be fed or changed. He’s not old enough to want to be amused, but I’m sure that in time his doting parents will do that too.

This baby has no guilt about keeping his parents awake at night, has no thoughts of sin or of doubting its right to be present on this earth and to have his every wish attended to. I thought a lot about the fact that it’s what God wants us to do; to get on with our lives knowing that He walks with us every step of the way. The baby’s not yet had layers of fear piled on it yet, and so it is happy, and so are its parents.

‘I will step back and let Him lead the way.’

There is a way of living in the world hat is not here, although it seems to be. You do not change appearance, though you smile more frequently. Your forehead is serene; your eyes are quiet. And the ones who walk the world as you do recognise their own. Yet those who have not yet perceived the way will recognise you also, and believe that you are like them, as you were before.

The world is an illusion.

I only glanced at the title of this lesson morning before leaving home today. I didn’t read the text, and was surprised to find that my subconscious was standing back and allowing God to lead all day. I went to Cannon Hill Park, just cause it was so lovely and then on to Mosley to eat at the Carib Grill, which unfortunately was closed. It was a shame because I really wanted to show a friend who was visiting the city one of our great eating haunts.

We went to the Cross instead, but not before popping into Zen. I bought a copy of David Icke’s new book ‘Remember Who You Are’ which is concerned with the illusionary nature of the world. I did not yet know that today’s lesson contained the words ‘the world is an illusion.’ The guy in the shop said someone from the other store had called to ask if they had a copy of the book and he had looked for it but not found it. I said it was obviously meant for me. Glancing through it I think it’s consistent with the DVD set Down the Rabbit Hole and with this course.

The rest of the lesson goes on to talk about walking the path of truth so that others may follow, and that as long as you step back and allow God to lead you cannot go wrong.

I will step back and lead the way, for I would walk along the road to him.

‘I am among the ministers of God.’

Let us today be neither arrogant nor falsely humble. We have gone beyond such foolishness. We cannot judge ourselves, nor need we do so. It is not our part to judge our worth, nor can we know what role is best for us; what we can do within a larger plan we cannot see in its entirety. Our part is cast in Heaven, not in hell. And what we think is weakness can be strength; what we believe to be our strength is often arrogance.

Whatever your appointed role may be, it was selected by the Voice of God, Whose function is to speak for you as well. Seeing your strengths exactly as they are, and equally aware of where they can be best applied, for what, to whom and when, He chooses and accepts your part for you. He does not work without your own consent. But He is not deceived in what you are, and listen only to His Voice in you.

A messenger is not the one who writes the message he delivers. Nor does he question the right of him who does, nor ask why he has chosen those who will receive the message that he brings. It is enough that he accepts it, give it to the ones for whom it is intended, and fulfil his role in its delivery.

Let us learn this lesson for today:

I am among the ministers of God, and I am grateful that I have the means by which to recognise that I am free.

These lessons are like lasers to my mind. Last night I spent many hours questioning whether God really wants me to write the kinds of book I’m writing, whether he wants me to be living the kind of life I’m living and loving in the way I’m loving. It may have been because I was exhausted, desperately in need of many hours of sleep and managing only a few hours at a time, or feeling that there are not enough hours in the day to achieve all the things I feel I need to do. I was even questioning whether I should continue with these blogs, whether I should take a break from them and concentrate on writing the novel.

Then this morning’s lesson reminds me that I only need to do what I feel moved to do, without questioning the whys or wherefores. As I sit to write I only need remind myself that I am merely a messenger. I know the difference between writing which comes through me and writing that I try to write myself. The former flows naturally. Often it’s not what I set out to write. Whenever I’m struggling to find something to write I know its coming from me and not through me.

Today I had the privilege of spending a few hours with a group of very high vibrating people at the Kitchen Garden Café in Kings Heath. Mostly we just talked, shared our stories and laughed a lot, but some people shared treatments, Reiki, Emotional Freedom Therapy, Indian Head Massage, Palm reading, and Numerology. One person had an aura photo app on her phone. We had great fun seeing what colour we were vibrating individually, until someone came up with the idea to take joint photos to see if the energy changed. It did, and in some cases dramatically so. Visual proof that we affect each others energy.

Despite being quite tired when I arrived, I was positively buzzing by the time I left, and inspired to write; but most of all to accept my role as a minister of God including that part of the ministry that includes writing erotic novels.

‘In my defencelessness my safety lies.’

You who feel threatened by this changing world, its twists of fortune and its bitter jests, its brief relationships and all the ‘gifts’ it merely lends to take away again; attend this lesson well. The world provides no safety. It is rooted in attack, and all its ‘gifts’ of seeming safety are illusory deceptions. It attacks, and then attacks again. No peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus.

We look past dreams today, and recognise that we need no defence because we are created unassailable, without all thought or wish or dream in which attack has any meaning. Now we cannot fear, for we have left all fearful thoughts behind. And in defencelessness we stand secure, serenely certain of our safety now, sure of salvation; sure we will fulfil our chosen purpose, as our ministry extends its holy blessing through the world.

Today we practice in a form we will maintain for quite a while. We will begin the day by giving our attention to the daily thought as long as possible. Five minutes is the minimum, fifteen to thirty or more is desirable. Each hour adds to our increasing peace. In time, with practice, you will never cease to think of Him, and hear His loving Voice guiding your footsteps into quiet ways, where you will walk in true defencelessness.

I was completely blown away by today’s lesson. As I opened the book and read I felt the words were speaking to me directly as I was in the process of setting up defences against a particular person. I was scared – no terrified – of being hurt and was thinking the best way to protect myself was by setting up a barrier. The first line of the lesson spoke directly to my situation, as though someone had read my thoughts and put the answer there for me to find. I am always enormously spooked and very humbled by these things, and always laugh out loud at the timing.

Instead of continuing with the barriers I was planning to build, to defend before I was attacked, I decided to do the opposite and open myself up. The result was instant and stunning, and my reminder that miracles occur as expressions of love, not of fear and false protection. A relationship based on a holy exchange will last for as long as it needs to. I need do nothing to try to lengthen or shorten it.

I’m pretty certain it was this decision that gave me the impetus to get through the day, to manage with such grace the double booking for my colonic treatment, and to play my part in the Writers Without Borders microphone workshop and rehearsal for out June 16^th performance.

‘The power of decision is my own.’

No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants. And no one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here salvation is.

The power of decision is our own. Now we join in glad acknowledgement that lies are false, and only truth is true. We think of truth alone as we arise, and spend five minutes practicing its ways, encouraging our frightened minds with this:

The power of decision is my own. This day I will accept myself as what my Father’s Will created me to be.

Then we will wait in silence, giving up all self deception, as we humbly ask our Self that He reveal Himself to us. In patience wait for Him throughout the day, and hourly invite Him with the words with which the day began.

In the midst of all the rushing around today I found time to reflect on the fact that the decision to rush about was one I had made and could therefore unmake it. As I sat to eat a late lunch at3 p.m.I decided to take a call from a friend who wanted to tell me how much she enjoyed Dare to Love. She said I was like Barbara Taylor Bradford for black people. She went on to explain that she enjoyed reading about issues to which she could directly relate and that not enough writers were writing romantically about theCaribbean.

She also said she can’t wait to read the novel based on parenting…which prompted me to start writing it again today. It’s the first time in about two weeks, but I think I’ve broken through the writing drought, just by the fact that someone is waiting to read it.

I had a long chat with my son today about happiness being a decision. He’s going to read the Alchemist again through new eyes.