WELCOME 1

“As we will continue with this text, we will be gifting you things, both in frequency and in information, that will align you to a new expression. But the choice to embody, to be manifested as the Christ, will be always yours. The aspect of you that knows this is true already will be doing the work with you, so you are never without aid. And we are here for you as well as we say “Yes” to you each.”

As grateful as I am for this unconscious imprinting of the Christ consciousness within my being, I am also aware that I can take this teaching for granted or think of it in a very passive way, in a way that I am not consciously connected with. In other words, I can think of it as being something that is happening to me that might be very pleasant and positive but that I don't have much to say about it. Like someone giving me a massage—it feels good and nice and relaxing, but I’m not doing anything—just being on the receiving end of things.

Not to deny the subliminal work of the Spirit, but also to be aware that the transformations that are occurring within you and me are not simply passive events. We enter into the realm of paradox and timelessness again. It is the divine within me revealing itself more and more to my conscious awareness and the power and the ability to do this comes from the divine self. Try this one on for size: it is the divine self revealing itself to the divine self.

In a Course in Miracles there is one tiny reference to an extremely important aspect of the self. The Course calls it the decider. It is the choice maker. Which way will I choose to go? Love or fear; lower vibration/higher vibration; the Divine within or my personality self? 

You will notice that the decider has been trained to respond in particular ways. It has been programmed by all the different influences in our lives. Now, here is an interesting piece, once a program is put into place, it is no longer part of the decider, because it is no longer a choice, it is a program. What most of us have done is to relinquish our power to choose/put the decider aside/ to a program that dictates and directs our thoughts and behaviors. 

The process we are being exposed to now is the unmasking of this programing and the awakening of our awareness to choice again. Specifically, here, the choice to be in the vibration of the Christ Consciousness. Opening ourselves to the power of this choice often times is expressed through conscious surrender. Letting go of the power of old programming and the recognition that there is more to who we are than we have ever allowed ourselves to experience. Reawakening the decider!

Whew! I hope that makes some sense. Right now I am working on cultivating the awareness that examines whether or not the road I am taking is the result of past programming—usually based in fear—or a loving sense of Divine Consciousness stretching me to deep love and deep awareness.

Perhaps that might be a good criteria—does what I am doing expand me or contact me?

********************

“Now we are teachers. That is our role here with you. But we know who we are, what we are, and how we serve is how we are expressed. As you each know who and what you are, your expression is manifested as your consciousness and you call to yourselves the circumstances you require to be of service in whatever way is appropriate to you, to you and your gifts, to you and your abilities, to you and your choices.”

The Guides, as any good teachers, will offer their assistance whenever needed. No matter how good a teacher might be, no matter how selective of the proper words they might use, there will always be questions, or some difficulties in understanding. I know for me that questions, rather than being a distraction or annoyance are always helpful in our learning. Not only do they offer the opportunity to clarify, they also open the door to deeper explorations. In this work especially, even though much of this spiritual work is of the heart rather than the head, and we carry with us the awareness that we might not fully understand or know with the mind, but we can still open to deeper knowing.

Another interesting paradox, hinted at in this first section:

“The aspect of you that knows this is true already will be doing the work with you, so you are never without aid. And we are here for you as well as we say “Yes” to you each.”

“The aspect of you that already knows is doing the work with you.” As is often spoken in spiritual literature, this is a process of re-membering, “coming back” to the true remembrance of who you are. 

I think that was one of the many things Jesus was proclaiming when he suggested we become like little children. As a child I already know who I am—I don’t have to be told—even though very quickly I am told who I am by all those people around me who don’t know who they are!

 “If you work with this now, and you work with the claim of truth, “I know who I am, I know what I am, I know how I serve,” you will do this with yourselves in a way that you may express. This will temper the worry because it will put you back in the authority to be the one who knows who and what she requires.”

“But I don’t know who I am,” you might hear your mind saying. Here is our choice again, do I listen to the part of me that does not know or do I listen to the part that does know?

I believe that any one of us doing this work is in their knowing. “I do know who I am, I do know what I am, I do know how I serve,” I might forget; I might even choose to be in denial for a time, but none of that takes way from the truth that I already know.

“The manifestation of this text on this plane will be more than significant. It will be a trajectory for many to the infinite possibility of their own soul’s expression. And we ask you now if you would like to welcome us in. If you would like to welcome us in, the teachers, the vibration that informs this text you may ask us in now. And there is only one word that is required, and we will teach you this word in our next chapter. And the word is “Welcome.” Welcome us, please. Say welcome to us, if you wish, and we are with you.”

I just love that highlighted phrase: “the infinite possibility of (your) own soul’s expression 

Sit with that one.

WELCOME, WELCOME, WELCOME

I so appreciate all of you allowing each other to continually witness the truth of who we are.

I KNOW WHO I AM 6

(My mind was going in many directions as I sat with our work on Sunday—here are some of the teachings that came out. I just did not find a way to tie them al up I a nice little package—[and maybe I am not supposed to.])

When we speak of creating illusion or falling asleep into an illusion, we are not just speaking to each one of you as individuals. There are many levels group consciousness—nationalities, religions, levels of education, classes, race, gender, etc. all of which are “agreed” upon levels of distinction. 

There are also those “agreements” that affect us as a species. To be aware of these all we have to do is look around. Having more stuff is important; the rich have more say than the poor; we can only be safe if we are in charge; our enemies are those we cannot trust (and they are everywhere), etc. All we have to do is to take a look at the condition of our planet, and what is going on with it to get a sense of what we are creating.

Now the predicament is that many of us will find ourselves disagreeing with many of the above ideas and claim that, “I don’t’ believe that; I don’ feel that way. My values are much different than that,” and so on.” But you see what is happening here; we are creating a new form of separation. 

Perhaps not on a conscious level, but if there is anger or fear in me then I am creating and perpetuating anger and fear.  Without consciously realizing it, I am contributing to duality that I am objecting to.

*********

We’ve mentioned this before that all of us are very aware of our “cycles” of waking and sleeping/awareness and unawareness. The specific area we are exploring right now is our awareness of our Divine Nature. I realized that sounds a little abstract so maybe I could word that differently. How about “being in touch with my capability to love unconditionally, to love without judgement. We all recognize we have this ability, we just forget we have it quite often. 

Because we have been taught to perceive ourselves in limitation, unconditional love is usually not our first response to most human encounters. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Most often our response is judgment, which we are learning is simply another form of fear and separation. Because we think of ourselves as separate we respond from that perception.

**********

Each one of us is working out our own practice of awareness of the truth of who we are. As we do this we begin to realize that we are not doing this work just as individuals, in fact we realize our individuality is simply another perception of  limitation. By raising my vibration of the thoughts I hold onto and the actions I perform,  I raise the vibration of all beings.

So here we are asleep/awake/aware/unaware/remembering/forgetting. How long do I need to be doing this; how many times? Seven times/seventy times seven times?

We keep doing this until we do not need to do it anymore. 

Although that sounds pretty exhausting, it is not a new paradigm. 

There have been and continue to be “way-showers” those who have gone beyond the personality self and at the same time used their personality self as a lens, a filter, for the expression of their divine nature. You know the list, Jesus, Buddha—

Many of the “gods” in the Hindu pantheon were once human in form, eg. Krishna, Vishnu. According to tradition, they surpassed or went beyond their human nature, their personality selves, to claim their worth-to claim their truth as an aspect of the Divine.

There’s a wonderful little parable from Richard Bach’s Illusions, I would like to share. 

Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently over them all -- young and old, rich and poor, good and evil -- the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.

Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current was what each had learned from birth.

But one creature said at last, "I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom."

The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed against the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!"

But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.

Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.

And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the messiah, come to save us all!"

And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure."

But they cried the more, "Savior!" all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a savior.

All of us have learned how to walk; some of us have learned to ride a bicycle, others might have learned other feats of skill or achievement that required extensive repetition.

When we learned to walk, we never asked (in exasperation),”How many times am I going to have to do this?” We just did it as often as we needed to, knowing it was going to work,

Well, here we are on this spiritual path of Awakening—and here are two aspects that require our attention. One is: knowing that being awake, being in “conscious contact,” being in a state of conscious unconditional love is not only possible, but is also our birthright (we are worthy of it)—so, we KNOW and and we are WORTHY—-hence the title of this book. 

Second, being dedicated to the practice of cultivating awareness. Much of our awareness will come about when we “wake up” again and realize we have been asleep, have been in a state of unawareness. We do not condemn ourselves for our forgetfulness, we rejoice and are grateful for being awake again.  

This practice is a CONTINUAL ACT OF SURRENDER.

*************

Interesting question this morning—I will paraphrase—“Why are we seemingly drawn back to the dark side of things?” Reading murder mysteries, watching horror movies, revisiting old memories/incidents of fear or guilt, many different ways of doing this.

SOME REASONS:

The most obvious one for me is simply that the mind, by its very nature, is curious. It sees a wet pant sign and has to touch it. The mind is continually exploring. It doesn’t even Edd to label exercises as good or bad, they are jus experiences.

Many of us are “used to” being in a state of victim consciousness or depression or guilt or hame or unworthiness. It might not b pleasant, but it is familiar. We are drawn to the familiar.

Another reason has a bit more meat on its bones. Carl Jung identified an aspect of the mind he named the Shadow. The shadow is that area of the mind that “collects” all those thoughts and behaviors that we are told are unacceptable. All of the “no-no’s”, those thoughts or feelings we are not supposed to have. So when we do have them, which we do, we deny them and throw them in the shadow bag (remember the Biz bag?), where we hope they will stay hidden and inactive. However that is not what happens. The shadow has a knack of showing up at the most inopportune times; our attraction to the “dark side”is and aspect of the shadow coming into our consciousness. 

This can be a good thing, when a behavior or feeling show up, even unwanted ones, we have the opportunity to heal them. Once “a monster” is unmasked we usually find out it is never as bad or as powerful as we might have imagined.

I recall a great one liner from Chris (the radio announcer in the TV show Northern Exposure: “We all want to be Obi-Wan-Kenobi, but there is a bit of Darth Vader in all of us.”    

That’s it for now.

PEACE

(My mind was going in many directions as I sat with our work on Sunday—here are some of the teachings that came out. I just did not find a way to tie them al up I a nice little package—[and maybe I am not supposed to.])

When we speak of creating illusion or falling asleep into an illusion, we are not just speaking to each one of you as individuals. There are many levels group consciousness—nationalities, religions, levels of education, classes, race, gender, etc. all of which are “agreed” upon levels of distinction. 

There are also those “agreements” that affect us as a species. To be aware of these all we have to do is look around. Having more stuff is important; the rich have more say than the poor; we can only be safe if we are in charge; our enemies are those we cannot trust (and they are everywhere), etc. All we have to do is to take a look at the condition of our planet, and what is going on with it to get a sense of what we are creating.

Now the predicament is that many of us will find ourselves disagreeing with many of the above ideas and claim that, “I don’t’ believe that; I don’ feel that way. My values are much different than that,” and so on.” But you see what is happening here; we are creating a new form of separation. 

Perhaps not on a conscious level, but if there is anger or fear in me then I am creating and perpetuating anger and fear.  Without consciously realizing it, I am contributing to duality that I am objecting to.

*********

We’ve mentioned this before that all of us are very aware of our “cycles” of waking and sleeping/awareness and unawareness. The specific area we are exploring right now is our awareness of our Divine Nature. I realized that sounds a little abstract so maybe I could word that differently. How about “being in touch with my capability to love unconditionally, to love without judgement. We all recognize we have this ability, we just forget we have it quite often. 

Because we have been taught to perceive ourselves in limitation, unconditional love is usually not our first response to most human encounters. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Most often our response is judgment, which we are learning is simply another form of fear and separation. Because we think of ourselves as separate we respond from that perception.

**********

Each one of us is working out our own practice of awareness of the truth of who we are. As we do this we begin to realize that we are not doing this work just as individuals, in fact we realize our individuality is simply another perception of  limitation. By raising my vibration of the thoughts I hold onto and the actions I perform,  I raise the vibration of all beings.

So here we are asleep/awake/aware/unaware/remembering/forgetting. How long do I need to be doing this; how many times? Seven times/seventy times seven times?

We keep doing this until we do not need to do it anymore. 

Although that sounds pretty exhausting, it is not a new paradigm. 

There have been and continue to be “way-showers” those who have gone beyond the personality self and at the same time used their personality self as a lens, a filter, for the expression of their divine nature. You know the list, Jesus, Buddha—

Many of the “gods” in the Hindu pantheon were once human in form, eg. Krishna, Vishnu. According to tradition, they surpassed or went beyond their human nature, their personality selves, to claim their worth-to claim their truth as an aspect of the Divine.

There’s a wonderful little parable from Richard Bach’s Illusions, I would like to share. 

Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently over them all -- young and old, rich and poor, good and evil -- the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.

Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current was what each had learned from birth.

But one creature said at last, "I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom."

The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed against the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!"

But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.

Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.

And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the messiah, come to save us all!"

And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure."

But they cried the more, "Savior!" all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a savior.

All of us have learned how to walk; some of us have learned to ride a bicycle, others might have learned other feats of skill or achievement that required extensive repetition.

When we learned to walk, we never asked (in exasperation),”How many times am I going to have to do this?” We just did it as often as we needed to, knowing it was going to work,

Well, here we are on this spiritual path of Awakening—and here are two aspects that require our attention. One is: knowing that being awake, being in “conscious contact,” being in a state of conscious unconditional love is not only possible, but is also our birthright (we are worthy of it)—so, we KNOW and and we are WORTHY—-hence the title of this book. 

Second, being dedicated to the practice of cultivating awareness. Much of our awareness will come about when we “wake up” again and realize we have been asleep, have been in a state of unawareness. We do not condemn ourselves for our forgetfulness, we rejoice and are grateful for being awake again.  

This practice is a CONTINUAL ACT OF SURRENDER.

*************

Interesting question this morning—I will paraphrase—“Why are we seemingly drawn back to the dark side of things?” Reading murder mysteries, watching horror movies, revisiting old memories/incidents of fear or guilt, many different ways of doing this.

SOME REASONS:

The most obvious one for me is simply that the mind, by its very nature, is curious. It sees a wet pant sign and has to touch it. The mind is continually exploring. It doesn’t even Edd to label exercises as good or bad, they are jus experiences.

Many of us are “used to” being in a state of victim consciousness or depression or guilt or hame or unworthiness. It might not b pleasant, but it is familiar. We are drawn to the familiar.

Another reason has a bit more meat on its bones. Carl Jung identified an aspect of the mind he named the Shadow. The shadow is that area of the mind that “collects” all those thoughts and behaviors that we are told are unacceptable. All of the “no-no’s”, those thoughts or feelings we are not supposed to have. So when we do have them, which we do, we deny them and throw them in the shadow bag (remember the Biz bag?), where we hope they will stay hidden and inactive. However that is not what happens. The shadow has a knack of showing up at the most inopportune times; our attraction to the “dark side”is and aspect of the shadow coming into our consciousness. 

This can be a good thing, when a behavior or feeling show up, even unwanted ones, we have the opportunity to heal them. Once “a monster” is unmasked we usually find out it is never as bad or as powerful as we might have imagined.

I recall a great one liner from Chris (the radio announcer in the TV show Northern Exposure: “We all want to be Obi-Wan-Kenobi, but there is a bit of Darth Vader in all of us.”    

That’s it for now.

PEACE

I KNOW WHO I AM 5

Well we did not cover many pages, but I felt as if we worked with this material very deeply. (I am reminded of something Marion Williamson once said, “We do not need to gather any more information; we need to go more deeply into what we already know”).

The primary lesson which flows throughout all of these works is to become aware of our identification or over identification with our personality self. We are using the term “personality self” rather than ego, although they are very similar. Ego, however, gets a lot of bad press; we can attach a lot of negativity to it without realizing and as soon as we do that we fall into judgment and sometimes even guilt, neither of which helps us in our growing.

So we are using the term personality self as a group of ideas or structures or beliefs that we have both gathered from others and created ourselves during this lifetime. We have begun to define ourselves according to all of those labels, behaviors, perhaps some of which we have formed ourselves and many of which we have inherited from others. Probably the most significant influences contributing to the creation of this personality self are our families, our church of origin, if any, and our schooling, our educational system.

As we become challenged to grow spiritually we begin to realize this personality self is not who I am, even though it is what I was told I am. The first hurdle that we begin to reckon with comes about when we attempt to spiritualize our personality self. It seems to me we could spend lifetimes on that one. The predicament is that the personality self, by is very limited nature cannot grasp or understand the spiritual principles we are attempting to teach it.

The lesson for today exemplifies that brilliantly. In simple terms it is not Gandhi being Christ, or Mother Theresa being Christ, or Thomas Merton being Christ, or Buddha being Christ, or even Jesus being Christ. It is the Christ manifesting itself uniquely through Gandhi or Merton or Mother Theresa or Buddha or Jesus. It might seem as if the distinction here is rather subtle, and perhaps it is, but it is one of the most significant distinctions that you will make.

So instead of attempting to be the Christ through your personality self, you instead begin to release your attachment to that personality self and all of its attributes, and as you do, the Light of the Christ which is the Truth of who you are, begins to shine through. It is like cleaning off a dusty piece of glass so that the light can shine through it. You do not curse the glass or attempt to throw it away, you are simply cleaning it off. You are releasing it from all that seems to prevent it from being a channel of the light.

The apostle Paul also reflected on this truth and summed it up by saying, “I live now, not I, (not my personality self) but Christ lives in me.”

Now on the very practical side of things we might ask, “Well how do I do that? And see that is a very interesting question because my personality self is asking that question. We need to go back to our knowing. Each one of us knows within our hearts, and we also carry with us experiences of our divine nature, our Christ consciousness. When we have consciously chosen Love over fear or light over darkness, when we have released judgment, when we have been willing to see the Christ in another, even though, on a personality level, they might make our skin crawl. 

There are many instances that each one of us can recall or connect with, it is only the personality self that is attached to the drama. Sometimes the simplicity of the thought or the action as we allow our divine self to shine through is majestic. The thinking mind might not think so, the “story teller” within the personality might not think so, but the knowing inside you, the knowing within your heart, your soul knows when you are vibrating at a frequency that shines forth from you as your divine being.

“So as the Christ becomes you, and aligns those aspects of you that are in distortion, that are in fear, that are in blame, that are in heresy against the true self, the knowing of the true self comes forward and claims her purview. John as the Christ, yes. The Christ as John is much more true.”

Think I missed this paragraph a few times, and I also almost missed it this time. There is a very powerful message here that most of us have experienced without consciously realizing it. We are emphasizing here our Oneness and how the healing within you or another affects all beings. The result of cleaning up some aspect of your life gives other people the opportunity to do a similar kind of work themselves.

If I have healed or transformed a particular fear in my life, then I am offering that same grace to all others. They might or might not be conscious of that opportunity but it is there just the same.

Let's just take a couple of practical examples that many of us can identify with.

Take going to a 12 step meeting for the first time. You're lost and confused, you know you need help but you're not even quite sure what kind of help you need. You don't mingle very much, you try to blend into the woodwork, and most people will respect that and then you listen to some people talking especially about how they are involved in the process of healing and you begin to realize perhaps on an unconscious level that you don't have to do what you've been doing anymore. “I don't have to drink anymore; I don't have to be a victim anymore; I don't have to indulge my compulsive behaviors anymore One Day At  Time.

This is a perfect example of being in the frequency of those who have healed a specific area of their lives and how this vibration, this frequency can positively affect you. Even if there are no words exchanged, even if you are not consciously aware of what is happening energetically.

Unity itself is a good example. One of the most significant of healing is the realization that we no longer need to be attached to our old issues of blame shame and guilt. Being in the presence of many people who have learned and practiced that created a vibratory filed that affects everyone. This is why so many people describe their initial Unity experience as “Coming Home.” They might not have any conscious idea of hoot define that, but is is true nonetheless. 

I certainly do not want to limit this phenomenon to 12 step recovery or Unity because I believe this sharing of vibrational energy happens all the time, and we are just beginning to become conscious of that. There are some people in our lives we simply enjoy being around. It's kind of like basking in the sunshine. Now certainly one of the reasons for that is that these individuals are living in a high vibration of love and awareness and we are attracted to that. However, I believe this is much more then simply a passive act of resting in someone else's glow. The beings that we enjoy hanging around with have worked through many of the issues that might have previously blocked their light, because of that we can begin to realize either consciously or not that we can do that to.

You see that is another aspect of what higher vibrations bring to us and that is the openness and the possibility of transformation and healing.

This is such a powerful lesson, I am so grateful that we can share it together.

I became consciously aware this Sunday that we have all called one another to us for this continuing process of growth and healing. Isn’t that wonderful?

Peace