WELCOME 18

P. 60-63

As I was reading over this section I was reminded of the concept of “grok”—

Grok /ˈɡrɑːk/ is a word coined by American writer Robert A. Heinlein for his 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land. 

the meaning of grok as "to understand intuitively or by empathy, to establish rapport with" and "to empathize or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment", understand (something) intuitively or by empathy.

"because of all the commercials, children grok things immediately”

My understanding of the concept is a little different. It includes all of the above, but also carries with it a sense of union, being fully absorbed or “digested” in an experience or another being. When I “grok” you—I not only love you unconditionally, I am One with you; I am not only walking in your shoes, I am you in your shoes. When I grok a sunset, for example, I am so absorbed  in the experience of beauty that for an instant or so there is nothing else.

I hope I am not stretching things too much, but I believe that this is what Jesus was attempting to get across when he instituted what is called the Eucharist–becoming one with the Christ consciousness.(Although the metaphor here is food, it is not terribly far-fetched to get a sense that when the food/the bread/the Body of Christ is digested, it becomes a part of you, and you become a part of It. If the language existed back then this is also what Jesus meant when he said, “Father I pray that they all maybe one just as you and I are one.” In other words, “I pray that we will grok one another in truth.”

John Denver expressed this beautifully in his song, Spring:

Riding on the tapestry of all there is to see, so many ways and oh, so many things.

Rejoicing in the differences, there's no one just like me.

Yet as different as we are, we're still the same.

And oh, I love the life within me, I feel a part of everything I see.

And oh, I love the life around me, a part of everything is here in me.

A part of everything is here in me, a part of everything is here in me.

“Now when you know something, “I am in my knowing,” you are in resonance with something. It is not an idea, it is not an intellectual structure, it is a way of being. Knowing and being happen simultaneously. You cannot know and not be at the same time. You are this thing that you know because you are in agreement with it. ”

The interesting thing here is that in our work with this book and other books like this, the major emphasis is always about Oneness and that separateness is an illusion.

“And what you sacrifice is your attachment to who and what you thought you were. And those creations that you have used to decide these things must be altered as you begin to know yourselves anew.”

In this journey of spirit, we are releasing whoever or whatever it is that we have thought ourselves to be. All of that, we are told is more a reflection of our individual personality selves than the truth of who we really are. 

I have not thought about this before, but whenever we release or let go of an idea, concept, or belief or any other form of attachment, there carries with it the necessity for grieving. It is a major difference between having the thought or the idea of letting go of something, sort of just saying to ourselves, “Oh yes I have let go of that,“ compared to really experiencing the release, the letting go and whatever results in that process. In other words, letting go is an experience rather than a thought. Within the experience of release and letting go there is grieving. Even when I release something that no longer serves me, I will still grieve, and I need to allow myself to grieve, to experience the loss, that is an essential part of my letting go.

One of the reasons why it seems so difficult to let go of some beliefs or concepts or forms that we hold as being true is that we have not grieved or given ourselves permission to grieve or opened ourselves up to experience the loss in the letting go.

WELCOME: We are never alone on the path—no matter what we might be feeling. 

“As we sing the songs of our readers, as we remember them by name, we anoint them to their own possibility that they may be listened to, heard, and healed.”

Here again our work is not about forcing something to happen, it is being open to the possibility, the endless possibility of continuing transformation in love.

At the end of this chapter the guides use the word or concept of being “anointed.’ There is a very subtle or perhaps not so subtle awareness here that is being presented to us. The name “Christ” from the Greek or “Christos” means the anointed one.

I am, you are, we are the consciousness of the Christ. I know who I am; I know what I am; I know how I serve.

“I am he as you are he as you are me

And we are all together…”

WELCOME 17

P.57-59

Why so long on this chapter called WELCOME?

Those who are dedicated to a spiritual path can still fall into the illusion of doing it all by yourself. Certainly there is paradox this learning. I heard a wise person once say “The path is essentially a very lonely one because old n one can do it for you. The path is simply you and God.” The other side is also true. There guides and light workers who are also leading us along the path. Not only that, but since we are all One there is no such thing really as our individual efforts. Everything you do affects all other beings.

So I believe that one of our learnings through this chapter is the realization that no matter what we might be feeling emotionally, no matter what challenges may present themselves, that we are never alone; we can never be alone.

As we were speaking together Sunday morning I became aware that despite all of our efforts to avoid thinking in terms of separateness, that we might still create a hierarchy in our minds between the guides and ourselves. That somehow or another, because they seem to know more than we do, that they are better or smarter than we are.

A bird cannot swim because the medium that it functions in is the air rather than the water. That does not make the bird better than the fish. Using this metaphor each one of us could probably learn to develop a functional participation on various planes of existence. Swimming, flying, walking. One is not better than the other, simply different.

If a being lives on one particular plane of existence, let us say the air, in this case, then any other planes of existence such as earth and water not only would be totally foreign but essentially nonexistent. So for some of the guides, at least, we are introducing them to a working in existence on planet Earth that for some or perhaps all of them this is a milieux which they have no cognizant awareness.

In one of the books the guides express themselves as being a collection of beings some of who who have had physical form, but we are never told if that physical form existed on what we call planet Earth or some other physical realm. So as the book states the guides are learning from us as well as our learning from them.

That is still only one form of perception, that there is some form of separation between ourselves and the guides for some sort of distinction.

I recall come across a book by a psychic channeler whose name was Pat Rodegst called Emmanuel’s Book. I was impressed because my buddy Ram Dass wrote introduction so I assumed this was not some flaky version of somebody's perception of Lala land. One of the items that he mentioned was whether or not this channeled being was a separate entity or simply a part of Pat’s higher consciousness essentially makes no difference. The most important reality that we are dealing with is the information that flows forth and our ability to align ourselves to that information.

Recently in following some electronic pathways, I discovered some sayings that were attributed to someone or something called “Fake Buddha.” What I discern from these statements was they are quite Buddhist in nature but that they were not historical quotes from the Buddha himself. One of my favorites is, “Do not believe anything I tell; do not believe anything anybody else tells you even if they seem to be in authority. Believe only what resonates with the truth of your heart.” Now one of the things that is interesting about that is that you can only really believe what resonates with the truth of your heart and nothing else. You can pretend to believe something else and act upon what somebody else told you as being the truth, but  you can only truly resonated with or believe that which is in alignment with the frequency of your own heart. In the book’s language that means “being in your knowing.” 

So we are encouraged here, in a subtle way, to learn to listen to the the promptings of our own heart, sometimes what we might refer to as the intuitive heart. We can describe that information that we receive and attribute it to anyone or anything we choose: Buddha, Jesus, or the guides or our own intuition, but again, for the moment, it is being able to discern what rings true for us within our own being.

I suggested that might be one of the practices we take with us this week: taking a moment anytime we think about it, to tune into our intuitive or spiritual self, to notice if there is anything it needs to communicate to us. Or if we become troubled or confused, for any reason, to go within to seek the answer or the solution.

In last week's summary I jumped the gun a little bit and talked about wonder so I am not going to repeat that here.

An aspect of wonder, however, that was not emphasized, was the whole sense of being able to perceive and respond to each moment of life with a sense of clarity and newness.

As Jesus is said in the book of Revelations, “Behold I make all things new.”

 What would it be like if I approached each moment each person with the sense of wonder and newness?

You see what usually happens when I am involved in a familiar task, let's say a repetitive one, doing the dishes driving, my car, etc. is that I get on “automatic pilot.” I'm just doing things without thinking. Now, obviously, sometimes that might be useful, but you often when I'm performing a task or interacting with another human being, I bring with me whole boatload of baggage and past experience. So the “you” I am relating to is not who you are in this moment, or even your perception of yourself at this moment. It is my perception of you based on all sorts of other past experiences. When I bring all of that baggage to a personal encounter or even a physical task, I am denying myself any possibility of experiencing newness or wonder. Essentially, without me realizing it, I am living in the past of my own creation.

So here we are challenged again. Challenged in terms of our awareness of everyday events and even pushing that further, because in these moments of conscious awareness, we are also being asked to think and act with the consciousness of love.

The strange thing is, although this loving response to everyone and everything is a natural part of our nature, we have come so distant from this knowing, that it seems to take a huge amount of work to be in this innate state of acting and thinking in love.

“We ask you this: When you know what you know, must you act on it? And we will tell you, yes. When you have new knowledge—and new knowledge, we say, is new information that you have gone into agreement with in your knowing—it becomes part of your frequency and the reckoning with it is nearly instantaneous. To reckon with something is to face it, to see it for what it is, and then to move with it as you choose.”

This again is not a judgment, simply an awareness. You always have a choice of a higher vibration or a lower one. This is one of the many reasons why awareness is so important. Since we can only make these choices in our awareness.

No matter which I choose higher or lower, there are consequences connected to that choice. So if I metaphorically choose a lower vibration I am digging a hole that I put myself in and therefore if I want to, I must choose to dig myself out. That is simply a cosmic law like a physical law of gravity it is neither good or bad.

What is interesting to me lately is that it has become or is becoming easier for me to make positive healthy choices in my life. In other words, to choose a higher vibration rather than the lower one. The choice is still there; it just simply seems more natural to flow into that positive state of higher vibration.

The reason why I find that so fascinating, and certainly an object of my gratitude, is that I have often perceived to myself as someone who identifies with the negative more than the positive. Of course, when I perceived myself in that lower vibration state of mind, I was only vaguely aware that I had a choice. Today than choice is much more obvious to me. As we have mentioned many times before, this is more a choice about the thoughts and actions that I am involved with, it is not always a choice about how I feel. Eventually feelings will align themselves with my choices of thoughts and actions, but not necessarily right away.

Thank you all; thank you all; thank you all. Amen

WELCOME 16

WELCOME 16

Just hanging out in the Kingdom.

We are “there” all the time; we infrequently realize it. I am too busy being right, or trying to protect myself from one thing or another*, or trying to find something else that will bring me peace and/or satisfaction.  

• I became aware the other day that all of my stuff, my material possessions, as well as my mental and emotional stuff are all attachments and my attempts to insulate myself from change or any other form of insecurity. Of course, they do not really work in lessening my fear, in fact, they increase my anxiety because now I have to protect the things I think are protecting me!

“We are taking you each by hand to welcome you to what can be as yourselves as you coexist as a species, as a civilization, who honors the truth of who each of you are.”

How beautiful is that. And yet here I am wondering what lies ahead of me. What am I going to be asked to do? Will I be able to handle it? Will it hurt (as the Velveteen Rabbit asked the Skin Horse.) I am like the person at the Pearly Gates—there are two signs—one says “Heaven” the other “Lecture about Heaven.” Here I am waiting on the lecture line, just to make sure. (Hey, is that you in front of me?)

Isn’t it odd that I perceive myself as being fearful of what I desire the most?

“May I be in my wonder in every day. May I allow myself to be in wonder in every choice I make.”

There was a move recently called Wonder about a little boy with severe facial deformity. It was a simple, but delightful parable, and I became very enamored of the title. Wonder. In the book of Revelations, Jesus claims, “Behold, I make all things new.” What would it be like if I perceived everyone, everything with newness and wonder? 

I sit at my desk—a new desk, new notes; a new chair that holds me up; I allow myself to be blown away as I discover all the information in the world is available to me at my fingertips. The touch of a few buttons, and Voila!

Or I go to work and I see Mary and Mike, and Wynona and Bob and instead of seeing them with all of yesterday’s baggage and labels, I see them as completely new. I look at them, I listen to them for the first time. (Now if you are like me, you will either create a new set of labels and prejudices or resurrect the old ones, but that’s OK, it just gives me the opportunity to “choose once again.”) 

“As you claim this for yourself, you claim yourself, you open to new possibilities. The windows begin to open and what was stale releases. The new air comes in and fills the room with new choice, new ability, new love. The ideas that we give you to sort through, to choose from, to decide with, will be there for you as you need them.

The trajectory we are choosing, you say, is one of wonder. Attending to yourself in wonder, as the one who may be in the new trajectory, is what we ask for you today. “Am I willing to claim myself as the one who may be in wonder? Am I willing to align myself to the possibilities that come to me as I align myself to wonder? Will I listen to myself, to the new thoughts that are gifted to me with each choice that I make, with each idea that comes, with each belief I hold, so that I may know something new?”

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

If you are so moved, you might want too check out the questions on the bottom of p. 59 and top of 60.

These are my personal reflections:

What do I want for myself?

I want to be free; I want to see with the eyes of the Christ. I want to be forever conscious of my service as a unique expression of the Divine.

What do I no longer need?

The collected baggage of self-judgment, my comparing myself to others, all of my coulda, woulda, shoulda.

What have I cared for too much?

The opinion of others; being right; immediate gratification; my intellectual understanding.

What have I cared too little for?

my body; listening to the yearnings of my soul; the love others bring to me.

What have I agreed to that is no longer true, and what would be a new belief that would liberate from me the things I have attended to as myself that cannot truly be myself, because now I know who I am in my wonder?

In the past I have agreed to and aligned myself to a belief system that emphasized my limitations and sense of separateness. As much as I realize these are untrue, I am still somewhat shackled by them. My only conclusion is that I continue to hold onto and even nurture some of these old and unnecessary beliefs—in doing so I seem to limit my beliefs in my Divine Truth. (I am aware that what I speak of as being “real” is still only my perception, which by its nature is limited).

Wonder—to greet each moment with wonder. You see, that would continually be the present moment, no expectations, no goals just wonder!

May all beings be at peace; may all beings be free of suffering; may all beings know who they are.

WELCOME 15

P. 54-55

As I sit with these reflections about our Sunday morning class, there are two things that stand out for me. First, I do not feel as if I was as aware and centered as I could have been, and the second is a sense of gratitude for your willingness to question and comment, because more than anything else that stretches me.

The primary focus of our gathering on Sunday encompassed a sense of being in the Kingdom. I am often reminded of the statements of Jesus regarding the kingdom of heaven when he expressed, “the kingdom of heaven is within you; the kingdom of heaven is now, and unless you become as a little child, you shall not enter into the kingdom.

To me, these days, being in the kingdom means being in a state of loving awareness, no matter what I am doing. I am not thinking about being in a state of loving awareness I just am. Now being in loving awareness or being in your bliss might be experienced by each one of us in different ways. 

During class on Sunday I was drawn to powerful piece of wisdom expressed in Thornton Wilder's “Our Town.” This scene involves Emily, who died young and who requests from the stage manager if she could revisit her life for one day. She decides to come back for her 16th birthday. What she experiences, however, is her father being busy fixing a watch (to make little extra and needed income) and her mother being busy making a cake for her birthday. Emily decides that most people reside in a place of unawareness.* 

I became rather fixated with Emily’s conclusion. I did not realize that by doing so I was negating or ignoring many other possibilities. I was thinking to myself that being in the kingdom meant to being present and loving to the one before me. As important as that is, I discovered that your questions and comments encouraged me to widen my perspective. Who am I to say that baking a cake or fixing a watch cannot be a reflection of perfect love or bliss and being in the kingdom?

I came to that paradoxical place where my intellect was pushed to its limits and when asked the question, What constitutes being in the kingdom?” I had to answer “I don't know.” I can know what works for me in this moment, but other than that whatever comes next I do not have a clue.

I must also say that being in this place of mystery of the unexplainable does not negate or take away from the truth that we are continually confirming; “I know who I am; I know what I am; I know how I serve.”

“When you understand this, that your worth is the key and that what you would claim is always in accordance with your worth, you begin to think outside of yourself. And you begin to think of the larger issues that present you each as a species, as a civilization, as an aspect of the Creator operating in tandem with others.”

In reflecting this last piece, we began to move from a more personal sense of awareness to one that was more universal in truth. We are part of a race, a civilization that is also evolving and transforming.

And finally there is this marvelous image of the guides taking us by the hand, that we need to willingly stretch out; taking us by the hand and leading us more and more into a deeper, deeper awareness of the kingdom of heaven.

I know I have shared this image before, so I hope you do not mind me sharing it again. I happened to be present when our oldest granddaughter was learning to walk. I have noticed that every child goes through this stage a little bit differently, but what Mikayla did was, after she would struggle up to her feet, she would simply stick one hand up in the air, waiting for someone to take hold and someone always did,

I am grateful and as we extend our hand, it is taken in love to lead us forth to a more deeper awareness of the truth of who we are.

Peace

Welcome 14

P. 53-54

Here is the distinction: We already know who we are. No one would deny that we are Divine children of God, that we are spiritual beings having a human experience,—yadda, yadda, yadda. BUT the knowing has not completely taken hold. We “Kinda, Sorta” believe it, and because that is were we perceive ourselves to be, then we “kinda, sorta” get some results.

I believe that every moment of practice, be it consciously exclaiming “Welcome;“ consciously claiming, “I know who I am; I know what I am; I know how I serve:” or bringing to mind a meaningful prayer or mantra, eg. “The Light of God surrounds us…:” “I love you; I am so sorry; please forgive me; Thank you,” not only raises our vibration and all that is around us, but ALSO allows the truth of who we are to take root more and more deeply within our conscious and unconscious. (Like having a perpetual tune you can’t get out of your head.)

We all realize we have the power of the divine within us, but how often do we use it; how often are w even aware of it. ACIM suggests that we are always creating; we are either creating from default (through our unconscious minds) which means all of our fears, worries, doubts, and another forms of negativity that we are holding onto are essentially in charge of our creative activity OR we are creating from our conscious awareness —-that awareness of the Truth of who we are.

“What was I thinking,” you might ask yourself after creating a mess—major or minor. The answer is, as Marian Williamson says, “You were not thinking.” You were on auto-pilot—reacting to external stimuli with preprogramed thoughts and behaviors.

And so that puts us right up against the question, “Why would we do that; what is our resistance to Truth?” To answer that we will examine again the seemingly classic conflict between ego and Spirit.

For most of us, we grew up identifying with the ego or personality side of our nature. Ego and personality was the primary definition of self, and most of us simply took that for granted. Even though there was spiritual teaching in our lives, it became primarily compartmentalized. It was expressed  as a series of thoughts and ideas and maybe even beliefs, to a limited extent, but it was sort of a separate part of our lives, possibly reserved for Sundays. Unfortunately, what passed for spiritual teaching was often imbued with sensations of guilt, fear and shame. Please know we do not say the guilt, fear or shame are actually part of spirit, but it is a way that many of you erroneously learned.

There usually comes a time, often triggered by difficult life experiences, that we called into question our identity and definition of self in terms of ego or personality. We are challenged to know ourselves on a deeper level. It is then that spiritual teachings enter our lives, but we also realize that much of what we have learned under the heading “spirit” does not coincide with the yearnings of our soul.

So we are called more deeply as we are at this time, to open ourselves to a new way of knowing and a new way of knowing ourselves as well. As we have all experienced, the ego does not go down without a fight. Our ego or personality self has been king or queen of the hill for too long to allow that power or that identity to quickly disintegrate. It is, however, unnecessary and even counter-productive to get into a fight with our ego or personality cells. That just gives it more power.

What we are doing here is increasing our awareness of the Truth of who we are and to allowing that to take precedence in and our thoughts and actions.  Fear, which is a primary emotion of the ego, will continually attempt to get in the way of our acknowledgment of who we truly are. Fear can take many forms. Most often it is subtly expressed by a sense of unworthiness or “not enoughness” or an inability to embrace ourselves we are we are. Embracing ourselves where we are is another way of saying accepting unconditional love.

As we have mentioned before, it is extremely important to be aware that what we call “where we are” is simply our perception of where we are, and our perception, by its very nature, is limited. So to release the struggle of our inner natures, we even embrace our imperfect perception of ourselves, knowing that it isn't perfect, but that also in the midst of our aligning with our divine selves, that perfection is embraced beyond our limited knowing.

I’d like to include this next paragraph from the book. It will be our starting point next week.

As always—DEEP GRATITUDE

“Now, the kingdom of God, we would say, is the manifestation of God as you, as out-pictured through you, through each of you, in your beneficence, in your kindness, in your love, in your willingness to serve. But the frightening thing about this for all of you is that you do not want it. You believe that it is a negative, that you will lose your self-worth that you have attained through structures that have been erected to give you an appearance of dominion when you, in fact, have been enslaved by them.”

Peace.

WELCOME 13

P. 51-53

“We are all of the same stuff, you know. We are all of Christ consciousness. We are simply in different levels of our awareness of this. As you move into consciousness, you realign all things, you co-resonate with all things in a new way. And our vibration, as we would teach you, is here to shepherd you. You may align to us at any moment simply by saying, “Welcome.” If you wish to practice it now, you may. In your mind, say the word “welcome” and allow our frequency to be in attendance to you in a way that you may know.”

As we were learning together Sunday morning I had a thought or a vision related to a teacher of mine in college. He was an exceptionally brilliant man, but as a teacher he had the ability to step away from any sense of superiority. He had a way of allowing us to sense that we were all learning together. Even though he was in the particular role of teacher and we were in the role of students, there seemed to be no judgment or comparison. A perception of separateness or hierarchy simply did not exist. I have a sense that our work together with the Guides reflects this same sort of equality.

I notice that this cannot be explained in a logical or linear way, and yet the truth of it is still here. As we have encountered many times before, the knowing that we speak of is beyond our rational minds and intellect.

The only limitation in our learning and our knowing is our ability to allow.

“Now we are authorized to do this by you as you allow it and align to it. We take nothing from you, and what we do with you is support you in your own achievement as the one who chooses herself to be on this journey to her own recognition, to his own recognition of his divine worth. You are aligned now to the extent that you are allowed to.

Now, what does it mean, “to the extent that you are allowed to”? We take you through a process here of alignment and removal of obstacles and obstructions that you have created or inherited in order to know yourself through limitation. As we attend to these, you lift your vibration to the extent that you allow yourself to lift, and we shift you as you allow us to shift you. Now we work with you each, the readers of this text, in frequency to support this, but you must say “welcome.”

Simply put, and I hope this is not an oversimplification, “How well do we listen to our inner voice?”

So much of the work that we are doing is the cultivation of our awareness of our own intuitive knowing. We are not creating something new; we are listening to what has already been there or has always been there.

What I'm going to suggest next might feel a bit like heresy. Please know it comes from my own limited sense of awareness of what is. The energy or the beings or the vibrations that we are calling the Guides, in essence is our own intuitive voice, our connection to divine wisdom. It is much easier for us, at least in the beginning, to give this power over to another being or group of beings wiser or more knowledgeable than ourselves. Ultimately, however, we are opening ourselves to the awareness that our intuitive knowing, or our inner voice is literally our connection to the divine.

The distinction we need to make is that in our language we use terms such as “my inner voice” and this is where we can create an error in our thinking or in our awareness. The inner voice does not belong to me as a personality; the inner voice is the inner voice of all sentient beings. It is the divine connection within all beings. The paradox arises when we also realize that he inner voice or God speaking to us or through us comes through this instrument of our being in a unique way. So that your expression of divine truth might be different from my expression of divine truth and yet ultimately it is One and the same.

I know I am stretching here and this is going a little bit far out, but I'll do it anyway. I believe Jesus came to a point in his life, in his realization of the Christ, as the Christ consciousness, when he became a pure instrument of divine wisdom so that all beings could here and listen and learn in the same way. He became such a pure vessel of the Father that the words and actions and vibration that came from him expressed only One truth because there is only One truth: God is Love.

“Now we will explain what we did when we asked you to claim, “I am Word.” If you are new to our teaching, you may not know that the frequency we attend to we claim as the Word, which is the energy of the Creator in action. The aspect of you that is already this is awakened through this choice to self-identify as the frequency.

When you claim, “I am Word through my body,” you bring the physical being that you are in accordance to that frequency of the Word. When you claim “I am Word through my vibration,” you align your energy field to the frequency of the Word. When you claim, “I am Word through my knowing of myself as Word,” you realign your true self, the identity that you hold, in recognition of your worth as the aspect of the Creator that can be realized in form. And our definition of the Christ, and the one that we offer here, is that the Christ is the aspect of the Creator that can be realized in material form as you.”

The above section is a summary of the first book and all that we have covered in the second one. There us a piece that I would like to add or emphasize here for a moment. We use the mantra “I am word through my… Word I am Word.” It is suggested in the first book that even we find ourselves stumbling or attached or angry or fearful that we can use this same expression to raise the vibration of our human experience to a higher level, to one that lives in spirit.

The example I shared on Sunday was that I found myself becoming both angry and obsessed with a person in my life, and even though I was angry and upset,  I recalled the prayer that was passed onto me, a prayer that expressed Unity and release from anger and fear.. I didn't want to say it. Part of me was enjoying or getting some vicarious pleasure out of being right and I did not want to let go of that.

I recalled some of our teaching, and said to myself, “Word I am Word through my anger, Word I am Word.” Now to the intellect this will sound ridiculous because it will seem that I am affirming my anger or even giving it more energy. The truth is when I put it in the context of “The Word” that I am raising the vibration of whatever is going on with me past the perception of anger to something higher. For example, my anger and my self-righteousness, as I sat with it for a while, was a reflection of my fear related to my lack of control over another human being. So when I put my anger in the context of “The Word” I became aware that it was my fear that was creating the anger, and I became much more willing to release it, to let it go and to hold this other human being in the light, to  hold him in love, to be able to see beyond this personality self.

I think I will close with one and say to you and all of the healing beings who are present “Welcome.”

WELCOME 12

WELCOME 12

P. 49-51

We began this morning by asking the ultimate question, “What is the meaning of life?”

I recall the wonderful movie from the late 90's called “ Oh God" with George Burns and John Denver. You could view this as a cute little movie, but it is filled with some marvelous one-liners that can keep you thinking. When God is asked the question “What is the meaning of life?” he replied: “Man and women, persons, their existence means exactly and precisely, not more, not one tiny bit less, just what they think it means and what I think, doesn't count at all.”

In other words, as one of my teachers likes to say, “You are the meaning maker of your life.” And I would like to add that much of the meaning we give our lives comes from our perception.

Here's one of the tricky parts- perception always comes from our limited sense of awareness, but we don't always realize that. Often we will take our perception is being the absolute truth. One of the many things we are learning here is to be aware that our perception of ourselves, of others, of God, and life —our perceptions which comes from our limited self, and so the perceptions are also going to be limited. This is why we make reference to “illusion.” We are not using that in a judgmental sense, but simply reinforcing the sense that our perception never gives us a complete picture or a complete understanding of what is going on.

For example, let us just take the idea of your perception of yourself, specifically your perception of yourself and where you are on your spiritual path. We do this all the time, especially when we are working with material from books such as these. We perceive ourselves to be at a particular place or juncture in our spirituality. In fact, most of the time, if not all of the time, we perceive ourselves as being in a place or a space that is just not quite where we need to be. We always seem, in our perception,  to be a little bit short of the mark. An old Jackson Browne song laments, “I’ve been up and down this highway, far as my eyes can see, no matter how fast I run I can never get away from me. No matter how hard I try, I’m always a day away from where I want to be.” That is a marvelous description of letting my limited perception define who I am.

What we do not realize is that our perception of ourselves is coming from our ego or our personality self which, by its very nature, lives in limitation. Our limited perception of ourselves is actually coming from an aspect of self that lives in limitation.

I am sure all of us have been confronted with this conundrum until we finally reach a point where, again after struggle upon struggle, after many attempts to grasp and understand, we let go and simply allow ourselves to be embraced in the truth of who we are. “I know who I am; I know what I am; I know how I serve; I am here; I am here; I am here.” I am a divine child God, unconditionally loved. Although my ego or personality self might object to this truth or demand some sort of additional verification, by this time on our path, no matter how we might be feeling, no matter how we might be perceiving our life experience, there is a space within us that lives beyond all possible doubt. There is a space within us that is aligned with and resonates with the truth of the divine self that we are. We can even live with our limited perception, especially when we know it is not the truth.

I am not denying the power of our limited perception to keep us in a limited space or a limited sense of self-awareness, but because of the work we have done, it is literally impossible to completely hold onto that illusion. There are chinks in the armor of my fear, of my separateness, of my protectiveness. There are spaces through which the light shines through despite all the energetic work of my ego and personality self in its attempts to hold onto my sense of limitation and separateness. Even if it is simply a tiny pinprick of light that is coming through the mask we have created, we can choose to begin to identify with the light that is shining through and as we do more will come to us.

I am reminded of that wonderful quote from Peace Pilgrim that says: “Live up to the light you have, and more will be given you.”

Don’t allow yourself to be limited by your perception, including your feelings—you are not what you feel or how you feel. Most feelings are quite complex and beyond the understanding of the thinking mind. Feelings are a composite of thoughts, beliefs, and life experiences, much of which remain in the unconscious. (It’s not our purpose to explore this in detail, just be aware, as important as feelings are, along with our need to process them—they do nat define who you are.) 

Close to the ending of our group was a meditation created from p. 50-51. I would encourage everyone to read over that section, even out loud, and just let it sink in.

Here is a link to the audio version:

http://christintraining.com/class_22_meditation.mp3

“The lives that you have lived up until now were created by you to bring you to this juncture, where you will know yourself in a new way. We ask you this: Who in this reading would like to know herself, would like to know himself as an aspect of the Creator? If you would like to do this with us now, we would like to align you to our vibration through the act of welcome. If you would sit for a moment and be still in your body and feel the energy field that you hold around you, if you would do this with us, we would like to gift you with an experience of welcome.

We would like you now to align every cell in your being, every conscious receiver in your being that you have, to align to the frequency of welcome. We are inviting you right now to say welcome with every aspect of you. And what are you welcoming, you may ask? You are welcoming that aspect of you that is the Creator in manifestation. You will say this with us now if you would:

I am Word through my body, Word I am Word. “And in this moment we invite you to welcome us, your teachers, the Christ consciousness, all the aspects of you that are seeking to be brought into manifestation in alignment with your true self. And we would like you to say yes. Say yes, now if you would, and welcome us as you, as the aspect of you that you are aligning to.”

Peace—Thank you all!