If I had to summarize the focus of this blog in twenty words or less, these are they: Wake Up & Smell Reality, my brother, if you wish to ESCAPE the dream of hell the world actually is.
The Spiritual Truths presented herein reflect my evolving understanding of A Course in Miracles, other sources of wisdom I’ve been guided to explore, and the insights and explanations shared with me intuitively by Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit (speaking to me through the Om vibration, true projection, and myriad scriptural and mystical texts). You may choose not to believe what I’ve been inspired to share, but your disbelief won’t change what’s True and Real one iota. Or, as Jesus says throughout the New Testament gospels, “Let they who have eyes to see, see. Let they who have ears to hear, hear. And let they who have minds to understand, understand.”
That said, I don’t profess to know the whole truth yet, nor will I probably ever while still in human form—except perhaps very briefly before my purified Higher Mind returns to God. Neither do I claim to have “True Perception” or “Holy Vision,” the terms used by Course-Jesus to describe enlightenment, Moksha, or Christ-Realization. I do, however, perceive the world and life very differently than I did before beginning Christ’s Course in 1997.
If you’re unfamiliar with A Course in Miracles, the brick-like blue book contains the “universal curriculum” for spiritual reawakening Jesus gifted to humanity in the early 1970s. As the title implies, the Course is a teaching device. Three books designed for self-study comprise the “sane curriculum.” The Text explains the theory behind the teachings; the Workbook for Students provides the daily mind-training exercises that enable us to apply the theories; and the Manual for Teachers answers questions on subjects not covered fully in the Text or Workbook.
The opposite of “brainwashing,” the Course frees us from the destructive perceptual programming that imprisons us in what is variously known as the dream of separation, the Realm of Perception, Ego Consciousness, Brahmanda, and the Cosmic or Auric Egg. Oh, yes, my sleeping brother. In case you didn’t know, the world you PERCEIVE through your physical senses isn’t really here—and neither are you. Material “reality” is only a dream your Soul contrived to experience the impossible: separating from God to “create” in defiance of His Supreme and Unimpeachable Will and Laws.
I explain how and why this all came about in the post titled “The Great Projection.” Here and now, let me just say that when the Course came to me initially, through an undeniable act of Spirit, I remember thinking two things. The first was that it DEFINITELY came from a Higher Source. In no way could a human intellect have conceived the ideas this book presents. There was and still is no doubt in my mind that Jesus Christ is the author of the teachings.
My second thought was that the lofty ideas presented seemed nearly impossible to accept and apply on a daily basis.
I was absolutely right on the first score and dead wrong on the second. The Course delivers what it promises—if we do the work, interpret the teachings accurately, invite the Holy Spirit to correct our wrong-minded thinking, and forgive ourselves and our brothers for our inverted perceptions about the world and its purpose. We can’t make these shifts in perception on our own, or simply by reading the Course or other spiritual books. We MUST ask the Holy Spirit of the Christ Self or Mind (a.k.a., Jesus) for mind-correcting miracles; we MUST do and apply the daily meditative exercises as instructed; and we MUST surrender our personal goals, desires, and identities to the At-one-ment process.
We must, in other words, give up all the NOTHINGNESS the Ego Mind stingily metes out to receive EVERYTHING God showers us with abundantly.
I can’t tell you how often I impressed this upon my former students—and how stubbornly they resisted doing the work that would free them from suffering. They were miserable, poor Souls, yet they persisted in choosing hell over Heaven day after day. When I grew frustrated with their resistance, the Holy Spirit gently reminded me that my earthly ministry wasn’t “of me.”
I was only His messenger.
The same can be said of this blog. I’m not sharing all this to acquire fame and fortune, or even to build a devoted following. I’m sharing these thoughts and insights because Jesus and the Holy Spirit MADE me—or rather, they gently persuaded me to undertake the assignment chosen by my Soul a long time ago. The impetus to begin writing came to me shortly after meditating for several days upon Workbook Lesson 98: I will accept my part in God’s Plan for Salvation.
The experience opened my mind more than I ever thought possible. My greatest surprise wasn’t how much I learned, however; it was how much I seemed to know. As it turns out, my seemingly meandering spiritual explorations weren’t the least bit random or accidental. I was right where I was supposed to be every step of the way, gathering the information I needed to complete my future assignment.
In hindsight, I can see how everything I’ve done and read prepared me to write this blog. I also recognize the Holy Spirit’s presence in my life from the beginning. My first memory, as an infant, was of awakening to the “vision” of a burning juniper bush on the floor outside my crib. As a small child, I heard the ever-present echo of God’s Foide in the dead of night. I somehow knew, even then, God was whispering to me in the silence. I also inexplicably KNEW, at an early age, that we lived many lives—and had choices about those lives. This was a pretty extraordinary insight, given my sheltered Catholic upbringing.
In my late twenties, I visited two bone-fide psychics. The first gave me a message from the guardian spirit watching over me. The message was, “There is more to life than you are presently experiencing.” I didn’t understand the message then, or for many years thereafter, but I DO understand it now.
Life and its purpose are NOT AT ALL as I perceived them to be back then.
After studying me for a moment, the second psychic burst out in surprised exclamation: “Oh my goodness! You have a thousand-watt heart!” She proceeded to explain that most people have only ten-watt hearts—the reason they had trouble relating to me and visa-versa. At the time, I didn’t understand what this meant, either—although I have felt, almost since birth, like a stranger in a strange land.
I now understand that she must have seen the Divine Spark on my Inner-Altar, which was evidently brighter than most people’s upon entering this life—even while I wandered in the darkness.
I’ll explain what all that means later on. I’ll also share more of my spiritual experiences, past and present, as the blog unfolds. For now, let me just say that I regard A Course in Miracles as the purest form of Higher Truth available today. Because the teachings came directly from Jesus, they warrant higher authority than the handed-down accounts of what Jesus allegedly said and did during his earthly ministry. These passed-down narratives were further distorted when the texts were translated from Aramaic into Greek and from Greek into English, as I’ll also explain as we move along.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying there isn’t Truth in the New Testament gospels. There is a great deal of Truth in them, actually, if we weed out the inaccurate additions, mistranslations, and unilluminated interpretations that have warped Christ’s teachings down the ages.
The biggest of these misconstructions is that Jesus is the ONLY Son of God, having been born of a virgin who was impregnated by the Holy Spirit. As Jesus tells us in his Course, he is no more or less divine than the rest of us. In the dream of time, space, and matter, he simply woke up first, so he could help the rest of us do the same. He set the example we all must follow to achieve “salvation”—the restoration of our awareness of our True and Divine Identity as God’s ONE Son or Creation. This is, I believem the idea Jesus intended to convey when he described himself in the Scriptures as “the Way, the Truth, and the Light.”
To wake up in Heaven, we must do what he did—or follow the example and teachings of another “Christ,” “savior,” jivanmukta, enlightened teacher, or guru. For his greater wisdom, experience, and beneficence, Jesus deserves the love, respect, gratitude, and obedience due an elder brother, but not our worship and awe. We should reserve such lofty venerations, he tells us, for God the Father alone.
I’ll explain all of this and more in my lengthy posts. For now, let me share the simple Truth that the One Soul we share with all Creation never left Heaven. Heaven, rightly understood, is inside God’s Mind. Being His Holy and Eternal Thought, that One Soul can’t leave the source of its conception. It can only IMAGINE it left by projecting a split-off part of its awareness into an alternate dream-dimension that appears to exist elsewhere.
Or, as Jesus tells us in ACIM Workbook Lesson 167 (There is one life, and that I share with God):
[God] does not sleep, and His creation cannot share what He gives not nor make conditions which He does not share with them. The thought of death is not the opposite to thoughts of life. Forever unopposed by opposites of any kind, the Thoughts of God remain forever changeless with the power to extend forever changelessly but yet within Themselves, for They are everywhere.
Only recently did I grasp what Jesus means by “They are everywhere.” One day in meditation, I actually experienced myself as one with All That Is. Not just with other human Souls, but with the ONE SOUL in everything.
Because I embrace Jesus as my “savior,” Master Teacher, best friend, elder brother, and the source of the Course, I have quoted him personally (rather than “the Course” generically) throughout this blog. I also quote predominantly and prolifically from his original dictations to his chosen scribe (the late prophet, professor, and psychotherapist, Dr. Helen Schucman), rather than from the Course’s two edited editions.
Moreover, I will share, through illuminated understanding, where the Scriptures of many faiths agree with the Course, to demonstrate that the teachings are, in fact, remarkably consistent. In the process, I will compare the central ideas to the sacred teachings of Hinduism, Yoga, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Islam and Theosophy, to demonstrate how universal the Holy Spirit’s curriculum for reawakening actually is (and always has been). Using these teachings, I will also explain concepts in the Course hitherto ignored or overlooked by other teachers of the path.
While all of these sacred teachings have suffered over time from errors in translation and egoic tampering, the same can be said of the Course. The Ego Mind actively resists the Light of Truth for two reasons: The first is that we made the Realm of Perception in partnership with the Ego Mind to block God’s Love, Light, and direct communications. The second is that God’s Love and Light threaten the Ego’s very existence. Thus, only those who have withdrawn their belief in the Ego Mind entirely, as Jesus did, are completely credible sources of Spiritual Truth.
The men who wrote, selected, and edited the canonical gospels were NOT enlightened. Neither were the people Jesus entrusted initially with his Course. That’s not to say they didn’t take the assignment seriously, or do the best they could. And we mustn’t forget that Jesus chose them, knowing their limitations. He also knew what they would do with the material ahead of time, because he knows everything.
And, when these well-intentioned Souls erred by editing and claiming ownership of the teachings, the Holy Spirit contrived a lawsuit to strip them of the copyright claim that inhibited the Plan of the Teachers. Had the courts not placed the material in the public domain in 2005, I could not have fulfilled my assignment to explain the teachings in ways no one yet has.
We must understand that God’s Great Plan plays out on a continuum over eons. Only if we step back and take the longer view can we see the Plan at work. As Jesus explains in his Course, chance plays no part in anything, and everything works together for the Highest Good of everyone involved. To enjoy unshakeable peace, we must suspend our short-sighted and upside-down judgments and accept this two-pronged TRUTH wholeheartedly. We must also accept that the Highest Good of everyone is waking up from the dream of separation.
How events unfold might not support our personal goals, but these ambitions and desires work AGAINST our best interests, as Jesus explains in Workbook Lessons 24 (I do not perceive my own best interests) and 71 (Only God’s Plan for salvation will work). Our worldly goals are, in fact, thwarting our Highest Good, which is ALWAYS and ONLY waking up to our Divine Reality as the Perfect, Holy, and Innocent Children of God.
We wake up by training our minds to think, will, and create like God again. We must, therefore, fully comprehend how God creates, what He created, and what He didn’t and couldn’t create and why. I’m going to tackle these critical subjects in the first few posts, and reiterate them thereafter in many others, through helpful allegories, symbols, illustrative personal examples, and citations from the Course, the Bible, the Vedas, and the “Gnostic” gospels, as well as other mystical teachings by various scribes, sages, prophets, and enlightened masters.
Healing the perceived separation from God and each other is the ultimate goal of Christ’s Course and mortal life, but we have a lot of unpacking to do along the way. Together with the accumulated “baggage” of wrong-minded learning and thought, we must “empty” our mental suitcases of all the faulty denials and false beliefs that block the Light of Truth. Writing this is helping me to discard many such limiting attitudes and assumptions. As you read what I’ve been guided to learn and teach, I urge you to do the same.
Because, as Course-Jesus explains,
Heaven Itself is reached by empty hands and open minds, which come with nothing to find everything and claim it as their own.
The Holy Meeting Place 