Some basic Questions Answered

David,

I have been formulating some questions and wondering if you could
shed some light on them. I was first questioning my concept of
God. For many years I have understood God as a being of sorts, or
perhaps a conscious all knowingness, that knew me, thought about me,
and everyone else in this universe and beyond. I also saw God as the
creator in this world which is constantly being formed. Now I don''t
know about any of it. What is God. Just beingness? I am??? What
exactly is that. If God is just being, or existence, then why bother
saying a prayer? Who hears it other than me? What good can it
possibly do? Thanks in advance.

Sincerly

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Dear Beloved One,

Thanks for writing. You are a blessing. It is always wonderful to
hear from you. You are what you have been searching for. Identity
in God is "closer" than a breath.

God is the Eternal Love Which remains forever and forever and is
Known when all concepts of time-space have dissolved away. Emptying
the mind, as in Zen practice, is making clean the Altar to Divine
Mind. God creates Spirit, and matter is simply the "matter" or
focus of forgiveness/release of illusions that cloud the mind.
Prayer is the desire of the heart, and true prayer is the single
desire or desirelessness that transcends the multiple desires for
things and perceptual experiences that the ego (error) craves. The
truth is simple because it is one. One prays continuously and that
is why it is important to be watchful of what you ask for or desire.

God Knows the prayer of the heart. Beyond the words and questions
and symbols is an experience of certainty in which there is no
doubt. It is impossible to truly be anything but this certainty.
Question and Answer, asker and the one who is asked but seem to be
different in dreams. Yet there is a Point, a State of Mind, in
which everything is experienced as One.

Concepts were made to deny the Eternal. In forgiveness of what never
was is a final concept accepted to take the place of the "many."
Unlearn every concept of time and all conflict and doubt is undone.

The I Am presence is Pure Spirit. Only this Self can BE Known. All
"else" fades and grows dim and disappears, for time could never come
and take the place of Eternity.

I am with you all the way in simplicity. I am always happy to talk
with you and can give you a call if you think it would be helpful.

May your unlearning be Joyful and our Mind remain in Peace forever.
We walk the Selfsame road, and the way is easy. The way inward is
natural. You are my very Self in Love, and I rejoice in our
Innocence. Nothing else ever was true. Keep shining our Light. It
is soooooooooo bright, as You are. You are the One!

In gratitude and love,

David

Teach Only Love Merging with Awakening-Mind

Beloved One,

In the coming months there will be a merging of the Teach Only Love Sanctuary, which is located in Great Falls, MT, into a branch of The Foundation for the Awakening Mind, which is located in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Teach Only Love Sanctuary will continue to serve as a Miracles center for the study of A Course In Miracles under the symbol of Awakening-Mind.org

The Foundation for the Awakening Mind is a 501 (c) (3) non profit organization and donations to the Sanctuary will be tax deductible when everything is finalized. We will use the Awakening-Mind.org symbol to express the teachings of the Holy Spirit, Who teaches us His unified purpose through consistency, and true consistency in His purpose is JOY!

Love,

David, Kirsten, Jeffrey, & Kerri

Consciousness

Consciousness is the receptive mechanism, receiving messages from
above or below; from the Holy Spirit or the ego. Consciousness has
levels and awareness can shift quite dramatically, but it cannot
transcend the perceptual realm. At its highest it becomes aware of
the real world, and can be trained to do so increasingly. Yet the
very fact that it has levels and can be trained demonstrates that it
cannot reach knowledge.""Revelation unites you directly with God. Miracles unite you
directly with your brother. Neither emanates from consciousness, but
both are experienced there. Consciousness is the state that induces
action, though it does not inspire it."
"Consciousness, the level of perception, was the first split
introduced into the mind after the separation, making the mind a
perceiver rather than a creator. Consciousness is correctly
identified as the domain of the ego. The ego is a wrong-minded
attempt to perceive yourself as you wish to be, rather than as you
are. Yet you can know yourself only as you are, because that is all
you can be sure of. Everything else is open to question."
"The means of the Atonement is forgiveness.
The structure of "individual consciousness" is essentially
irrelevant because it is a concept representing the "original error"
or the "original sin." To study the error itself does not lead to correction,
if you are indeed to succeed in overlooking the error. And it is just this
process of overlooking at which the course aims."
"Very quietly now, with your eyes closed, try to let go of all the
content that generally occupies your consciousness. Think of your
mind as a vast circle, surrounded by a layer of heavy, dark clouds.
You can see only the clouds because you seem to be standing outside
the circle and quite apart from it. From where you stand, you can
see no reason to believe there is a brilliant light hidden by the
clouds. The clouds seem to be the only reality. They seem to be all
there is to see. Therefore, you do not attempt to go through the
mind past them, which is the only way in which you would be really
convinced of their lack of substance."
Consciousness is synonymous with split mind. It receives messages
from "above" or "below," the Holy Spirit or the ego. It is the focus
of the mind training lessons in the ACIM Workbook and can be trained
to reach the forgiven world that Jesus calls the "real world." This
is the dreamer of the dream Perspective that I speak of frequently
which is a state of consistent peace and nonjudgment. Revelation and
miracles emanate from the Light beyond consciousness. God and
Christ, Being Pure Eternal Abstract Light and Oneness, have nothing
to do with consciousness (which is 'split' into illusory levels).
In this sense there is no "God Consciousness" for Oneness and split mind
are not reconcilable. God and Christ are True and consciousness is
make-believe or false. God and Christ are Spirit and consciousness
is the belief that there is "something else" in "addition to" Spirit.
Awakening could be described as the "release" of the make-believe
"something else."
Creation is the Light beyond consciousness. Consciousness, being the
domain of the ego, does not have creative ability. God creates the
Eternal and the ego or error "makes" the finite, temporal, illusion
of time-space. It is consciousness which seems to unlearn the ego
(or split) and thus learn of forgiveness (perceived wholeness), yet
the quotation above saying "it cannot reach knowledge" reflects the
realization that consciousness is an illusion which must disappear
before remembering the Knowledge of Heaven or Pure Oneness.
You wrote: "I use the term 'consciousness' to mean that which creates
and animates the illusory form; that which is an Aspect of God and
never leaves His Mind -- a part of the Mind of God. My understanding
is that this Consciousness, being an Aspect of God, is eternal and
plays and plays and plays, extending Love first in one direction,
then in another, including making up and pretending to experience an
illusion of separation complete with amnesia about Reality." Christ
never leaves the Mind of God, yet consciousness is the belief that
Christ has left the Mind of God. Creation extends Eternally and as
ACIM states: "God knows not form." Christ is an Eternal Idea in the
Mind of God. It is the ego domain of consciousness which seems to
be "...making up and pretending to experience an illusion of
separation complete with amnesia about Reality." God does not
forgive for God has never condemned, yet forgiveness (release -
letting go) applies to consciousness and thus to releasing the
obstacles (what was ego-made) so that the mind can remember God,
Christ, and Eternal Creation.One of the key metaphysical ideas for
understanding the importance and necessity of forgiveness of illusion and the release and
detachment from the judgment of the world is stated in ACIM as
follows: "The world was made as an attack on God. It symbolizes
fear. And what is fear except love's absence? Thus the world was
meant to be a place where God could enter not, and where His Son
could be apart from Him. Here was perception born, for knowledge
could not cause such insane thoughts." God Is. Christ is Awake in
the Mind of God. The mind which sleeps and dreams of images appears
to play with idols, toys of its own "making," yet the Holy Spirit
uses what was made to go far beyond what was made. The Holy Spirit
Made a waking Dream cleansed of judgment. The Holy Spirit knows the
distinction between the real and the unreal, and the judgment of the
false AS false is the only meaningful judgment to be made. This
Atonement is the gateway to freedom beyond all dreaming - to
remembrance of Self as Christ in the Mind of God. God and Christ are
Abstract Eternal Love, and the seeming world of parts and specifics
is the veil which HAS BEEN forgiven.
The Kingdom of Heaven is within. I will use the metaphor mentioned
in the ACIM Workbook. If Divine Mind were a vast Circle of Light and
if this Circle was seemingly surrounded by dark clouds of false
belief and perception, consciousness would be the illusory experience
of being "outside" of the Circle. In sinking beneath the clouds of
illusion, the experience is One of Pure Light. In Truth Light cannot
be surrounded or circumscribed, for Light is literally the Allness of
God and Christ Which Know Perfect Oneness. I rejoice in the
forgiveness of illusion, for a Child of God cannot be limited in
awareness except by illusory belief. And happily this need not be.
I love You forever and ever!
David

Berkeley Event with Master Teacher

A Course In Miracles
Spiritual Transformation
An Invitation To A Great Experiment
Lawrence Hall of Science,
University of California, Berkeley
Saturday, April 8 through Sunday April 9, 2006

Come and experience with Master Teacher,
an inevitable decision of discoveringour journey without distance
in the space of an instant of reality.
See if the religion of your nature andthe philosophy of your being
can be integrated, through the science of your mind,
into the brilliantly fearless new reality that is your evolutionary destiny.
Once again, "Remember that it is impossible that anything that is happening to you is but by accident." You may very simply say, this is the time I choose to awaken,
and it will be true and it will always have been true.
All around you are the teachers you have chosen to assist and accelerate the necessary confrontation of your own objective self-identity in the whole eternal perfectly creating universal mind that surrounds you, so that you may undergo your inevitable experience of resurrection and enlightenment.
What you have been afraid of, and denying through your own possessive fear, is your own illumination. You are returning to God Mind through the memory of your transformation from a temporal being to the reality of eternal life. So right here, right now, is the time for your passage from death to life.
This is a teaching of initiation, or the determination of an individual mind to come to its own whole universal self. It is the transitional passage from time to eternity. From this apparent nightmare of separation to the remembrance that you are perfect as God created you. It is accomplished through a bright reassociation of your individual perceptual self-identity.
This is your awakening and every obstacle that peace must flow across is surmounted in exactly the same way. The fear that raised it yields to the love beyond, so the fear is gone.
A Course In Miracles Spiritual Transformation Program
with Master Teacher

Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California, Berkeley
1 Centennial Drive, Berkeley, CA 94720

Saturday, April 8, 2006 - 9:00 AM through 5:00 PM
and Sunday April 9, 2006 - 9:00 AM through 2:00 PM
For more information, call: 608-253-1447
or visit: www.acimi.com

Tromas Troward's Edinburgh Lectures On Mental Science

Click here.

do nothing!

"Be At Peace and Do Nothing!"
"There is nothing you need do ... but wait ... and see what happens!"
How many times have you heard your inner voice telling you to quit doing, quit planning, quit trying to make things happen, quit studying A Course in Miracles and simply let the Course work on you?
There is nothing to do but wait and see what happens. This is actually the fundamental message of Jesus Christ. You are already all the love, joy, and creative power of the universe. You need only do nothing to let God's love, joy, and creative power extend and lighten your world.
"When peace comes at last to those who wrestle with temptation and fight against giving in to sin; when the light comes at last into the mind given to contemplation; or when the goal is finally achieved by anyone, it ALWAYS comes with just ONE happy realization, – 'I need do nothing.' Here is the ultimate release that everyone will one day find in his own way, at his own time. You do not need this time. Time has been SAVED for you." (ACIM Text Chap. 18)
You need do nothing with your mind to experience total enlightenment and total extension of light because ... engaging your mind is your way of compressing the light. Forming your unformed infinite mind into finite thoughts is your method of making yourself little and making a little dark world.
"Oh, but I'll use the infinite energy of my mind to form positive thoughts so I can have prosperity and well-being."
Sure you can do this ... but for every thought you form to create prosperity and well-being, you have inserted an ego self-identification which blocks the infinitely more grand plan God has for your prosperity and well-being, while simultaneously strengthening your downfall. You are simply trying to do it yourself, not trusting that the Holy Spirit, left to His own devices, has a fail-proof plan for your prosperity and well-being which you could not have imagined.
In other words, you trying to think positive thoughts can meet with only temporary limited success only in your judgment, which is not the judgment you really want to be relying on.
"In no situation which arises do you realize the outcome that would make you happy. Therefore you have no guide to appropriate action, and no way of judging the results. What you do is determined by your perception of the situation, and that perception is wrong. It is inevitable, then, that you will not serve your own best interests. Yet they are your only goal in any situation which is correctly perceived. Otherwise, you will not recognize what they are." (ACIM Lesson 24)
"But if I listen inside to the Holy Spirit's voice, to thoughts 'out of the blue' which I didn't make up, I'm often guided to take some action. So the Holy Spirit definitely guides doing."
Yes and no. Yes in the ego's eyes, no in the Holy Spirit's vision. Thoughts "out of the blue" are thoughts you did not initiate in your mind, so you did nothing with your mind. You simply experienced an instant at peace in non-doing, and while at peace in non-doing ... you heard guidance. Now if you follow the Holy Spirit's guidance, although it might seem like you are doing something, you are actually being undone. The Holy Spirit's guidance serves one purpose only, to undo you and the world you've made up. What you interpret as receiving guidance and doing something, the Holy Spirit is happy to see as you following guidance and allowing undoing.
"You perceive the world and everything in it as meaningful in terms of ego goals. These goals have nothing to do with your own best interests, because the ego is not you. This false identification makes you incapable of understanding what anything is for." (ACIM Lesson 25)
"But I've heard that the development of clear spiritual hearing, for example, takes a great amount of practice. What if I practice, and practice, and practice inner hearing so my inner hearing can come to be ever present and easily heard? Isn't all that practice a form of doing?"
Again, not in the Holy Spirit's way of seeing things. Because the very practice of inner hearing is the practice of doing nothing with one's mind, allowing one's thought and picture forming faculties to be altogether disengaged, so what is heard is from what we call "divine intelligence," or the "Voice for God."
"Nonetheless, the Course is a course in mind training. I've heard it said that an untrained mind accomplishes nothing."
Yes, and the "training" referred to is not you training yourself but the Holy Spirit's work, training you to do nothing with your mind. Because everything you've ever done with your untrained mind literally has meant nothing.
In short, there simply is nothing to do. It's as simple as that. Jesus Christ tells us our salvation and our world's salvation is a done deal. But since your ego is deadly afraid that it cannot exist unless it is doing, the desire to do is very, very powerful and deeply ingrained. Your only hope is to pray with all your heart and soul, and all your being, for trust. Then the more you open to trust, the more you are able to let go of all doing and let God.
"'I need do nothing' is a statement of allegiance, a truly undivided loyalty. Believe it for just one instant, and you will accomplish more than is given to a century of contemplation, or of struggle against temptation. (ACIM Text Chap. 18)
So do not ask: what would Jesus do? Rather ask what Jesus asks of you? And the answer from Jesus is: "Victory is already assured! Please remember to do nothing."
"Now you need but remember YOU NEED DO NOTHING. It would be FAR more profitable now merely to concentrate on this, than to consider what you SHOULD do." (ACIM Text Chap. 18)
Would a little humorous memory device serve a purpose?
There is an apocryphal story in which a disciple asks Jesus:
"What is holding me back? It seems I'm stuck?" Jesus answered:
"You're full of yourself, with everything YOU do. A good release is needed, of your own ... do do!"
from: Monthly Article of the Holy Instant Christian Church
http://www.geocities.com/holy_instant/Apr2006.html

Questions for David

Hello David!

I have a few questions for you that are on my mind...

1) ACIM says as a Miracle Principle that "Miracles should not be
used as spectacles to induce belief"... If this is true, then how
would you define Jesus' miracles such as feeding the multitudes,
raising the dead, etc?

2) Wayne Dyer really speaks to my soul! I see him and ACIM in
perfect alignment with their teachings. Do you see the same
consistency in teachings between ACIM and Ernest Holmes? And ACIM
and The Unity Church?

Thank you as always for your wonderful help in poking holes
(miracles) in my clouds that are blocking the Sun. I also would
like to share with you a verse I came up with:

DON'T SEE THE SUN SHINING, BE THE SUN SHINING!

In Love

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Beloved One,

Thanks for sharing your questions. Miracles are always only for the
mind of the perceiver or dreamer (mind is one) and what seems to
occur in form is merely symbolic. Miracles are for the mind that
has the ears to hear, so to speak, or the willingness and readiness
to behold. Seeming changes in form reflect the shift in mind of the
miracle-minded, and though some of these changes seem to
transcend "known physical laws," in Reality there are no "known
physical laws." The Law of Love (Spirit) is the only Reality.
Feeding the multitudes and raising the dead were symbols of the
Divine Law of Love Which has no limit or lack. It is truly the
beattitudes or state of mind that demonstrates the miracle has
come. It is this state of mind in which consistency is possible and
this is a characteristic of Awakening. "Consistent form" is a
contradiction in terms, although behavior can seem to become
more "stable" for the miracle-minded. The easy way to remember that
miracles are not intended to be used as spectacles to induce belief
is to remember that miracles are the means of Awakening for a mind
that already "believes" yet is also willing to go beyond belief
and "Be Still and Know That I Am."

The teachings you mention are all very helpful stepping stones in
Awakening to Oneness. The Holy Spirit will Guide you to discern the
true from the false in all regards, and the deeper you seem to go
you will seem to transcend all linear concepts and come to an
experience that will end all doubting. The teachings you mention
have Oneness as their main focus, yet there are subtleties of ego
concepts that are transcended completely in Enlightenment. Your
inner work with the Holy Spirit will instruct you on your inward
movement and Help you lay aside every linear (past-future) concept
(such as balance and process and growth and personality). You are
moving steadily inward to the experience of Atonement, Christ, and
God's Love.

Thanks for your devotion to Truth