David on Lack

Dearly Beloved,

The best indicator of connection to God is how one feels, and this indicator is the best because it is not dependent on any particular "form outcome." A mind that looks to "form outcomes" is deceived and will not experience a lasting Peace. State of mind (how one feels) IS the outcome of which thought system one is aligned with (God or ego). Money is nothing, though if a mind believes in ego (belief in lack/reciprocity), money is endowed with false value.

The belief in lack/reciprocity is the belief in substitution, for the ego is the chosen "substitute" for Source, for God. The reason money seems valuable is because it seems to be highly exchangable for many "things" that meet illusory needs, whether they seem emotional,
physical, or spiritual. Like medicine, money is like a magic spell of the world that seems to make illusory problems disappear for awhile. Yet until the ego has been released entirely, the mind perceives needs and external means (false sources) to meet the perceived needs.

It all comes down to this: one must accept One Self as Changeless Divine Mind. The only step to this is realizing that the world cannot change, for it is an unreal effect of an unreal cause. They world CANNOT change. Asking for things to be different than they are is an impossible request.

Money, like all effects (images of the ego) is never a source. The meaningful request is a request to see the world differently (as an unreal effect of an unreal cause) and to thus accept the Fact that there is only One Source. God is the ONLY Source. The only question, problem or confusion is one of identity and has absolutely nothing to do with money. Trust would settle every problem now, for to trust is to be God dependent. The reversal of thought necessary to realize God dependence is a full 360 degree turn around, so to speak,
and this means the realization that there are no cause/effect relationships in this world that are true.

If all the images (including money) are effects, there is no cause or source to be found in this world. God is True Source and Christ the True Effect. Therefore the secret to true prayer is to forget the things you think you think and think you need by withdrawing faith in
the temporal and transitory. What is eternal is valuable, as what is of time is valueless by definition. With regard to this world, Purpose is the only "value" that can be given faith if you would be God dependent.

Giving and receiving are one. One always receives EXACTLY what one asks for. The problem or confusion one may seem to experience in perception comes about from the belief in "manifesting," which IS the belief in "time." Eternity does not manifest, Being One forever.
Manifesting is the belief that the Eternal can take form, that Infinity can become finite, that Spirit can enter matter. Awakening is the experience of forgiving the illusion of "manifesting," for What Identity Is is Spirit. Christ comes not into form, but Calls you "out of the world" to recognize your Self as Eternal Spirit.

Is there a willingness to release the idea of manifesting forever and experience Peace of Mind? This is the same as asking "Are you willing to accept your Self as God created You instead of trying to make yourself?" The belief in manifesting can be released for it is not
true. Spirit can and inevitably must be accepted, for It is true. The belief in linear time is a defense against the Holy Instant, for time is but a denial of Eternity.

Beloved Child of God, You have been released of the grievance of time and there is no delay in what Your thoughts create instantly and forever. The belief in time and manifesting is an unwillingness to accept the Instant Answer Now, and one can only receive what one is
willing to hear and see. When one asks for a sign or for an outcome or for an accountability for money donated, one asks amiss, for one is asking out of lack. When one has voluntarily released the beliefs in manifesting and time, one can then honestly ask: "God, what is
Your Will for me?" Prayer is always answered according to what the
mind is willing to receive. And in the deepest prayer of the heart you shall realize what is meant by the statement "My thoughts create eternally."

There is a difference between create and make, and a difference between extension and projection. Love creates, the ego makes. Love extends, the ego projects. In Love being and having are the same. To the ego, possession and having are the same and in a world of lack
what you get is what you have. How utterly impossible is manifesting/getting and how absolutely true is Creation/Giving. Reciprocity is a question of identity. Trust is the way out of the false belief in a worldly identity. It takes trust to change your mind so completely that you forget the concepts of time and manifesting forever. And happily it requires only willingness and not time.

If you drop the "thought process" entirely you make way for the Vision of Christ. If this be your desire, the world of unreal effects will be shown to be causeless and you will laugh at the thoughts that money or any image could be a real "source" or that the Holy Child of
God "needs" anything. One's real thoughts create eternally, yet no thoughts of the past or future are real thoughts. The Stillness of Now is the Answer.

The Holy Spirit will direct your thoughts and actions very specifically if you allow Him. Give all concepts of money and manifesting and time to Him to use for His Purpose, and they shall be removed from your Holy mind. For You are Wholly Mind, and nothing of the world can ever BE understood. Who You are IS the Meaning.

Love & Blessings,

David


http://awakening-mind.org

Choose Once Again Conference

from the Miracle Distribution Center

Choose Once Again: MDC's International Conference on A Course in Miracles
August 26-27, 2006

Join us for an unforgettable celebration of 30 years of A Course in Miracles with the Course's publisher, Judith Skutch Whitson. First printed in 1976, the Course has now been translated into 14 languages. Also joining us will be Efrat Sar Shalom, a member of the translation team of the Hebrew edition of the Course and Seffi Henegbi, who, along with Efrat, has established a desert retreat in Israel where they teach the Course.

Rounding out the weekend will be physicist Russell Targ, psychologist Lee Jampolsky, speaker Jacob Glass and international lecturer and author Beverly Hutchinson McNeff.

Inspirational lectures, experiential exercises, music and interaction with Course students from around the world will combine into an experience of the miraculous!

For more information, visit www.miraclecenter.org

On Questioning

From a correspondance of the Holy Instant Christian Church--

Last month we showed that one's mind doing nothing allows extension of the miraculous state of being which Jesus tells us heals the sick, raises the dead, and lifts our world to light beyond belief ... a state of being available to all. We indicated that Jesus Christ's revelation for the 21st century, A Course in Miracles, does not teach us to do with our mind, but to UNdo our habits of mind. We experience unbelievable miracles by resting in trust and not engaging our mind whatsoever.

This month we will attempt to disengage one of the ego's greatest doing devices: question asking.

You might remember Yoda trying to teach Luke Skywalker in "Return of the Jedi." Luke needed to learn he already knows everything he needs to know in the now moment. He could not have come to experience his perfect now moment knowingness if he hadn't totally released the ego habit of asking questions. So in the movie we enjoyed scene after scene of Luke lapsing into his addiction of asking while Yoda again and again offers the same Jedi response: "No questions!"

Jesus Christ's Course puts it this way: "That is why the Holy Spirit never questions. His sole function is to undo the questionable and thus lead to certainty. The certain are perfectly calm, because they are not in doubt. They do not raise questions, because nothing questionable enters their minds. This holds them in perfect serenity, because this is what they share, knowing what they are." (ACIM Text Chap. 7)

You already know this, though maybe you still like to pretend you don't.

And therein lies the problem. Remember, the ego constantly tries to convince you that you are not who you really are. You are not really infinite mind who knows everything. You are not even a spiritual being who is automatically aware of everything you need to know to operate perfectly in the now moment. The ego wants you to pretend you have a minuscule little mind which really has no choice but to ask questions to learn things.

(Listen inside. What do you hear? If you hear a defense of asking questions, you may be more stuck than you think.)

From the Holy Spirit's way of seeing things, a so-called "human mind" addicted to asking questions is simply expressing arrogance, ultimately from a secret motive of hatred, since peace would have no reason whatsoever to ask:

"Attempt to solve no problems but within the Holy Instant's surety. For there the problem will be answered and resolved. Outside, there will be no solution, for there is no answer there that could be found. Nowhere outside a single, simple question is ever asked. The world can only ask a double question, with many answers, none of which will do. It does not ask a question to be answered, but only to restate its point of view. All questions asked within this world are but a way of looking, not a question asked. A question asked in hate cannot be answered, because it is an answer in itself. A double question asks and answers, both attesting the same thing, in different form." (ACIM Text Chapter 27)

To an advanced teacher of God it is obvious that question asking does not arise from any need to know. It is simply the insanity of ego raising its voice in the hopes that making enough noise heckling God will serve to mask its own confused state.

In the unedited version of the Course, Jesus tells Helen Schucman: "The ego is the questioning compartment in the post-separation psyche which man created for himself. It is capable of asking valid questions, but not of perceiving wholly valid answers, because these are cognitive, and cannot be perceived. The endless speculation about the meaning of mind has led to considerable confusion because the mind is confused. Only One-Mindedness is without confusion. A separate, or divided, mind MUST be confused. A divided mind is uncertain by definition. It has to be in conflict because it is out of accord with itself." (ACIM Text Chap. 3)

Notice the Course just gave the addict something to grasp onto for justifying the addiction to question asking: Christ's statement that the ego is capable of asking valid questions. But that's not the point of the above passage. Being capable has nothing to do with necessity. There is simply no need to ask questions thought up by the intellect, and in fact doing so is a delaying device of the ego.

In the Bible we read of the scribe who really grasped that his mind needed to quit questioning and focus only on God ... and Jesus indicates he will delay himself not much longer:

"And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no man after durst ask him any question." (Mark 12:34)

Those addicted to asking questions will also attempt to support their addictions using those portions of the Course which talk about allowing to be open to question that which we've always believed. "Questioning delusions is the first step in undoing them." But the questioning here referred to, impulses rising from deep within which undo rather than seek formulated answers, are a different kind of "questioning" than the addict's obsessive compulsion of the engaged intellect. Notice how in the unedited version Jesus directs Helen to put quotation marks around "questioning mind:"

"The 'questioning mind' perceives itself in time, and therefore looks for future answers. The unquestioning mind is closed merely because it believes the future and the present will be the same. This establishes an unchanged state, or stasis. This is usually an attempt to counteract an underlying fear that the future will be WORSE than the present, and this fear inhibits the tendency to question at all." (ACIM Text Chap. 3)

You might say there is questioning and there is asking questions ... and they are not the same. Asking questions is the ego's attempt to pretend it does not already know what is needed, while questioning is the act of turning within and "hearing" or "feeling" exactly what we really need to know any given moment. Turning within for answers without questions was Luke Skywalker's training and eventual mastery.

So our goal with this month's message is to take control of our mind and let this addiction be cured. We make a commitment to train ourselves as Luke Skywalker was trained by Yoda. We choose to watch our intellect, and when our intellect begins to ask a question which has no reason to be asked we say to it:

"Stop! Trust!
No questions!"

So Glad

"ACIM Conference 2007
"An Opportunity To Gladden Yourself"
February 23, 24, 25 - 2007
Tony Ponticello and Larry Bendini
Deposit: $75 (non-refundable) will reserve your enrollment and price.
Remainder Due: January 15, 2007
Conference will include 4 "all you can eat" buffet meals!
(Fri.dinner, Sat. lunch, Sat. dinner and Sun. brunch)
Check out the conference web site now. It's gorgeous!"
from http://www.miracles-course.org/Miracles5_2007.html

A story it is a good one

Beloved One,

Here is a dialogue I know you will enjoy:

A University professor at a well known institution of higher learning
challenged his students with this question. "Did God create
everything that exists?"

A student bravely replied, "Yes he did!"

"God created everything?" The professor asked.

"Yes sir, he certainly did," the student replied.

The professor answered, "If God created everything; then God created
evil.

And, since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works
define who we are, then we can assume God is evil."

The student became quiet and did not answer the professor's
hypothetical definition. The professor, quite pleased with himself,
boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the
Christian faith was a myth.

Another student raised his hand and said,
"May I ask you a question, professor?"

"Of course", replied the professor.

The student stood up and asked, "Professor, does cold exist?"

"What kind of question is this? Of course it
exists. Have you never been cold?"

The other students snickered at the young man's question.

The young man replied,
"In fact sir, cold does not exist. According
to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the
absence of heat. Every body or object is susceptible to study when
it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter
have or transmit energy.

"Absolute zero (-460 F) is the total absence of heat; and all matter
becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold
does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel
if we have no heat."

The student continued,
"Professor, does darkness exist?"

The professor responded,
"Of course it does."

The student replied,
"Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either.
Darkness is in reality the absence of light.
Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact, we can use Newton's
prism to break white light into many colors and study the various
wavelengths of each color.

"You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break
into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how
dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present.
Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what
happens when there is no light present."

Finally the young man asked the professor,
"Sir, does evil exist?"

Now uncertain, the professor responded,
"Of course, as I have already said. We see it everyday. It is in the daily examples of
man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil.

To this the student replied,
"Evil does not exist, sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat, or the darkness that comes when there is no light."

The professor sat down.

The young man's name - Albert Einstein

email from David