Sickness is but another name for sin.
Healing is but another name for God.
The miracle is thus a call to Him.
Ha! I burst out laughing when I got to this third line!!! The miracle is thus a call to Him. How about that? The miracle is not something you wait for. The miracle is given immediately when you turn your attention to God. That is the miracle! It is not piles of money appearing in your mailbox and it is not seeing your body transformed.
A miracle is a correction, meaning by the time you remember to turn your focus to God, you have already shifted your consciousness. The shift in consciousness IS the miracle.
Turning towards God IS the transformation. You are healed instantly in the same second that you take your focus away from your problems and start thinking about God. That’s the miracle. That’s the shift in consciousness that is required and necessary.
Sickness is but another name for sin. You are sick when you are thinking about your problems.
In classical Greek, sin means “to miss the mark” or “to miss the target” which was also used in Old English archery.
In the biblical Hebrew, the generic word for sin is het. It means to error, to miss the mark. It does not mean to do evil.
So if your goal is God, then a perfect bulls-eye would be constant love, joy, peace and happiness. And if you are feeling any emotion other than perfect joy, all it means is that you missed the mark. Your aim was too high or too low, and chances are you were being lazy and sloppy. As with archery, practice makes perfect. Anyone can do it. It’s not like open-heart surgery designed only for the select few. Anyone can take a handful of darts (a handful of real-life problems and situations) and perfect their focus and aim.
You keep practicing and practicing, until finally one day, you hit a bulls-eye every single time. You never miss. In every situation, it’s God, God, God. It’s Love, Love, Love. It’s Give, Give, Give. You remember your wholeness and perfection and Identity in God in every situation. It’s easy to do if you are practicing every day, and putting in the effort. You don’t just hit it once, you hit it EVERY SINGLE TIME.
Father, the miracle reflects Your Love.
Your Name – God – replaces every thought of sin, and who is sinless cannot suffer pain.
I read constantly, practically every genre, from chick-lit to classics, from cookbooks to philosophy, from Carlos Castaneda to Schopenhauer, from Laurie Colwin to Harry Potter and I know I’m constantly saying “I love this book!” but I do have a very favorite author who has a special place in my heart and that is Leo Tolstoy.
He wins the big prize.
The translator of Tolstoy’s work “The Kingdom of Heaven in Within You” says it best: “Tolstoy’s genius is beyond dispute.”
Here are two of my favorite works:
What I Believe by Leo Tolstoy, published 1886
The Kingdom of Heaven is Within you by Leo Tolstoy, published 1894
Here is from the Introduction of What I Believe (which at 55 years of age, he would have written in 1883):
I am fifty-five years old and, with the exception of the fourteen or fifteen years of my childhood, I have been until recently a “Nihilist” in the proper signification of that term. I have not been a Socialist or Revolutionist, but a Nihilist in the sense of being completely without faith.
Five years ago I began to believe in the doctrine of Christ, and in consequence a great change has been wrought in me. I now no longer care for the things that I had prized, and I have begun to desire things concerning which I had formerly been indifferent. Like a man who, going out on business, on his way suddenly becomes convinced of the futility of that business and turns back; and all that stood to the right now stands to the left, and all that was to the left is now to the right; his wish to be as far from home as possible is changed to the desire of being as near home as possible – so, I may say, the whole aim and purpose of my life has been changed; my desires are no more what they have been. For me, good and evil have changed places. This experience came through my apprehending the doctrine of Christ in an altogether different way, and seeing it in quite a new light.
It is not my intention to interpret the doctrine of Christ, but simply to relate how I came to understand the simplest, clearest, and most intelligible point in that doctrine; and how, when once I had clearly grasped His meaning, it gave a new direction to all my thoughts.
A free 90-page pdf file of “What I Believe” and “The Kingdom of God is Within You” is available online.
There is no end to all the peace and joy,
And all the miracles that I will give,
When I accept God’s Word. Why not today?
Why not today?
Years ago I was asked to give everything away in exchange to receive everything.
Matthew 19:21:
“Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.”
This is a scary thing to do. It confronted me with all my worst fears and showed me that I believed in the world (even though I used to go around saying “there is no world!”) and that I thought my safety depended on me providing for my needs. Up to that point I thought “yes, I am doing everything that is asked of me, look at me, I’m giving all to all” (while still wondering why miracles were not occurring)
Be honest. Are you giving all, or are you saving up stores for your safety?
The reason Jesus asks his disciples to give everything away and follow him (and not turn back to pick up a sweater or kiss their wife – Mark 13:16) is not because he was trying to be mean or make them poor but rather …. because he was trying to show them the complete unreality of the world.
Jesus is not asking you to give all to all because he believes in sacrifice. He’s asking you to give all to all so that you can see where your safety lies, so that you can witness the Laws of God operating.
This world is not real. You cannot know this until you have given everything away and seen (with your own eyes as a direct experience) that different laws are operating in an invisible realm that have been available to you all this time. But you cannot know about these Laws until you loosen your tight grasp on the world you made.
Yes, it’s terrifying.
But look at this lesson! It’s extraordinary! It’s magnificent! You have a TREASURE that waits for you, and all you need do is but reach out your hand to find it. Even now your fingers touch it! It is very close.
But in order to reach out your hand and touch it, you gotta stop clenching your hand in a fist. You can’t touch something with a hand that is tightly closed. You must loosen it up, stop clinging.
Either you believe what this lesson is promising or you don’t and are still holding back, just a little, waiting for proof.
But the treasure is waiting for you! Right now! This minute! All you have to do is reach out your hand and accept your inheritance.
There is no end to all the peace and joy, and all the miracles that I will give.
What’s the key to this lesson? THAT I GIVE, WHEN I ACCEPT GOD’S WORD.
When I have accepted God’s Word, giving becomes natural and easy because I believe what He is saying to me. And as I give, the miracle occurs.
Most people – and I’m speaking here from my own very personal experience – spend all their time waiting for a miracle to be given to them and then they say will practice giving! But first! They are waiting TO RECEIVE. They are praying, hoping, wishing, and saying they are trying the best they can, and they are waiting for a miracle to improve their life.
People say: ‘I will give when I receive. I will give when I have more. What I have now I need for myself.”
I’m here to tell you … you will be waiting a very very very very very very very very very long time.
You give first, and then you receive. That’s how that works. I’m telling you directly. There should be no ambiguity after reading this lesson about how the miracle works. You give, and then you receive.
The miracles happens instantly and naturally when you give, because the miracle is contained in your giving.
I love it. Lessons like these activate me.
I give all the time because I’m selfish and I want everything!!
The joy that comes from the action of giving is extraordinary! This is the end of waiting! Ha! I’m telling you, you will be laughing your head off.
All those years of waiting for a miracle to occur (what’s in it for me?) and now you see why it wasn’t working. Because you were waiting instead of giving.
When you give, the flood doors open.
We stand together, Christ and I, in peace
And certainty of purpose. And in Him
is His Creator, as He is in me.
I feel this lesson more profoundly than probably any other lesson lately. I stand together with Christ in peace and certainty of purpose. Nothing upsets me. It’s an amazing thing. I’m happy all the time. Things still seem to come at me or chaos seems to swirl around me (close by, but never touching me – like a tornado that you can see off in the distance which you know is going the opposite direction so you need not worry) … and I am unaffected by everyone and everything because my total focus is on the Kingdom of Heaven. I stand with Christ, in peace and certainty of purpose.
I really love Deepak Chopra’s book The Third Jesus.
The very first sentences suck you right in:
“Jesus Christ left behind a riddle that two thousand years of worship haven’t solved. The riddle can be stated in one sentence: Why are Jesus’s teachings impossible to live by?”
I’m laughing like crazy. This is the whole riddle! Why are Jesus’s teachings impossible to live by?
What is so difficult about loving your neighbor and your enemy as yourself, about giving all to all, about practicing non-judgment, and having love be your ONLY emotion. What is so difficult?
I admit, these teachings are RADICAL.
Who does this? Who lives by Jesus’s teachings in all circumstances, no exceptions?
More from Deepak Chopra:
“Jesus didn’t want to keep the mystery of God-consciousness to himself. He constantly held out his vision to others, and he had a sense of urgency that was unmistakable. Life was going to be completely overturned, not in the distant future but very soon.”
From 2 Corinthians 5:17:
“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things become new.”
From Deepak:
“No more radical blueprint has ever been offered, and the first miracle in Jesus’s story is that anyone believed him … It is easy to see why the new world Christ envisioned was so quickly abandoned after he died. It had to be modified by the realists. No one could carry out the divine plan as articulated by Jesus, because everyone else was too deeply enmeshed in the old world.”
Amazing. Here we are 2000 years after the crucifixion and resurrection of a man whose sole function was to bring the awareness and truth of God to as many as would accept it … and the question now is: WILL YOU CARRY OUT THE DIVING PLAN AS ARTICULATED BY JESUS?
This means, obviously, you will have to leave the old world behind. I love that Deepak uses the word “deeply enmeshed in the old world.” That’s a great way to put it. You will have to be uprooted. It’s probably going to seem a bit disruptive as your roots are yanked out.
But you must be taken out of the world you live in to have any idea what Jesus is talking about. You can only understand his message when you are standing with him in the new world.
This is today’s lesson:
We stand together, Christ and I, in peace
And certainty of purpose. And in Him
is His Creator, as He is in me.
I have no self except the Christ in me. I have no purpose but His Own.
Amazing. You are what Christ is but you can only know this if you are standing with him, an if you share His function. There you will find the peace and certainty that is promised to you. You cannot find it alone, and you cannot find it while you are fulfilling other functions or other goals. You cannot find it while you are upset about things in time and space. If you want what is being offered – love, joy, peace undisturbed, and miracles every moment of the day – you must leave your familiar surroundings (your habits, your routines, your usual ways of thinking and reacting) and follow a very radical path.
It’s not for the faint of heart.
But it IS the adventure of a lifetime, if you choose to take the journey.
Merry Christmas.
Here is another book I really love.
If you click the cover, you can read the whole thing free online although I really suggest you buy a hardcover copy for yourself because this book is a classic and a keeper, the kind of book you’ll want to read again and again because it’s so inspiring.
Controlled Folly: Doing what you do impeccably, as if it really means something, although you know it means absolutely nothing.
My eyes, my tongue, my hands, my feet today
Have but one purpose; to be given Christ
To use to bless the world with miracles.
Father, I give all that is mine today to Christ, to use in any way that best will serve the purpose that I share with Him. Nothing is mine alone, for He and I have joined in purpose. Thus has learning come almost to its appointed end.
Thus has learning ALMOST come to its appointed end.
A while I work with Him to serve His purpose. Then I lose myself in my Identity, and recognize that Christ is but my Self.
See that? We’re almost there. The end is just around the bend. We’re in the final stretch. Just a little while longer we work with Him to serve His purpose.
It’s like being in a marathon … in the final stretch you catch a second wind, a new energy takes over you and it makes you fly. You pick up speed. You’re suddenly not tired anymore. You have a new vitality and the miles that have gone by are no longer even in your awareness.
It’s a great thing if you can let the end of every day be the finish line. Give today everything knowing that today is all there is. Give today everything – 100% – give your brothers everything … do the best you can, don’t give up, and be done with it.
Now look how simple it becomes to do today’s lesson: To use your whole body – your eyes, your tongue, your hands, your feet. They are given one purpose now: to be given Christ to use to bless the world with miracles.
It’s easy if you only have to do this for one day. Today.
Judgment and love are opposites. From one come all sorrows of the world.
But from the other comes the peace of God Himself.
Oh, the joy! Oh, the simplicity! This is fun! Who knew?
Which world are you living in? Are you in Heaven or hell? Are you living in judgment or love?
I’m laughing like crazy. Yesterday was the best day ever. I am rethinking the whole “coaching” one-on-one process because it is sooooooooo NOT my thing, except that it is totally my thing. I’m laughing. Let me explain. It’s NOT my thing in the usual sense of “coaching” in the normal way of me listening to your problems and then giving you solutions, and then more talking, and then questions, and then more solutions, and then more stories about the past and future, then more talking, and then rescheduling another appointment in a week … dragged on for an hour each week for several weeks or years. YUCK.
Yucko.
I’m laughing.
But it IS my thing in the sense that I’m intuitive and a bit psychic and if you tell me about a difficulty or problem, God starts working through me.
The Master Teacher used to say all the time: “I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me. I can’t know where you are. Talk to me!”
I got several responses on the coaching form: simple sincere requests about “problems” which were solved in under a minute by email in a couple of sentences. We are all laughing like crazy.
All problems can be solved in under a minute!
How do you charge for something like that?? What is the value of seeing your pain disappear? What is the worth? How do I know??
It’s marvelous. I’ve stumbled upon something magnificent.
The other thing I know is that all problems can be solved in under one minute (because all problems have already been solved) UNLESS …. unless! …. here’s the thing …. unless you like the chaos and unconsciously enjoy your addiction to limitation, pain, poverty, sickness and death AND IF THAT IS THE CASE no amount of coaching will ever help you. None. Not a hundred hours of one-on-one will ever help you. Yours is a hopeless case.
So, why should I waste my time?
This is why I’m laughing. It all depends on the person with the “problem.” I can’t help anyone who isn’t willing to give up their problems and change their mind. I could give the most brilliant, simple, practical tools that are guaranteed to work (in someone who is being sincere) but it will never work, not in a million years, for someone who is determined to retain the problem.
Ha!
And what I’ve realized – this is so funny – is that if your problem isn’t solved in 5 minutes, it means you like the problem. You want it! You love it!
You should be happy you are getting what you ask for.
I can tell straight away from a single email if you are serious & sincere OR if you are a jester, a wolf in sheep’s clothes.
All this surprises me. You think by “training your mind in a systematic way” that you will feel more love and joy and happiness and peace in your life, and while this is true, the bigger benefit is that you begin to develop new abilities, new senses, greater sensitivity, and gifts that defy logic.
I’m not here to make you feel nice and warm or fuzzy. I come for the salvation of the world. I’m here to disrupt you, to dislodge you from your fixed position and to help you wake up.
Which, by the way, I cannot do for you.
HA! The irony! The contradiction! I cannot tell you what to do. I cannot do the work for you and I cannot “help” you in any way. You must do the work.
But if you really want what is being offered to you – if you really want to wake up – if you are willing to disrupted from your sleepy routine – it is given to you.
See what I mean? This is fun!
I got a whole lot of letters yesterday from a whole lot of people telling me they don’t have any problems. This is the start of something brand new. A love revolution! We have entered the new world and THIS is what it looks like.
Problems become fun challenges and gifts.
God has given us a way to find His peace again.
“I am redeemed when I elect to follow in this way.”
I AM REDEEMED WHEN I ELECT TO FOLLOW IN THIS WAY.
Could this way be easier????
I am redeemed when I elect to follow in this way. When I elect to follow Jesus. When I elect to follow the path home to God. When I elect love as my first guiding emotion. When I choose forgiveness in every situation.
God, I have within me both the memory of You, and One who leads me to it.
Father, I would hear Your Voice and find your peace today. For I would love my own Identity, and find It in the memory of You.
My sinless brother is my guide to peace.
My sinful brother is my guide to pain.
And which I choose to see I will behold.
I love this lesson. Somewhere in the Course it says something about your brother is designed to imprison/trap you to the dream/time and space AND to save you from the dream you made. Both functions. He is both your enemy and your savior depending on how you are using him for your own purposes. Are you letting him trap you in time in space with all his demands and questions and excuses OR are you seeing him as the Christ, realizing he is your ticket out of here??
In searching for this section on A Course in Miracles Online, I stumbled upon something else spectacular. I typed in the search words “your brother” and found these sections:
These sections all stand in shining brilliance as reminders of your function along with your relationship with your holy brother.
As you see yourself, you will see your brother.
If you see yourself as beautiful, your brother will look beautiful to you.
If you see yourself as guilty, ugly or limited … you will see your brother as treacherous.
If you think you are a body, you will think your brother is a body too … and it will not occur to you that among us are angels and messengers.
If you think you are human, you’ll think everyone else is human too. And you’ll feel threatened and afraid of everyone and everything.
But when you know there is nothing outside of you, you’ll be happy all day long. You’ll be crazy head-over-heels in love with everyone, and in this kind of bright light … all your problems disappear. Automatically and spontaneously.
As see yourself as a Mind, you will realize everything else is Mind also – alive and creative and magnificent.
As you see yourself as the Christ, you will recognize your brother as the Christ and it would NOT occur to you to condemn him, confound him or question him. You would simply love him. You would give him everything – all your attention, all your love, all your care – in the recognition that he is you.
Without attack there could be no forgiveness.
What you choose to see you will behold.
I want to give you something really beautiful, rare, and fascinating for Christmas this year, but I don’t have the money to purchase 800 books so I want to ask you to do me a huge favor and go to Amazon and buy this book for yourself as your gift to yourself from me:
In Search of the Miraculous by P.D. Ouspensy: The Teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff
Merry Christmas!
(I know, I know, I shouldn’t have! … but you’re welcome!)
Love, lisa
Miracles mirror God’s eternal Love.
To offer them is to remember Him,
And through His memory to save the world.
Wow. These lessons are amazing.
For me every morning (and all through the day) it’s like receiving a beautifully wrapped gift filled with treasures with these lessons.
I am in AWE by what has been given to me.
“The Son of God incorporates all things within himself as you – God – created him.”
God’s memory depends on his forgiveness. What he is, is unaffected by his thoughts. But what he looks upon is their direct result.”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ha.
“Therefore, my Father, I would turn to You. Only Your memory will set me free. And only my forgiveness teaches me to let Your memory return to me, and give it to the world in thankfulness.”
I am in AWE to have been given the Master Teacher in my dream. My God. The gratitude! While I was with him I took him for granted and I didn’t always take advantage of the help that was being offered to me. I could never really see what he was or what he was offering … except for occasional tiny glimpses.
But now I see how very changed I am, and how blessed I am to have had a teacher who was offering me the truth every single day, day in, day out, telling me non-stop it is a dream of my own making and does not exist. Someone who was completely dedicated to me until I woke up.
Every day. Seven years.
I knew something brilliant was being offered to me, but hell if I knew what it was! I was equal parts scared, excited, confused, and happy. I had no idea what was happening.
Although … I knew enough to keep showing up every day. I knew enough to not wander off. I knew enough to do the work. I knew enough to listen.
I wanted to travel beyond the veil. I wanted to have an experience of ONLY LOVE. I wanted to see how deep the rabbit hole really went.
I wanted to know – AS A REAL EXPERIENCE, not just as a concept – that this world is an illusion.
I knew that A Course in Miracles was not just another self-help path, and I also knew that the Master Teacher was unlike any other human being I had ever met … and in this sense I knew he wasn’t human.
I knew he had a human form – he looked human and often he acted human – but what he was teaching was something else entirely. And so I knew I had been given a tremendous gift – to be given a teacher who expressed ideas that were the opposite of what the world teaches.
He’s laughing like crazy. I’m laughing like crazy.
“All worldly states must be illusory. If God were reached directly in sustained awareness, the body would not long be maintained. Those who have laid the body down merely to extend their helpfulness to those remaining behind are few indeed. And they need helpers who are still in bondage and still asleep, so that by their awakening can God’s Voice be heard.”
It’s accomplished. I have asked if there are problems or if anyone needs help and my email box is silent. This is good news. It worked. The world is silent in the grace He has given.
Thank you. I love you.
from A Course in Miracles:
Our use for words is almost over now. Yet in the final days of this one year we gave to God together, you and I, we found a single purpose that we shared. And thus you joined with me. So what I am are you as well. The truth of what we are is not for words to speak of or describe. Yet we can realize our function here, and words can speak of this and teach it, too, if we exemplify the words in us.
We are the bringers of salvation. We accept our part as Saviors of the world, which through our joint forgiveness is redeemed. And this, our gift, is therefore given us. We look on everyone as brothers, and perceive all things as kindly and as good. We do not seek a function that is past the gates of Heaven. Knowledge will return when we have done our part. We are concerned only with giving welcome to the truth.
Ours are the eyes through which Christ’s vision sees a world redeemed from every thought of sin. Ours are the ears that hear the Voice of God proclaim the world as sinless. Ours the minds which join together as we bless the world. And from the oneness that we have attained we call to all our brothers, asking them to share our peace and consummate our joy.
We are the holy messengers of God who speak for Him, and carrying His Word to everyone whom He has sent to us, we learn that It is written on our hearts. And thus our minds are changed about the aim for which we came and which we seek to serve. We bring glad tidings to the Son of God, who thought he suffered. Now is he redeemed. And as he sees the gate of Heaven stand open before him, he will enter in and disappear into the Heart of God.
