Teachings of Christ Mind

Good evening. And welcome to everyone who’s joining us on the Internet.

How was your week? How well did you stay in touch with the practice of the holy instant?

And you know, more important than anything right now, the question is, how many of you, when you have had a conscious intent to do the two-step, to practice the holy instant for the purpose of experiencing the holy relationship, have found that some of your worst behaviors have come out … some of your bitchiest attitudes have fought for a place on the floor to speak from and take charge and be?

How many of you have had the surprising experience of not having a simple ongoing influx of inspiration?

You’re the ones I’m talking to tonight. Because you’re the ones who need encouragement—support. You’re the ones who need to know that fate has not stepped up and dished you out a plate of unpleasant life. You need to know that you aren’t doing anything wrong. You need to know that this isn’t surprising.

A long time ago I talked about the fact that when you approach the gates to the Kingdom of Heaven, what does the ego do? What does your ego do?

Why, it projects gargoyles all around the Gate to scare you off.

Now mind you, they’re not real. They’re just projections, like in the theatre. But they’re there to accomplish a purpose. They’re there to distract you from simply walking on through the Gates … something you can do without actual interference from the gargoyles. They just behave threateningly. You see? Like in a fun-ride at an amusement park.

The only problem is that in this instance, you’re not so sure they’re not real. And so you actually do hesitate and you actually do act out what they’re there to frighten you into doing. And at the bottom line, what they’re there to frighten you into doing is to behave in a way opposite to the holy relationship, opposite to the influx of inspiration that has come in the holy instant. You see?

The gargoyles are indirect. They make you think that someone else is behaving in a way that is disrespectful, unkind, malicious, whatever will work to get you to leave the holy instant and attack them … stand up for yourself … demand respect! It suggests that they call for correction and that you’re the obvious one to provide the correction. And you feel it and you don’t mind speaking up.

And so the holy instant seems to be undone. The holy relationship that you had a glimpse of seems to have disappeared. And you know what? Again, the evil part of this is that you are fooled into looking for a place to make the correction, which is not where the correction can be made. You are fooled into attacking someone “out there” rather than noticing that something very fundamental and intimate has happened.

You have chosen to abandon your peace. You have chosen to abandon the holy instant. You have found something more important than the holy instant and therefore, your sanity and your Awakening. You’ve found something more important than that. That is where the correction can be made.

And so you must be very alert.

You know, the ego-conditioning—the orphan mindset—has only one thing to do. And that is to successfully distract you from your Father—from That which illuminates in you your divinity—the truth about you, your holiness, your, as I’ve said before, royalty. That’s its task. That’s what it’s used for.

Again, at the risk of being monotonous, it does that not as a denial of God in your mind, but as a justification for making something important out of yourself. You see? It’s important to remember this. Because it means that any energy you feel, any motivation you feel for making something out of yourself and becoming something valuable and valid, is exactly what will keep you insane. It is exactly what will keep you disconnected from That which illuminates to you within you your ever-present divinity, which is the one essential thing that needs to be present in your mind in order for your mind to become clear—in order for your mind to know the truth.

So don’t be surprised if during this past week, you found yourself easily distracted and easily motivated into being mean-spirited … even perhaps, malicious, caustic, arrogant, thoughtless. I mean, behavior that after it happens, you say, “What got into me? This isn’t me. This isn’t the way I behave. This isn’t normal.”

Well, that’s true … it’s not. And you’re going to have to use a little bit of reverse psychology and recognize and be able to acknowledge, “Wow, I must be getting near something important if the ego is going to go to this much trouble to distract me from it. If it is going to engage me in self-defense that can be mean-spirited and unkind, I must be doing something important. I must be doing something right.”

And of course you are. You are insisting upon practicing the two-step, engaging in the holy instant so that you can hear from the Father what the truth is in this situation or that situation, or this relationship or that relationship. You’re doing something right. You’re doing the one essential thing for Waking up! So don’t be surprised.

But now, you’ve got to be careful here too because the ego will come in and say—when you’ve engaged in this little bit of reverse psychology—“Oh-h yes, now we’re going to handle this one well because you’re doing something really important. Why you may be the first one to Wake up since Jesus. And in your Waking up, you will bless the whole world.”

Oh-h-h … Oh-h … and it gets your pride juices flowing. And now it begins to feel like it might be a really wonderful thing to do to engage in the holy instant and the holy relationship. Don’t take the bait! Because if you’ll stop long enough to notice what’s happening, you’ll realize that while this “conversation” is going on between you and the ego and you’re learning about how to handle this with dignity … why—are you talking to the Holy Spirit? Are you engaged in the holy instant, where in the quietness you’re able to hear the Father’s Voice? Are you being infilled by the Father or by the Holy Spirit?

No you’re not. And so you have to be alert.

How are you going to remember to come back to the holy instant when you’ve abandoned it? And especially, how are you going to come back when you’ve abandoned it and become emotionally involved in the abandonment, where you are getting satisfaction out of exercising your will, protecting your ass from your partner, who from time to time, the ego will have you seeing as someone who is against you, even though your partner is voting for the holy instant and the holy relationship … how are you going to come back?

I would suggest that if it’s difficult, if it is being difficult for you, set yourself a regimen of exposing yourself to the truth that we’re talking about on a regular basis. You can read the transcript. You can download the audio. Put it on your iPod and listen to it … once a day, twice a day. Oh, I know … it lasts about an hour … that’s along time. Yeah, right, well, obviously you’re not important enough for that … an hour here or an hour there, you’re not important enough for that. You have important things to do, don’t you—things that will cause your world to collapse around you if you don’t attend to them. And yet if you don’t attend to your Waking up, you’re living in a Kingdom of Heaven that has already collapsed around you, at least to your perception.

For someone who’s insane, it is always difficult to regain one’s sanity. Not because it’s impossible or hard, but because it takes focused attention, which, when you’re insane, it’s hard to justify.

You might even say, “Well, it’s hard for my mind to wrap itself around these things because I’m insane …” Bullshit! That’s a good line but don’t believe it and don’t use it.

So provide yourself with what we’ll call, a trigger—a reminder. And you don’t have to listen for a whole hour, but if you’ll listen for five minutes, you will find yourself significantly reminded of where your attention needs to be and why. And then you can begin again … until you lose it.

Right now it doesn’t seem really important to give this much attention to your growth—your learning. But I’m telling you that it is. And I’m telling you that it is, so that you might give some faith to the process. So that you might feel that there really is justification. But you’re going to have to do the work.

Let’s go into the Book.

… holy instant …

Well, how can you let time close over the holy instant? Well, you can go into memory, can’t you. Something happens and you can respond from memory. You have moved into time. You’ve moved out of the holy instant.

Now, if you engage in the holy instant and stay in the holy instant, your references have nothing to do with time even though you are continuing, we’ll say, to be in time and events seem to be unfolding in time. But time and what’s going on in it, these things are not your reference points because you are choosing to stay connected to the Father or the Holy Spirit in the holy instant without interruption. So that is how you keep the holy instant shining and gracious in your awareness of time but not concealed within it.

Are you in it? Or are you in time? Are you in the “not-knowing place” being infilled with inspiration or are you in the knowing place where you know what things are because you’ve defined them and where you’re bound by the definitions? Where are you? Have you abandoned listening and begun thinking? Where are you?

To give thanks to each other … that means to be in an attitude of appreciation. And when you’re in an attitude of appreciation of love, there’s no inconsistent behavior that can arise. There’s no mean-spiritedness present to be shared, to be acted out. Because of this, the meaning that is being revealed about your holiness and the holiness of your partner has an opportunity to be acted out—to be expressed by you and by your partner.

Of course, your partner is really irrelevant because where you’re coming from and where your attention is, is what will govern the movement of healing in the relationship and provide the environment in which your partner can join also in gratitude and appreciation without being distracted by your “excellent attack” because you’re really good at it. You really know how to burst another’s bubble. You know where that other one’s weak spots are and you know how to get to it almost surgically, perfectly, so that they don’t even recognize that you have got them and distracted them and given you relief from having to stay in and practice the holy instant, practice and be in a holy relationship. You see?

… which you’re now beginning to find you do quite easily and quite spontaneously and with little self-governance going on …

I’m going to put it this way: Close your eyes … now even with your eyes closed you know that you’re conscious—you’re aware. Awareness is the holy instant. Or awareness is where the holy instant is experienced. Awareness is the arena of the holy instant. You see? So the holy instant has always been present. Always been available but no one has been giving any attention to it. Because everybody has been too busy working out their own salvation on their own terms.

So …

… because it’s ever-present. It is the very context or arena of your awareness, of your conscious awareness, but …

The effects of the holy instant are you behaving consistent with the awareness of the holiness of what you’re experiencing or who you’re experiencing and thereby an awareness of your holiness that you have been unaware of before, and behavior on your part arising out of that clarity.

Those are the effects of the holy instant. But you render the holy instant powerless, you render those effects non-existent when you abandon the holy instant and choose instead to think and to behave on the basis of your thinking, your judgments, your concepts. You see?

It really becomes very clearly black or white, this or that, nothing fuzzy. You know, the promise of the holy instant and of the holy relationship is: You and your partner regaining your sanity. That is significant. And that is worth every ounce of energy you bring to your desire to Wake up. It is worth every ounce of energy it takes to cause you to not just go through your day out of habit, but to stay so very alert and attentive that if anything is going on more than what you expect, if there is more of what God is being there than what you’re seeing … you want to see it! And you’re not going to settle back until you have the experience.

What’s that condition? It’s that you’ve withdrawn your attention and given it some place else, with no connection with your Source involved in it … that simple.

… what?

It’s like if you want to see a movie, you can’t stand outside of the theater. You’ve got to stop providing the circumstances that disallow you from having what you want.

You get that?

Well, what is this self you’re denying? Well, it’s the only one you are. At the moment you’re calling it a human being, a mortal, subject to sin, disease and death. But this self-same one that you are—that you’re defining that way—is the holy Son of God or the holy Daughter of God. Okay? You are.

You as a mortal, as a puny little orphan … you have from that place, practiced the two-step, the holy instant, and you have experienced the influx of the inspiration of truth … okay? . . that has been given and it’s been received by you. It has! But now are you going to keep that in mind or are you going to abandon it for the pleasure of self-will expressed and manipulation to put yourself in a position of advantage? It’s one or the other, and it’s that simple.

… when you’ve engaged in this practice and you have this intent.

You and the one you’re having a holy relationship or that you wish to have an unobstructed holy relationship with.

… the two of you …

All the ingredients are present.

You see? This isn’t just wishful thinking. This isn’t just some grand idea that somebody dreamed up and sat down and wrote A Course In Miracles. There’s a reality beyond the definitions you’ve provided for it and it operates according to laws that are beyond any rules you have come up with. And although the idea of there being laws that you’re bound by seems to be oppression to you because independence is so important, the fact is that it’s your salvation.

The laws that govern you express, embody, manifest the absence of sin, disease and death, fear, jealousy, injury, loss. These laws say you are the holy Son or Daughter of God and nothing less. And everything that the Sons or Daughters of God deserve, they have and they can’t be in a state of loss. You see?

These laws are not oppressive. Oh yes, there’s one thing besides sin, disease and death that you can’t have, that is self-will expressed at odds with the Father, expressed at odds with the way things work. You can’t have independence. You can’t have authority all by yourself. These are all one thing said in different ways. So yes, in that way it’s oppressive to the one who feels he has an inalienable right to do whatever he wants, whatever way he wants to do it. And if he wants to stumble and fall, he can do it and if he wants to do it without stumbling and falling he can do it that way, and it’s nobody’s business which way.

Well, the Father gives you the right to stumble and fall as much as you want. The Father gives you the right to behave stupidly if you want. The Father will let you pretend that you don’t have a Father for as long as you want. But you will not be able to have them in any other form than fantasy. And you can have them until you decide you don’t want to exist and operate in a realm of fantasy anymore.

And that’s where we’re coming from. And that’s what we’re talking about. And that’s what we are illuminating … fleshing out … explaining more fully.

What is the goal? The goal is the reunion of you with your right Mind, to be accomplished by your right Mind—the majority of your right Mind that you have abandoned and disowned but can’t get rid of. And so it’s still working. The way things are continue to be the way things are. And everything about the way things are is geared to actualizing your sanity in you. It’s that simple.

Now that goal is set in place by God. It’s set in place by “the way things are,” whether you choose to believe them or not.

So you are experiencing illumination if only through my words. And the illumination is of that which will move you back into your right Mind because God is All and you are finally at a point to being willing to undo the divorce—stop behaving as though you’re Fatherless, Sourceless. This is good.

You see, you experience a discrepancy because you’re looking from two different vantage points simultaneously. The sanity in you, the divinity in you recognizes the existence of a holy instant and a holy relationship. You are not denying the truth of its existence totally. And as a result, the idea is registering with you with Meaning. In other words, it’s reaching you deeply. Part of you recognizes that, and it also recognizes that the means for Awakening completely involve yielding to God. But in more practical terms than that, yielding to your capital “S” Self, yielding to the Holy Spirit—which is nothing more than your right Mind.

Now that’s the means to the end: Yielding to the Holy Spirit, yielding to your right Mind. But there’s another vantage point: The orphan vantage point that you’re very familiar with and it looks at this abandonment of authority and control as insane … it sees that as insane.

And so you have a conflict. There seem to be two means to having the experience of your sanity: One is, think on your own and listen to your ego. The other is, abandon your ego and your self-made authority and yield to the Father. The latter—yielding to the Father—that means:

Now you’ve got to understand this else you will give up before the suffering ends, before the confusion ceases. And I’m here to encourage you to persist, even though confusion hasn’t dissolved and peace and security hasn’t emerged fully.

It’s there.

You see? This is helpful. This is specifically helpful, because now you know where the difficulty is. It’s in the misperception of the means. That’s the hang-up.

Again, because it is so simple and it can seem to be difficult to grasp, the means for Awakening, the means for achieving, for lack of better words, the holy relationship is the two-step, the practice of the holy instant.

Two-step: Shutting up and reaching out, “Father, what is the truth here?”

Holy instant: (In the silence and the pregnancy of your question) The influx of inspiration and truth is provided to you changing your perceptions of everything, allowing you to look at what you thought was just a material world and universe and find it to be actually the Kingdom of Heaven holding much more for you than you have dreamed. And then the behavior in that world and with everything in that world, based on the revelation that has occurred to you. And now the holy instant and the truth learned in it, has found expression and you’re having now a holy relationship. Those are the simple steps to Waking up, to abandoning any thought or experience of sin, disease and death ever again.

It’s worth every ounce of energy it takes. It’s worth whatever amount of discipline it takes to manage to go through your day without, perhaps, forgetting for very long at all, to look with curiosity to see the more of God than what you’re seeing … because there is more of God there.

… although, you’re hung-up on the means, you can seem to be successfully distracted from the means …

… because there are rules. Because God has made everything as He has made them and there’s no other choice.

… by staying in the holy instant and not abandoning it and not engaging in attack …

It’s the healing of relationships. It’s all inclusive. Not just with a partner, but with all of the Brotherhood and all of Creation.

You will release the Sonship, the Brotherhood, from all of the misperceptions that you have held them to. You will give them to the Holy Spirit, so that the Holy Spirit might reflect back to you the inspiration about all of it, illuminating it as what it truly is and succeeding, we will say, in lifting you entirely out of the orphanage, out of the independence, out of the sin, disease and death.

Tomorrow, after having listened to me now, you may have forgotten what I talked about. You will have slipped back into time, you will have slipped back into thinking, you will have slipped back into your old comfortable habits until something comes along that is too uncomfortable and you say, “Oh-h, I guess I’d better do the two-step again.

It’s going to happen. You will slip, you will forget and you will find yourself reminded. But honor your coming Home enough to provide you with a little bit of structure—a little bit of obedient structure—and give yourself set times to remind yourself by going to the book, the Course, by going to a transcript of this meeting or listening to the audio tapes so that you might be reminded with feeling, not just intellectual awareness, but be reminded with feeling that you really want to do this and you really don’t want to lose your way and you really don’t want to be stuck.

I love you. I love you all.

You know what? Come hell or high water, you’re going to do something this week and you’re going to do it in some way … you know … you’re not going to be taking a vacation from doing things in…some…way, so why not let this way be the way you’re going to do it this week. It’s not going to be any harder to do. I mean both ways take energy. Expend it here.

Okay, I look forward to being with your next time.