"Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself." ~ Rumi

Leonardo DaVinci:

#spirituality #synergy #perception #mind

Do You Want to be Happy?

"The first thing I want you to understand, if you really want to wake up, is that you don't want to wake up. The first step to waking up is to be honest enough to admit to yourself that...You don't want to be happy. One little test? Let's try it. It will take you exactly 1 minute. You could close your eyes while you're doing or you could keep them open. It doesn't really matter. Think of someone you love very much, ...someone you're close to, someone who is so precious to you, and say to that person in your mind, 'I'd rather have happiness than have you.' See what happens. 'I'd rather be happy than to have you. If I had a choice, no question about it, I'd choose happiness.' How many of you felt selfish when you said this? Many it seems. See how we have been brainwashed? See how we've been brainwashed into thinking, 'How could I be so selfish?' But look at who's being selfish. Imagine somebody saying to you, 'How could you be so selfish that you choose happiness over me?' Would you not feel like responding, 'Pardon me, but how could you be so selfish that you would demand that I choose you above my own happiness?'" ~ Anthony De Mello

#spirituality #happiness #ACIM #acourseinmiracles #mentalhealth

Upgrade Rejected!

I noticed a commotion in the line next to the one I was in. "That's not what I ordered!!!" a woman asserted loudly referring to a drink. A manager behind the counter politely asked, "Ma'am, what did you order." The woman repeated what she had ordered. "Ma'am, that's what this is," assured the manager. "IT IS NOT," shouted the customer. "That's a large. I ordered a medium." "We gave you a free 'upgrade' to a large." "That's not what I ordered! I ordered a medium!!!" shouted the woman as she stormed out of line.

It's all perspective. Gift from the Universe or not paying attention to what I ordered?

I would have taken the large and walked out with a smile on my face thinking the Universes gave me a gift. I know because I've done it before. This woman rejected what I would have interpreted as a gift because what she received didn't exactly match the words that came out of her mouth (ie "large" vs. "medium").

Knowing we're all the same caused me to reflect on gifts the Universe gave me that I might have rejected because it wasn't EXACTLY what I ordered. How many upgrades have I refused?

#acim #acourseinmiracles #spirituality #perception #mind

A Perspective on Karma

Karma, traditionally understood, is the ego's counterfeit for Truth. Traditionally, karma is understood as (primarily) "paying" for "misdeeds" in past lives. This is the ego at it's best, cloaking it's "somebody's gotta pay" song in a "spiritual" and spiritually dense framework. It keeps people bogged down with the past. The Course affirms there is no past.

Authentic "Karma" (for lack of a better word) is here and now and comes from our treatment of others, which is a treatment of ourselves because everything is everything (else). We cannot attack another --- not even with something as seemingly 'innocent' as a negative opinion (whatever is not love is attack) without doing untold harm to ourselves, both psychically and physically (the body is the mind).

Whatever we do to someone else we are doing to ourselves. Since there is no body/mind split a "psychic attack" (anything intended to hurt, attack, mistreat, etc) another manifests in some way in our own body. Whatever we do to another we are doing to ourselves, literally. There is no separation.

#acim #acourseinmiracles #spirituality #karma #life #living

The Course and "God Talk"

On one hand, some folk get hung up and turned off by what they identify as Christian terminology in ACIM. On the other hand, others, get hung up and turned off because they're familiar with the words, but don't understand how the Course uses them. The Course uses words like God, Holy Spirit, atonement, forgiveness, altar. etc. But it uses these words in decidedly non-traditional ways.

As you play with the Course, if you can remember one of the insights from the Course itself, that words are symbols of symbols twice removed from reality, it can help you understand the deeper use of these words, what the words point to, the content not the form.

We have only words, spoken and written (excluding body language for this discussion), with which to communicate. When we really get that words, regardless of the words we use, are merely symbols and then try to move beyond the symbols (the form) into what the symbols are pointing to (the content) it will open our world in ways we cannot imagine beforehand.

Don't let the language of ACIM scare you off. The Course uses religious terminology in a non-traditional way. If you can stay with it, look past the form (the word) to the content (what the word is pointing to) your world will open up in unimagined ways.

#acim #acourseinmiracles

If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him.

You may be familiar with the Zen illustration of the finger pointing out the moon. According to the story, we can become so enamored with the finger that we miss the moon it’s pointing to. So it is with much in life. We focus on the form and miss the content.

Among the opening words of ACIM we read: “The Course makes no claim to finality, nor are the Workbook lessons intended to bring the student’s learning to completion. At the end, the reader is left in the hands of his or her own Internal Teacher, Who will direct all subsequent learning as He sees fit. While the Course is comprehensive in scope, truth cannot be limited to any finite form…"

Among the closing words of the Course we read: “This Course is a beginning not an end…”

The Course isn’t intended to be a destination. By its own admission, it’s a way-station. Like the “good” guru that doesn’t want followers, but wants people to become their own guru, the purpose of the Course is to lead us beyond the Course itself.

Tradition tells us that Sidhartha said, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” The Buddha on the road can appear in most any form --- a person, a place, an event, a book (Bible, Koran, even A Course in Miracles) --- all can be used as an authority external to oneself. To do this with ACIM is to miss the point of the Course in the first place.

The spiritual power we see in those who saw what most of us don’t, people like Sidhartha and Jesus, is that they lived as their own authority. Sidhartha pointed his disciples back to themselves as their own authorities (subsequent generations to him did not). Jesus pointed his disciples back to themselves (“the Kingdom of heaven is within you.”) (subsequent generations to him did not).

ACIM states it is a course in mind training. We might even see it much more like a course in mind-untraining. The Course systematically takes us through steps designed to remove the barriers of our previous social, political, and spiritual/religious training --- previous training that actually blocks our awareness and use of what the Course calls the Inner Teacher. This is the Course’s objective: to turn us back to ourselves as our own authority.

Nothing could be more consistent with the Course than for us to get to the place where we, literally, throw it in the trash. The Course is not a destination. It’s a way-station.

#acim #acourseinmiracles #spiritual #therapists