TRIALS 4

P. 278-282

Just for a moment I want to go back to the last paragraph we studied:

“On a consciousness level of frequency, you have been transformed by the energies that are operating here at a higher level if you have given permission and engaged with the processes that we have suggested. Because they are actually designed to bring you to a higher frequency and to acclimate your field to the Christ vibration, which is, as we have said, what you truly are. Period.”

The ego would love to jump in here and suggest you are probably not doing this right. If you notice that kind of reaction or response, gently stop. It is not time to get into an argument with the ego, simply know, if you are reading this, you have already dedicated yourself to this work with willingness and invention. The energy and the transformations are taking place within you, whether you are conscious of them or not. 

The awareness that is arising in each one of us is allowing us more and more freedom of choice in how we respond to life situations. To me that is the true measure of growth, the expansion and awareness of our ability to choose.

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“Now we would like to give you some exercises to distill this information and chapter in a way that you can work with practically when you encounter situations that perhaps you perceive to be trials. The first thing you need to do is recognize that the situation has the potential to transform your life in a positive way. Once you do this, you release some of the fear that you have attached or would normally attach to the circumstance that you are faced with. The second thing you need to do is make the decision to remain in your power through this cycle or situation of transformation.”

Whenever the guides suggest they are going to give us some exercises, the statement is usually followed by some of these indented prayers/affirmations.

This is very different from the exercises we are used to. Here we do not really do anything except be open to the energy flow that comes from the words and their meaning. Again—openness, willingness, intention—the rest will follow. That is what Jesus meant when he would say so often, “Your faith has made you whole.” There does not appear to be any activity, and there might not be any in the outside world, but the soul is very active in its openness and receptiveness. 

“I am Word through my intention to acclimate my frequency to the highest level of consciousness available to me, to show me the way through my present circumstance. I affirm that I am being led by my soul’s destiny, by my own higher knowing, and by those guides and teachers who would help me as I grow and transform in wonderful ways. I am Word through this intention. Word I am Word.”

When you do this, you are bringing frequency to the multiple areas that are inhabiting this problem or situation. You can also bring the energy directly to the situation as follows.

“I set the intention as follows. I am Word through the situation that presents itself to me as an opportunity for change. I affirm that only good will come from this situation and that I am being led through it in a high way towards my perfect destiny. I align the situation to the higher frequencies through this constant affirmation: I am Word through this situation. Word I am Word.”

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I was speaking to a newer member of the class who was asking about the language, “Word I am Word” and what that means. The first thing I mentioned was the prologue to John’s Gospel—“In the beginning was the Word, and that the language or “wording” allow us to identify with this power of creative consciousness within us.

I sat with the question a little longer and became aware that when we say, “Word, I am Word…” this is spiritual shorthand for saying/praying: “I am claiming my power with the Oneness of the creative power and consciousness of Christ within me and I am directing that power to this person/place situation.” 

So if I am saying, “Word I am Word through the one I see before me.” That is shorthand for saying, "I am choosing to claim my power as a loving being/child of God to see this one before me in his/her perfection also as a child of God."

OR  if we are focusing on  a situation. “Word I am Word with the situation before me” I am also saying: "I am claiming my power as a co-creator with God to learn whatever it is I need to learn from this situation. Through the power of love within me, I am willing to transform any fear, anger, or other negativity I might be holding. May any negativity be transformed into love and peace. May I continually know I am perfectly safe."

Got it?

TRIALS 3

p. 268-280 (I have combined two classes here)

“…we want you to understand that the decisions that you make when you are in response to a crisis are the decisions that change the trajectory of your life and path. And most of you move immediately into fear when you are faced with circumstances that surprise you, unsettle you, and make you believe that your world is about to be challenged.”

I am sure most of us are aware that fear is not productive response to life crises, but I think for most of us there are stages to our growth. 

Stage one might be outrage, feae, anger, blame, etc. The ultimate stage are all working for is described in a wonderful Zen expression, “My house burnt down, now I can see the moon!”

Most of us land somewhere in between.

I also think it is important that although we might be moving for an ideal here, that we do not deny or try to hide from the normal human feelings that arise for each one of us in the midst of crisis. Indeed, I think how we handle the feelings that arise are just as important as how we handle the crisis itself. And now that I say that I realize most of what we are being asked to handle are the feelings that arise from a crisis. 

What follows in the book is a look at choices. I know that for much of my life my response to crises or triasls was quite reflexive. Like pushing a button—crisis-anger, fear, blame, avoidance, panic, etc.

Today all those same feelings are still here, but after the “knee jerk“ reaction, which I do not need to give in to, I have a choice. I can respond to the situation with love, openness to guidance, and willingness to learn. (even if I don't like it).

“When you do this with the intention to acknowledge your power as a co-creator of your life, you stop being a victim. When you are not a victim, you have choice. When you are in choice, you are in your power and you are not frightened. And the trial, then, becomes a gift of change that is making itself known to you through your circumstances.”

And now here where this book becomes explicitly different from many others. 

“Now we are talking about this in a very practical way. We are discussing this as if this is something that happens that you can attend to practically, and we also want to speak about it energetically. And this is a different way of approaching the same issue because, in a funny way, we’re going to bypass conscious response for a moment in favor of understanding that you have an opportunity at a frequency level that you can work with as well.

you can do one of two things. You can move into a higher grace and understand that you are encountering your fear through taking affirmative action 

“or you can stay in fear and take a fear-based action. And these are two very different things.”

We are not just speaking of doing something differently or simply responding differently to a crisis situation. We are speaking of becoming consciously aware of living in the frequency of fear/no choice OR living in the frequency of co-creative energy. In other words we are not just examining  behavioral change. This teaching goes much deeper than that.

“When you manifest the Creator in a situation, when you become aware of the presence of the Christ in a situation, the situation is transformed. ”

“When you understand that the Creator’s action, the Word in action, is present in a situation, you can move that situation.”

and as the book mentions a little later on: 

“This is not just about retraining your behavior. If you change the behavior but you do not change the consciousness that acts as the catalyst for the behavior, the behavior is really not changed.”

We are reminded that that we are not about “fixing” someone or something. Fixing is always about the past—trying to get something back to the way it was. First of all that can’t work, and secondly life circumstances are about learning not regression.

I think of all those "three wish" stories when inevitably whatever is wished for is cancelled out by the wish to get things back to the way they were,

Reminding us again of frequency and vibration—remember we are are holding and reading/or listening to  a book here in the physical world, and that allows us to learn through our senses and intellect, BUT we are also being energized, guided, and taught on a level of frequency by the guides and teachers of this book. 

Now that does not have to be terribly weird. Just imagine the difference between listening to a book being read by a disembodied voice on a computer, as compared to having that same book read to you by someone you love. Get the difference?

Well here you read and are being read to by someone who loves you. It changes the whole game.

“If you are very angry at somebody and you choose not to act on that anger, that is a benefit in many ways to you and to the party you are angry with. However, this is very different than unclogging the blockage that has required you to be in the system of anger to begin with. When you are unclogged, when that pattern that created that anger is no longer in service, you do not act from it because it is not there to act from. The memory of it may exist, but that is quite different than acting on something that is currently operational. Do you understand this?”

And finally today, I believe it is tremendously important to claim the changes and transformations that are taking place here for each one of us. We acknowledge and honor our learning, we honor and acknowledge the movement of the creative force of God within us. We are open and willing to allow these continual aspects of growth and transformation to be part of our lives. 

“On a consciousness level of frequency, you have been transformed by the energies that are operating here at a higher level if you have given permission and engaged with the processes that we have suggested. Because they are actually designed to bring you to a higher frequency and to acclimate your field to the Christ vibration, which is, as we have said, what you truly are. Period.”

TRIALS 2

p. 262-268

I want to thank Paul Selig for volunteering to be the voice for many of us, who would much rather bypass any talk about “Trials.”

Picking up where we left off: 

Something unexpected and difficult shows up in our lives:

“So suddenly you are faced in consciousness with a situation that you would fear, and you can go into fear, and you can go into victimhood, or you can go into anger, or you can go into anything, but that’s actually not going to sort you through the next stage of the requirement for your growth.”

Those last words are extremely important “the next stage of the requirement for your growth,” that is what we are all after. When we grow, when we learn, there are always “requirements” (things we need to do, to know, to accomplish that will allow us to go the next step). This is very obvious in school, riding a bicycle, essentially learning any skill. It is also true for our spiritual development. Why would we think the development of the soul here on Earth would follow a different pattern?

Paul freaks out again on p. 264, and the guides explain: 

“Okay, we want to talk about what just happened. Paul got worried because suddenly he was dealing with an informational system that challenges his own belief systems. And we are not telling him that it is okay to be evicted; we are only saying that people learn. And what people have to learn is that they are their consciousness and those things that they carry are not their consciousness. They are things that they hold to them and give importance to that ultimately will not be there in a hundred years.

Now we say trials with a real intent for the reader to understand the requirements of herself when she is contending with something like this. And something that challenges one’s belief systems must be dealt with in this text. When one is trying very hard to honor the possibility that they are the Christ, what happens when, in the middle of that, you lose your house, or your job, or your marriage collapses or your child is diagnosed with an illness, or you are? How do you contend with this? And that is what this chapter is about and that is why it must be included.”

Much of our resistance to “trails” comes from our attachment to the status quo, which is a ridiculous thing to become attached to because one moment it is there and the next one it is not. 

I know I can easily fall into victimhood in the midst of a perceived crisis, but what I am being offered here is the ability to respond differently. We are never trying to discount or ignore our human pain or emotions; we are learning how to handle them differently—to handle them from he perspective of a higher vibration.

“We must bring you back into your power and we must align you to your frequency in the Christ, in the reminding of who you are, in order to move you through it.

When you are in this place and you are able to contend with a trial at a high frequency, it becomes a learning experience and nothing more. It becomes an opportunity to create wonderful change.”

“The experiences of it, the things that happen to motivate change, are not always kind to the ego self or to the systems that have been created to protect it. So you understand this: When a trial occurs, everything that is encountered is about amassing an energy field that will create change, and that change will then provoke transformation to a higher level if this change is embarked on consciously and not in fear. Do you understand this? Everything can be made new in a positive way if you engage with it as consciousness, and as consciousness we mean, “I am the Word.”

“I am Word through that that I see before me.”

“I am Word through this situation.”

“I am Word through this trial.”

“I am Word through what I undergo.”

“I am now bringing the light to this situation.”

I was reading a book that gave me a bit of a different perspective on this. Instead of focusing on trails, the focus was on our unique role in this mysterious unfolding and evolving expression of complete and unconditional Love.

“With esoteric development, a growth in maturity produces a corresponding growth in responsibility, which makes one aware of having a certain role to fill in the human collectivity. Nearly everyone feels it at some point or another: each of us has the sense, however faint, that there is some unique purpose for which we have been called into being and which no one else can fill. A few know what this is from their earliest moments of awareness; for most of us, there is a long and often painful process of sorting out this essential purpose from whatever the world may try to force upon us. A Course in Miracles characterizes this unique role as the “special function”: “To each [the Holy Spirit] gives a special function in salvation he alone can fill; a part for only him. Nor is the plan complete until he finds his special function, and fulfills the part assigned to him. . . . The Holy Spirit needs your special function, that His may be fulfilled. Think not you lack a special value here. You wanted it, and it is given you.” The Course does not, and of course cannot, say what this special function is for any individual, except to stress that “the form is suited to your special needs, and to the special time and place in which you think you find yourself.”15 Nor can anyone else tell us what this is.”

Smoley, Richard (2013-01-08). Inner Christianity: A Guide to the Esoteric Tradition (Kindle Locations 4413-4419). Shambhala Publications. Kindle Edition. 

I will leave you with that one.

Much love, Peace,

Gerry