LOVE INCARNATE 2

p. 286-290
I am combining a couple of classes here.

As simple as this chapter sounds, it is quite challenging. We are being asked to view ourselves as LOVE. That's it. Not as our profession; not as any of our roles in life, not even as bodies, but as LOVE.
That should be simple, right? All we have to do is to see ourselves as we really are. This is a choice--not about feelings so much, but a choice as to how we perceive ourselves.
The only catch is that in order to perceive ourselves as love, we have to perceive everyone else that way too..
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“When you understand for a moment that you are right where you are supposed to be in your consciousness and that the circumstances around you are things that you have created to bring you to this place of consciousness, you can then change them. But the perfection that you find in this moment of awareness will be profound. “I am where I am. I see where I am. I am right where I am supposed to be” will liberate you to take change as the miracle that it is. You have opportunities to grow, as does everyone. And you are all where you are supposed to be given what you know, what you have had available to you, and what you have come here to learn.”

The way a teacher friend of mine translates this is: "Instead of asking, "Why is this happening to me?" say, "This is happening for me. I might not understand why, but I have been given an opportunity to transform my thinking (raise my vibration) about this."

Now through willingness and intention, we have the ability to say:

“I am Love through the one before me, Love I am Love. Word I am Word through this intention.”
Or you can simply state,
“I am Love through this one I see before me. Word I am Word.”

There is no necessity for many words here. If you can affirm, "I am love incarnate," and then, "I am love through the one I see before me (no matter who that is), you have graced yourself and he world!

LOVE INCARNATE 1

We began to explore the idea in this book, and most spiritual literature, that when we are speaking of energies such as love, joy and peace, we are speaking much more  deeply than the level of feelings and emotions. Unfortunately, we do not have an adequate vocabulary for these concepts, and so when we are working on understanding these energies on a spiritual level it is very easy to confuse the emotional and the spiritual.

The book does  an excellent job in redefining love as a spiritual force and to separate the spiritual experience from the emotional one.

“However, love is not a feeling. Love can be felt, but it is not a feeling. Love is a frequency. It is the action of God expressing himself through you as love.”

As we examined this truth and how it affects us, we also explored other “feelings” some of which we might define as negative. 

Many times we are told we “should” not have these feelings. It is wrong to be angry or fearful or doubtful or even sad.

Now perhaps when I become fully in the flow of Love, none of these earthly feelings will affect me, but up until that time, how I feel or how I react to the stuff of life will be “grist for the mill” of my spiritual growth.

The shortest verse in Christian Scripture is “Jesus wept.”(at the death of his friend Lazarus). He was not above feeling sadness for the loss of his friend. 

So we also experience sadness, grief, fear, joy, impatience, annoyance, peacefulness—all of which are part of the human condition. We do not usually have much of a choice about how we are feeling, but we do have a choice as to how we hold those feelings. We can hold them in self-judgment (which is not very helpful) or we can hold them as points of growth and deeper awareness of Self and our relationship with God. 

Now that second choice is not always easy. It is much easier to try to distance ourselves from our “negative” feelings, but when I begin to realize that my feelings, even the ones that seem to be automatic, are my response to life situations, I can begin to work on transforming my responses.

OK back to love, beyond feelings. 

“God’s love is unconditional. Understand this, please. It is unconditional. It is manifested as you, as an aspect of you, and if you want to believe that you can experience yourself as love, you can attune to it. But you have to do this through your intentions. So:

“I am now manifesting myself as the energy of love. I am Word through this intention. Word I am Word.”

As you manifest yourself as love, your experience begins to transform. And as it transforms, you understand yourself as a vehicle of the Creator in action.”

TRIALS 5; LOVE INCARNATE Introduction

Finishing up on the law of karma.

Yes, you reap what you sow. We are all responsible for what we have done and not done.

AND there is a higher law. The Law of Christ echoes the sentiments that Jesus spoke so often: “Go your way and sin no more.” Just as Jesus, through the unconditional love of the Father was able to wipe away physical illness, (the result of negative thought) so he also wipes away sin (missing the mark) and the results of sin, negativity and separateness through Love and Light.

But to have that working for us we need to go beyond words, because this is not about saying a quick prayer or mumbling some magic incantation. It is about a "change of heart" (what the word “repent” means). It means claiming this power within us and setting our willingness and intention to continually work out of this energy of love.

So for me, until I am completely living in this consciousness of Word—"I am one with God; the love of God flows to me and through me; there is nothing that can separate me from that love; we are all one; there is no truth in any judgment; etc."—I need to work on being constantly aware of the Presence of God within you and me. And when I forget,when I lose it; when I fall asleep; I dedicate myself to returning to that awareness.

“So we will say it very simply. When you are in the Christ frequency, you are operating from a different level. You are actually working with a higher frequency that, in many ways, will move through that karma and transform it so that you’re not on a battleground with your past actions in repayment or in fear.”

The last piece of this chapter dedicates itself to the truth that the path of the soul is always moving forward. This is a truth that goes well beyond our feelings, since many times our feelings will suggest that we are  stuck or moving backwards. That is simply the ego’s linear thought pattern judging and measuring the only way it knows how. 

****************

Now here is the next step. Coming to believe that we are love incarnate.

Beyond the body, beyond the mind, beyond the emotions—we are love incarnate.

As ACIM states—"ideas do not leave there Source." And since each of us is an “idea” in the Mind of God, we have not moved from the Source itself.

“If you can imagine that you are all on a forward path, every man, every woman, every being on this planet is moving forward regardless of what they may appear to present in form, you will understand that your destinies are for good. We say that you are all on your way to the Source. Everyone is on their way to the recognition of who they are as an aspect of the Creator. “Word I am Word through my knowing of myself as Word” is stating that. “I am knowing. I am an aspect of the Creator made manifest in form. I am Word through my knowing of myself as Word.”

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.

*********

“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.”

******************

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

TRIALS 1

p.260-262

OK,  we again dealing with one of those “create your own reality” things. This chapter continually reminds us that we create our own trials. ARRRRRRGH!

I don’t like that. I would much rather blame fate, God, the devil. It seems so much easier not to be responsible.

There are a few points here I think would be worth exploring as we delve into this chapter. The first principle is IT IS OUR SOUL THAT IS CREATING and the soul only creates in order to grow. We might not be consciously aware of this principle all the time and it might not appeal to our emotions, and we are certainly not going to understand it all the time either.

The simplistic metaphor I use is this: Imagine that before you take on a body, your soul, which is in line with Spirit, creates an agenda or curriculum which will guide it (and all other beings as well) in letting go of separateness and moving more and more in alignment with Oneness. So there are goals to be met and lessons to be learned on Planet Earth. How these goals are reached and how these lessons are presented are not set in stone, so the soul will seek out ways and means to get the job done. All of this is well beyond the comprehension of our intellect, and also well beyond our sense of earthly fairness.

So let me share one of my life experiences. Looking back, part of may path was to develop alcoholism—and RECOVERY. Just looking at myself as an individual here, I can see that this process of addiction and recovery has been and continues to be a huge blessing. In essence, this process has been a continual part of my spiritual awakening. So there is an obvious individual learning here, but our teaching here goes way beyond the individual. How many people contributed to this recovery? How many generations of people who are touched by so many others have been a part of this healing? 

Do you get a sense of how mysterious this can get? 

Or take something present. Pretty soon I am going to be scheduled for knee surgery. Sure there are many lessons for me here, some of which are: I am not my body; take better care of myself; be patient; learn how to let people help me(as I hobble around for a while), etc. But at is only one small pice of this whole e deal. Think of how many other people are involved with this whole process, doctors, nurses, rehab specialists, other hospital staff, insurance companies, people who make knee replacements, people who make rehab equipment—all these people have families, they will all be making the effort to go to work each day, and each one of them has their own “stuff” to take care of. So even though I think I am the central character of my little play, thousands of people are learning their own lessons from this one little piece of  life. 

Even though I agree, I am the one creating the ways and means of my learning; it is never really only an individual  event.

Another piece to all of this is a maxim from ACIM: “YOU CAN EITHER LEARN FROM PAIN OR FROM JOY.”

None of us would choose to learn from pain deliberately. Sometimes, however, we are unaware or reluctant to accept and work with what is right in front of us. 

Let us remember this-- our soul has only One purpose, and that is to drop all illusions of separateness, and it will be forever insistent in its quest. So when we refuse or ignore a lesson in our path, it will come back again, perhaps more insistent than it was before. The process is neither a curse nor a blessing, it is just the way of things. For instance if I do not learn long division (or whatever they are teaching these days) in the third grade, as I progress in school it is going to become more and more difficult to “fake it,” and I am going to run into more and more difficulty with math until I finally take the plunge and learn it, but learn it I will, because it is necessary.

I recall Ram Dass was ranting and raving about how unfair life was, and how if only the universe could be run his way how wonderful everything could be, and he was confronted by one of us teachers who said, “Ram Dass, you are in school. When are you just going to decide to take the curriculum! (instead of fighting it, ignoring it, or continuing to let your ego try to compose it?)

“What a trial really is is a set of circumstances that has been designed to light you up in order for you to dismantle the behaviors that created it to begin with. So if you have a certain kind of crisis in your life, you can put money on the fact that it may have been created by you, at a higher level, to move you beyond those issues that originally created it. We will tell you that when these things happen, your journey has an opportunity to take a jump-start. It really is like you can take a big leap forward.”

“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.”

Be at peace, and may all beings be at peace.