Commentary on ACIM Lesson 149

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

Reviewing:

 

My mind holds only what I think with God.

(137) When I am healed I am not healed alone. 
(138) Heaven is the decision I must make.

 

 

The engine is silent now, and the wheels are still.  The faux windmill among the cactus next to the aloe spins lazily in the gentle warm evening breeze.  The last remnants of a splendid low desert sunset outlines the spires of the palms punctuating the horizon, singing praises to Allah, the most beautiful, and the world His Love has created.  And for now, I am finally 'home in Yuma'. 

 

I wonder a bit about 'what now', as I sit and be a simple human on this earthship watching the heavens ascend, just as my ancestors have for millennia.  But it is not a high priority of mine right now, to peer into the future.  There is plenty of places to put my love within a stones toss....  

 

I was listening to a radio show describe the life of Emily Dickenson a day or so ago.   It was a surprise to learn that she was unknown as a poet in her lifetime, and, living on a small piece of family land, was mostly known by her neighbors for her gardening skills.  Then I recognized what was important about her life (for me).....  that she had lived it true.  She was authentic, and real, and unpretentious.  And what she wrote was therefore powerful.... 

 

A few days ago a friend checked out my astrology (for fun).  But I have be thinking about a thought that was shared then....  that while I have many talents and gifts to offer, my lesson in this life is in learning humility.  What I am seeing about that right now is that humility is 'living in oneness' really.

 

And don't is always seem to be that 'you teach best what you need to learn most'.  Amen to that.  And with that, we now begin 'the next chapter'.  

 

Thank you God, it's been a beautiful day.  And tomorrow is your promise of more endless miracles.  How great thou art....

 

Namaste, 

 

David

 

Lesson 149

My mind holds only what I think with God.

(137) When I am healed I am not healed alone. 
(138) Heaven is the decision I must make.

 

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 148 

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

 

Just as the 'self' that needs protection is not real, no 'sickness' is real either, without our consent.  Whatever the physical evidence, for the 'sickness' to be real to us requires we believe it IS.  Lacking that consent, it is simply 'more maya' (illusion) and even though it symptomatically continues (or not) HOW it is experienced shifts.  The Buddhist tradition uses the phrase "suffering that is not suffering" to describe such a shift.  It means that whatever the suffering, whatever the sickness, there is no identity attachment to (or resisting of) it.  Jesus spoke clearly to this point, saying:  "Resist not evil" (evil being the reversed letters of 'live', one could say that idea is actually saying:  Do not make real an opposite to life, for there is none, unless you create it.  Then, there is one, for you. (This is because we are, by our thoughts, creating our lives according to our thinking.)

 

While it may seem that 'they just happen', our thoughts actually arise into our awareness because of our prior attraction to them.  If we do the work of deepening our quietude to the point of inner silence, from such a vantage point, all this can be seen.  It is then we have a choice in matters of 'free will'.  The quality of your life, my life, the life of this planet all sources from our habituated thinking.  It is then, a true priority to become well grounded in this silent emptiness before we/I 'act' in the world.  For no 'action' that is itself 'in reaction' can truly heal.  All true healing (and all spiritual freedom) begins with seeing (without reaction/judgement) what is true, no matter the appearance. This is what it means when we say 'my mind holds only what I think with God'.

 

Namaste, 

 

David

 

Lesson 148

My mind holds only what I think with God.

(135) If I defend myself I am attacked. 
(136) Sickness is a defense against the truth.

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 147

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

Reviewing:

 

My mind holds only what I think with God.

(133) I will not value what is valueless. 
(134) Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.

 

 

 

This is necessarily brief, as (due to a change in plans that consumed the day) I am behind 'schedule' for an appointment in Phoenix in the morning, and I have a long way to travel (safely).   Therefore, I will summate 'all of my wisdom' for you with these words:  Trust your heart.  

 

Namaste, 

 

David

 

Lesson 147

My mind holds only what I think with God.

(133) I will not value what is valueless. 
(134) Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.

 

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 146

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

Reviewing:  

 

My mind holds only what I think with God.

(131) No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth. 
(132) I loose the world from all I thought it was.

 

Like a horse to water, I am to 'home'.  Sometimes where that is is a question that only gets answered by being 'in the now'.  Other times, it is simply a function of being my word, and doing what I said I would do.  Although I found myself waking up powerfully to my deep-rooted love of New Mexico during this economically-instigated visit (and many reasons arising to stay longer and return sooner), the tipping point that has gotten my wheels rolling towards Arizona (like a horse to water) was a difficult-to-understand (slurred) conversation with my father yesterday.  I knew then it was time to 'go home'....

 

Of the people in my life that I know absolutely love me, my father is at the top.  It wasn't always that way, in fact for many years I punished him (for his 'mistakes' with me) by withholding from true intimacy with him.  I really don't remember clearly why, now.  About twenty-five years ago a Landmark course I did exposed that racket, and I radically 'cleaned up the past' with my dad.  It's been very tight between us ever since.   

 

That he continues to use his amazing will to stay in his frail body I am sure is because he would like to see more of his family's triumphs as they occur around him.  He has many reasons to be proud of the eight humans that he fathered and helped raise, and of the offspring they have procreated also.  Yet, as the course states many places, the body is a temporary learning device, and when its functions are completed, it is released.  Only God knows when a life is complete, and the opportunity of being with 'one close to the edge' is to serve the dialogue between them and their Creator, that the completion may be without fear and in peace.  

 

Part of that, like today's lesson suggests,  is to loose the world from what we habitually consider it to be.  Once there is such a loosening present, Love is much more accessible.    And as my dad acknowledged to me not so long ago, some of the biggest spiritual lessons of a lifetime are learned in these moments 'at the edge of completion'.  

 

These things I share, for 'alone' is not the truth of any being.

 

Namaste, 

 

David 

 

 

Lesson 146

My mind holds only what I think with God.

(131) No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth. 
(132) I loose the world from all I thought it was.

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 145

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

 

Reviewing:

 

(129) Beyond this world there is a world I want. 
(130) It is impossible to see two worlds. 

 

What is 'beyond this world'?  I am recognizing again that this does not mean 'physically' beyond this world.....  my sense of 'beyond' has more to do with being 'out of the gravity pull of the mundane' (or, the mass-mind middle ranges of consciousness).   You have noticed, I am sure, that to attain a self-sustaining 'spiritual orbit' requires a lot of 'karmic attachments' be jettisoned.  This is 'necessary' in order to 'lighten up' :-).  

 

As a state natural to our being, I believe we all have a memory of and feel a calling to 'see' from a higher perspective.  Yet what happens for all but a few of us is that we exchange this 'angelic connection' for the temptations and unfulfillable promises of a personal and separate identity.  In so doing, we disconnect from 'the universal oneness' to the degree that we assign Reality to what we 'see' through the lens of the separated mind.  

 

Valid spiritual vision never believes in this separation.  It knows Reality is an unbreakable Unity.  It brings to this 'separated world' (simply by being whole) the message that we are all one family and are all of one Source.  It matters not what manner of life circumstances we live in.... in all conditions bar none the Divine presents Her lessons that teach this, and we (as her conscious children) then witness to Her reality by living openly in faith. 

 

Faith means simply that God is the driver of our lives, and we are 'passengers-in-trust'.  This trust is practically (not fantasy) based on the direct experience of being Loved by God.  As in any marriage that is functional, Love is the operative tangible presence.  In other words, lovers of God are 'loving'.   

 

Thus, true surrender to God is never a forced thing.... it is as natural as the attraction of opposite poled magnets.  And the way to tell if our surrender is real is look and see how 'magnetic' we are being.  As God uses our lives to teach wholeness, we are naturally 'lit up, alive, and fearless'.  We are the living demonstration of unification... a being at one with God.  

 

Then, there is nothing left 'to do' except (as the Christians say) Praise God.  :-)  

 

Namaste, 

 

David

 

Lesson 145

My mind holds only what I think with God.

(129) Beyond this world there is a world I want. 
(130) It is impossible to see two worlds.

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 144

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

Reviewing:

 

My mind holds only what I think with God.

(127) There is no love but God's. 
(128) The world I see holds nothing that I want.

 

As I return to Yuma in a few days, I 'did history' today in Santa Fe, attending a local Sunday worship gathering that I had been once very active in, going to a Holistic Fair full of ultra-woo-woo offerings (one of which I bought), and then spending two hours dancing ecstatically to exhaustion amidst the yummy-yummy community of hip and groovy beautiful people who have made Santa Fe their place in the New Mexico mystical sunshine.

 

So, the day was full of opportunities to be 'newly present and conscious' with individuals and friends that I have 'a history' with, and who I might think I 'know', or who might think they 'know' me (even though it had been several years since I have lived in Santa Fe, and I am not now the 'he that I was then' and they could not be unchanged either....). 

 

Paralleling todays lesson, 'not knowing who the 'other' was, and not wanting' anything from anybody was 'the practice'.  Also, not pushing away, and not pulling toward.  Not advising, not fixing, not being anybody special. (The last item is there because I have caught myself 'being somebody special' a few times recently.  It stunk odiferously.)

 

And after all the socializing, my return to my 'monks cell on wheels' (RV) to be in solitude with myself and the inner presence of God.  

 

At 'The Celebration', the spiritual reading was about 'spiritual solitude' and it's counterfeit, 'personal loneliness'.  If you have been a reader for a while, you know I have been working through that one (and if you 'gotta remember' you can visit the Commentary archives atwww.acimcommentaries-blogspot.com).  The main point of the reading was that 'solitude' is a function of wholeness, 'loneliness' is a function of separation.  

 

Spiritually, the reason that 'the world holds nothing that I want' is that I AM the whole world already.  (This may take some time to get if you are a new student. Not to worry.) I therefore know I 'have everything' already.  This is 'completeness'. Therefore there is nothing to 'want'.  Like loneliness, 'wanting the world' is therefore a function of separation.  But, (according to the Course) separation from God is actually impossible.  Therefore, while it is possible and 'normal in this world' to experience the effects of thoughts of separation, God's love erases those effects as soon as we realize our mistake.  Our mistake is that in our 'thinking' we have relied upon 'self', not God-Self. (See how easily I shift to 'impersonal abstraction'....).  More rigorously said....My mistake is always that I have relied upon 'myself', not my 'God-Self'.  And how do I know when this is 'happening'?  It is easy (if I am being awake).  I will 'want something' (of the other, or the situation).  

 

'Wanting' is the illusion that something outside my God-Self will make me 'whole' (despite my knowledge that I AM whole).  To expose these illusions, let us just go 'into solitude' and see what arises.  If it be 'unwhole demons of self-hate' (at any level), let us give them to God. Actually, let us take them to God, and let us go with them in person. That will 'handle all issues of imagined separation'.  

 

There is no better way to get that 'God is only Love' than to take a personal demon into His Presence.  Because, in the Presence of Truth, all that is untrue is perfectly revealed. This is the whole essence of the spiritual journey.... to be willing to have nothing hidden.  When nothing is hidden (from God and each other), our natural state of communion, our 'oneness', IS.  To this completeness, 'only nothing' can be added.  

 

Namaste, 

 

David

 

Lesson 144

My mind holds only what I think with God.

(127) There is no love but God's. 
(128) The world I see holds nothing that I want.

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 143

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

My mind holds only what I think with God.

 

 (125) In quiet I receive God's Word today. 

(126) All that I give is given to myself.

 

 

It's not only that everything I give is given to my self, it is also everything I do to or for another, I do unto myself too....

 

Recently I was playing the piano while visiting the home of a  friend.  She told me she was planning to take lessons soon, and was listening to me play with obvious enjoyment, and closely watching my hands.  My selfless 'I' was inspired by her attention, and it got me up off the bench and it had her sit down and it said 'play what you do know for me', which she did.  Looking back I can see 'the magic' that then happened was in the not assessing anything, not judging anything.  I just watched what she did and saw it.  

 

Then I sat beside her on the left and showed her a simple drone arpeggio and asked her to copy it.  She did it easily.  I said, 'keep playing it', and, moving to her right side played a simple melody to the drone arpeggio she was playing.  "How do you know what to play?", she asked.  "By the sound, and how you feel", I answered, and then took her right hand by the wrist over to the keys and said, "You do it now, while keeping the left hand playing too".   She started playing slowly a simple melody line, and then her innate musicality began to flow.  

 

I watched as she played her first improvisation with a deep warmth arising in my heart.  I was witnessing a new world opening for my friend, one that had been calling to her, one that clearly was nurturing.  She was excited and happy, just like a child.  For fear had disappeared, and she was playing her own music.  

 

Today, looking back at that moment from down the road many miles, something in me 'connected'.  I saw that it was moments like that that call me to 'being a teacher'.  I saw that being a teacher is simply being unafraid to respond and share whatever it is that the moment calls for, even when you don't know (when you first respond) what it is you will be sharing, or where the knowledge that is needed will arrive from.  But being a teacher is knowing that the impulse to give to another is the trigger that will open (within the 'personal me') the receptiveness to receive 'what the moment needs'.  

 

Of myself I can do nothing, including 'teach'.  Yet in the quietude of my 'empty-of-myself-in-the-moment' mind (which occurs naturally when attention is being fully given) the unlimited abundant  supply of Holy Grace provides everything needed 'right on time'.  

 

Today, this I testify to, and this I teach, that I may also so learn (even more). 

 

Namaste, 

 

David

 

PS.  My apologies for the glitches of the last couple days.  Because the image file (even at low resolution) is sizable, I am not including any today.  Hopefully in the near future I'll be able to begin again with them.  

_______________________________

 

Lesson 143

My mind holds only what I think with God.

(125) In quiet I receive God's Word today. 
(126) All that I give is given to myself.

 

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 142

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

Reviewing:

(123) I thank my Father for His gifts to me. 
(124) Let me remember I am one with God.

 

The technical difficulties I am encountering in transmitting (even an abbreviated tiny message like this) via internet 'aircard' through the still primitive rural New Mexico cell system have been challenging my will for peace and patience these last two days.  So practicing peace under 'breakdown conditions' is my practice right now (even if it means accepting that there is 'no commentary').  God willing, these technical issues will be 'over soon'.  In the meantime, let us please continue to do the lessons.  

 

Namaste, 

 

David

 

 

Lesson 142

My mind holds only what I think with God.

(123) I thank my Father for His gifts to me. 
(124) Let me remember I am one with God.

 

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 141

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

Review 4.....

 

My mind holds only what I think with God.

(121) Forgiveness is the key to happiness.

(122) Forgiveness offers everything I want.

 

 

Digesting 'the days lessons and events', at first, I wrote 'a whole bunch of words'.  Then I started 'editing out my mind'.  What was left that was 'without my mind' was the paragraph below....  

 

Reality is a pure creation.  And pure creation is completely without constraints.  Except love.  Love (which is unlimited) is the only constraint upon creation, for all creation expresses Love, and nothing else. 

 

As quality is clearly superior to quantity, I think this is all I have to say, for today.  :-)

 

Namaste,

 

David

______________________

First Person version of the lesson....

 

Lesson 141

REVIEW IV 
Introduction

Now I review again, this time aware I am preparing for the second part of learning how the truth can be applied. Today I will begin to concentrate on readiness for what will follow next. Such is my aim for this review, and for the lessons following. Thus, I review the recent lessons and their central thoughts in such a way as will facilitate the readiness that I would now achieve.

There is a central theme that unifies each step in the review I undertake, which can be simply stated in these words: 

My mind holds only what I think with God.

That is a fact, and represents the truth of What I am and What my Father is. It is this thought by which the Father gave creation to the Son, establishing the Son as co-creator with Himself. It is this thought that fully guarantees salvation to the Son. For in my mind no thoughts can dwell but those my Father shares. Lack of forgiveness blocks this thought from my awareness. Yet it is forever true.

Let me begin my preparation with some understanding of the many forms in which the lack of true forgiveness may be carefully concealed. Because they are illusions, they are not perceived to be but what they are; defenses that protect my unforgiving thoughts from being seen and recognized. Their purpose is to show me something else, and hold correction off through self-deceptions made to take its place.

And yet, my mind holds only what I think with God. My self-deceptions cannot take the place of truth. No more than can a child who throws a stick into the ocean change the coming and the going of the tides, the warming of the water by the sun, the silver of the moon on it by night. So do I start each practice period in this review with readying my mind to understand the lessons that I read, and see the meaning that they offer me.

I will begin each day with time devoted to the preparation of my mind to learn what each idea I will review that day can offer me in freedom and in peace.  I will open my mind, and clear it of all thoughts that would deceive, and let this thought alone engage it fully, and remove the rest: 

My mind holds only what I think with God.

Five minutes with this thought will be enough to set the day along the lines which God appointed, and to place His Mind in charge of all the thoughts I will receive that day.

They will not come from me alone, for they will all be shared with Him. And so each one will bring the message of His Love to me, returning messages of mine to Him. So will communion with the Lord of Hosts be mine, as He Himself has willed it be. And as His Own completion joins with Him, so will He join with I who am complete as I unite with Him, and He with me.

After your preparation, I will merely read each of the two ideas assigned to me to be reviewed that day. Then closing my eyes, I will say them slowly to myself. There is no hurry now, for I am using time for its intended purpose. Let each word shine with the meaning God has given it, as it was given to me through His Voice. Let each idea which I review that day give me the gift that He has laid in it for me to have of Him. And I will use no format for my practicing but this:

That each hour of the day, I will bring to my mind the thought with which the day began, and spend a quiet moment with it. Then I will repeat the two ideas I practice for the day unhurriedly, with time enough to see the gifts that they contain for me, and to let them be received where they were meant to be.

I add no other thoughts, but let these be the messages they are. I need no more than this to give me happiness and rest, and endless quiet, perfect certainty, and all my Father wills that I receive as the inheritance I have of Him. Each day of practicing, as I review, I close as I began, repeating first the thought that made the day a special time of blessing and of happiness for me; and through my faithfulness restored the world from darkness to the light, from grief to joy, from pain to peace, from sin to holiness.

God offers thanks to me for practicing thus the keeping of His Word. And as I give my mind to the ideas for the day again before I sleep, His gratitude surrounds me in the peace wherein He wills me be forever, and I am learning now to claim again as my inheritance.