Messages of Encouragement 2008-2009
This is the archive of MoE postings 2008 and 2009. To see current/recent postings please click here.
Please note that the earliest postings start at the top and proceed in chronological order to the end of 2009 at the bottom.
May you be helped and inspired by the postings below.
Brian Longhurst
Please scroll to the bottom to see the most recent posting
January 2nd 2008
Dear Friends,
On Monday this week, as I took my walk in the hills, I said to the Master Jesus, “Why did you take the route of incarnating through an Earthly mother, the illusory, ego-made mechanism for manifesting in ego’s illusory realm, when you could have simply created the appearance of a body, just as Arten and Pursah did for their appearances to Gary Renard?”
He immediately spoke in response, with the obvious answer (aren’t answers always so obvious once we have them, even though they are invisible until then?):
So I could overcome from within egoland, and could demonstrate to my brethren still under its yoke that it is possible.
He continued speaking but I asked if we could wait until I had returned to my desk, so that I could write the rest of his reply. Being the perfect gentleman, he of course agreed, and an hour or so later he carried on:
Overcoming appears to be hard, and most in the dream world perceive it as impossible for them; that it is possible only for ‘exalted,’ ‘special,’ ‘highly favoured’ beings, without wondering how such perceived beings attained to this ‘status.’ This is, of course, not so, for if one can overcome, all can overcome, since we who appear in the dream as many are, as you well now know, in truth, one.
All appearances to the contrary are misperception, which I am empowered to correct for all my beloveds, so that we may be restored to oneness in Papa, as each becomes ready and willing to freely receive the At-onement (
See Message of Encouragement dated December 20th 2006).This empowerment is available to all because it is the birthright of all. And all who are willing to receive it shall receive it, even though they may have mistakenly believed they disinherited themselves. It takes commitment; one-pointed commitment to the truth about themselves, to the exclusion of the lies of guilt and sin and fear. Such commitment comes from perceiving at first what may be but a tiny fragment of truth, and holding fast to it with the certainty that comes only from one’s own within.
You, my beloved, came into the world with such a level of commitment, engendered by events chosen by you in a former time, though awareness of such was withheld from you until the moment was right, when you drew into your presence your beloved mentor; the keeper for you of the door that opens unto the Light of Eternity; she who patiently awaited your presence, so that she could instruct you in the Way of inner quietness and attunement. It is this one-pointed commitment that has brought you to this place in your remembrance, your awakening, by your faithful following of my leading. And it has been my joy to lead you. You have sought first the Kingdom of Heaven and all else has indeed been given you.
All are free to choose such one-pointed commitment to getting Home with minimal delay, though only few will so choose immediately. It matters not; have no concern over this, for all are well within my care. Nevertheless, my faithful friend, I have chosen you to sow a seed, a kernel of truth, that it may lie dormant within their hearts, until it germinates and grows at the season of their readiness. All will come to this according to the hour appointed aforetime for them, just as it came to me. Then comes the moment of Self-assessment (for Papa tests no man) for the chosen task ahead, each according to the path thus far travelled. As with all, my path was of my own choosing, for in Heaven there is no compulsion. (This clearly tells us that he was not sent by God to be His once and for all blood sacrifice for the 'sins of the world.')
I so longed to save my beloved brethren that I had to come and experience their condition and overcome it from the desire of my own within. This is why I went alone into the wilderness, for my final confrontation with the enemy – ego – that I might be sure of my readiness to choose the Way of Eternity and not the path of expediency. Ego knew very well how great was my desire for the Kingdom to be restored to the awareness of the little ones of Earth-mind misperception.
I was faced with the choice of establishing an Earthly kingdom of peace and righteousness there and then (so great was my desire to hasten the Kingdom for my beloveds, for so great was their distress). But I had seen, and knew, that this could not last, from the example of my brothers, David and Solomon, because it was not free choice for all, so had to run its course and come to the end of its time and place cycle, ending in further separation. The same would have inevitably happened again, regardless of the mechanisms that could have been set in place in attempting to counter such backsliding. I knew then, as you know now, that the Kingdom of Heaven is within, and that is the only place from which it can truly, lastingly, eternally come to the awareness of all; until we are, once more, one.
Whilst from within the illusion of time and place, it was the greatest Self-assessment available to me (because of my earnest desire for my brethren), yet because I had remembered my Identity as One with Papa, it was, in reality, no test at all; yet I had to be certain with all the certainty of experiencing the opportunity to transform adversity into fulfilment, because I had come to overcome, so that I could be the Way-shower for all in overcoming. So has it been for you, that the Self-assessment has been no test at all, because under my leadership you were lovingly and gently prepared – made ready – for it, and the timing was perfect, just as it must, and shall, always be for all.
Love is the only way there is; total, unconditional love, and knowledge of its certainty, regardless of any temporal appearances to the contrary. So, my beloved, take heart; take strength from the certainty that all is well, all fulfillment is assured. Because I have overcome, all shall overcome and all truth and righteousness is already accomplished.
Ego has those of us who toil under its spell convinced that by making our life a one-pointed commitment to the Kingdom of Heaven we are giving up something, and in a realm where apparent scarcity already causes more than enough fear, anguish and mayhem, to voluntarily give up something more (whatever little we may appear to have in time and place) has us thinking it seems like a bad idea. Jesus reminds us in ACIM as follows, which can help to set us back on the path of right thinking:
The ego is trying to teach you how to gain the whole world and lose your own soul. The Holy Spirit teaches that you cannot lose your soul and there is no gain in the world, for of itself it profits nothing. To invest without profit is surely to impoverish yourself, and the overhead is high. Not only is there no profit in the investment, but the cost to you is enormous. For this investment costs you the world’s reality by denying yours, and gives you nothing in return. You cannot sell your soul, but you can sell your awareness of it. You cannot perceive your soul, but you will not know it while you perceive something else as more valuable.
The Holy Spirit is your strength because He knows nothing but the spirit as you. He is perfectly aware that you do not know yourself, and perfectly aware of how to teach you to remember what you are. Because He loves you, He will gladly teach you what He loves, for He wills to share it. Remembering you always, He cannot let you forget your worth. For the Father never ceases to remind Him of His Son, and He never ceases to remind His Son of the Father. God is in your memory because of Him. You chose to forget your Father but you do not really want to do so, and therefore you can decide otherwise. As it was my decision, so is it yours.
(T-12 VI. 1-2. My emboldening, for emphasis).
The Great Rescue Programme continues to unfold unceasingly and bring our moment of awakening ever closer. Every occasion or event on which we choose to co-operate with this Process (such as in practising true forgiveness, expressing love, understanding and compassion), thereby helping the Holy Spirit (which is our own higher, big, true, Christ Self) to collapse time, we thus bring that moment forward. And we are positively, actively contributing to ever greater joy, peace, love and happiness for ourself and our fellows while we wait.
Here’s to a truly happy New Year!
Brian Longhurst
January 9th 2008
Dear Friends,
At the beginning of the last Vignette in SFGS (entitled “The Master in bedrock hell fastening the escape ladder to the floor”) it says:
1This wondrous experience/event can best be described by copying the record of it from two successive Communion services in early 1997:
Holy Communion February 16, 1997
2At the beginning I saw a ladder/stairway stretching from highest Heaven to darkest, deepest ‘hell.’ It disappeared out of vision into the light above and the darkness below. Our Communion Sanctuary was like a ‘staging post’ about halfway up the ladder. I felt as if the words concerning the Lord’s eternalness and His great God-mission for all mankind were being broadcast down to all levels and, as if we were an amplifying/relaying station, via what we do and our commitment, into the depths below.
3Later I saw the Master, at ‘bedrock’ of Hades (after his death on the Cross and descent into hell). He had his right knee on the ground and the other knee up by his shoulder, in the absolute darkness of this place. I could see him and what he was doing because he was radiating light from his own within. He looked just as he would have looked as the Galilean carpenter in the long ago. There was no indication of any effects from the brutal torture and execution he had just experienced. He was securely fixing the base of the stairway to a solid, black-as-coal rock floor with large nuts threaded on to sturdy studs set into the floor. It was clear that this fastening was intended to stay and would be immovable by an enemy once he had completed his task. It was also clear that this man knew exactly what he was doing and was working with the ease and accomplishment of great experience in his trade.
4He looked up at me standing close by watching him in amazement, smiled quizzically as if to say, ‘Why are you looking puzzled to see me doing this?’ and then actually said, “I was a carpenter!”
5Master, I love you and I rejoice at this revelation.
The third and fourth sentences of paragraph two (above) say:
Our Communion Sanctuary was like a ‘staging post’ about halfway up the ladder. I felt as if the words concerning the Lord’s eternalness and His great God-mission for all mankind were being broadcast down to all levels and, as if we were an amplifying/relaying station, via what we do and our commitment, into the depths below.
Then, later on, in paragraph 15 it says:
Our sanctuary of Mystical Communion with Christ was placed on a circular platform through which the ladder passed on its way up to Heaven. The Angels I saw were not descending and ascending using the ladder (as in the Jacob’s ladder narrative) but were flying around the ladder, guarding or watching over the souls who were, in response to our broadcast invitation (in the Lord’s name) from the staging post, beginning the long ascent from the bottom of the ladder. It was one-way traffic only: up!
Every detail of a vision such as this is for a purpose; to tell the person experiencing the vision (and others) something particular. For over 10 years I have pondered the meaning of the communion sanctuary being about half way between Heaven and hell, and why the escape ladder passed through it on its way up to Heaven. Now I have the answer. Here goes.
As we all now know, we are eternal, indestructible spirit, created with all the attributes of the Creator. However, we are at free will to believe whatever we choose and in the illusion known as the separation, everything is perceived as upside-down; the exact opposite of our true nature and our true Home. So, we perceive ourselves as limited, separated into billions of individuals, stuck in a body that is destined to die. We have believed this since the beginning of time, otherwise known as the beginning of the separation, so for us, deluded by the misperceptions of ego-dominated mind it has the appearance of truth, so it is ‘truth’ for us – until we awaken and see it for the illusion that it really is. Jesus told us this 2k years ago but we have still not fully ‘got’ it; but that is all according to plan – the GRP – and during the third measure of meal we will be gradually getting it, so that by the end of the Aquarian age we will have all got it and returned to the Oneness of the Sonship in Eternity with Papa, having remembered the truth that we do not die (because we are not a body any more than a chrysalis is a butterfly).
Meanwhile, we still believe we are a body and that, assuredly, ‘dies.’ Then the false beliefs most of us (who have - either now or in previous acts - come under the sway of the so-called Christian church) have held about our soul say that we will go to hell if we have fallen short of the mark (sinned) in the sight of the vengeful god of religion and not accepted in our heart and spoken with our mouth that Jesus died as the propitiation for our sins (regardless of whether we have ever even heard of Jesus!) Hell, in our perception, can be anywhere from a place of burning brimstone, with fire consuming and tormenting us eternally, or a place of ‘outer darkness,’ or some dark and dismal, barren wasteland, depending on our individual imagination. All have in common one property: hopelessness.
Those who do not accept such fear-engendering prospects, because they have rejected them and the religious/cultural mythology that promulgated them, or perhaps have never heard such myths but still have no knowledge of, commitment to, or enlightenment about Eternity/Heaven, are likely to enter a somewhat more pleasant state of awareness in the etheric realms that are the counterpart of the Earth ‘physical.’ Some people refer to this as ‘The Summerland’ because it is comfortable, there is no duress and the sun shines warm and bright.
But there is no opportunity for progress from anywhere between the Summerland and the hottest or darkest hell, and because of unconscious guilt – actually caused by the belief that we are separated from God but taking the symbolic form of unresolved karma, all such souls eventually have an irresistible compulsion to reincarnate, to create conditions for the healing of relationships broken throughout repeated incarnations. This is not understood by almost all of humanity, but the process of repeating the opportunities, albeit in differing circumstances, is automatic and inescapable, until we finally become fully enlightened, remember the Truth of Eternity and break the cycle of birth and death, returning to our true Home forever.
Now, the rescue of humanity – the Sonship – from any of the unenlightened places as described above can only happen in stages or degrees because the Truth of Eternity is too big a step to take all at once from a place of deep sleepfulness.
The stages will depend upon how deeply asleep, or how far down into ‘bedrock hell’ each individual believes he has slid. All this is well within the care, ability, understanding and empowerment of Jesus/Holy Spirit, Who are freely available to each of us for protection, guidance and enlightenment, at any moment we choose to ask for that help.
In order for all ego-ensnared souls to undo that snare and find their way (or, more accurately, be shown the way) out of the wilderness of forgetfulness they need some relief from the distress, fear and bewilderment of time and place (even if they have left their Earth body behind but not their Earth – ego-dominated – mind). This, one could describe as ‘stage one’ rescue work, such as that in which Steve, Theresa and I were engaged during the late 1980s and early 1990s (as described in SFGS). This level of rescue gives some relief to the rescuee from the immediate distress and of equal importance, enables them to become trusting that help is available, rather than betrayal, lies, fear. It does not get them all the way Home; rather, to a ‘half-way house,’ a respite from ‘the pit of hell’ from where they can be helped to see more clearly how to progress toward Home in Eternity.
The clue about the Communion Sanctuary being like a staging post half-way up the ladder actually lies in the next sentence: I felt as if the words concerning the Lord’s eternalness and His great God-mission for all mankind were being broadcast down to all levels and, as if we were an amplifying/relaying station, via what we do and our commitment, into the depths below.
In the same
way as the imminent arrival of a major event or person calls for a
harbinger, or herald (such as John the Baptist to announce the first arrival
of the Christ-Mind in the form of Jesus), so a herald is serviceable to the
commencement of the second and final return to full Christ-Mindedness – in
all of us - rather like traditional town criers
who for many centuries have been employed by town councils to make public
announcements in the streets.
With this in mind, then, in paragraph 15 (above) it says that the souls who were in the places far from the Light of Eternity were, in response to our broadcast invitation (in the Lord’s name) from the staging post, beginning the long ascent from the bottom of the ladder.
Jesus speaks often in ACIM about collapsing time, or foreshortening the time taken to get Home, by true forgiveness and, broadly speaking, by other Kingdomly acts such as blessing, loving, caring, compassionate endeavours toward our brethren in the Sonship. This vignette gives a graphic demonstration that this really works: I saw those on the ladder make a sudden and rapid move upward, as on an escalator, as my heart filled with love and blessing for them at the offering of the wine of Christ Love.
It also says that the angels were flying around the ladder guarding or watching over (ministering to) the souls on it. Although most of us have no conscious awareness of such, this is actually happening to us all right now, as we make our ascent on the ladder so lovingly provided by Jesus, who, as so amply demonstrated by the allegory in this vignette, truly is our saviour, so that we in turn, can also be, with him, saviours.
The Communion Sanctuary staging post is (only) ‘half-way up the ladder’ because it is not at our final destination: Home. But it is strategically placed to be a message-relaying mechanism, to those who participate and to all who respond to the invitation, ‘All who truly seek after God, and earnestly desire the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven upon Earth, draw near, and let us commune together upon the Bread and Wine of Eternal Life and Truth revealed in Jesus, our Lord.’
The central message of ACIM is that whatever we say, do, think about/to our fellows, we do to ourself. If we judge them we are in reality judging ourself; if we forgive them we are actually forgiving ourself; if we invite them to join with us to commune together upon the bread and wine of eternal life and truth, we are assuring our own place at that same banquet table.
We are all freely invited to that banquet table, not at some indeterminate, ‘future’ time; right now. I look forward eagerly to meeting you there.
With love and blessings, always,
Brian Longhurst
Evil can't get close to you,
harm can't get through the door.
He ordered His angels
to guard you wherever you go.
If you stumble, they'll catch you;
their job is to keep you from falling.
(Psalm 91:11-12 - The Message)
January 16th 2008
Dear Friends,
When we forget something, we are usually grateful for a friendly reminder. That, then, should be no less the case, surely, when we have forgotten everything!? That is what has happened to us in this multi-act dream realm we call the world. We have forgotten everything. That is demonstrated by us all as we emerge from the womb. Yet it is not actually true, because our true, Big Self, has not forgotten anything.
Due to this unconscious belief that we have sinned against our Creator and are on the run from Him because He is out to exact retribution, we believe we are separated from Him. Because the Creator is, by definition, everything, if we believe we have separated from Him, we must believe we are separate from everything. This manifests as billions of separate beings, separate from each other and from all the rest of the creation we see with our Earthly sight and other sensory perceptors.
But Big Self, Who is always closer to us than our own breath, and is, indeed the Holy Breath that is our life, our very Being, knows this is not true. Yet the separated, split-off part of our mind that believes it is allowed to believe it because we are endowed with freedom to believe illusions (otherwise known as lies!) if we so choose, even though Big Self does not believe anything; Big Self knows the truth, which, also by definition, is everything and when we (truly) know something, belief does not come into it either. I call that spiritual knowing, rather than intellectual ‘knowing,’ which is actually assuming rather than true knowing.
Many might ask, well, if we know the truth with our Higher Mind, why doesn’t It put us straight, down here in our little self mind, scrabbling for survival in the mire of despond, where lies, disinformation and misperceptions are endemic? The answer to that is, in the big (or complete) picture, It is putting us straight. The difficulty, as perceived by us in our little-self, upside-down, separated mind, is that we are incapable of seeing the Big Picture; because we have elected not to believe it, so we don’t see it; so, being upside-down, it says, ‘I don’t see it, so I don’t believe it.’ Sounds like ego, doesn’t it? Two guesses at that are one more than we need.
The little picture that we see (and then, in line with ego’s disinformation service, wrongly believe is the big picture because we have telescopes and microscopes, and archaeologists and historians, and scientists and researchers, and prognosticators) tells us that we live in a chaos universe, where everything is a chance event, and it is impossible to foretell the final outcome, because there are too many variables. Yet Big Self, which is who we really are, knows what is the final – and inevitable, unstoppable – outcome. That is because it has already happened! Yet, little self does not see that because it is focussed in the wrong direction: time and place. And believes time and place is all there is. But that is entirely the reverse of reality (see how upside-down everything is ‘here’?) Even ‘here’ doesn’t exist because that implies there is also a ‘there’ – in other words, separation; and of course, there is no separation.
We could continue indefinitely with this round of postulations based on misperceptions, and that is exactly what ego wants us to do. The only way to break that endless loop is to take a leap of faith, to reverse the attitude that says, ‘Show me, then I will believe,’ and substitute it for ‘I choose to believe, so that I may then have my true vision restored to me; the vision of Eternity and Who and where I really am.’ That is how we can re-establish contact with our true, Big Self. Then we will begin to recover our memory, see past the illusions and get Home. Of course, here is another big – the biggest – misperception, because we are already Home, have always been, have never left, and all contraindications are a dream, illusion, fantasy that never was reality, and was over the moment it started.
Nevertheless, because we believe the illusions are real, they are, or have the appearance of being - for little-self us - real, and it is this illusory perception from which Big Self is awakening us. Those misperceptions are so deeply embedded in the upside-down, separated part of our mind that it is taking what appears to be ‘time’ for this awakening process to take place and be completed.
For those who continue to demand ‘proof,’ there will be some more circuits of the carousel, and that is fine, because it is, after all, only a dream. As Jesus says in ACIM, ‘…those who seek controversy will find it. Yet those who seek clarification will find it as well. They must, however, be willing to overlook controversy, recognising that it is a defence against truth in the form of a delaying manoeuvre.’ (C-In.2:1-3). Yet, as Big Self, otherwise known as the Spirit of Truth, or the Holy Spirit, or the Voice for God, continues to whisper His loving, gentle, tender, all-knowing reminders into our slumbering mind, with His infinite patience (because He knows the end from the beginning, and thus has no concern about the outcome), so are we gradually emerging from the depths of sleep, to be restored to the fullness of wakefulness and remembrance of who we really are.
Those who are ready to awaken are awakening and becoming empowered with the birthright that is and has always been with us (as demonstrated in so many ways by Jesus of Galilee). This awakening process is in only its relatively nascent stage of manifesting at the Earth-life level of awareness, so it can still be denied as happening by the ego-dominated, slumbering establishment, who control the money, the media and the misadministration of egoland.
But, with every sincere act of forgiveness, blessing, thanksgiving, loving, remembering - by every person who appears to be here - time is collapsing. For us all. Because we are one; so if it collapses for one, it collapses for all. This means that what would have taken more millions of years than anyone would wish to count - or even imagine, without the help of Big Self - will be reduced to just one more, final, measure of meal. Two measly millennia. A snap of a finger. A blink of an eye.
As each generation comes and goes, each nothing more than a shadow in a dream world, so there is becoming - the more so since the dawning, in the last few decades, of the age of Aquarius, or the final phase of the GRP – an exponential increase in the number/percentage of awakening souls, bringing ever more reminders and manifestations of that Sonship empowerment. So, with each passing generation - already becoming ever more clearly detectable, even now in 2008 - the ground for clinging to the old order by the establishment and the sceptics is shrinking.
So, a sceptic in this generation, who will inevitably have to return to egoland in a ‘future’ generation, will find it harder in each successive act to remain as dyed-in-the-wool an unbeliever (slumberer) as was possible in former acts. And so it will continue with every next act, until he is ready for Big Self to make Himself known, within the heart and mind of the gradually awakening slumberer. And when that happens, whenever it happens, he will receive help, because he, along with us all, is deeply, totally, unconditionally, passionately loved, and cared for.
Of course there is only one of us, so that one will become – is becoming – with each generation, more like the Way-shower, Who is already fully awake and restored to Big Self-ness. Until that is Who we will all, once more and forever, have become; and little self will have ceased to appear to be, and all his little-world dreams will have been shone away by the Light of Eternal Truth.
Come; collapse a little time with me!
Brian Longhurst
January 23rd 2008
Dear Friends,
Those of us who are not fully restored to remembrance of who we really are – in other words, awake, or enlightened – because we have not undone all the guilt and fear in our unconscious by the mechanism of true forgiveness (and that, of course, at this stage in the GRP still means the vast majority of us) - will have to re-incarnate, at least once more, perhaps numerous further times, depending on where we are, or how far we have progressed on our ages-long journey back Home to Papa. This is to provide ourselves with further opportunities in time and place to heal our broken relationships, undo, or dispel, ego from the upside-down, split part of our mind, restore our wrong-mindedness to right-mindedness and in the process heal our split mind back to normal, unified functionality.
Depending on how close to awakening we are at the time of our laying aside the body we have been with, the arrangements for re-incarnating will vary, but with one constant feature always in operation: there is never any external compulsion.
Those who are still deeply asleep (spiritually) at the time of their passing, and have perhaps arrived at some of the lower ‘mansions’ of the etheric realms, where there is little or no light and little or no discernment of eternal realities, will be functioning on autopilot in terms of the processes of re-incarnating, motivated by their basic, ego-driven instincts, with no conscious understanding that re-incarnating is for the purpose of going forward, providing opportunities for the Good Husbandman to grow us spiritually.
They will gravitate toward prospective new parents according to their desires for re-experiencing that with which they are familiar from previous acts, because ego does not like change, and keeps those within its thrall going round in circles. Hence the observation that history repeats itself. The reason for this is that those who tend to make the news, and therefore history, are still deeply engaged with the illusion of time and place. Without the assistance/input/contribution of far more enlightened souls – here and in spirit - truly the world would be on a downward and backward spiral into darkness.
Many observe that this is happening anyway and from an Earth-mind perspective it does appear to be the case. But this is the chaos time, the changeover phase between two epochs, when leaven from the second measure of meal is being taken to mix into the third measure, until the whole is leavened. Although it appears to be chaos to our Earthly senses, it is inevitable and is firmly within the GRP and entirely under the control of its Chief Executive Officer.
Those who have laid aside their body and returned to the place which resonates with their state of greater spiritual discernment, but are not yet fully Self-realised, awake, enlightened - and thus will still need one or more further acts in which to undo all remnants of unconscious guilt, fear, ego-mindedness, and heal all brokenness in their relationships – are sufficiently aware of what is happening to be able to plan their next (and if they have the one-pointed desire for and commitment to, the Kingdom of Heaven, their final) act.
They are also sufficiently aware that they need help for this, to ensure they get the details right, such as parents, cultural setting and environment, that are the most serviceable to the objectives of the upcoming act. Fortunately, there is plenty of help and guidance freely available in all the Halls of Heaven, and whosoever asks always receives. That help, of course, is also always freely available – and given – to all of us who perceive ourselves as being here with a body. If only we can ask, believing, we can receive that help; for ego would have us believe, falsely, that not receiving means it has not been given.
Now being the time of the beginning of the fulfilment of the GRP, the help and guidance for planning our acts is of inestimable benefit in the collapsing of time, so we can all be restored to oneness in the Sonship with Papa by the completion of the leavening of the third measure of meal.
That guided planning, of course, takes place in the etheric counterpart of Earth, after we have laid aside our body from the previous act, and have had a chance to review the events and progress of that previous act and how we can move forward from that place in the next act. This provides the continuity of progress from one act to the next, and ensures that we are able to provide ourself with the opportunities (so often perceived as adversities) that can facilitate their transformation to fulfilment. That is, in this context, the healing of relationships that have been broken over perhaps many previous acts, as a result of ego ensnarement.
Those who have voluntarily placed themselves within the guided planning process, under the tutelage of an enlightened being (Jesus is fully qualified and freely available to all comers for this undertaking!) then proceed to take a body once more, through the parents selected for the purpose. There will often be a ‘history’ of previous familial relationship with those parents. Of course the process of reincarnating entails moving through a phase of forgetfulness, although that is becoming less the case as we progress through the GRP and more and more souls who are remembering more of who they are - Indigo and Crystal (Christ-all) children - are incarnating.
Such souls are capable of remembering more of the realities of Eternity, quicker, than has historically been the case. Further, with each passing generation there is becoming more material/evidence/information about Eternity (Heaven) available here in the Earth, for all who so choose to remember quicker why we are here and begin the At-onement process earlier in their sojourn in time. This speeding-up will now make an exponential rate of increase with the aid of ACIM.
Having to go through the amnesia phase can seem rather wasteful of time and also rather scary if we think about it from only an Earth-mind perspective. However, time is an illusion, so it makes no difference to the outcome of the objectives of the new act. As for scary, well, we are totally loved, totally cared for and we are eternal, indestructible spirit, so any appearances to the contrary are also illusions. Fearful-appearing events/circumstances are called into our own presence, and will often (hopefully, preferably) achieve their objective of getting us to place ourselves (once more) within the care of a Higher Power than our little self is initially aware of with its sensory perceptors. It hardly needs to be said that that Higher Power is the Holy Spirit.
Ego, which does not want change, does all it can to stop us from venturing beyond its domain of control (time and place) so would have us believe the ‘unseen’ reality that is Eternity/Heaven is to be eschewed as fearful, dangerous, a place where ‘monsters and dragons’ roam, ready to devour us if we dare to set foot there. For the comfort and reassurance of those who are fearful, at the prospect of staying here or seeking eternal truth, Jesus reassures us in ACIM:
You are part of reality, which stands unchanged beyond the reach of your ego but within easy reach of spirit. When you are afraid, be still and know that God is real, and you are His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. Do not let your ego dispute this because the ego cannot know what is far beyond its reach as you are. (T-4.I.8:5-7)
He also says:
Of your ego you can do nothing to save yourself or others, but of your spirit you can do everything for the salvation of both. Humility is a lesson for the ego, not for the spirit. Spirit is beyond humility, because it recognizes its radiance and gladly sheds its light everywhere. The meek shall inherit the earth because their egos are humble, and this gives them truer perception…
I will substitute for your ego if you wish, but never for your spirit. A father can safely leave a child with an elder brother who has shown himself responsible, but this involves no confusion about the child’s origin. The brother can protect the child’s body and his ego, but he does not confuse himself with the father because he does this. I can be entrusted with your body and your ego only because this enables you not to be concerned with them, and lets me teach you their unimportance. I could not understand their importance to you if I had not once been tempted to believe in them myself. Let us undertake to learn this lesson together so we can be free of them together. I need devoted teachers who share my aim of healing the mind. Spirit is far beyond the need of your protection or mine. Remember this:
In this world you need not have tribulation because I have overcome the world. That is why you should be of good cheer. (T-4.I.12,13)
He has said to me many, many times over the decades, in response to any expression of doubt, uncertainty, trepidation, ‘Have no fear, for I am able.’ Assuredly, we are in safe hands, and we are as near to the Kingdom as we choose to be.
Peace be with us all,
Brian Longhurst
January 30th 2008
Dear Friends,
If we were in a building that is about to collapse, or going up in flames, we are not likely to argue or procrastinate when the security man says, ‘Follow me, I know how to get you out of here.’ Unless someone else says, ‘Don’t worry, the building is quite safe; it’s not going to collapse and the fire is under control. Look, I’m staying, and if there was any cause for concern I would be leaving, wouldn’t I?’
Well, that is a fair assessment and analogy of what is happening. The ‘building’ seems to be okay; yes, it has been around a long time and it creaks and leaks, and shudders in the wind and bits fall off, and there seems to be a lot of squabbling about which bit belongs to whom. That squabbling turns into fisticuffs from time to time and sometimes a lot of us get hurt. But, hey! It’s all we’ve got, so let’s look after it a bit better, and be nicer to each other, fix it up a bit and keep it going.
Yet the security man, who is there for our wellbeing and protection, is saying he has actually prepared a better place for us; one that bears no comparison with this one. It is shining, comfortable, Architect designed for all our needs, is free for ever, with no ground rent or utility bills, peaceable and we will never want for anything; the Landlord is a philanthropist whose abundance awaits us, no strings attached. All we have to do is be willing to trust him and follow his lead and he will take us there. How reliable is he?
Some say he knows what he is talking about, but the janitor, whose job is to stoke the furnace, who has been around since the building first came up to let, pooh-poohs all that, saying everything is fine and dandy just where we are, so ignore any crackpot, Utopian ideas of a rent-free, idyllic place to chill out; there’s no such thing as a free lunch. That janitor has a smooth, persuasive line of patter, but things don’t always work out as he says. So, who to trust? There’s merit, some say, in the maxim ‘better the devil you know than the One you don’t know.’
But now, the security man has created a manual to show us once and for all that what he says is true. All we have to do is follow what he says in the manual and we will begin to see for ourselves that the janitor has been joshing us; hoodwinking us; prestidigitating us. This old building is not just about to fall down around us but is actually nothing more than a smoke and mirrors exercise, sleight of hand, and he can help us to see right through it for the confidence trick that it really is. And once we have seen through it, it will actually disappear, because in actuality it was never really there in the first place. That ole janitor has had us mesmerised and we fell for it, hook, line and sinker.
The problem is, this manual, so carefully, incisively, comprehensively, expertly and lovingly put together, seems, to our inexpert eyes, highly technical; and even though it uses words we think we understand, it is very long, in three sections and so many bits of it just go right over our heads, especially if we lose concentration. And that pesky janitor is hurtling around making a hullabaloo and hugger-mugger, distracting us from what the security man is telling us.
Nevertheless, the security man is truly our friend and has no intention of just dumping the manual with us and leaving us to try to make sense out of it on our own. He knows, all too well, how good we are at misreading and misinterpreting meanings (largely with the interference of that ubiquitous janitor) and then going off in totally the wrong direction, ending up down a blind alley and getting in an even worse fix. So he has sent his Assistant to explain it to us carefully, one bit at a time, so we can understand it more completely. It may seem to take a bit longer but at least we can be sure of getting there safe and sound in the end. And, since he tells us time is an illusion, it really doesn't matter. Furthermore, that Assistant has also instructed more assistants, and is instructing ever more assistants, to spread out amongst us and take us, one step at a time, toward clarity.
The manual is in three parts and has two objectives. One is to help us to learn how to ignore the janitor; to tune him out, so that all his clamour and clatter and spurious promises have no effect on our focus on the prospectus for our new and shining Home. The other objective is to tell us so expertly and comprehensively about our new Home that we will fall in love with it before we have even seen it, and get so excited about it that we cannot wait to get there. The security man knew it would have that effect on us so he has included into the route he has marked out for us a short-cut that will actually collapse the time it would otherwise have taken us to get there if we didn’t use his guide-manual. That will massively more than make up for the extra time we think it may take us studying the manual.
The great thing about the manual is that even though there are bits that seem very hard to understand, there are plenty of bits that are really straightforward and easy for even manual-o-phobes to understand. So instead of getting dis-spirited at the bits we don’t initially understand, we can get inspired by the bits we do understand and that lift our spirits, so we will then be eager to read some more.
And when we ask the Assistant to help us understand bits that we didn’t understand at the first, or previous reading, astonishingly, we find that our grasp of the message increases each time. And, even more astonishing, we begin to actually see through the smoke and mirrors and have real, visionary glimpses of our new Home. And even more astonishing, we begin to remember that it isn’t actually new at all, but has always been our true Home, but we had somehow, foolishly, forgotten about it.
And then, lo and behold, we begin to glimpse the Landlord that the security man has been telling us about; and we recognise, once our vision has cleared some more, that He is our beloved Dad, and has been waiting with infinite patience to welcome us back.
In fact, He is so overjoyed at our return that He has prepared a humongous banquet feast for us all, the likes of which the world has never seen. What have we been waiting for!? It turned out that the security man knew about this all along and had come to the rickety old structure we thought was ours to bring us the good news of our real Home that we had abandoned back in the mists of time.
Needless to say, when we realised that, he became the hero of the hour. But he simply said someone had to do it; he couldn’t just leave us in our state of bewilderment. Nevertheless, as far as we were concerned, his Way-showing was seen as some heroic deed and we loved, honoured and thanked him profoundly for it.
The interesting thing was that once we were back on track toward our new Home, guided and led by the security man, it all started to take on a feeling of familiarity, so that by the time we got there we realised it really was, and always had been, our true and only Home, just as our visionary glimpses had indicated. Truly, a glorious affirmation that the security man was entirely trustworthy. And as for that janitor; well, he just disappeared with the rickety old structure and was never given another thought.
Meanwhile, here is an extract from the security man’s manual; the guide for getting us Home. It’s easy to see just from this short piece, in which he casts his light of clarity for us, how the janitor’s stories had us bamboozled and tied up in knots:
My mind will always be like yours, because we were created as equals. It was only my decision that gave me all power in Heaven and earth. My only gift to you is to help you make the same decision. This decision is the choice to share it, because the decision itself is the decision to share. It is made by giving, and is therefore the one choice that resembles true creation. I am your model for decision. By deciding for God I showed you that this decision can be made, and that you can make it.
I have assured you that the Mind that decided for me is also in you, and that you can let it change you just as it changed me. This Mind is unequivocal, because it hears only one voice and answers in only one way. You are the light of the world with me. Rest does not come from sleeping but from waking. The Holy Spirit is the call to awaken and be glad. The world is very tired, because it is the idea of weariness. Our task is the joyous one of waking it to the Call for God. Everyone will answer the Call of the Holy Spirit, or the Sonship cannot be as one. What better vocation could there be for any part of the Kingdom than to restore it to the perfect integration that can make it whole? Hear only this through the Holy Spirit within you, and teach your brothers to listen as I am teaching you.
When you are tempted by the wrong voice, call on me to remind you how to heal by sharing my decision and making it stronger. As we share this goal, we increase its power to attract the whole Sonship, and to bring it back into the oneness in which it was created. Remember that “yoke” means “join together”, and “burden” means “message”. Let us restate “My yoke is easy and my burden light” in this way; “Let us join together, for my message is Light”.
I have enjoined you to behave as I behaved, but we must respond to the same Mind to do this. This Mind is the Holy Spirit, Whose Will is for God always. He teaches you how to keep me as the model for your thought, and to behave like me as a result. The power of our joint motivation is beyond belief, but not beyond accomplishment. What we can accomplish together has no limits, because the Call for God is the Call to the unlimited. Child of God, my message is for you, to hear and give away as you answer the Holy Spirit within you
T-5 II.9-12.
Love, as always,
Brian Longhurst
February 6th 2008
Dear Friends,
As I sat quietly at the keyboard, attuning with the Holy Spirit, I became aware of Him, the Voice for God, speaking silently inside my mind. It seemed to be in the form of a letter, so I began typing what I heard. This is what emerged:
Dear Brian,
It is that time again, for you to share of the joy of the Kingdom with your friends, and encourage them with reminders of it being the one, true home of all. Is there any aspect of that that you feel moved, drawn, inspired, to share, and encourage them with?
Dear Holy Spirit,
My journey in time and place has been so greatly blessed with wondrous leading, guiding, counsel, inspiration, encouragement, and so many more of the realities of Eternity that have been revealed to me, and I long to share them all, because they are such joyous and uplifting blessing. You know me; ‘Lord, grant me patience - but hurry’ is such an apposite maxim.
Hang in there just a moment; you had to start your journey – this act, I’m speaking of – knowing (or remembering, strictly speaking) nothing, and it has taken decades for you to arrive at this place. And the journey has been, for your own benefit, very much a one step at a time event. Now, all of a sudden, you want everyone else to be presented with a mountainous heap of information, all in one lump. You know this would not – could not - have worked for you because it is only possible to assimilate small amounts of ‘new’ data into an upside-down mind at a time without feeling as if you are being turned on your head.
I look back on the last 40 years and marvel at how infinitely patient the Master has been with me. Not just patient, but loving, gentle, caring, solicitous, fun, unthreatening…
…And that won your confidence, your trust, your relaxation, your peace and tranquillity, didn’t it?
I was very trepidatious in the early years; nervous of how to be in his presence, even though I was sure he was capable only of beneficence. Nevertheless, I felt I surely must have to ‘mind my Ps and Qs’ in his presence…
Even though he never said or did anything to cause you to feel threatened?
Quite the contrary; he always put me at ease. He was never ‘high and mighty;’ always so, well… as I said, unthreatening, easement making. Even when he first manifested to me in that basement room in 1967. It was as if he was standing in the midst of the sun, but this Light was his own radiance from his own within; I knew that instantly. His knowledge and wisdom and overriding, all pervading love were so powerful the way they radiated out from that sphere of light and even though I was totally overwhelmed, a quivering jelly, it was not from fear, but from love; from being loved totally, personally, intimately, universally, in every way, that is utterly beyond comprehension in Earth-mind terms or experience. The impact it had on me was so intense, yet so peaceful, and has remained with me, alive and real. Whatever else happens, that will always be with me as the certainty of his reality and his personal love and caring for me.
And you know that that is how he feels for all his brethren, without exception.
I know the very idea of any exception is laughable; absurd; meaningless; well, sad, really. That kind of love is the only real love, and anything less is only a pale shadow of love, which is all most of us know about or experience in dreamland here. It is as nothing compared with it. It is my consuming desire to share the experience of the real, living Jesus with anyone who is prepared to listen.
Why?
Because he won my love, because he won my trust – dispelled the anticipation, the misperception I had, along with so many others, about the ‘Lord of all mankind’ being someone of whom to be fearful - with his unassuming, ‘normalness,’ his humour, his obvious delight in surprising me. I was nervous at first, but he always put me at ease, and after a while I was totally at ease. He is my friend, and friends – real friends – are easy to be with. And amazing to me, in the early days, was that he so clearly wanted me to be his friend. He really, really did want that. Well, most of us in this life believe that such an idea is beyond the pale. Why would Jesus, the mighty Lord, want us to be his friend? A ludicrous, arrogant presumption. It’s all that that I want to help everyone else to be able to accept, understand, know, experience. We have to dispel the fear from people’s minds. Most of us are afraid of our own shadow, though very few would be willing to admit it, because it might make them appear weak.
Anything else?
The obvious extension of that is that Papa is the same. For countless ages people have had the idea drummed into them that we must be ‘God fearing.’ Bunkum. Piffle. Poppycock. Balderdash. God is LOVE. Jesus is like Papa, so we can be sure – certain, actually - this is true. How could the emissary from God - who has come to lead us back to Him - be love, gentleness, humility (true humility, that is), if that was in any way different from Him who sent him? And vice-versa?
You’ve convinced me. But then, you know, I don’t need much convincing J So, where do we go from here?
Funny. You know very well, ‘cos You are the central part of the Plan.
Humour me.
Well, it was always a Plan, from day one, though of course I didn’t know it at first.
The same is true, dear friend, for each and every living soul, without exception.
Yes, I know that now and am busting a gut to help others to see that, know that for themselves, with all the certainty that I now know it.
Don’t bust a gut for it; that would be most unserviceable. Yes, yes, I know; it’s just a figure of speech. Tell me about the Plan.
I can only tell You – or anyone – about the plan from my perspective.
Of course. Good answer. Let’s go with that. We can move it out from there.
Well, it all started with me in a previous incarnation, back in the 1600s, when I had what seemed like a pretty ‘heavy’ experience that woke me up to the fact that the church and religion is definitely not the Path back to oneness with our Creator. I am aware of those events because Theresa and I had a series of visits to the Akashic records; just enough to help us understand why we are here this time round. Religion is about fear and control and…
Don’t bang that drum too loud, or too long; we’re trying to keep positive here.
Okay, I know; thanks. The point was, it woke me up to the fact that there had to be a better way. So, I said to the Lord then that when I had finished that act, when I got back to the etheric realms and could have a clear, unadulterated, undistorted line to him, I wanted to have a long discussion with him, about how I could help to set the record straight. I actually wrote some detailed journals during those last few years back then, setting out these new understandings about who we are and our relationship to our Creator, Eternity, and how utterly distorted and wrong the religious perceptions were. But they had to be kept pretty secret, and shared only with those very few I knew were entirely trustworthy. Those were very dangerous times; people were burnt at the stake, beheaded, hanged, drawn and quartered for heresy, blasphemy, dissension…
I hear the sound of a distant drum - again. Can we stick to the Plan please?
Thanks for reminding me. So, I (I was ‘Paul’ then, not Brian, of course) asked the Master what I could do to have another shot at setting the record straight. Thanks to his wisdom and counsel, a Plan was set in place.
Go on; this is starting to get interesting J
You know only too well that when we reincarnate, we forget what has happened between incarnations; in fact we forget everything before that.
That’s not entirely true, not for everyone, anyway. You had some interesting links to your Source when you were a boy on the farm on Ashdown Forest. In fact, you were known and closely watched over every moment, and there were some useful reminders at various stages during your childhood and adolescent years. All just to keep the pot simmering, of course, ‘Lest we forget.’
Thank You. Your closeness and inspiration well me up.
Don’t get all blubbery on me now, Dear One. Let’s lighten up and enjoy this. This is supposed to be a message of encouragement, not a wake.
Right; back to the thread, before I lose it. I met up with Olga and she and I had been around the block together a few times (so I only very recently realised, thanks to our dear, mutual friend the Rector). She and I clicked from day one and she fired up - re-kindled - my love for Jesus. When he came to me that night in ’67, that was it. I was totally and irreversibly hooked and committed to following him. He told me many times over the years, ‘I lead; do thou follow.’ There followed the years of checking, giving me the opportunity to demonstrate to myself, that I was willing to follow; that I had one-pointed commitment to him and his GRP (though I was pretty vague on just what the GRP was. In recent time that has become much clearer and shows he withholds nothing from us if we are willing to stay the course).
What do you mean by stay the course?
His parable about the sower says it all. Some are interested until the going gets tough, then they fall by the wayside and bear no fruit for the Kingdom. In modern parlance, they get easily distracted by the glister and/or the troubles of this world. Those who see past the meaninglessness of glister but rather, have a deep and unwavering commitment to the Kingdom of Heaven, will stay the course.
Throughout those years he gave me so much encouragement and imparted such a sense of the reality of Heaven to me, but he also told me many times that all that was simply preparation for what lay ahead. He said that that with which I was engaged was an operation of hiddenness, in which he was preparing me for when it would become an operation of openness.
We’re getting right up to recent time now, yes?
As well you know. All this time he knew exactly what was the Plan. He’s very, very good at multi-tasking! He has a ‘big GRP,’ for us all, and in amongst that he has a kind of ‘mini-plan’ for each of us individually. When we respond to his knocking at our door, he commences the implementation of that mini plan and he runs it in parallel with his big Plan. Of course, with him having been a carpenter, the big Plan and all the mini plans dovetail perfectly. Seamlessly in fact. The big Plan has been well-rehearsed here - in previous pages - and is covered by the three measures of meal parable, as described in chapter 11 of SFGS, from paragraph 35, so we don’t need to go into that again now.
Slight correction there, Brian. The mini plan is implemented from the moment it is agreed, before reincarnating. When anyone responds to his knocking and invites him into their life, they begin to become aware of the first stirrings that there is a mini plan for them.
Okay; we’re cutting to the chase now, are we?
I see you keep well up with modern parlance. I wouldn’t want to lose you along the way.
As if.
Well, after years of preparation, the operation of hiddenness was suddenly switched to an operation of openness by the Caterpillars and the Butterfly allegory…
Which I suppose you know he gave you.
I didn’t need two guesses for that.
Go on; go on!
A few months after the switch was pulled and the curtain went up (if you will allow me to mix a metaphor or two)…
What, and change the habit of a lifetime?
I was introduced to A Course in Miracles via Gary Renard’s mind-blowing book, The Disappearance of the Universe…
Why was DU mind-blowing? Surely you were well prepared for it by all the years of journeying with Jesus?
My, you don’t give a chap a chance to finish a sentence, do you? It was mind-blowing because it took about 30 seconds to know that the Author of ACIM is he who had been leading me since the ‘60s. I could tell that from the things Arten and Pursah said to Gary and also – especially – from the quotes in DU taken from ACIM. And once I started reading ACIM it all just fell into place.
I’m not sure that explains why it blew your mind (not literally, I am glad to observe).
There were two things about it that staggered, astonished, delighted me. First, it stood out a mile that the Author of ACIM was, incontrovertibly, one and the same person who had led me on a 40-year journey of remembrance, and that leads to the other amazing thing - at least from where I am sitting - which is that it was such a massive affirmation…
You love that word, massive.
Not so much love as find just about adequate. I may not be the most lexically gifted chap on the block, but the English language, devised to cover 3-dimensionality, is fairly limiting for covering subjects beyond that realm. So, I ‘make do and mend;’ it’s a hangover from being a baby boomer. So, to continue, it was an affirmation that he, Jesus, really is in charge, not just of my mini plan, but the GRP, and that was really starting to take hold, BIG TIME, in the world out there. You have to remember that for 40 years, I had been in an operation of hiddenness, so I had no real window to his other mini plans with all those other harbingers and messengers with whom he was working. I had always hoped – earnestly hoped, actually – that there would be plenty of others, because I didn’t fancy being on my Tod as his harbinger, which he told me very early on was who, or what, I was. It was pretty daunting stuff.
Tod?
Tod Sloan; own. It’s cockney rhyming slang. I know You know that.
Of course, but we have to think of our friends in the New World and elsewhere, who know nothing of these quaint British ways.
All of a sudden, out there, it is all happening elsewhere, also. The GRP and all the myriad mini plans are really all one and the same because that’s the way it is in the Kingdom. It’s called inclusiveness. But then, You know that, too. In fact, thank goodness, You know everything.
Reading ACIM, it immediately became clear to me that ACIM is the definitive article about the GRP. Bits of the jigsaw fell into place and it was all so resonant – so utterly resonant - with all that had been my own experience over decades. Of course, he knew that, ‘cos, just like You, he knows everything too. At first, I wondered why he hadn’t got me onto ACIM years ago, but I quickly recognised…
So, you do know about quick then?
Yes, occasionally I have been known to be quick. But then I quickly settle back down into the slow lane again.
It’s safer there.
I have learned that. I quickly recognised that this was all pre-arranged – ‘afore time’ – and that he knows multi-tasking and me are not that well acquainted, me being a bloke; so he led me on the pre-arranged, 40-year, operation of hiddenness, mini plan journey, telling me as we went along that this was simply preparation for what lay ahead. Now the bits of the jigsaw are all coming together – not just for me but for untold numbers of others whose mini plans are also now perfectly dovetailing into the GRP - it is a very clear indicator that the GRP is moving up a gear as we get observably into the 3rd measure of meal and its rapidly activating leavening process.
So now you are going to tell me where all this is leading, right?
You’re ahead of me; but that’s not surprising, considering Your vantage point. Where it’s leading is where it was always going to lead, right from day one, at the beginning of the 1st measure of meal, with Abraham; back to oneness in the Sonship and Home to Papa in Eternity, or Heaven. I always think Heaven has a more comfortable ring about it than Eternity, don’t you?
Well, in Heaven we are concerned only with your comfort.
‘Eternity’ seems a bit too abstract for most of us sojourners in time. ‘Heaven’ has a sense of something we can get acclimatised to. But I digress. This is all leading back to the beginning, where we remember that we never actually left Home, and are being lovingly awakened to that truth; but the point is, ACIM is the drawstring that is pulling it all together. That in itself is adequate demonstration that we are now entering the fulfilment stage; the final phase of the 3-phase GRP. Arten and Pursah tell Gary that in the next few generations it will be widely recognised/accepted that a) it is Jesus who is the Author of ACIM and b) that he is the one in charge of the whole project, or GRP as I call it. I also found it interesting that Jesus started dictating ACIM to Helen in 1965, the same year that I was brought into contact with Olga.
Of course, orthodox Christians believe Jesus has a great plan, even if they don’t have much real idea of the practicalities of it, and they seem to think they must leave it all to him and he’ll sort it for them without any involvement on their own part. Then there are those who have rejected religion’s version of Jesus because there was too much baggage with it, let alone all the squabbling and inability of religionists to agree, so they keep splitting into disparate groups. 20,000 of them at the last count, according to Pursah. Sounds like ego is right in there, dividing and dividing, endlessly; until You get in there and shine the Light of Eternal Truth into the mix.
Now that’s where I need your help.
Great; You have it, every step of the way, or I should say Way. But two things:
Go on.
As Jesus said, Of myself, I can do nothing. So, You may need my help, but I need Your help too, because this ole carcase is all I have down here, and it isn’t in the first flush of youth and vigour any more.
Youth and vigour, like everything else, is all in the mind. I think you know you have my help, and have had it all along. All that 40 years’ preparation was only the beginning; you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. What’s the other thing?
I am not Your only help down here. Thank goodness! And the best material help any of us working for the Kingdom down here has is ACIM, because it is going to enable people to understand the real message for this, the home straight stage of the GRP, direct from its CEO (via Helen, bless her mightily; and bless all those involved in getting it out to the world) - he who has all power in Heaven and Earth - in unequivocal, no nonsense language.
And how do you think that will help his brethren to awaken into the At-onement?
As it states, this is a self study course, that does not need, neither can it be set up to form, another religion to mislead us. Incidentally, it has been very clear to me that it has this in common with the Mystical Christ Communion given to Olga. As he said in the long ago, enter into our closet and shut the door, and there we can be heard and answered by Papa, because therein we are able to shut out the distracting clamour of this world. By following the Course, with help from You, which I know You always give in response to being asked, it is possible for us all to awaken, because it is designed by the Master Wakener to do just that.
Look, Beloved, I could do this all day, but this is already very long and if our friends are being asked to read it and some Diary entries too, we must bring this to a close; at least for now. I feel it is apposite to do so with a short quote from Gary’s book, DU. This is Pursah, speaking to Gary:
Ultimately, each one will learn what you will learn: The Voice for God is your voice; it’s your real voice, because you are Christ. There’s no difference between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in reality – but you don’t live in reality. You live here. Or at least that’s your experience. Until your mind has been healed by the Holy Spirit, you’ll need the help that the symbols of the Course can give you.
Good choice, Brian, even though you have now blown my cover J. You’re doing pretty well for ‘Johnny come lately’ to the Course.
Maybe so, but look at all the preparation I have had ahead of time. And You can’t fool me; I know how much help You are giving me, bringing the right bits of the Course, or Gary’s writing – which is so ma…whoops, I nearly said that word again… hugely helpful to understanding the Course – or some other pertinent quote to me at just the right moment.
What a team. Stick around Kid; there’s more, much more, to come. ¡Hasta la vista!
Thanks be to You and to all our friends,
Brian Longhurst
February 13th 2008
Dear Friends,
In The Disappearance of the Universe (DU), Gary Renard writes:
…Having made room for the Holy Spirit, the student would attain a state of mind wherein he or she would be much more likely to hear reliable guidance about what kind of action to take in any given situation.
Then one morning I awakened with an unusually clear mind. That was when I heard the Voice – from deep within me and all through me – say something with such perfectly clear authority that the Source of it was beyond any possible questioning. This is what I heard:
Renounce the world and the ways of the world. Make them meaningless to you.
Although visions of sacrifice danced in my head, I was still completely blown away. I intuitively said, “I’ll do it. I don’t know how, but I’ll do it.” The Voice answered with this reassurance:
I will show you how.
The world is not real; it is a projection from our own divided, split-off ego-mind, like a film from a projector onto a screen. It is a trick, to confuse us into thinking that we can be separate from our Creator, with and in Whom we are indivisibly one. We have allowed ourself to be duped into believing that ‘out there’ peace, happiness, fulfilment, joy, riches, safety, love are to be found. But we all know, in our heart of hearts, that the only place that it is possible to find these, the Treasures of Heaven, is in our oneness in Papa. It is worth keeping in mind that in Heaven, we are one, not many. And Heaven is now. It is an ego-deception that has us believing it is in the future, because there is only now, the eternal always.
Jesus reminds us in ACIM that Papa has only one Son and we are that Son, but we appear to have divided – a symptom or effect of the apparent separation – into many individuals with a separate body and a separate mind. When two or more of us agree on something we are said to be ‘of one mind.’ That is a much truer statement than most of us realise, because that is who, or more accurately, what, we really are: of one Mind. And that One Mind is Papa’s. We are a Thought of God.
Ego wants us to believe individuality is good, a desirable quality, and the thought of us losing our individuality is perceived as a frightening prospect; rather like dying. But as stated in chapter 12 of SFGS, becoming one again, in Papa, is not about becoming less; it is about becoming more. More than our split mind can begin to comprehend. As Arten says to Gary in DU,
…no matter how attractive you may think individuality is, it is nothing but separation…
When Jesus said
‘I and my Father are one’ he was denoting that he was beyond individuality; that he had left individuality behind. He also said, ‘…the prince of this world (i.e. ego) cometh, and hath nothing in me.’ This means he was, although still with a body in the illusion of the Earth life with his disciples, completely free of ego-split mind, and his Mind fully restored to oneness. He could see, and knew of a certainty that we also are, in the reality of our higher Self, of one mind, with him in the Sonship, in the eternity of Heaven.
If that is what it takes to be restored to our true Home, with all its treasures, and I venture to suggest that most of us are prepared to acknowledge that Jesus knows more about this than we do, then it seems worthwhile taking on trust that the ‘security man’ is a safer bet to follow than the ‘janitor.’ Trusting someone gives us a sense of security, and that engenders an inner peace. Trusting someone whom we know, of a certainty, is absolutely, totally trustworthy, gives us absolute security and unassailable inner peace.
Trust. There is a paucity of it in egoland, and not without reason, because this is a house divided against itself. But this world is not real, other than any reality we ascribe to it. All we have to do is ‘unsubscribe’ and choose to see through the agenda of distraction (which, remember, will make us distraught), always seeking to keep us in the consciousness of fear, with its clamour about terror, about scarcity, about division, and choose instead to give our reality to the only reality, which requires nothing other than a commitment to changing our mind about what appears to be happening.
This change cannot happen all at once because our divided mind needs retraining back to right mindedness from its wrong-minded indoctrination. But if we choose against making a start, making that commitment, where will we be when our allotted time here is up? Just where we started, without progress on the journey Home. Is that a sound policy?
Confucius’ famous saying states that a journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step. Most who may read this will assuredly have at least taken that first step, but many will also still believe in their unworthiness, at least to some degree; after all, it comes with the territory, and this may be causing delay, doubt, hesitation to prevent us taking the next, and the next, and the next steps. But we are being shown how to regain our memory of Self and its absolute worth, and leave this alien, fearful, uncertain realm behind us as we move back toward the Light and freedom.
It is worth remembering that our true Home is Heaven. It is where we are from, so it is actually familiar Territory, so there is no cause for trepidation, but every cause for celebration. The escape route that will take us back there is true forgiveness, so that by forgiving our fellows for what they have not done, we may receive the forgiveness that is rightfully ours, and vice-versa. This is because there is only one of us.
By the same token, if we receive light, illumination, enlightenment from a brother ahead of us on the Path, and make progress on the journey by that help, the light-shiner is also helped forward because there is only one of us. As ACIM reminds us, we learn by teaching. This then means that we can shine that light on the Path for our brothers who are behind us on the Path, and by so doing receive help to go forward from where we are on the Path. This is a PLF and is immutable.
Jesus reminds us that it is not just he who is the light of the world, but we also. Doubt, fear and lack of self worth keep us from shining our light much of the time but these misperceptions are the ‘lies of satan’ (ego) and now is the time to shrug off that uncomfortable, treacherous yoke, be of good cheer, full of confidence because of our Way-shower, and let our light so shine for our fellow travellers, so that we may be enlightened by that same Light, which comes from the Mind of Papa because we, also, come from the Mind of Papa.
Love and Light,
Brian Longhurst
February 20th 2008
Dear Friends,
A few days ago I was sent the following e-mail, which I found affirmative and informative:
Why did Jesus fold the napkin?
Why did Jesus fold the linen burial cloth after His resurrection? The Gospel of John (20:7) tells us that the napkin, which was placed over the face of Jesus, was not just thrown aside like the grave clothes.
The Bible takes an entire verse to tell us that the napkin was neatly folded and was placed at the head of that stony coffin.
Early Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance.
She ran and found Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. She said, 'They have taken the Lord's body out of the tomb, and I don't know where they have put him!'
Peter and the other disciple ran to the tomb to see. The other disciple outran Peter and got there first. He stooped and looked in and saw the linen cloth lying there, but he didn't go in. Then Simon Peter arrived and went inside.
He also noticed the linen wrappings lying there, while the cloth that had covered Jesus' head was folded up and lying to the side.
Is that important? Absolutely! Is it really significant? Yes! In order to understand the significance of the folded napkin, you have to understand a little bit about Hebrew tradition of that day.
The folded napkin had to do with the Master and Servant, and every Jewish boy knew this tradition. When the servant set the dinner table for the master, he made sure that it was exactly the way the master wanted it. The table was furnished perfectly, and then the servant would wait, just out of sight, until the master had finished eating, and the servant would not dare touch that table until the master was finished.
Now if the master was done eating, he would rise from the table, wipe his fingers and mouth with that napkin and toss it on to the table. The servant would then know to clear the table. For in those days, the wadded napkin meant, 'I'm done.' But if the master got up from the table, and folded his napkin, and laid it beside his plate, the servant knew that the folded napkin meant, 'I'm not finished yet.'
The folded napkin meant, 'I'm coming back!'
After all, Jesus knew (because he had planned it) this was a 3-course meal and there were 2 more courses before the whole would be leavened. Okay, so I am making a word play on the word ‘meal,’ but cut me some slack here, because in this instance it ties together the cultural tradition, which, as the story above recounts, would assuredly have been fully understood as a significant symbol, and his parable of the 3 measures of meal. 2000 years ago Jesus knew he had unfinished business; there were 2 more measures of meal to be leavened.
He told the disciples that he had to return to Papa so that he could prepare a place for us, so that he could come back to receive us into that place, Heaven. So, to our ego-mind perception, he did ‘leave.’ But he also told the disciples that he had asked for another comforter to take his place during his apparent absence: the Spirit of Truth, or Holy Spirit, or Holy Breath. We are now reminded that Jesus is fully identified with the Holy Spirit, the Voice for God, so in that sense he has never left us, even though our little self perceives it otherwise.
Whichever way we look at it, assuredly he is now (back) here with us all, as evinced by his giving to us, through Helen Schucman, ACIM; by his manifesting to and speaking/commun(icat)ing with Olga Park and with Murdo Macdonald-Bayne in the first half of the 20th century, with me since 1967, and with untold numbers of others. In truth, of course, he is manifesting to and speaking/commun(icat)ing with us all, all the time, because we are all one, with him, in the Sonship, so it could not be otherwise.
The absence of awareness by any of us of that reality does not make it not so, any more than the reality of countless radio and other waves filling the atmosphere all around us and passing right through us is not so just because we are unaware of them so doing. We can have awareness of them if we equip ourselves with the correct receiving device and attune to the appropriate wavelength, and this is true with the speaking/commun(icat)ing with us by Jesus and/or the Holy Spirit. I know this of a certainty because I have experienced it for over 40 years, enabled by the attuning and receiving device called Mystical Communion with Christ.
Here is an extract from chapter 8, section III of ACIM about holy encounters:
III. The Holy Encounter
Glory to God in the highest, and to you because He has so willed it. Ask and it shall be given you, because it has already been given. Ask for light and learn that you are light. If you want understanding and enlightenment you will learn it, because your decision to learn it is the decision to listen to the Teacher Who knows of light, and can therefore teach it to you. There is no limit on your learning because there is no limit on your mind (unless we choose to believe otherwise, and therefore appear to self-impose whilst under ego-mind domination; and we are always free to deny and choose again with the Holy Spirit). There is no limit on His teaching because He was created to teach. Understanding His function perfectly He fulfils it perfectly, because that is His joy and yours.
When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him you will see yourself. As you treat him you will treat yourself. As you think of him you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself (because we are all one). Whenever two Sons of God meet, they are given another chance at salvation. Do not leave anyone without giving salvation to him and receiving it yourself (by practising - silently, within your mind; salvation has nothing to do with proselytising! - true forgiveness and blessing/releasing them into the care of Holy Spirit). For I am always there with you, in remembrance of you.
Everyone is looking for himself and for the power and glory he thinks he has lost. Whenever you are with anyone, you have another opportunity to find them. Your power and glory are in him because they are yours. The ego tries to find them in yourself alone, because it does not know where to look. The Holy Spirit teaches you that if you look only at your(little)self you cannot find your(Big)self, because that is not what you are. Whenever you are with a brother, you are learning what you are because you are teaching what you are. He will respond either with pain or with joy, depending on which teacher (ego or Holy Spirit) you are following. He will be imprisoned or released according to your decision, and so will you. Never forget your responsibility to him, because it is your responsibility to yourself. Give him his place in the Kingdom and you will have yours. (As we remind ourself that there is only one of us, this gradually becomes first nature to us and we don’t even need to stop and think about it because our Holy Spirit Mind is taking over our thought processes, thus dispelling the hold over us that ego has had for so long. Hard to think of better news!)
God’s power and glory are everywhere, and you cannot be excluded from them. The ego teaches that your strength is in you alone. The Holy Spirit teaches that all strength is in God and therefore in you. Through His power and glory all your wrong decisions are undone completely, releasing you and your brother from every imprisoning thought any part of the Sonship holds (because we are all one). Wrong decisions have no power, because they are not true. The imprisonment they seem to produce is no more true than they are.
Power and glory belong to God alone. So do you. God gives whatever belongs to Him because He gives of Himself, and everything belongs to Him. Giving of yourself is the function He gave you (as demonstrated by Jesus, who is our Way-shower). Fulfilling it perfectly will let you remember what you have of Him, and by this you will remember also what you are in Him. You cannot be powerless to do this, because this is your power. Glory is God’s gift to you, because that is what He is. See this glory everywhere to remember what you are.
Because we have the perfect example of all this in Jesus of Galilee, we know that all this is achievable by/for all of us, because we are like him (however much to the contrary things may appear to our upside-down, ego-dominated mind) so that we may all be re-unified – made one again - with him in the Sonship.
As we all know, ego will do everything it can to cause us to resist choosing with Jesus/Holy Spirit and thus be shown how to break the cycle of birth and death. For those of us who have chosen to eschew everything to do with Jesus and the Holy Spirit because we associate Them too closely with religion, and we abandoned orthodox, institutionalised religion because of its un-Jesus-like ways, we will think this is our own, rational, right-minded thinking. Let us see what Arten says to Gary in The Disappearance of the Universe:
Most people, especially nice, spiritual people, don’t know about the murderous thought system that runs this universe, or the hatred that’s underneath the surface of their mind. Nor do most of them want to know. Most people just want everything to be hunky-dory. You can’t blame them for wanting peace, but real peace is found by undoing the ego, not by covering it over.
Fortunately, we have a trustworthy, fully empowered, unconditionally loving, rationally-thinking, Holy Spirit-minded, no nonsense guide to lead us, at our pace, in finding the Way out from this otherwise endless nightmare, and who can collapse the ‘time’ it would otherwise take us to do it.
Love and blessings,
Brian Longhurst
February 27th 2008
Dear Friends,
True forgiveness, healing of broken relationships and Mind-to-Mind communing are all subjects we have discussed separately before, but they are so closely linked as to be aspects of the same process in our endeavour Homeward. The fact they have been mentioned before does not mean further consideration may not be helpful, for the whole question of eternal reality and how to get back to it is of such all-consuming importance, and so alien to the upside-down thinking by which we are encumbered in our sensory dream-world, that we need constant reminders of what is right-minded thinking in order to get our minds re-trained for resonance with our true Self.
True forgiveness has the objective of healing broken relationships because all the while Papa’s one Son believes himself to be broken, or divided, or separated into ever-increasing numbers of individual pieces, he cannot experience the wholeness that is his true reality; and Mind-to-Mind communing is the mechanism by which the process of true forgiveness takes place.
Let us establish some definitions here, for clarity. When the word ‘Mind’ is used with a capital M, it is to indicate Big-Self, or Christ Mind. When it is shown in all lower case, it means anything less than Christ Mind, and that, by definition, can only be the part of our mind that appears to have been split off, and is upside-down, seeing everything that is the true reality of Eternity as its opposite, which includes time and place; past, present and future as linear unfoldment; everything being outside ourself; fear, death, judgement etc.
When I first began practising the Mystical Communion with Christ, back in 1967, my conscious mind was definitely ‘lower case.’ But he with whom I earnestly aspired and desired to commune was definitely a capital M! So, that was mind-to-Mind communing. Jesus’ objective is to restore our minds to a re-unified state of one-Mindedness with his, because he loves us unconditionally, sees past our apparent errors, and he knows that this is our true, magnificent, unlimited, all-empowered, pure, innocent nature. The word ‘innocent’ is used here because it is the false belief in sin and guilt - which engenders fear – that keeps us, one could say, ‘small minded.’
Papa’s one Son – that’s all of us, re-unified – is innocent, and it is restoration to fullness of remembrance of that truth that will transform us from small-mindedness back to Big-Mindedness. All the while we believe we are guilty, sinners, fearful of punishment from a vengeful god, we will be stuck on the carousel of small mindedness; seeing everything upside down and inevitably bewildered about the true reality of Eternity and our relationship to It and Its Creator.
As soon as we are ready to accept that we are – already, and always have been - the same as Jesus so ably demonstrated (and still does) himself to be, we begin the metamorphosis of mind to Mind process, because then Holy Spirit – which is our real Self, with Whom we are indivisibly one - has our authorisation to begin the process on our behalf. There are transitional steps from small mind to Big Mind, and these are accessed by allowing Jesus/Holy Spirit to correct our thinking from upside-down to right-side up, or right mindedness, which will lead us back to Christ Mindedness. It is that willingness that is so all important to the commencement of the process and our progress within the process.
That willingness was something that I was more than, well… willing, to allow, because I trusted Jesus from day one. I had a major advantage from the example of seeing how implicitly Olga trusted him and how, as a result, he had been able to lead, counsel, inspire, illumine her mind with spiritual enlightenment. She told me her job was to get me ‘hooked up’ with Jesus, and if I am able to assist any of my fellow travellers to become so ‘hooked,’ then perhaps I shall become a ‘fisher of men.’
So, although we start out in our communing with Jesus and/or the Holy Spirit as mind-to-Mind communing, Their job is the transformation of our mind, which is asleep but appears to be awake, to our Big Mind, that seems to be asleep but is awake, by right thinking. That transformation process always begins at/from the place where we perceive ourself as being, at a pace with which we are comfortable, with no pressure, because, unlike most Earth-life tutors, They are infinitely patient and unconditionally loving, not to mention all-knowing and wise!
They see through all our time and place illusions and see – know – who we really are, because illusions are nothing, and truth cannot see nothing because it does not exist. We believe they exist, but like all dreams, when we wake up, the dreams are gone.
Because with our ego-dominated ‘Earth mind’ we see everything as upside-down, or the opposite of the true, eternal reality, when we first encounter the true reality, it seems upside-down to the ego-conditioned part of our mind. It is therefore a great temptation to dismiss truth of Eternity as nonsense, meaningless psycho-babble, just as ego earnestly wants us to do. For example, the fundamental truth that Papa has but one Son, seems a very hard concept to get our head around when wherever we look there appear to be others, all with bodies, brains, minds, separate from us.
This is where mind-to-Mind communing will set us back on the path to right thinking and right perceiving, because it will lead us to the fact that we are able to experience commun(icat)ing with our brother Jesus mind-to-Mind. This, or rather, he, will gradually help us to see things more and more right-side up. It has to be a one step at a time process because if we have been standing on our metaphorical head all our lives, inevitably we will have become accustomed to it, and getting right-side up all in one go would be disorientating, to say the least. But one step at a time, according to our pace of readiness, he will safely, caringly, lovingly lead us back to sanity and clarity of vision.
And when we have experienced mind-to-Mind communing with Jesus we will realise we are equally able to commune Mind-to-Mind with any brother, including and especially those with whom we have a broken relationship, with the Kingdomly objective of healing that broken relationship. This is possible because, with Holy Spirit help, we bypass the mind of the healee and reach the Mind, our relationship with which is already healed. Then, by our BLASER blessing them, Holy Spirit permeates the ‘shell’ of their ego-mind with our true forgiveness/blessings and this strengthens the inner Being, weakening the apparent ego-hold connection, thus enabling/assisting the healee (which, don’t forget, is also ourself) to ‘hatch’ out of the shell.
The example of apparent separation into many individuals causes us to see blame, guilt, fear, error, attack as coming from someone else – ‘out there,’ or ‘over there.’ But because this is an error of perception with our ego-mind-made body senses, when we see a fault as somebody else’s, we are seeing incorrectly, and this will lead us to judge/blame others for our misfortunes. It is errors/judging based on incorrect perceiving that Jesus/Holy Spirit will correct for us, if we are willing to allow Them to do it for us, for assuredly, we cannot accomplish this of ourself.
Actually, it is not easy to accomplish much whilst standing on one’s head!! The only thing we will accomplish is to see an upside-down projection of ourself in the form of others around us, so if we see another behaving in a way that appears to us to be insane, we are seeing only ourself and judging ourself accordingly, which I feel most of us would agree is in itself an act of insanity. Better to say, this is a misperception, therefore, that fellow, who is a projection of my own misperceived self, is as innocent (or, if we still choose to see with ego eyes, as guilty) as myself.
Here is what Jesus reminds us about these matters in ACIM:
If you point out the errors of your brother’s ego you must be seeing (those errors) through yours, because the Holy Spirit does not perceive his errors. This must be true, since there is no communication between the ego and the Holy Spirit. The ego makes no sense, and the Holy Spirit does not attempt to understand anything that arises from it. Since He does not understand it, He does not judge it, knowing that nothing the ego makes means anything. (As we start to see things right-side up, this truth becomes more and more apparent until we are eventually seeing everything with the true-vision of Christ Mind and the things of this world we valued/believed were important gradually become meaningless to us. This is correction of error of perception).
When you react at all to errors, you are not listening to the Holy Spirit. He has merely disregarded them, and if you attend to them you are not hearing Him. If you do not hear Him, you are listening to your ego and making as little sense as the brother whose errors you perceive. This cannot be correction. Yet it is more than merely a lack of correction for him. It is the giving up of correction in yourself.
When a brother behaves insanely, you can heal him only by (being resolute, one-pointed in our commitment to) perceiving the sanity in him. If you perceive his errors and accept them, you are accepting yours. If you want to give yours over to the Holy Spirit, you must do this with his. Unless this becomes the one way in which you handle all errors, you cannot understand how all errors are undone. How is this different from telling you that what you teach you learn? Your brother is as right as you are, and if you think he is wrong you are condemning yourself.
You cannot correct yourself. Is it possible, then, for you to correct another? Yet you can (are able, if we so choose, to) see him truly, because it is possible for you to see yourself truly. It is not up to you to change your brother, but merely to accept him as he (actually, not apparently) is. His errors do not come from the truth that is in him, and only this truth is yours. His errors cannot change this, and can have no effect at all on the truth in you. To perceive errors in anyone, and to react to them as if they were real, is to make them real to you. You will not escape paying the price for this, not because you are being punished for it, but because you are following the wrong guide and will therefore lose your way. (This makes it easy to see how our upside-down thinking led us to mistakenly believe a vengeful god was out to punish us).
Your brother’s errors are not of him, any more than yours are of you. Accept his errors as real, and you have attacked yourself. If you would find your way and keep it, see only truth beside you (because truth is what Jesus is, and we are all, in truth, like him) for you walk together. The Holy Spirit in you forgives all things in you and in your brother. His errors are forgiven with yours.
The Holy Spirit forgives everything because God created everything. Do not undertake His function, or you will forget yours... You do not understand how to use it. He will teach you how to see yourself without condemnation, by learning how to look on everything without it. Condemnation will then not be real to you, and all your errors (of perception, of judgement, of condemnation) will be forgiven.
(Extracted from T-9.III; my emboldening and underlining, for emphasis).
And then we will see, reflected in our brother, our Self, for whom and what we really are: pure and innocent; Christ, the one Son of our Father Creator.
To true vision,
Brian Longhurst
March 5th 2008
Dear Friends,
Time and eternity are both in your mind, and will conflict until you perceive time solely as a means to regain eternity. You cannot do this as long as you believe that anything happening to you is caused by factors outside yourself.
This is from ACIM, Text, page 181. Jesus is not renowned for beating about the bush, or equivocating, in stark contrast to our split off, ego mind, whose motto could be, ‘Once I was indecisive, but now I am not so sure.’
If we believe we are here in an illusory realm, and that things happen to us, it is time to wake up to the actuality that this is the opposite of our true Self and Dwelling Place, because this dream is hell and our true Home is Heaven.
Many of us may feel, ‘Well, if this hell, it isn’t as bad as all that, so what’s the big deal? I am content to hang around a while longer and live out my time, and then we’ll see what’s so brilliant about this much-vaunted Heaven.’ There are two observations to make in response to that. First is that it is an illusion that we are separate from each other (not to speak of God, for the moment); we are one, so if our brother is hurting (we could try Darfur for size, but there are dozens of wars, genocides, plus religious, social, emotional, economic oppression and deprivation, murder, mayhem, political and commercial intrigue and malfeasance happening in every country) then we are hurting. It may not appear that way in the time and place misperception of things, but time is illusory in that it appears to be happening one event after another, in a linear progression. So in any linear ‘time slot’ all may appear rosy for many of us, even though just round the corner awfulness is taking place.
However, in the reality of Eternity, in which there is no time (or place), everything that has ever appeared to happen, or appears to be happening, or will appear to happen, has already happened, all at once, because there is only the eternal ‘always.’ If we ignore the apparent hurting in others, thinking that they are separate from us, and we are not hurting, so we are all right, we are missing the fundamental truth that there is only one of us, therefore all the while anyone is hurting, we are all hurting. Hence Jesus’ admonition to treat others as we wish to be treated.
The second observation is that any one incarnation, or ‘act,’ is but a tiny fragment of a much longer (illusorily speaking) drama, playing out over countless acts. What is being enacted in what we perceive as our ‘present’ act is a continuance from a ‘previous’ act or acts. Of course, most of us have no conscious awareness of ‘previous’ acts, but it is a certainty that we are what we appear to be now because of previous acts’ decisions/choices, and we bring the karma from those decisions with us in a ‘seed memory,’ or dormant form, to the present, and subsequent acts.
That seed memory begins to germinate and unfold within us, usually as we reach adolescence, affecting our present choices, preferences, decisions, and bringing us to unconsciously call into our presence the circumstances of unresolved karma from previous acts, so that we have another opportunity to outwork them and heal broken relationships. If we do not take advantage of that renewed opportunity, then assuredly we will have to call another opportunity, and another and another, until finally, inevitably, we realise what we are doing and choose the path that will heal the relationship.
Until that happens, which it eventually will, ego keeps us going round and round on the carousel, thus ensuring its continued existence in our separated, little minds, in the only realm it can appear to have any existence – time and place (including the etheric counterpart of Earth, so laying aside a body at the end of an act does not mean we are free of ego). Ego does not want us to discern this truth because it is the beginning of its undoing, and it is full of subterfuges, for which we fall countless times without realising it.
Because time and place is a dualistic state of mind, in which there is good and bad, rich and poor, male and female etc., in some acts of our carousel drama we may appear to be comfortable, safe, happy (relatively speaking, because no ‘happiness’ under ego domination can be real happiness, since that is only ours in the Eternity of Heaven and is immeasurably greater than anything resembling happiness to our little mind). But duality is constantly changing, so a swing toward positive will inevitably swing back to the negative in one form or another, in one act or another.
Some will ask, ‘But surely, if we have swung toward the positive, it must be because that is where past decisions have taken us, so we must be on the way Home?’ Assuredly, we are all on the way Home; some are nearer than others, but the ‘fact’ that we appear to be here in an illusion is proof that we still have unresolved issues, and being here is, definitively, an opportunity to take strides Homeward. By taking those strides in the company of One who knows how to get Home, we get there safer and immeasurably quicker, collapsing time as we progress.
All this activity of calling into our presence opportunities for healing relationships, so we can be restored to our true state of oneness in the Sonship, is the leavening process, causing outstanding karmic issues to rise up to the surface of our consciousness, by the activity of the ‘yeast’ (which is the Holy Spirit), so they can be resolved. The leavening process/activity is misperceived as the ‘chaos time’ when all around us appears to be going more and more insane. This is a definitive indicator that the leavening of the third measure of meal is getting seriously under way, bringing untold numbers of forgiveness opportunities to us all, so that time can begin to be brought to an ever-faster rate of collapse.
This means that rather than taking millions more years of ‘Earth time’ before the apparently material universe will disappear from our awareness as we awaken to Heaven’s reality, it will be by the end of the Aquarian age, in approximately 2,000 years. That rate of progress is not arithmetic, but logarithmic, so what may seem slow in 2008 (even though the pace in 2008 is many times faster than a generation ago) is actually accelerating at an ever-increasing pace.
Of course, at the present time, ego is still predominant in the consciousness of most of humanity, so all this leavening activity (forgiveness opportunities) is perceived as insanity, causing those of us who don’t know about the GRP to react with dismay, outrage, frustration, hopelessness. That is just how ego wants it, and for the majority, it will continue that way for a while. However, that majority is gradually being chipped away, as the Spirit of Truth permeates the shell of ego-mind and reaches the real Self within, bringing an awakening. This process is assisted at an exponential level by each one of us who recognises what is actually happening – i.e. leavening – and PCBs (prays for, commits and blesses) our fellows for their awakening to the truth of who we really are.
Jesus tells us that when all around us is turmoil and despair and collapse, to then rejoice, for it is a sign of the certainty that the Kingdom is at hand, even at the doors. We have, as always, two choices in this matter: to go with Jesus and rejoice, (if he is rejoicing, could it be he knows something we don’t?), and at the same time, engage in a little time collapsing, or head right on back to that mire of despond, for a spot more wallowing. The latter is ego’s choice for us, even if we think we have taken a temporary detour via the amusement park, and ego has had it all its own way for too long. The old definition of insanity is to keep repeating a behaviour pattern and expect a different result. Time to try something different, don’t you think?
Love and blessings,
Brian Longhurst
March 12th 2008
Dear Friends,
I have often thought that humans are like computers, in that most of us who are working with computers are doing so just at the outer, superficial level; writing letters, sending e-mails, surfing the internet, playing games, running accounts (domestic and/or commercial). All things that are to do with what’s ‘out there.’ Yet almost all of what is going on with a computer is at a level with which most of us have little understanding, with operating systems and software programmes that are immeasurably more detailed and complex than meets the eye of the average user. And all are hidden away in the inner, esoteric workings of the computer, largely inaccessible and completely mysterious to ‘ordinary mortals.’
And, if the computer is incorrectly programmed, (not to speak of incorrectly used by those of us who are not very computer-literate) the output we can achieve from it is going to be garbled, inaccurate, fraught with errors. Not a lot of use for what we are hoping to achieve with a computer. And since we are using an analogy here, neither is our body, incorrectly programmed and operated under split-off, ego-mind dominated control, going to accomplish so many of the things that we could accomplish if programmed and operated according to right-minded user application. Yet so many of us believe we know just what we are doing and need no support from the I.T. experts, blithely continuing along the course that is assuredly going to end up with a crash, heedless of the benefits and protection that can be provided by some sensibly applied anti-virus software and oblivious to the fact that the ego virus took over the running of our system on day one, causing countless errors, most of which we don't even notice.
Such an analogy may be less than perfect but it does lead to the suggestion that such determination to continue blindly down a path to nowhere, which humanity has been doing since the beginning of time, smacks not just of foolishness but also of arrogance. Spiritually speaking, here is some powerful logic from Jesus on arrogance and the alternative:
Arrogance is the denial of love, because love shares and arrogance withholds. As long as both appear to you to be desirable the concept of choice, which is not of God, will remain with you. While this is not true in eternity it is true in time, so that while time lasts in your mind there will be choices. Time itself is your choice. If you would remember eternity, you must look only on the eternal. If you allow yourself to become preoccupied with the temporal, you are living in time. As always, your choice is determined by what you value. Time and eternity cannot both be real, because they contradict each other. If you will accept only what is timeless as real, you will begin to understand eternity and make it yours.
(ACIM, T.192)
Here, in time and place, we are faced with myriad choices every day and most of us think (believe) it is wise to use judgement in making our choices. Yet Jesus counsels us that this is error; that Wisdom is not judgement; it is the relinquishment of judgement. And he makes a very logical, compelling, powerful case for it:
Judgement, like other devices by which the world of illusions is maintained, is totally misunderstood by the world. It is actually confused with wisdom, and substitutes for truth. As the world uses the term, an individual is capable of “good” and “bad” judgement, and his education aims at strengthening the former and minimising the latter. There is, however, considerable confusion about what these categories mean. What is “good” judgement to one is “bad” judgement to another. Further, even the same person classifies the same action as showing “good” judgement at one time and “bad” judgement at another time. Nor can any consistent criteria for determining what these categories are be really taught. At any time the student may disagree with what his would-be teacher says about them, and the teacher himself may well be inconsistent in what he believes. “Good” judgement, in these terms, does not mean anything. No more does “bad.”
It is necessary for the teacher of God to realise, not that he should not judge, but that he cannot. In giving up judgement, he is merely giving up what he did not have. He gives up an illusion; or better, he has an illusion of giving up. He has actually merely become more honest. Recognising that judgement was always impossible for him, he no longer attempts it. This is no sacrifice. On the contrary, he puts himself in a position where judgement through him rather than by him can occur. And this judgement is neither “good” nor “bad.” It is the only judgement there is, and it is only one: “God’s Son is guiltless, and sin does not exist.”
The aim of our curriculum, unlike the goal of the world’s learning, is the recognition that judgement in the usual sense is impossible. This is not an opinion but a fact. In order to judge anything rightly, one would have to be fully aware of an inconceivably wide range of things; past, present and to come. One would have to recognise in advance all the effects of his judgements on everyone and everything involved in them in any way. And one would have to be certain there is no distortion in his perception, so that his judgement would be wholly fair to everyone on whom it rests now and in the future. Who is in a position to do this? Who except in grandiose fantasies would claim this for himself?
Remember how many times you thought you knew all the “facts” you needed for judgement, and how wrong you were? Is there anyone who has not had this experience? Would you know how many times you merely thought you were right, without ever realising you were wrong? Why would you choose such an arbitrary basis for decision-making? Wisdom is not judgement; it is the relinquishment of judgement. Make then but one more judgement. It is this: There is Someone with you Whose judgement is perfect. He does know all the facts; past, present and to come. He does know all the effects of His judgement on everyone and everything involved in any way. And He is wholly fair to everyone, for there is no distortion in His perception.
Therefore lay judgement down, not with regret but with a sigh of gratitude. Now are you free of a burden so great that you could merely stagger and fall down beneath it. And it was all illusion. Nothing more. Now can the teacher of God rise up unburdened, and walk lightly on. Yet it is not only this that is his benefit. His sense of care is gone, for he has none. He has given it away, along with judgement. He gave himself to Him Whose judgement he has chosen now to trust, instead of his own. Now he makes no mistakes. His Guide is sure. And where he came to judge, he comes to bless. Where now he laughs, he used to come to weep.
It is not difficult to relinquish judgement. But it is difficult indeed to try to keep it. The teacher of God lays it down happily the instant he recognises its cost. All of the ugliness he sees about him is its outcome. All of the pain he looks upon is its result. All of the loneliness and sense of loss; of passing time and growing hopelessness; of sickening despair and fear of death; all these have come of it. And now he knows that these things need not be. Not one is true. For he has given up their cause, and they, which never were but the effects of his mistaken choice, have fallen from him. Teacher of God, this step will bring you peace. Can it be difficult to want but this? (M-10)
Effectively, Jesus is speaking to us here about acceptance. Acceptance that we cannot judge meaningfully, so the only recourse is to commit true judgement into the care of our Big Self, which is Holy Spirit, who knows everything, which our little self certainly does not (it only thinks it does J)
We can only move into peace, true peace, the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, which is inner peace, through acceptance. Ego always wants to change everything, but Spirit – God – is perfect and therefore, unchangeable. We, with our incomplete understanding, do well not to change anything, but simply allow Holy Spirit to change but one thing: our perspective, or awareness of what is reality. We are seeing, i.e. perceiving, unreality and believe it is real. If we allow Holy Spirit to open our eyes – vision – to what is real, the unreality disappears.
It is about inner awareness, inner recognition, inner remembrance. Inner is the key because there is no without; only within. Inner is always. Always with us, unchanging and unchangeable. There is nothing to do; only to be, what we are, have always been and always will be. What we are already has everything. Only by the mistaken belief that we are separate and are lacking, could we possibly think we have to do anything, in order to get what we believe we are lacking.
By adopting, choosing an attitude of willingness to be accepting that there is but one judgement we should make and that we are unable to make any other, we will be on the Path back to freedom, back to our true Home in Eternity. That one judgement is that God’s Son is innocent. Period. No ifs, ands or buts. Those words belong to ego and have no place in the Kingdom.
Only when we are able to unerringly see that God’s Son is innocent will we be able to see the face of Christ in all our brethren, without exception. And that face will be a reflection of our own face. Then we will be free of the heavy, burdensome yoke of judgement and will know the truth. And that truth will have set us free.
Love, peace and joy be with us all,
Brian Longhurst
March 19th 2008
Dear Friends,
We are reminded in ACIM that everyone is either expressing love or calling for it. There are no alternatives. In our true Home there is no call for love because all we are is love, and cannot but express, or extend it. Here, in the unreal world of time and place, we have allowed ourselves to forget this reality and believe instead that love (i.e. the unconditional love of Papa, our Father Creator) is missing from our life, causing us to feel lost, lonely, hurting, fearful, deprived.
As the Jets say to Officer Krupke in West Side Story, ‘We’re depraved on account of we’re deprived.’ When we have all those negative feelings/perceptions we are inclined to see people and events as adding to them, so we feel threatened. A wounded animal will often attack if one tries to help it, believing attack is the best form of defence and being fearful that even one who is trying to help is a threat to its already endangered condition. This is how most of us behave some, or even much of the time and we are rapidly creating a culture that endorses and engenders it, with common courtesies — outward signs of goodwill and harmlessness — becoming perceived as ‘old fashioned’ and therefore outdated.
It is therefore not hard to see such a response as ‘biting the hand that feeds it,’ or an ungrateful response to a well-intentioned gesture. Ego wants us to react in like manner, thus furthering the apparent separation from each other and from Home. This has been going on since the beginning of time. Now, as we turn the corner onto the home straight of the journey Home, the count-down to the end of time, with infinite help, love, guidance, patience from the Marshal of the Journey and his helpers, more and more of us begin to awaken to the truth of Eternity and are able to dispel this ‘lie of satan,’ by responding to the call for love — even, and particularly, when it is expressed as attack — with love.
Nobody ever said this Kingdomly response is easy, at least, or especially, to start with; but it is achievable, with practise, with commitment and with remembering. Ego wants us to forget and keep on in the same old rut, ensuring further circuits on the carousel. The Holy Spirit knows that remembering will benefit us and our brethren, get us out of that rut and off that carousel. Permanently. This is as good as it gets because that carousel is not such a merry-go-round as we have thought, and an immeasurably more magnificent, eternally joyful experience awaits us. This has nothing to do with ‘dying’ before we can ‘get there’ because the Kingdom of Heaven is right here, right now.
Jesus reminds us that we do not (with our ego-dominated mind) respond to anything directly, but to our interpretation of it, and that thus, we perceive our response as justified by our interpretation. He says that we react to our interpretations — such as a call for love being attack — as if they were correct, yet there is (and can only be) one interpretation of motivation that makes any sense. This is the Holy Spirit’s judgement, and this requires no effort at all on our part. That judgement is that our brother is innocent, as are we, and that all perceptions/interpretations to the contrary are keeping us unwittingly trapped, imprisoned in time and place. Not just for the duration of our present act, but the next, and the next, and the next — indefinitely — until we change our mind.
Jesus goes on to say (Text, 215), that every loving thought is true, and that everything else is an appeal for help and healing, regardless of the form that appeal takes (e.g. an attack). Can anyone, he asks, be justified in responding with anger to a brother’s plea for help? No response, he says, can be appropriate except the willingness to give loving help to him, for this, and only this, is what he is asking for…
…Offer him anything else, and you are assuming the right to attack his reality by interpreting it as you see fit. Perhaps the danger of this to your own mind is not yet fully apparent. If you believe that an appeal for help is something else you will react to something else. Your response will therefore be inappropriate to reality as it is, but not to your perception of it. (So, we are confusing reality, or truth, with our upside-down, ego-muddled interpretation of it. Another point on the scorecard for ego, each time we allow it).
There is nothing to prevent you from recognizing all calls for help as exactly what they are except your own imagined need to attack. It is only this that makes you willing to engage in endless “battles” with reality, in which you deny the reality of the need for healing by making it unreal. You would not do this except for your unwillingness to accept reality as it is, and which you therefore withhold from yourself.
It is surely good advice to tell you not to judge what you do not understand. (Of course we think we do understand, hence the attacking response. Yet, had we attuned to our right — or Holy Spirit — mind, we would have seen through the apparent attack and realised that what we interpreted as attack was in truth a call for help). …If you are unwilling to perceive an appeal for help as what it is, it is because you are unwilling to give help and to receive it. (Such a posture cannot be of God’s Son but can only be of ego. This will assuredly help us to distinguish whether we are listening to the Holy Spirit part of our mind or the ego-dominated part, thus enabling us to choose again). To fail to recognize a call for help is to refuse (to receive) help. Would you maintain that you do not need it? Yet this is what you are maintaining when you refuse to recognize a brother’s appeal, for only by answering his appeal can you be helped. Deny him your help and you will not recognize God’s Answer to you. The Holy Spirit does not need your help in interpreting motivation, but you do need His.
Only appreciation is an appropriate response to your brother. Gratitude is due him for both his loving thoughts and his appeals for help, for both are capable of bringing love into your awareness if you perceive them truly. And all your sense of strain comes from your attempts not to do just this. How simple, then, is God’s plan for salvation. There is but one response to reality, for reality evokes no conflict at all. There is but one Teacher of reality, Who understands what it is. He does not change His Mind about reality because reality does not change. Although your interpretations of reality are meaningless in your divided state, His remain consistently true. He gives them to you because they are for you. Do not attempt to “help” a brother in your (ego-mind) way, for you cannot help yourself. But hear his call for the Help of God, and you will recognize your own need for the Father.
Your interpretations of your brother’s needs are your interpretation of yours. By giving help you are asking for it, and if you perceive but one need in yourself you will be healed. (What better motivation can there be for giving help in response to an appeal for help, even if that appeal is disguised as an attack?) …Every appeal you answer in the Name of Christ brings the remembrance of your Father closer to your awareness. For the sake of your need, then, hear every call for help as what it is, so God can answer you. (Is there one amongst us who can be insensitive to such compelling logic?)
By applying the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the reactions of others more and more consistently, you will gain an increasing awareness that His criteria are equally applicable to you. For to recognize fear is not enough to escape from it, although the recognition is necessary to demonstrate the need for escape. The Holy Spirit must still translate the fear into truth. If you were left with the fear, once you had recognized it, you would have taken a step away from reality, not towards it. Yet we have repeatedly emphasised the need to recognize fear and face it without disguise as a crucial step in the undoing of the ego. Consider how well the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the motives of others will serve you then. Having taught you to accept only loving thoughts in others and to regard everything else as an appeal for help, He has taught you that fear itself is an appeal for help…
Fear is a symptom of your own deep sense of loss. If when you perceive it in others you learn to supply the loss, the basic cause of fear is removed. Thereby you teach yourself that fear does not exist in you. (Could there be a better motivation for choosing to see a brother’s attack as a call for help, and responding lovingly to that call?) The means for removing it (fear) is in yourself, and you have demonstrated this by giving it (a loving response). Fear and love are the only emotions of which you are capable. One is false, for it was made out of denial; and denial depends on the belief in what is denied for its own existence. …Defences that do not work at all are automatically discarded. If you raise what fear conceals (love) to clear-cut unequivocal predominance, fear becomes meaningless. You have denied its power to conceal love, which was its only purpose. The veil (of fear) that you have drawn across the face of love has disappeared.
If you would look upon love, which is the world’s reality, how could you do better than to recognize, in every defence against it (love), the underlying appeal for it? And how could you better learn of its reality than by answering the appeal for it by giving it? …Thus does the Holy Spirit replace fear with love and translate error into truth. And thus will you learn of Him how to replace your dream of separation with the fact of unity. For the separation is only the denial of union, and correctly interpreted, attests to your eternal knowledge that union is true.
(Emboldening and some italics are mine, for emphasis).
Here’s to the Resurrection of all our minds back into oneness in the Sonship, for a truly glorious, never-ending celebration of our ascension back to Papa.
Many blessings for a happy and peaceful Easter,
Brian Longhurst
March 26th 2008
Dear Friends,
Looking at Easter through the vision of Jesus and the Holy Spirit it is seen as being about the Resurrection. Looking at Easter through the perception of ego, it is about a conditionally-loving god requiring a blood sacrifice, crucifixion, death. Jesus knew there had to be demonstrated to his followers, and the wider world — using a mechanism (sacrifice), with which the Israel people were well familiar, from Moses’ time and before — a transformation of the way the people of Earth ‘see’ God, by taking, using, blood sacrifice (himself) to show how it is, in fact, meaningless.
It is meaningless, Jesus knew, because we are eternal, indestructible, innocent, and therefore sacrifice is totally unnecessary and inappropriate (except to the upside-down, insane ‘logic’ of ego) — and the Bible says so (Hos. 6:6; Mt. 12:7). The Resurrection is of not just Jesus, 2,000 years ago — though that historical event was/is a symbol, a precursor, a prophecy, a herald — but of the Sonship of Papa. The entire Sonship; you and me; all of us who mistakenly perceive ourselves as separate, little, guilty, destructible, weak, limited, imprisoned within a perishable body.
Assuredly, Jesus did resurrect his Earthly body — so that he could demonstrate resurrection and therefore eternal, indestructible life, in a way and at a level which was discernible to those who experienced his resurrected presence afterwards. He was functioning from the reality of Eternity, in which time is neither real nor meaningful, even though he knew that at that time (and until the 3rd measure of meal began the leavening process), this would not be understood by his sleeping, dreaming brethren. But he also knew that this did not matter because the understanding of the meaning of the Resurrection will be the result, the culmination, the effect of the GRP, not its cause.
That meaning is that it is the Mind, not the body of the entire Sonship that is being resurrected, by and through the GRP — which ACIM refers to as the Atonement (At-onement; see Message of Encouragement dated December 20th 2006 for explanation of this) — the fulcrum of which is true forgiveness. For as it says in The Disappearance of the Universe:
True forgiveness is the real purpose of life (here, on Earth) but you’ve got to choose it in order to make it yours. Remember, practising real forgiveness can’t help but lead you home.