Messages of Encouragement 2010

This is the archive of MoE postings during 2010.  To see current/recent postings please click here.

Please note that the earliest posting starts at the top, proceeding in chronological order to the end of the calendar year. 

May you be uplifted, inspired and encouraged by what you find here,

Brian Longhurst

January 6th 2010

 Dear Friends,

We appear to be a little, separate self, a persona identity with an individual name and unique appearance.  This persona busies itself in daily outward thought and activity, focussed on the material plane, the illusory world about us.  This keeps our mind occupied in and with time and place.  To this identity the world appears to be happening around us in a random way and delivering to us a mixed array of events, some good and some distinctly not so good, but mostly beyond our apparent control.  So, some of the time we might seem to become the happy beneficiaries of some good fortune on one occasion, and the hapless victim of some misfortune on another.

Yet the Bible tells us we are created in the likeness of God.  Assuredly, not one of us believes this is how it is with God, so in this matter, either the Bible is mistaken or we are mistaken.  Jesus tells us we are, along with him, the Son of God, the light of the world and that our sole function, along with him, is to save the world.  Most of us don’t have the faintest idea how to save ourselves, or our relationships with our fellow sojourners in time, let alone the world.

So, surely Jesus has his sights set too high for the vast majority of us?  That is certainly how it appears, and is how ego wants us to continue perceiving it.  And those who are of a mind to ‘save the world’ see it as reducing our carbon footprint, adapting to sustainable systems of agriculture and all the other aspects of managing, or co-operating with, the environment. 

But this is another way in which ego-dominated mind has its thinking upside down and back to front.  When we save our mind, the world will follow without any effort, because the real world will emerge into our awareness from the false one we have made.

Today’s quantum physicists know full well that there is no such thing as a physical world, and though they may not yet have moved their perceptions along to the ultimate conclusion, in due course they will realise that all that appears to be physical is a figment of our imagination.  We are not only imagining a physical universe of stellar objects with planets and life forms inhabiting them, we are imagining lack.  Lack of what we have allowed ourselves to believe we need to sustain life in a physical, limited state of being.  This thinking can only lead to fear, sickness, disagreements, warfare, disarray, mayhem, destruction and death, and this has been and is being repeatedly demonstrated by our belief that we are the opposite of our true Being.

This thinking was not subscribed to by Jesus, who knew who he was and came to remind us what we are.  It is also not the thinking of any of the rest of us siblings in the Sonship of God, which every one of us shares equally with Jesus; it is ego thinking, masquerading as our thinking.  Jesus was able to perform miracles and teach as he did because he was in his right mind and knew that it is only by being restored to our true state of right mindedness that we could be saved, and with us, the world.  We are able to perform such ‘miraculous’ works as Jesus, but only if we are willing to allow our mind to be freed from the yoke of belief in self-limitation.

‘Easier said than done’, has been, the response to such a suggestion, for all too long. Indeed, it is impossible for our misperceiving, split-off, ego controlled mind.  There are those who will say, ‘My mind is not under control of any other than myself’, but any who see miraculous works as impossible are, unwittingly, under control of ego because ego is insidiously subtle.  And getting free of that control is impossible to any who choose to continue perceiving time and place as reality. 

But that matters not a jot, because that ‘littleness’ thinking is not our real self.  Quiescent in the mind of us all is our true Self, the Spirit of Truth.  Quiescent until we invite Him into our awareness.  Then He will become active in our thought processes, inspiring and enlightening us gently, lovingly, peacefully, with new perceptions of reality: spiritual, eternal reality, of which we are all an integral part in the indivisible oneness that is the Creator Spirit.

The transformation will not be instantaneous in linear time terms.  This will appear to be disheartening to our linear-time thinking, and that puts off most of us, at least for a while; maybe numerous incarnations.  But linear time is not real; it is the great illusion because belief in it leads to the belief in ageing, disease, degeneration, decay and death.

How can we avoid such thoughts when the evidence is all around and within us? We simply attune our focus to that which is beyond, always with the Help that is freely ours, always with us.  The fact that Jesus demonstrated it while in human form means it is possible for us all because we are like him, and that can be encouragement for us all. 

We don’t have to make a song and dance about it — at least, not outwardly!  Inside we will find it impossible not to sing the New Song, and dance the dance of freedom.  And as each increase in awareness further transforms us and brings us closer to our true state of Being, new verses will be added to the New Song, arising spontaneously within us.  And we will become aware that we are not alone in our singing or our dancing.

We do not have to parade and strut and endeavour to impress anyone with outer displays, for humility comes with the package, and is far more impressive to those with eyes to see and ears to hear than any attempt at grandiosity.  Those eyes and ears are nothing to do with bodily senses, but with inner awareness, so outer displays have no meaning.

Awakening is all about co-operating with our true Self, listening for the still, small voice within us, and allowing the Process to proceed without any attempt by persona-self at controlling it.  That will seem very difficult at first because ego is about control, and we have been under its control, its way of thinking, since the dawn of time. But time now draws toward its end; the final act, in which the all-empowered Help is rising, or leavening, and that will enable us to prevail.  The sooner we commit steadfastly to a willingness to co-operate the sooner we will awaken to the limitlessness of reality, just as demonstrated by Jesus.

One step at a time, the things we saw as important that are of time and place only, and have no part in Eternity, are seen as less important, until they become completely unimportant.  Eventually we come to the place where there is nothing that passes away that has any importance for us at all.  Then we are, along with Jesus, saving the world; our only true, meaningful function here.

The world we see with our present perception is not the real world.  The real world is the world in which we see our fellow sojourners as what they are; our brothers, not our enemies; where giving is recognised as being the only way to the Kingdom; giving love, blessing and forgiveness, without condition, without demanding reciprocity. 

It makes no difference if we refuse to accept the truth of Eternity now because time is an illusion; we will simply require a few more incarnations, but it is inevitable that we will come round to ‘Eternity thinking’ because we are Christ, the one, eternal Son of God.  Those who are not yet ready deserve our love, blessing, understanding and forgiveness because they have forgotten, momentarily, the truth about themselves, and will awaken from the dream of separation as surely as everyone else.  Miracles will show them, as they will show us all, that we are all one and that love is the Way back to the eternal Kingdom that has always been within us and is within us now.  As Jesus reminds us in this extract from ACIM Workbook lesson 77:

You are entitled to miracles because of what you are.  You will receive miracles because of what God is.  And you will offer miracles because you are one with God.  Again, how simple is salvation!  It is merely a statement of your true Identity... 

God has established miracles as my right.

To rephrase Principle of Miracles number 6, from chapter 1 of ACIM: Miracles are natural.  They occur when we realign our thinking with the Holy Spirit.  Then the dancing begins.

Love and blessings for 2010,

Brian Longhurst

January 13th 2010

Dear Friends,

Jesus is the template for our lives and our way forward to our true, eternal being.  We are like him in reality, but we are dreaming of unreality, so it does not appear, in our dream, that we are like him.  In that dream — a momentary, mistaken endeavour by God’s Son to separate himself from his Father, the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent Source of all being — everything that is eternal reality has been turned upside down.  So we perceive everything from an upside down perspective. 

Our reality is perceived as temporal, ending in death; our limitlessness is perceived as littleness; our innocence is perceived as guilt; the abundance that is ours in Eternity is perceived as scarcity in time and place; the love that we both have and are is perceived as fear; the oneness of the Son of God is perceived as ever-increasing fragmentation and separation.  There is nothing that we perceive in time and place with our bodily senses that is not the reverse of eternal reality.  How could it be otherwise, since what we are perceiving is an illusion?  We may think delicious food is surely a splendid reality, but Jesus reminded us that in our eternal awareness we have sustenance of which our Earth-conscious perception knows nothing (Jn. 4:32).

Within the Sonship of God we are all brothers (‘brothers’ is not intended to be a gender-specific or exclusive term, since gender has no reality in Eternity, so there is one more ego-fastening we can undo), yet we perceive brothers as potential enemies, who threaten our existence, even if only benign, loving intent is the motivation, just as Jesus was perceived by the Sanhedrin, who, seeing through the eyes of fear, thought he had come to cause their place and their nation to be taken from them.  Even though there is a veneer of peace and goodwill in today’s world, that veneer is very, very thin.  Even in places where conflict does not erupt into fighting and warfare, there is strife behind closed doors on every street, and every day murder and mayhem are all around.

How the Sanhedrin and/or Romans saw Jesus, and what they did to him, characterises the upside-down state of mind of the fragmented Sonship.  But Jesus knew he could translate the appearance of murder into proof of immortality, not just for himself but for us all, and show us our true, right-side-up reality, as a crucial, giant, memorable step in his GRP to awaken — or resurrect — us all from a momentary dream back to that reality.

Here, in these extracts from section VIII of chapter 12 of ACIM is how he exquisitely explains it:  

The Attraction of Love for Love

Do you really believe that you can kill the Son of God?  The Father has hidden His Son safely within Himself, and kept him far away from your (ego-driven) destructive thoughts (any thoughts that are not love-motivated are destructive because they are not of or from our true Being, which, like our Creator, is Love), but you know neither the Father nor the Son because of them (destructive thoughts).  You attack the real world (the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth) every day and every hour and every minute, and yet you are surprised that you cannot see it... Offer it and it will come to you, because it is drawn to itself...  

God’s Son is as safe as his Father, for the Son knows his Father’s protection and cannot fear.  His Father’s Love holds him in perfect peace, and needing nothing, he asks for nothing.  Yet he is far from you whose Self he is, for you (‘ego-self’) chose to attack him (he speaks here not just of the man Jesus, but of the eternal reality of us all) and he disappeared from your sight into his Father. He did not change, but you did.  For a split mind and all its works were not created by the Father, and could not live in the knowledge of Him.

When you made visible what is not true, what is true (our eternal oneness in the Son of God) became invisible to you.  Yet it cannot be invisible in itself, for the Holy Spirit (our true Self) sees it with perfect clarity.  It is invisible to you (our little, temporal, made-up, persona-self) because you are looking at something else.  Yet it is no more up to you to decide what is visible and what is invisible, than it is up to you to decide what reality is.  What can be seen is what the Holy Spirit sees.  The definition of reality is God’s, not yours.  He created it, and He knows what it is.  You who knew have forgotten, and unless He had given you a way to remember you would have condemned yourself to oblivion.

Because of your Father’s Love you can never forget Him, for no one can forget what God Himself placed in his memory.  You can deny it, but you cannot lose it.  A Voice will answer every question you ask, and a vision will correct the perception of everything you see (fear of asking prevents our receiving Answers because in our upside-down state of perception we are fearful of eternal truth, because we wrongly believe God will judge and condemn us).  For what you have made invisible is the only truth, and what you have not heard is the only Answer.  God would reunite you with yourself, and did not abandon you in your distress.  You are waiting only for Him, and do not know it.  Yet His memory shines in your mind and cannot be obliterated.  It is no more past than future, being forever always.

...  Everything you made has never been, and is invisible because the Holy Spirit does not see it.  Yet what He does see is yours to behold, and through His vision your perception (of the truth of Eternity) is healed...    By making nothing real to you (an illusion is nothing), you have seen it. But it is not there.  And Christ is invisible to you because of what you have made visible to yourself.

Yet it does not matter how much distance you have tried to interpose between your awareness and truth.  God’s Son can be seen because his vision is shared.  The Holy Spirit looks upon him, and sees nothing else in you.  What is invisible to you (our guiltless, eternal reality) is perfect in His sight, and encompasses all of it.  He has remembered you because He forgot not the Father...    What God did not give you has no power over you, and the attraction of love for love remains irresistible.  For it is the function of love to unite all things unto itself, and to hold all things together by extending its wholeness (and it is the function of fear — ego — to divide, or separate.  Which will we choose?).

The real world was given you by God in loving exchange for the world you made and the world you see (the world of separation, division, fear).  Only take it from the hand of Christ and look upon it.  Its reality will make everything else invisible, for beholding it is total perception.  And as you look upon it you will remember that it was always so.  Nothingness (the illusory world of time and place) will become invisible, for you will at last have seen truly.  Redeemed perception is easily translated into knowledge, for only perception is capable of error and perception has never been.  Being corrected it gives place to knowledge, which is forever the only reality.  The Atonement is but the way back to what was never lost.  Your Father could not cease to love His Son.  

(My emboldening, underlining and some italics, for emphasis.)

Asking for truth is fearful to all who labour under ego’s yoke.  Yet truth is benign, engendering love, peace and joy.  The Voice for Truth is within us, our own true Self, and never judges or condemns us.  I share the following communing to encourage all who have any doubt, that they may be helped to lose their fear and gladly enter in to their own within, and there, find their own true Self (or Jesus; both are equally trustworthy), Who will lead them, one step at a time, back to their true reality, with nothing to fear:

AM January 10, 2010

That is a good indicator of the progress p B. is making.    We do not have to be engaged in communing like this all day, or even every day, because p B’s thoughts turn to Me, and Papa, and Jesus, multiple times every day, and I inspire you at any and every suitable opportunity during those, and other, moments, with new thoughts, new awarenesses; sometimes in ways you objectively realise is Me, and sometimes not.  This suffices, for you know beyond doubt that I am with you always.  Why rush at it?  There is no rush; time does not exist.  You will not ‘lose’ if you do not ‘win’, because it is not a race.

In truth we cannot lose because we have never been lost to God, Who is our home, and we have never left home.  The only place that is not home is hell, and we are only imagining that.  Does this not tell us how powerful is our mind, to imagine thusly?  We do well to have a care about what we wish for.

Love, always,

Brian Longhurst

January 20th 2010

Dear Friends,

A caterpillar may think it is a lowly, crawling, limited — worthless, even — thing.  But if it were to look beyond the immediate, beyond appearances, it could see that its true reality is a soaring, radiant butterfly.  An acorn may perceive itself as little, nothing more than forage for a pig, a mouse or squirrel.  But if it were to look past its immediate, dormant state it would realise that its true reality is a towering oak.

You will have the drift by now.  We humans have in common with a caterpillar or an acorn a self-perception of littleness that has no foundation in reality because we are focusing on outward appearances, not inward reality.  Most of us have some level of awareness, however faint, that there is more to us than meets the eye.  Many of us accept — at some level in our mind, even if it is only a vague hope — Jesus’ words that we will perform the works he performed, and greater works; and John’s words: Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. 1Jn. 3:2.

But somehow, for most of us, all that is ‘in the future’; some indeterminate time, perhaps — probably, even — not in this earthly life, since miracles seem far from us right now in this world that reels from one disaster to the next.  But we have to shrug off the false perception of littleness here, where it seems so real, in the time and place illusion in which we perceive ourselves, or we will be unable to escape the illusion.

In other words, unless we can see through the illusion, from within the illusion, we cannot escape the illusion.  ‘Dying’ does not enable our escape, because dying is part of the illusion.  Only by seeing clearly past the deception to the truth of our magnitude can we break the cycle of birth and death and be restored to our true estate, of which Jesus is our template.

We oscillate between wanting to accept that grandeur is, somewhere deep within — maybe — ours, and what surely look like ‘cold hard realities’ of littleness: scarcity, fear, frailty, ageing, mortality; worm food.  The truth is that grandeur is ours, at a level that is so far beyond earthly perception that it is not comprehensible to our time and place thinking.  That is because our true magnitude is not of time and place. But because we see our reality as limited to time and place we think running fast, or building tall, or accumulating lots of money, or inventing some life-saving device will bring us magnitude in one form or another.

This oscillation is just how ego wants it because it keeps us on its leash of doubt and uncertainty of our reality.  All the while we are uncertain of our reality we will see littleness, because only certainty of who we are can clear the veil, fog, cloud that obscures from our vision the truth of who we are.   Jesus was certain of who he was, and was able to demonstrate, or express, that certainty with words and deeds of love beyond the wit of those around him, including his disciples. 

Magnitude is of the Within.  It is a state of Being, not of doing.  Magnitude was (and, of course eternally, is) the state of Jesus’ inner being, regardless of anything he said or did, which but demonstrated, or expressed, his inner being.  Jesus did not need to demonstrate his state of inner being in order for it to be so.  It simply was so, and he knew it.  That is the only difference between Jesus and us: he knew his magnitude and therefore didn’t need to make a big deal about it; we have forgotten ours, so many of us want to make a big deal about what, in reality, is nothing. 

But that difference is only temporary.  That state of inner being — magnitude — is of Eternity, and does not fade or pass away.  Running fast or building tall, etc., does not express inner magnitude, even if it endeavours to do so, because these activities are of time and place only, and fade, and pass away. 

Having a sense of need to demonstrate magnitude comes from a sense of lack.   Lack is not magnitude, but comes from a perception of littleness and scarcity.  Because of the innate sense of magnitude deep within us, we try to recreate it ourself, by endeavours that, along with everything else of time and place, pass away.  So there is no lasting sense of fulfilment and our endeavours at making ourself great can only fall far short of the mark because we attempt to recreate an eternal state of being with temporal doing.  Our magnitude is not of our own doing, but is ours because it was given us as an aspect of our being by God at our creation, so is ours eternally and unshakeably. 

We cannot lose it or give it away, but we can deny its reality, if we are insane, or brainwashed, enough!  But now is the time to reclaim it, simply by accepting it as ours, by God-given right.  It is by extending our true magnitude of being that it both grows and becomes certainty to our awareness again, just as it was, and is, to Jesus.  Here is what he says about it in this extract from ACIM, chapter 15:

III. Littleness versus Magnitude

...  You who have sought and found littleness, remember this: Every decision you make stems from what you think you are, and represents the value that you put upon yourself.  Believe the little can content you, and by limiting yourself you will not be satisfied.  For your function is not little, and it is only by finding your function (true forgiveness of ourself, our brothers and the world) and fulfilling it that you can escape from littleness.

Nor is it asked of you alone.  The power of God will support every effort you make on behalf of His dear Son.  Search for the little, and you deny yourself His power.  God is not willing that His Son be content with less than everything (right now, for there is only now).  For He is not content without His Son (all of us, reunified), and His Son cannot be content with less than his Father has given him...

The power and the glory that lie in you from God are for all who, like you, perceive themselves as little, and believe that littleness can be blown up into a sense of magnitude that can content them.  Neither give littleness, nor accept it.  All honor is due the host of God (that’s us, when we so choose).  Your littleness deceives you, but your magnitude is of Him Who dwells in you, and in Whom you dwell... 

Holy child of God, when will you learn that only holiness (i.e. wholeness, for ‘holiness’ is not piety, which is of littleness) can content you and give you peace?  Remember that you learn not for yourself alone, no more than I did.  It is because I learned for you that you can learn of me.  I would but teach you what is yours, so that together we can replace the shabby littleness that binds the host of God to guilt and weakness with the glad awareness of the glory that is in him...  Let us join in honoring you, who must remain forever beyond littleness...

Call forth in everyone only the remembrance of God, and of the Heaven that is in him.  For where you would have your brother be, there will you think you are.  Hear not his appeal to hell and littleness, but only his call for Heaven and greatness.  Forget not that his call is yours, and answer him with me... 

(My emboldening, underlining and some italics, for emphasis.)

If we choose to see our brother in littleness — the hell we call time and place — that is where we will perceive ourself.  For those who object to time and place being referred to as hell, when we observe time and place from the true perspective — Eternity, or Heaven — hell is an entirely apposite term.  To escape we must gladly bring our brothers with us back to magnitude, for that is what we are when we remember we are one.

Love and endless blessings,

Brian Longhurst

January 27th 2010

Dear Friends,

If the question were to be asked, ‘Where would you prefer to be: in Heaven or Earth?’ the logical, sensible answer for any rational-thinking person assuredly would be ‘In Heaven’.  It would be sound reasoning, which should not require even a moment’s thought.  After all, if what we hear about Heaven is right, that it is our only true home, and there is only love, peace and joy — beyond anything conceivable based on our experiences or understanding of Earth life — eternally, then it is the only answer we can give. 

No more fear, no more tears, no angst, no pathetic squabbling — and even international wars — about meaningless irrelevancies, no frailty, dis-ease, genocide, hatred, famine, guilt, limitation... the list is quite long, is it not?  Ample evidence that this world is an alien place to us.

Yet, how many of us can, being completely honest with ourselves, say, ‘Yes, I choose to be in Heaven, right now’?

The sad truth is, most of humanity is just about as far from readiness, or preparedness, for Heaven as it is possible to get.  And yet this is the question we must all ask ourselves sooner or later, and ultimately, the only one that has any significance for us.  Let us have a little look at some of the thoughts that might, with things as they presently stand, go through our minds, were we to be faced with this question:

I don’t want to go to Heaven yet, because we can only get there when we die, and I do not want to die yet.  I am trying my best to enjoy my time here, though the dreadful goings on around the world don’t make it easy.  What can one do except not think about it?

I want to stay on Earth as long as possible, because there is no guarantee I will get to Heaven.  I am just as likely to go to hell, because I am no saint; and to be honest, I don’t really want to be a saint yet, because it doesn’t sound like as much fun as I am having right now.  I want to carry on here as I am for as long as I can — because the thought of death frightens me — and maybe prepare, somehow (though I haven’t the foggiest idea how), for Heaven when the end of my time here is nearer.

I am fearful of the idea of Heaven because, as I understand it, God is going to judge me on how my life on Earth has been; and if I don’t measure up, according to what will assuredly be pretty stringent standards, I am heading for something so terrible I cannot bring myself to even think about it.  So, I am going to hope to hang on here as long as I can delay the fearful future, even though I don’t really know what will be my final lot.  So, meanwhile, better the devil I know than the devil I don’t know.

All things being equal, of course I would rather be in Heaven than here on Earth, because we are promised something immeasurably more wonderful than here.  But from where I am looking, all things don’t seem equal.  After all, there are so many different versions of what Heaven is supposed to be like, and even more versions of how to get there, and until or unless I can be a bit more sure of how to get there, I haven’t really much choice but to stay here.  Eventually, no doubt, events will take me where I am going to end up and there isn’t much I can do about that, so I can but take it one day at a time and hope for the best.  At least there is no tax on hope.

Heaven may sound like a grand idea, but those who claim to be in charge of the turnstile are not exactly setting a fine example.  They disagree on so much, most of which seems irrelevant; in fact, on so many important matters they seem to be poles apart, so who is one to believe?  If we are supposed to follow their lead, forget it; didn’t Jesus say something about the blind leading the blind?

However terrible so much of life here may be, at least we know where we are, here on Earth.  Heaven seems so uncertain. How do we know it’s even there?

No doubt there are many more angles on all this, but the most common thread is doubt, uncertainty and an inability, or unwillingness to think about it, due to fear.  This is described, allegorically, in vignette 14 in SFGS: http://www.honest2goodness.org.uk/Part_2_Vignettes.htm 

In the Bible Jesus gives us some very definitive pointers about what the Kingdom of Heaven is, what it is like and how to get there.  These are summarised in very easy to understand form in the Sermon on the Mount.  Here are a few extracts, as pointers:

Matthew ch. 5:

Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.

Ch. 6:

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:  but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:  for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all that ye have need of shall be added unto you.

Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Ch. 7:

Judge not, that ye be not judged.  For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them:

There are many other sayings in these 3 chapters of Matthew (not to speak of the other Gospels!) that are hard to understand, and even harder to live by, when there are so many bad things going on all around us, and we perceive ourselves in a world so full of fear.  But none of those bad things are being done to us by God; we are doing them to ourselves, and can stop doing them at every next second.  Ego’s perspective has it that ‘if the other chap will stop, I will stop’.  But a reminder: not only is the Kingdom of Heaven within us; so is hell, because both are in our mind.

We can choose which to focus upon and which to turn away from.  If we choose Earth (time and place), ego’s domain, we will be tutored by ego; but if we choose Heaven we will be led, tutored, protected, helped by Self, the Spirit of Truth, and we will gradually become so attuned to It and so tuned out of the hell that is time and place that it will have less and less impact on us.  And, by giving that to Which we are attuning to our brothers, with love and blessing, from our mind to theirs, via our true Self, the Holy Spirit, (not by proselytising!) our awareness increases logarithmically.

Of course, the Kingdom is not of time and place, because it is within us, and we are of, and from, Eternity.  The Kingdom is not ‘out there’, or ‘in the future’, or ‘when we die’.  The Kingdom is of Eternity, so has no past or future because it is the eternal moment of now — always.  How could it be otherwise?  If it was of the past, it would be gone; if it was of the future it would never come.  So, it is within, and it is now.  If we overlook those two key points we will only see all the other, diversionary, illusory distractions from reality instead, such as suggested in the array of thoughts that may be typical of our Earth-mind thinking (or, more accurately, lack of right-minded thinking) about our true Home.

The diversionary tactics of ego are as diverse as we are willing to allow ego to make them.  Back in the 1960s I had a friend in Canada who used to say, of anything that appeared to be a cause for concern, ‘In a hundred years time it won’t matter’.  To that it can logically be added: if it won’t matter in 100 years, it cannot be real; therefore it is an illusion; therefore it does not matter now, even as it has never mattered, because there is no such thing as matter; only spirit.

We can be in Heaven, right here, right now, with no cost, no sacrifice, no loss; only gain.  This is because Heaven is in our mind — the repository of all awareness, all knowledge and all power — and we arrive there by waking up to It instead of slumbering through it, dreaming nightmare dreams of unreality. 

Opening our mind to Heaven, here and now, is, in fact, the only way we can get there.  There is no other way, because unless and until we choose to awaken to it here, in the only moment there is — now — we will remain where we have mistakenly chosen to be — on the carousel of illusion; in an unreal state of mind; stuck in the cycle of birth and death.  Such a choice denies us all awareness, all knowledge and all power, and keeps our mind upside down and believing we are the opposite of our true Self.

The things recorded of Jesus in the Bible, and what he has to say about the Kingdom of Heaven there are extensive, but the Bible has been so heavily tampered with that most readers are limited in their understanding of what he says there about the Kingdom.  Since it is the most important subject, indeed, the only subject of any real, enduring interest, and certainly of any real value, it is fortunate that when he told the disciples I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now (Jn. 16:12), his intention was always to bring to us those things — for which we were not ready then (at the beginning of the Jesus measure) — now, at the beginning of the Kingdom measure of meal. 

And, being good to his word, he has, at precisely the right moment, brought us the whole story, in ACIM.  Indeed, ‘Kingdom’ is mentioned 168 times, ‘Heaven’ more than 600 times and ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ hundreds more times, in ACIM.  Since the Kingdom of Heaven was also the primary focus of his speaking two-thousand years ago, anyone would think Jesus is trying to tell us something!  Here is someone who can truly be described as one-pointed.

The whole story of Heaven, from our upside-down, ego-indoctrinated, separated-mind perspective is more than can be digested at a single sitting, so a few bites at a time, preferably on a fairly frequent basis, will be beneficial to our spiritual sustenance and awakening.  So, I offer a tidbit, as an appetiser; here from T-7.VII.1:

The Totality of the Kingdom

Whenever you deny a blessing to a brother you will feel deprived, because denial is as total as love.  It is as impossible to deny part of the Sonship as it is to love it in part.  Nor is it possible to love it totally at times.  You cannot be totally committed sometimes.  Denial has no power in itself, but you can give it the power of your mind, whose power is without limit.  If you use it to deny reality, reality is gone for you.  Reality cannot be partly appreciated.  That is why denying any part of it means you have lost the awareness of all of it.  Yet denial is a defense, and so it is as capable of being used positively as well as negatively.  Used negatively it will be destructive, because it will be used for attack.  But in the service of the Holy Spirit, it can help you recognize part of reality, and thus appreciate all of it. 

(My emboldening, underlining and some italics, for emphasis.)

There are those who are equivocal about whether Jesus is the author of ACIM.  Since the focus of Jesus in the long ago and of the author of ACIM is primarily on the Kingdom of Heaven — where it is, what it is like and how to get there — not too big a leap is required to deduce that they are one and the same, with one and the same objective.  Truly, we are not alone, and will never be without help.

Joy, peace and love,

Brian Longhurst

February 3rd 2010

Dear Friends,

To believe time and place are reality is a certain indicator that we are under ego’s illusory (but oh, so real-seeming) thrall.  Guilt, fear, littleness, disease and death are some of ego’s ‘rewards’ for our belief in it.  These are wearisome burdens indeed, but we can be relieved of them by ceasing to make them real by our misplaced belief.

Guilt is a state of mind that can appear to have its origins within or outside us, but ego loses no opportunity to press its ‘gift’ upon us.  Guilt has many guises: not caring enough, not giving enough, not loving or forgiving enough, not listening enough, talking too much, judging, condemning and over-reacting too much...  And our perceptions that cause guilt feelings are misplaced.  If they engender guilt feelings, that is the evidence of misplacement.

Guilt = crucifixion; guiltlessness = resurrection.  Guiltlessness is our heritage and our destiny, and can only result in our resurrection from the place of death we call time and place.  Was Jesus guilty?  Assuredly he could not have resurrected his body if any guilt, or any part of ego, was in him.  Although he resurrected his body, this was a symbol, offered to us who could not then see past the symbols to the reality they were intended to represent. 

It would not be serviceable to our spiritual awakening to interpret that event as Jesus placing eternal value on temporal bodies.  Nevertheless, that historic event is a sure and certain way-marker for us if we understand how to interpret it, for we are like him: innocent.  All contra-indications are mirages, myths, lies, illusions; devices and contrivances to keep us prisoner in time and place.

To make good our escape we must learn to dispel them from our mind, and the Holy Spirit, our true Self, will teach us if we ask Him.  If we are fearful of asking Him it is because we believe we are guilty, and that He — the third Person of the vengeful, judgemental, condemnatory Trinity — will assuredly tell us of even more sins of which we are guilty, and therefore destined for the terrible judgement of God.  Such a perception is, of course, an ego-perception, not a true perception, for the Holy Spirit knows of our guiltlessness, sees our innocence, and will lovingly, gently, compassionately correct our misperceptions and show us our guiltlessness before God.

And if — when — we remember the truth of our guiltlessness, with His gentle, infinite patience guiding us, for we cannot remember without His help (contra to ego’s urging us that only wimps ask for help, so it is a sign of our weakness), then we will remember also that there is nothing to fear; that nothing can hurt us.  How can we hurt, or be hurt, when we are safe in the Heart of Papa, where we have always been? 

Jesus could not have faced crucifixion, knowing he would rise again, if he had not known this beyond all doubt.  He knew he would rise again because he knew who he was, and thus, that the ego-lie called death had no hold on him.  That is our truth also because we are his brothers, co-equal in the Sonship.

Only by steadfastly choosing to learn of the eternal truth about ourself; that we are created in the likeness of our Creator — pure, eternal, unchangeable, indestructible spirit — can we begin to see past the illusion that we are a body. Here is what Jesus tells us about the learning process and its benefits when we choose the Holy Spirit as our Teacher, in these extracts from chapter 14 of ACIM:

II. The Happy Learner

The Holy Spirit needs a happy learner, in whom His mission can be happily accomplished.  You who are steadfastly devoted to misery must first recognize that you are miserable and not happy.  The Holy Spirit cannot teach without this contrast, for you believe that misery is happiness. (Compared with Heaven, what we perceive even as happy moments in time and place are miserable, and will be seen as such when we have allowed Self to restore our memory of Eternity and our all-empowerment in love, peace and joy there.)... 

The Holy Spirit, seeing where you are but knowing you are elsewhere (Eternity), begins His lesson in simplicity with the fundamental teaching that truth is true.  This is the hardest lesson you will ever learn (because, if we believe time and place is reality, we are seeing a lie as truth, so truth — its opposite — will, assuredly seem to be a lie), and in the end the only one.  Simplicity is very difficult for twisted minds.  Consider all the distortions you have made of nothing (time and place); all the strange forms and feelings and actions and reactions that you have woven out of it... The simple and the obvious are not apparent to those who would make palaces and royal robes of nothing, believing they are kings with golden crowns because of them.

 The truth is true.  Nothing else matters, nothing else is real, and everything beside it is not there.  Let Me make the one distinction for you that you cannot make, but need to learn.  Your faith in nothing (time and place) is deceiving you.  Offer your faith to Me, and I will place it gently in the holy place (Eternity) where it belongs. You will find no deception there, but only the simple truth.  And you will love it because you will understand it (which we cannot do while we believe time and place is true).

...the Holy Spirit... brings the light of truth into the darkness, and lets it shine on you. And as it shines your brothers see it, and realizing that this light is not what you have made, they see in you more than you see... The heavy chains that seem to bind them to despair they do not see as nothing, until you bring the light to them. And then they see the chains have disappeared, and so they must have been nothing. And you will see it with them. Because you taught them gladness and release, they will become your teachers in release and gladness.

If you would be a happy learner, you must give everything you have learned (all the misperceptions and judgements of time and place) to the Holy Spirit, to be unlearned for you.  And then begin to learn the joyous lessons that come quickly on the firm foundation that truth is true...

...For truth is true.  What else could ever be, or ever was?  This simple lesson holds the key to the dark door that you believe is locked forever... The key is only the light that shines away the shapes and forms and fears of nothing.  Accept this key to freedom from the hands of Christ Who gives it to you, that you may join Him in the holy task of bringing light.  For, like your brothers, you do not realize the light has come (already) and freed you from the sleep of darkness...  

III. The Decision for Guiltlessness

When you have let all that obscured the truth in your most holy mind be undone for you, and therefore stand in grace before your Father, He will give Himself to you as He has always done.  Giving Himself is all He knows, and so it is all knowledge...  Ask not to be forgiven, for this has already been accomplished.  Ask, rather, to learn how to forgive, and to restore what always was to your unforgiving mind...  On earth this is your only function, and you must learn that it is all you want to learn.  You will feel guilty till you learn this.  For in the end, whatever form it takes, your guilt arises from your failure to fulfill your function in God’s Mind with all of yours (mind).  Can you escape this guilt by failing to fulfill your function here?  (Assuredly not, even though ego would persuade us the answer can be ‘yes’, while compounding it further.)

... Decide that God is right and you are wrong about yourself.  He created you out of Himself, but still within Him.  He knows what you are... There cannot, therefore, be anyone without His Holiness, nor anyone unworthy of His perfect Love.  Fail not in your function of loving in a loveless place made out of darkness and deceit, for thus are darkness and deceit undone... (that, surely, is worthy of at least one ‘Alleluia’, is it not? J)

... Leave all decisions to the One Who speaks for God, and for your function as He knows it.  So will He teach you to remove the awful burden you have laid upon yourself by loving not the Son of God, and trying to teach him guilt instead of love...  (For that is what the separation has tried to do.)

When you have learned how to decide with God, all decisions become as easy and as right as breathing.  There is no effort, and you will be led as gently as if you were being carried down a quiet path in summer... The Holy Spirit will not delay in answering your every question what to do.  He knows.  And He will tell you, and then do it for you (another Alleluia!).  You who are tired will find this is more restful than sleep.  For you can bring your guilt into sleeping, but not into this.

Unless you are guiltless you cannot know God, Whose Will is that you know Him.  Therefore, you must be guiltless (and yet another Alleluia!)... Accepting His Son as guilty is denial of the Father so complete, that knowledge is swept away from recognition in the very mind where God Himself has placed it...

... God can communicate only to the Holy Spirit in your mind, because only He shares the knowledge of what you are with God.  And only the Holy Spirit can answer God for you, for only He knows what God is.  Everything else that you have placed within your mind cannot exist, for what is not in communication with the Mind of God has never been.  Communication with God is life.  Nothing without it is at all.

(My emboldening, underlining and some italics, for emphasis.) 

We can commun(icat)e with the Mind of God here, now, via the Holy Spirit — Who is indivisibly with us all right now — our true Self.

To at-onement!

Brian Longhurst  

You are not the victim of the world you see because you invented it. You can give it up as easily as you made it up.  You will see it or not see it, as you wish.  While you want it you will see it; when you no longer want it, it will not be there for you to see. (From W 32)

The self you made is not the Son of God. Therefore, this self does not exist at all. And anything it seems to do and think means nothing. It is neither bad nor good. It is unreal and nothing more than that. (From W 93)

February 10th 2010

Dear Friends,

Communing from time and place to, or with, Eternity can take various forms, but the reality behind those forms is all the same: opening our mind to and aligning it with eternal, all-knowing, Divine Mind.  That Mind is, in truth, within us, has always been and can never not be.  Jesus is one with that holy Mind, and therefore is authorised and empowered to commun(icat)e with us from and of that Mind, in all Its wisdom, knowledge, understanding, gentleness, truth, love, joy and peace.

One of ego’s most compelling defence mechanisms against us commun(icat)ing with the ‘invisible realms’ is the tired old spud that we are ‘trafficking with the devil’.  Of course, those who desire to traffic with the devil — ego — are, thanks to Papa and His irrevocable gift to us of free will, free so to do.  But those among us who truly seek after God and earnestly desire the Kingdom of Heaven, of which Jesus spoke so often, are also free to ‘...enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to (commune with) thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.’ Mt. 6:6.  Also, these extracts from John ch. 14 are pertinent to this subject:

I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.  I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

He that hath my commandments, (not the schismatic, institutionalised, Laodicean church’s multitudinous commandments; for Jesus issued only two commandments for Life:  Love God and love your neighbour) and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

... If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

The simple and comforting, reassuring answer to those who would earnestly desire to so commune, but are fearful of dark forces interposing themselves into their minds and insidiously taking control over them, is 1) place oneself, sincerely, honestly and totally in the care, guidance and protection of Jesus and 2) watch for any or all of these feelings: inner peace, joy, love, uplift, comfort.  They are true indicators of attunement and intercourse with the Realms of Light.  If fear, discomfort, turmoil or any disquiet is experienced, revert to 1) and end the communing attempt.

Most of the fragments of the Sonship, lost and lonely in time and place, are fearful of God, Jesus and the very prospect of the Holy Spirit, so may be somewhat trepidatious at the idea of communing with any Aspect of the ‘Holy Trinity’ in anything resembling a solitary manner.  But They love us all unconditionally, know our inner fears, doubts and guilt feelings, and will always be — can only be — exquisitely gentle, tender, solicitous; caring for our inner peace, comfort and well-being; always meeting us at our point of need and leading us gently, one step at a time, at a pace with which we are entirely comfortable, toward the Light.

As a result of a lifelong, earnest desire for eternal truth and enlightenment, I have been greatly blessed with awareness of the Realms of Light for much of my life in time and place as persona Brian, and of Jesus leading, guiding and protecting me during that time.  It was not until October 1997 — more than 30 years after Jesus began communing with me (to my conscious cognition) — that I had first awareness of the Holy Spirit (details to be posted on the HTG website Diary page for that year within not many months), but because the GRP goes forward toward its fulfilment, so do we all, within it.  It was always Jesus’ intent to lead me (and all his brethren in the Sonship) to the place of Self (Holy Spirit) awareness because that is Who we really are, and the GRP will be completed when we are all restored to fullness of remembrance of Who we are.

It has become more and more clear to me over the years that communing without fear, anxiety or trepidation, but rather, engendering comfort, peace, love, joy and lightness of heart, was, and remains the intent of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit toward the fragmented, somnambulist, lost, lonely, fearful Sonship, as They lead us back to oneness in Truth.  How could it be otherwise if Their goal for us is restoration to Heaven?  It is my joy, therefore, to now share with you a recent communing with Self; the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Breath. 

The objective of sharing thusly is to reassure the doubting and fearful (there is some of that in us all) that the loving reality of communion with Light, Truth, Eternity, Heaven — right here, right now — is not only possible, but positively encouraged by and from Heaven, because That is our destiny, our one and only true Home, and now is the time when we are being given unprecedented opportunity to re-familiarise ourselves with It.

For those who may feel this is blasphemy, heresy or apostasy (which ego assuredly wants us to think), since we are all God’s children, is it not much more like blasphemy, heresy or apostasy to suggest God’s creation, His beloved children, are, or could be, other than as holy as their Creator, in Whose likeness we are created?  And that any appearances to the contrary cannot be other than an absurd, insane, impossible dream?

I have told you that the apparent gap, or demarcation between the ‘thoughts of Brian’ (or pB) and My thoughts would become less pronounced as pB progresses in the waking to remembrance process.  Do not now start to allow fear thoughts to regain entry and become predominant as this process takes more and more effect in ‘your’ mind.  There is no ‘your’ mind.  That was always made up; an illusion, a dream of separation.  There is now only ‘Our’ Mind because pB has decided that he truly and earnestly desires it to be so, and has committed himself to that objective.  And so it is, because he has willed it so.  As Papa’s all-empowered Son, how could it be otherwise?

Every time upside-down ego-mind thoughts enter, you now know that pB can choose to surrender them to Self  — Me — and I will translate them in Our Mind so that they (ego thoughts) may be reinterpreted, restored, topside-up, to blessing.  Fear and guilt can interfere with the process.  When an attack thought, or a judgement thought enters, instead of allowing such to engender what ego wants — guilt and fear — give thanks and rejoice that I Am with you every moment; ready, waiting with infinite patience for pB to give them to Me.  So give them to Me!  I can handle them because they are nothing, and I can handle nothing very easily.  That is what I am here, with all the fragments, to do. 

It’s who you are, with Me, because we are one, in Eternity.

As we learn, and remember, to give all our negative, judgemental, ego-thoughts to Self, so does He instantly reinterpret them, transform them in our mind (because that is what we have asked Him, by the act of giving them to Him, to do, and by giving them to Him he is enabled by us so to do for us, on our behalf) into loving and blessing thoughts.  This enables us to see that the initial, negative, judgemental perception, projected thought, was indeed nothing.  So do we, in each such moment, dispel the ego-mindedness thrall in which we have bound ourself, and find that we are becoming Kingdom-minded.

It is the act of giving them to Self that is the releasing/transforming mechanism.  That willingness is the fulcrum, the catalyst by which our release from ego-mind’s grasp is performed.  It is a recognition that we are engaging in combined, co-operative endeavour with Self that instantly switches our allegiance — albeit in most cases, unwitting — from ego’s script to Holy Spirit’s script. 

This is the beginning of the Holy Instant, in which we commence becoming like Jesus, as stated in 1Jn. 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.  Seeing him as he is is actually a reflection of ourself because becoming like him is also a recognition, a remembrance of our oneness with him in the Sonship.

Alleluia!

Brian Longhurst

Holy Spirit, I do not want these negative, unKingdomly thoughts about my brother any longer, so I give them — release them — to You, for translating into loving, blessing, forgiving thoughts.  Thank You.

February 17th 2010

Dear Friends,

One of the central themes of ACIM is what Jesus calls True Forgiveness, which is the opposite of the ego version of forgiveness.  The pivotal point of true forgiveness is that we forgive our brother (whoever) — and ask our brother to forgive us — for what neither one of us has, in reality, ever done, so that we can each receive the forgiveness that is rightfully ours. 

It seems odd that Jesus should counsel us to ask and offer forgiveness for what we have never done, but he has a sound reason for this, as may readily be guessed by the frequency with which he speaks of it.  It is to do with mind retraining, away from ego’s indoctrination that we are all guilty as sin, to the Holy Spirit’s message of truth that we are all pure, perfect, innocent, as created in Eternity.

It could be perceived from the t&p viewpoint that this turns everything on its head, but we are already, metaphorically speaking, on our heads, and the teaching curriculum of the Voice for God will, assuredly, get us back on our feet.  This is, as we all by now realise, because what we think we — and just about everyone else — have done, none of us has done because it is all an illusion; a dream from which we are waking to realise our eternal innocence. For clarity, here is what Jesus says about this:

God does not forgive because He has never condemned. And there must be condemnation before forgiveness is necessary. Forgiveness is the great need of this world, but that is because it is a world of illusions. Those who forgive are thus releasing themselves from illusions, while those who withhold forgiveness are binding themselves to them. As you condemn only yourself, so do you forgive only yourself (simply because there is only one of us, appearing, illusorily, to be fragmented into an indefinite number of separate parts).

Yet although God does not forgive, His Love is nevertheless the basis of forgiveness. Fear condemns and love forgives. Forgiveness thus undoes what fear has produced, returning the mind to the awareness of God. For this reason, forgiveness can truly be called salvation. It is the means by which illusions disappear.

(From ACIM Workbook Lesson 46. My emboldening and italics, for emphasis)

So, true forgiveness is a mechanism employed by Jesus to help in the retraining of our mind away from guilt toward innocence.  Ultimately, we will have the same perspective as that described above as Papa’s: that there is nothing to forgive.  But, for most of us, we do not have the remembrance of being there yet, and it is too big a gap for us to bridge in one go at this juncture in the GRP. 

All the while we perceive ourself and our brothers as having done wrong, and are therefore adjudged guilty, worthless ‘sinners’, there is a need for forgiveness, but that, as stated above, (true) forgiveness is the great need of this world, because that will retrain our minds, however long — or short, the choice is ours — a time it takes for that retraining. 

The sooner we are willing simply to ask the Holy Spirit to help us in this matter, the sooner we will be free of the illusion of guilt and its witnesses: fear, dis-ease and death, to name but a few.  We can only be free of the illusion of guilt — and therefore a perceived need for forgiveness — when we free ourself and our brothers from condemnation.

In Heaven, where all is peace — and peace is possible only in the absence of guilt — joy and unconditional love, eternally, there is no judgement or condemnation, but only acceptance, absolute knowing, of the innocence of Papa’s beloved Son.  When we stop judging and condemning our brothers (and ourself!) in the seemingly fragmented Sonship, then we will be, again, one. 

Being one with one whom we judge or condemn is perceived, according to ego thinking, as undesirable, and is certainly impossible.  Anyone who takes the trouble to monitor himself will be astonished — dismayed even — at how many times in the course of an hour, let alone a day, he judges.  But as Jesus reminds us: When you react at all to illusions you are not listening to the Holy Spirit (T-9.III.4).  And as with miracles, there is no order of magnitude in judgement. 

A judgement that ego-thinking would immediately deem only ‘small’ and therefore insignificant, is no less a judgement than what most of us might perceive as a ‘big’ judgement.  No judgement, of whatever perceived order of magnitude, will serve any purpose other than to keep us bound within the illusion, for another and yet another circuit on the carousel of birth and death, with all the attendant trials, vicissitudes and tribulations: perceived scarcity, broken relationships, loneliness, pervasive sense of guilt, fear, breakdown of bodily function, and death. 

That is ego’s perception of eternity.  It is not a pretty picture, and if anyone were to be asked if this is a vision of eternal life to which he aspires, few indeed would espouse it.  Not without good reason for it would be eternal death, were such possible.

Yet the alternative — its opposite — is entirely desirable, free of all t&p, ego-induced bequests.  And the procedure for attaining that, our true and only, eternal reality — Heaven — is so simple, easy, lacking in hardship that no-one inured in the falsity that anything worthwhile must be arduous and complicated, can readily believe.   That alternative is relinquishing judgement and replacing it with true forgiveness.

But we cannot stop judging and condemning all the while we are listening to ego.  The only thing that appears to be hard — impossible even — is committing ourself to repudiating ego.  And of ourself we cannot accomplish that task; it seems onerous beyond our perceived littleness’s ability because of the insidious nature of ego’s legacy, judgement.   However, littleness is not what we are.  Magnitude, grandeur, magnificence, all-knowing, all-empowered, innocent, eternal effulgence is What we are, and we can know this beyond doubt because we are created in the likeness of our Creator, Whom no-one would deny the foregoing describes.

And in our somnambulist, momentary, dream appearance as bodies, we are not comfortless; not without Help.  Would our beloved Father, Who loves us beyond all imagining, leave us comfortless, or judge, condemn and abandon us in a state of perceived separation from Him, when we are His joy, His love and His completion?  And if He has given us such a Comforter, would that Gift be less than able to bring us complete, perfect comfort?  And would that Comforter be beyond the reach of a single fragment of Papa’s beloved? 

Such ideas are so absurd, so impossible, so deluded, so insane that they could only have come from a separated, upside-down, truth-obscured mind.

As earlier stated, the hallmark of God, Heaven, Eternity is simplicity; transparency, openness.  The illuminated and illuminating waymarkers to that estate — the Light — are few, plain to view and easy to understand. They are ‘Love God’ and ‘Love your neighbour’.  The waymarkers to darkness and oblivion are multitudinous, complex, convoluted, confusing and abstruse, demanding that we follow ever-changing doctrines and dogmas, petty rules and regulations cobbled together and promulgated by squabbling, unhealed ‘healers’ mistakenly claiming to be the true representatives of him who brought us the only two waymarkers we need, and whose credentials were (and remain) impeccable.

‘Love God (with all our heart, soul, mind and strength)’ assuredly requires no explanation.  ‘Love your neighbour (as yourself)’ is equally clear once we realise, completely and unequivocally, that our neighbour is ourself, simply because in truth there is no separation, no fragmentation; that Papa has but one Son, and we, along with all our neighbours, are that indivisible Son.

Therefore, to judge or condemn another — a brother, or neighbour — is to judge or condemn ourself.  This is ego’s objective and we keep on falling for its prestidigitation.  One could rewrite Paul’s words about the wages of sin being death as the wages of judgement is death. 

But it is not ‘eternal death’. Jesus tells us, in scripture and now — unhindered by covert alteration or dilution of his message, or false doctrines — in ACIM, that as we judge, so are we judged, because it is the very judgement with which we judge that we judge (and condemn) ourself.  It is nothing to do with Papa.  And, conversely, he tells us that as we (truly) forgive, so are we forgiven, because it is by the very act of our forgiveness of others that we are forgiven, measure for measure.

Now, as the GRP unfolds before and within us, we are able to benefit from the Help of the Comforter, Who reinterprets difficult into easy, obscure into visible, complicated into simple, darkness into light, hard into effortless, all with time-collapsing simplicity, as never before.  This is because we are now in the third, fulfilment stage of the three measures of meal, when the whole is being leavened, and because more of the fragments are waking and joining with us in the process, thus encouraging and supporting us, as true brothers do. 

That healing Help is absolute and will never fail us.  The only failure we will experience in the rescue endeavour is if we remain attuned to the wrong helper, which will do everything possible to distract, discourage and dissuade us from choosing the Light.  The Comforter, Who is our true Self, asks only our willingness to let Him help us and He will accomplish our awakening for us.  As Jesus says in T-15.XI.3:

...give the Holy Spirit everything that would hurt you. Let yourself be healed completely (by repudiating judgement — darkness — with His help, for we cannot do it alone, and replacing it with the Light engendered here, in t&p, now, by true forgiveness) that you may join with Him in healing, and let us celebrate our release together by releasing everyone with us.  Leave nothing behind, for release is total, and when you have accepted it with me you will give it with me.  All pain and sacrifice and littleness will disappear in our relationship (the entire Sonship), which is as innocent (as in, guiltless) as our relationship with our Father, and as powerful.  Pain will be brought to us and disappear in our presence, and without pain there can be no sacrifice.  And without sacrifice there love must be.

Further on in that same section he says:

I have perfect faith in you (because, although the truth of Who we really are is obscured from our vision by dark clouds of ego-misperception, that truth is not hidden from him at all.  We might serve ourself well if we ask which is right: Jesus’ vision of us, or our perception of ourself?) to do all that you would accomplish (and because he knows the infallible, unstoppable, all-empowered-by-Papa Help available to us all).  Nothing will be lacking, and you will make complete and not destroy.  Say, then, to your brother:

that we will be released together.

Entering the Kingdom of Heaven alone is impossible, but entering together, as one in the Sonship, is inevitable.  Now is the time of rejoining, thus enabling our rejoicing at our gift of release to freedom and wholeness, to ourself through each other.

To freedom from servitude to littleness and restoration to eternal magnitude!

Brian Longhurst

February 24th 2010

 Dear Friends,

The ‘laws’ of t&p hold no sway over Eternity.  How could they when t&p knows nothing of Eternity and is the opposite of Eternity (or would be if Eternity could have an opposite!); has no point of contact with It?  Nothing that is of t&p has any part in Eternity.  The laws of physics, chemistry and biology, which we perceive as governing our illusory domain, have power only over littleness.  How could these laws have any impact on, or control over, free Mind and perfect, eternal, unchangeable Spirit?  All the while we ascribe to littleness any power over us, we place ourself under the laws of t&p; the laws of littleness.

But we are not of t&p.  We are of and from Eternity, and Its Laws, and the empowerment of them, are at our disposal; the free gift of our Creator at our creation, to be used for His glory and ours in creating; not denied.  This is clearly evidenced by miracles, which override the laws of t&p as if they don’t exist.  Which, of course, in reality, they don’t; only in fantasy.

From the perspective of Eternity, t&p does not exist.  Therefore, all that appears to be in, and of, t&p — including us, the myriad individual persona fragments of Papa’s Son — do not exist either, other than in fantasy that can only revolve around a not-so-merry-go-round of birth and death.

Happily, our true perspective is eternal — because our reality is eternal — and recognition of this, or at least a willingness to recognise it, enables us to begin to accept that our t&p perception can only be illusory.  If this is so — which Jesus, who assuredly knows better than most of the rest of us, tells us it is — and all he tells us about our Home in Eternity is immeasurably, indescribably better than what must therefore be described as alien, then common sense must tell us that clinging to t&p, especially out of fear, is not serviceable to our peace of mind.

‘But it appears so real; how can it be only an elaborate illusion?’  Because we are the all-empowered Son of God, with all the attributes of our Father Creator, and are therefore able to dream of a ‘reality’ that does not exist and make it appear real to us simply by believing it so.  Yet it cannot be real because only that which is eternally, unchangeably loving, peaceful and joyful can be real.  Only perfection, which is of God, can be real and must be unchangeable or it could not remain perfect.  Therefore, whatever changes is not perfect, so cannot be of God.

Our misplaced belief has caused us to lose sight of the unchangeable reality.  That is all; we cannot lose, or be lost to, Eternity, though we appear to have thrown It — Heaven — away in exchange for hell.  That was a bad choice; an error, not a ‘mortal sin’, and happily, we are free at every moment to choose again. 

Most of us will only choose again when we finally believe what we have made was not created by God.  Even the less discerning among us can readily see enough aspects of t&p to raise the question about whether the eternal, all-loving Father, the Source and Being of Life itself, could create conditions that can only end in death, the path to which is strewn with guilt, fear, scarcity, disease, antagonism, hostility, division and schism.  Even the animal kingdom, separate from spiritual or religious awareness, cannot live other than by the death of other life-forms.

Many of us think it is not that bad because we have obscured to our vision the awareness of the Alternative; that if we strive hard enough we can make it better for ourself.  But therein lies the error in that we see ‘ourself’ as separate from our brothers in the Sonship of God, and until we come to the place of remembrance that there is only one of us, so we can only make it better for ourself by making it better for us all, duality will see to it that new crises continually arise.  This happens because we are wedded to the idea of compromise with reality instead of unequivocation about it, thereby keeping ourself attached to the duality of t&p; good and evil.

Once we remember that there is an Alternative, and choose It unequivocally — and massive progress toward remembrance has been made in recent years, though that is down to the Holy Spirit shining the light of truth within us, waking us to eternal reality, not our little-self endeavours; a sure sign that we are waking to Eternity — we will have the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.  That progress is being made because that is the function of the GRP, which proceeds whether we are aware of it, or understand it, or are willing to co-operate with it, or not.   

As we come more clearly to see what our flawed, double sight has been obscuring from our true, single vision, by way of comparison, we cannot but become willing — eager — to immediately, completely abandon our myopic, t&p perception because it is founded in fear, but our true Home is founded in love.

If — or, more accurately, when — we are willing to direct our thoughts toward our true Home, Eternity, Heaven, we will start to remember It again, and to remember Who we are again; the eternally-living, radiant, all-knowing Son of our beloved and all-loving, eternal Father.  And miracles will start to become natural to us, just as they were to Jesus. 

Meanwhile, the mainstream of the fragments is still of the persuasion that deems such perceptions insane, demanding evidence of what it is, for as long as possible, determinedly unwilling to see.  And any who suggest such ‘unfounded’, barmy hypotheses can only be worthy of carting off to the asylum, to be conveniently ignored and forgotten.  For ego does not want the light.

But we do have evidence of Its reality, and the way in which the feeble laws of t&p are no encumbrance to It (unless we choose to so empower them).  That evidence is, of course, Jesus.  And we are his siblings in the Sonship, equally (for the law of Eternity is equality) empowered to remember truth and demonstrate the wholeness that is also freely ours, by giving, sharing, extending that wholeness to our brothers by what the world calls miracles.  He told us so.  He also told us we are the Light of the world, and not to hide it under a bushel.  That does not mean proselytising; it means being the light of the world. 

Is it not odd that so many of us remain so stubbornly resolute in our unwillingness to believe him?  He who both talked the talk and walked the walk of eternal reality and its laws that reverse the impotent laws of t&p, transforming its primary law — death — into life, assuredly is worthy of being believed.

Miracles are not supernatural; they are normal, natural, and demonstrate that our choice for littleness and death is subnormal; unnatural.  We fumble around in the dark, claiming we are looking for the Light, but are afraid of the Light, fearing the finding of It will require loss of what we think we have; believing It will demand of us sacrifice of what is dearest to us.  Abraham believed that, and was willing to sacrifice the most treasured object of his love: his son, Isaac.  But Papa, by His angel, was able to transform Abraham’s misperception into both a demonstration of Abraham’s steadfast, one-pointed faith and trust, and, even more importantly, that Papa requires of us no sacrifice.

There are those who, at the behest of an institution to which they have pledged allegiance, believe that Jesus, ‘the only Son of God’ (in spite of scripture teaching us that we are all the Son[s] of God), was required of God — for our salvation from eternal damnation by God for our sinfulness — to be sacrificed. 

This doctrine of a once and for all blood sacrifice of God’s only Son, and which is perceived as demanded of God to avert His wrath, judgement, condemnation and terrible punishment, has its foundation in the belief that God demanded blood sacrifices of animals by the Israelites for the same reason.  Then, the New Covenant, so this doctrine — derived from what various of the New Testament writers (not Jesus) say — would have us believe, substituted the death of Jesus in place of the death of animals as the final atonement for our sins.

But this is not founded in the teaching of Jesus — who tells us plainly that there is no such thing as death, and he demonstrated that to us, saying that if we are willing to believe him and follow him, because he is the way, the truth and the life — we will become aware that this is our reality also.  Nor is sacrifice founded by God in the Old Covenant, or Old Testament, which this newly fabricated doctrine was intended to replace.  In the old covenant God tells Jeremiah:   

I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:  But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you. (Jer. 7:22-23)

That, assuredly, is plain enough, but there are other Old Testament records in support of this, such as:

For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. (Ps. 51:16)

David goes on to say in the next verse that all God seeks from us is a contrite spirit and a humble heart.

And:

For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. (Hosea 6:6)

We can help ourself to decide who or what to believe if we ask ourself honestly whether we think God actually needs sacrifices from us, or simply our love and thanksgiving and our desire to be restored to oneness in Him.  Ego would persuade us that He does require sacrifice because that is how guilt makes us feel.  But guilt is not of God.  Love is of God.  Love does not seek, nor demand fear (the opposite of love, and love and fear are mutually exclusive), guilt or sacrifice. 

Jesus emphatically tells us that Papa doesn’t need sacrifice, and that it is his resurrection, not his crucifixion, that is his message, his reminder to us from He Who sent him to us: that the Son of God is eternal, immortal, indestructible, innocent, and knows nothing of death.  And we are God’s Son, equally, one with Jesus.  And if we, God’s immortal Son knows not of death, it must be something other than our Self that perceives, and believes in, death.  Something that seems to be within us; ourself, even.  But we only think of this as our self, and call it such.  It is an illusion called ego that appears to be who we are; that masquerades as ourself.  Ego can never be who we are because we are eternal and ego is but of time and place.

There seem to be two selves within us. These have been referred to as Big Self, or the Spirit of Truth — loving, caring, blessing, forgiving, peaceful, joyful; all-knowing and wise — and little self, or ego; fearful, guilty, judgemental, opportunistic, antagonistic, grasping, duplicitous; insane.  One is real, the other is an illusion. Sooner or later we must decide which is our true and only Self.  Our efforts to decide for truth and against illusion are...  

...powerfully supplemented by the strength of Heaven, and by the united will of all who make Heaven what it is, being joined within it.  And so the one who would cross over (from little self to Big Self, in Eternity, right here and now; not after we lay aside an illusionary body) is literally transported there.

Your bridge (to Eternity) is builded stronger than you think, and your foot is planted firmly on it.  (We cross over in our mind, not by laying aside our body.)  Have no fear that the attraction of those who stand on the other side and wait for you will not draw you safely across.  For you will come where you would be, and where your Self awaits you.

(From ACIM T-16.III.8, 9.)

Ready when you are!

Brian Longhurst

March 3rd 2010

Dear Friends,

We are subject to the laws of t&p all the while we believe in them and that they govern our lives.  We may appear to be in t&p but we are not of it, and never have been.  Jesus knew this and that is why he was not under their restraining, limiting, uncomfortable yoke.  He engaged with t&p because he was on a mission here — for our release from it — but he was functioning from the Laws of God; of Eternity and the limitless empowerment they gave him.  There is in reality no difference between him and us.  There only appears to be because we have forgotten Who we are and Where we are from.  His mission was, and is, to free us from that yoke by reminding us.

The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth (KOHOE) will be fully with us and manifest in t&p — just for a brief moment — when we remember Who we are, and that t&p is not real, other than as a misplaced belief in a part of our mind that has separated itself from reality.  Then that separated part will willingly reunify itself with Self — and become one-minded again — and t&p will disappear, because it will no longer be ‘real’ as an idea in our mind.  Just like waking from a dream, all we thought was reality in the dream is immediately recognised as nothing but a dream.    

The KOHOE will be only a fleeting moment, because Papa is so eager for us to be restored to Him in the Kingdom in Heaven — Eternity — that the instant His beloved Son (that’s us) has awakened from his slumbers he will remember Who he is and Where he belongs.  We cannot be restored to Heaven until we are ready for that restoration; ready to give up our illusions.  And that has to take place where we believe we are, because we must be willing to relinquish our illusions before we can be received back into the Heart of Papa. Not because He is unwilling to receive us but because we are unwilling to leave illusions behind.

Until we are willing, we will hold onto them and thus remain on the illusory carousel of birth and death. We must choose, of our own God-given freewill, that Eternity is where we want to be.  Then will it be so, immediately; for there are no delays in Heaven.  We impose delays upon ourself out of misperception.  Relinquish misperception by allowing Self to correct them and Heaven is ours, now.

This is nothing to do with ‘dying’, or laying aside an illusional body, for it is a process of mind, and minds do not die.  They merely can appear to fall asleep and dream of unreality; an entirely made-up state of consciousness, holding us in a state of littleness and limitation.  Until we wake up to the glory that is us in the oneness of the Sonship.  When we waken, littleness and limitation, which are nothing but a state of mind, will cease to be in our mind — the only place they ever appeared to be — so they will disappear.

How do we move into that state of wakefulness of mind where Eternity becomes our reality instead of t&p?  By steadfastly believing.  Is there one amongst us who thinks Jesus did not steadfastly believe?  Believing determines our reality for us.  That only seems hard to swallow from our upside-down perspective (have you noticed how swallowing is easier when we are right-side up? J). 

This is evidenced by the fact that by believing in littleness, dis-ease (absence of inner peace) and death, we have made them our reality, even though they are not, but only a phantasm.  How much easier must it be to transform our awareness to reality from fantasy than the other way around?  Yet, amazingly, we did that, simply by believing fantasy to be real. This is, bizarrely, a measure of the power of the mind of God’s Son.

Belief, therefore, is everything.  We can believe in truth or we can believe in a lie; reality or illusion.  It is our free choice, always.  We are not punished by God for believing a lie for an instant, because it was only a dream.  We do, however, punish ourself for it, by believing we are guilty, which makes us fearful because the lie says we are sinners and deserve to be punished by a God who hates sin and must therefore destroy sinners.  Since there was no sin, but at worst, simply a mistake, such a belief is poppycock and we will plainly see this when we wake up, and laugh, rejoicing with Papa, Jesus and the Spirit of Truth that we ever took it all so seriously.

Some of us are more deeply asleep than others.  This does not matter.  Whoever said being asleep and dreaming is a sin?  Dreaming of littleness and mortality, and believing they are real, does not alter the indescribable magnificence of the glorious truth of our Being — any more than it would, or could alter the reality of our brother Jesus — which is unchangeably perfect, just as we were created to eternally Be.

Some of us are nearer to waking than other of our brothers.  Those of us who are more ready and willing to wake can then join with Jesus in experiencing the unspeakable bliss of lovingly, gently, caringly helping those still-slumbering brothers to awaken and adjust their minds to the joy, peace and love of eternal wakefulness as one in Papa; the end of separation from Him and each other.

Fine, but what is the point of banging on about this ‘Eternity business’ endlessly when time and place surely seem real enough, and we are stuck here, at least until we die; and that’s all there is to it?

The point is mind retraining, to realign our thinking with our higher Mind — Self, the Spirit of Truth — our real Being, and allow Him to bring us to the state of thinking, awareness, understanding, remembrance, all-knowing that reunifies us with Him.  That Mind, that seems to our persona self to be other than our own mind, separate, loftier, unreachable, is really ours because Self is Who we are.  Attuning, communing with that Mind is simply getting ourself retrained, re-minded; re-attuned to the wavelength of inspiration, enlightenment, remembrance of our limitless, eternal empowerment.  It restores us to a state of miracle-readiness; miracle-Mindedness.  It takes commitment, and the sooner we begin, the sooner we will remember, and be released from littleness and become like Jesus: free.   

We trained our mind to believe the unbelievable, which, when observed from the only true perspective, is... unbelievable.  So retraining our mind to the believable (because it is eternal truth, created by the eternal Creator) is not actually hard.  It appears impossible from the upside-down perspective of fantasyland, but we have unlimited Help, Who will accomplish the correcting of our misperceptions for us, if we are willing to ask for His Help.

Ego has us by the heel and it is the grip of judgement and unforgiveness by which we are held, preventing us from seeing the reality of who we, and who our brothers, really are.  Let us see what Jesus tells us about the rewards of a simple willingness to let the Holy Spirit release us from it:

The Forgiven World

Can you imagine how beautiful those you forgive will look to you? In no fantasy have you ever seen anything so lovely.  Nothing you see here (in the world of separation we have made), sleeping or waking, comes near to such loveliness.  And nothing will you value like unto this, nor hold so dear.  Nothing that you remember that made your heart sing with joy has ever brought you even a little part of the happiness this sight will bring you.  For you will see the Son of God (in ourself and in all our brothers).  You will behold the beauty the Holy Spirit loves to look upon, and which He thanks the Father for.  He was created to see this for you, until you learned to see it for yourself.  And all His teaching leads to (our) seeing it and giving thanks with Him.

This loveliness is not a fantasy.  It is the real world (the KOHOE), bright and clean and new, with everything sparkling under the open sun.  (In the absence of judgement, and the presence of true forgiveness, how could it be other?)  Nothing is hidden here, for everything has been forgiven and there are no fantasies to hide the truth.  The bridge between that world and this is so little and so easy to cross, that you could not believe it is the meeting place of worlds so different.  Yet this little bridge is the strongest thing that touches on this world at all.  This little step, so small it has escaped your notice, is a stride through time into eternity, beyond all ugliness into beauty that will enchant you, and will never cease to cause you wonderment at its perfection.

This step, the smallest ever taken, is still the greatest accomplishment of all in God’s plan of Atonement.  All else is learned, but this is given, complete and wholly perfect.  No one but Him Who planned salvation could complete it thus.  The real world, in its loveliness, you learn to reach.  Fantasies are all undone, and no one and nothing remain still bound by them, and by your own forgiveness you are free to see.  Yet what you see is only what you made (t&p), with the blessing of your forgiveness on it.  And with this final blessing of God’s Son upon himself, the real perception, born of the new perspective he has learned, has served its purpose.

The stars will disappear in light, and the sun that opened up the world to beauty will vanish (from our mind, the only place it ever appeared to exist, because true vision is re-opening to us, leaving illusion nowhere).  Perception will be meaningless when it has been perfected, for everything that has been used for learning will have no function.  Nothing will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations that made perception possible will still occur.  The perception of the real world will be so short that you will barely have time to thank God for it.  For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world and have been made ready for Him.

The real world is attained simply by the complete forgiveness of the old, the world you (currently) see without forgiveness.  The great Transformer of perception will undertake with you the careful searching of the mind that made this world, and uncover to you the seeming reasons for your making it.  In the light of the real reason that He brings, as you follow Him, He will show you that there is no reason here at all.  Each spot His reason touches grows alive with beauty, and what seemed ugly in the darkness of your lack of reason is suddenly released to loveliness.  Not even what the Son of God made in insanity could be without a hidden spark of beauty that gentleness could release.

How much do you want salvation?  It will give you the real world, trembling with readiness to be given you.  The eagerness of the Holy Spirit to give you this is so intense He would not wait, although He waits in patience.  Meet His patience with your impatience at delay in meeting Him.  Go out in gladness to meet with your Redeemer, and walk with Him in trust out of this world, and into the real world of beauty and forgiveness.

(ACIM T-2.II. My emboldening, underlining and italics, for emphasis.)

All this is ours, right now.  The foregoing tells us plainly and exquisitely that it is an ego myth that we go to Heaven only when we die.  It can only be myth because it is believing in Life, not death, that wakens us to the Kingdom, which is, and has always been within us; not ‘up there’, ‘out there’, ‘in the future’.

All together now: Alleluia!

Brian Longhurst

Holy Spirit, I am deciding with You and against ego.  I do not need to fight, or wrestle with ego; simply choose with You, focus upon my Being with You.  I remind myself that You are always with me, patiently, lovingly waiting for me, so that when — each and every moment — I remember You, You are ready to lead, guide, inspire, protect, enlighten and empower me as I journey with You toward wakefulness in the Kingdom.  Knowing this, I am at peace.  Thank You.

March 10th 2010

Dear Friends,

In John 8:12 Jesus says: I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. In Mt. 5:14 he says: Ye are the light of the world.  Clearly he is telling us that we, along with him, are the light of the world.  How can that be reconciled with the doctrines and dogmas that tell us we are all sinners, and that there is no health in us (from the General Confession of congregants in the Anglican Church prayer book)?  If this were true, clearly sin — darkness — would be in us.

Jesus tells us that not only are we the light of the world, not to hide our light under a bushel, but to let our light so shine before men (Mt. ch. 5); he also tells us that the Kingdom of God is within us (Lk. 17:21).  It is not possible that we can be both (spiritually) in darkness and be the light, with the Kingdom within us.  One idea must therefore be wrong if the other is right. 

If Jesus is right, is it not unserviceable to our spiritual wellbeing to keep affirming to ourself the opposite of what he says?  Such false indoctrination will never prepare us for rejoining with him in our oneness in the Kingdom.  For we are directly contradicting our Teacher in what he — who assuredly knows — is telling us about our true Being.

To do so is hiding our light under a bushel, and preventing the Kingdom within us from extending radiantly outwards to our brothers.  Happily, the old order of worship — or, more accurately, self denigration, a true ego characteristic — is fading, along with all the other negative effects of the second measure of meal, even as the leavening of the third, completion measure gets rapidly underway. The first and second measures were both essential to the leavening of the whole (The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened. Mt. 13:33) but the first and second measures were not fulfilments or completions of a process in their own right.

Just as a flower withers away once it has served its purpose and been pollinated, thus fulfilling its essential part of the fruit-bearing process, so does the first measure give place to the second and in its turn, the second to the third, when their respective parts in the whole leavening process is finished.

Clinging to hopes of a revival of the flower, or continuing as if the flower is not withering, does not serve the Great Rescue Programme for the leavening — rising up — of the Kingdom that assuredly has always been within us.  One might say it is a fruitless exercise.

Any who truly seek after God and earnestly desire the Kingdom of Heaven will be led by the Spirit of Truth Who resides within them.  This is a progressive, unfolding process and leads us ever forward toward the full remembrance that, in our oneness, we are the light.  Continuing to proclaim ourselves ‘miserable sinners, in whom there is no health’, as many still do week after week, year after year, act after act, is an ego-driven, backward-looking endeavour. 

Rather, we can rejoice that not only the first, but also the second measure of the GRP are completed and behind us.  We need not spend a single moment trying to understand their objectives, or if, how and when those objectives were fulfilled.  That is for the Holy Spirit to know, so we can sidestep the ego’s ploy of getting us focussed on, distracted by, the past.

Now we can celebrate that the third and final measure, in which the whole is leavened, is with us; and that even if we have no conscious awareness of it, or are even actively denying that any such event is taking place, it continues to move inexorably toward its fulfilment.  Any who believe a mind focussed on littleness can thwart Papa’s will are truly mistaken.

The fruitfulfilling activity of a tree takes place within it, and denying it because we cannot see it happening demonstrates lack of understanding.  By leaving the tree for a week or two after the flower withers, and then returning, a careful observer will notice the ovary (the part of the flower stem immediately behind the flower) shows signs of swelling. Further time-lapses will show that the swelling continues, slowly but surely taking on the shape of the fruit that will be the eventual harvest.  This activity will not be detectable by watching. Thus were Jesus’ words correct when he said The kingdom of God cometh not with observation (Lk. 17:20).

If anyone from the 1950s or 60s had been able to take a time travel trip to 2010 they would see many changes, and if he were not a careful observer he might despair that only decay, degeneration and demise of a promising culture were the outcomes of the passage of time.  Yet, were he to look more closely he would be able to see that from the very within of that decaying, degenerating culture — that withering flower — is arising a new, vibrant, shimmering, radiant state of Being. With the light of spiritual discernment he would see the beginning of a metamorphosis that will transform it into its true, eternal reality.  That transformation is taking place from the within, under control of the One Mind of which our persona-self has no awareness or understanding.

The old form has to pass away in order for that process to continue to its completion; until the whole is leavened.  Few of us have the foggiest idea what things will be like in the coming generations, the coming centuries of linear time.  Seeking for the answer in the without will provide a misperceived expectation, though that is what most of us still do, under ego’s urging. For the answer, along with the Kingdom, is within us, dormant, or now awakening — nascent, yet — to illuminate the world.

Will we look upon the decay and degeneration of the outer form with ego eyes and weep in despair, or will we rejoice and give thanks that our true vision, the light of spiritual discernment that emanates from our own within — the Holy Spirit — is revealing to us that our reality is not an earth-crawling, backward-looking, fear-driven, mortal body, constantly on the lookout for an enemy seeking to devour us?  For the Holy Spirit within us, our unchanging, light-filled Self, is revealing to us, if we care to be still a moment and listen, that the Anointed Messenger (Jesus) of the Holy One (Papa) is the true example of Who we are.

Does the fruit grower look at the withering flower and see disaster, or does he know, within himself, that its demise is the very sign of a glorious harvest ahead?  He knows from a position of certainty what it portends, and he trusts in the process.  He looks at the present, and with the light of discernment, knows what it tells him.  He also knows that it is not he who will bring the harvest, but the Good Husbandman, working from the within to perform it.

Of course that is all an allegory; but allegory is symbolic of esoteric, spiritual reality.  Jesus used allegory as his main method of attempting to teach those without the light of spiritual discernment.  Here is what he said about reading the signs, or portents:

When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red.  And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times? (Mt. 16:2, 3.)

We can look at Jesus and say, ‘He is the light; he is our template, our example for us to know our true reality’.  It seems an entirely pertinent approach to understanding the outcome of the unfolding of events, especially as he was empowered to demonstrate that we are immortal, indestructible, limitless; that the laws that seem to govern three-dimensional experience can have no dominion over us unless we ascribe it to them.  Jesus knew this and demonstrated it; and so can we, if we are willing to believe.  He told us so, so it can only be the truth.  Will we espouse truth — which will set us free — or continue to cling fearfully to illusion?

It is serviceable to co-operate with the laws of Eternity, of which we are an inextricable part, in order to return to that state of Being without delay; to say to ourselves, ‘I will to know the truth, because it, and it alone, can and will set me free’.  It is no longer serviceable to adhere to beliefs that belong to measures, or epochs, that have served their purpose and have withered as the GRP moves forward toward its completion. That is like saying, ‘I am journeying to the Light’, whilst walking away from it.  Only ego would countenance such a strategy.

But ego is in darkness.  We are the Light.  Yet we are only the Light in the remembrance of our oneness, not in the perception that we are separate bodies with separate minds.  We return to the Kingdom together, as one.  This is only possible if we see our brother as our Self, and love him as our Self.  We cannot transform ourself of our own, divided-self will into that state of Being, but our true Self can and will accomplish it for us if we are willing to allow Him to, working from our own within, where He dwells.

Here, in these extracts from ACIM T-18.III is what Jesus tells us about this:

Light in the Dream

...If you knew Who walks beside you on the way that you have chosen, fear would be impossible.  You do not know because the journey into darkness has been long and cruel, and you have gone deep into it... (over and over.)

You who hold your brother’s hand also hold mine, for when you joined each other you were not alone.  Do you believe that I would leave you in the darkness that you agreed to leave with me?  In your relationship is this world’s light... The holiness of your relationship is established in Heaven... but remember that your understanding is not necessary (because Self understands for us).  All that was necessary was merely the wish to understand.  That wish was the desire to be holy... (holy is to do with wholeness of mind, not religious piety.)

Each instant that we spend together will teach you that this goal is possible, and will strengthen your desire to reach it.  And in your desire lies its accomplishment.  Your desire is now in complete accord with all the power of the Holy Spirit’s Will...  I hold your hand as surely as you agreed to take your brother’s (recognising him once more as our brother, and loving him as ourself).  You will not separate, for I stand with you and walk with you in your advance to truth.  And where we go we carry God with us.

...We are made whole in our desire to make (our brother) whole.  Let not time worry you, for all the fear that you and your brother experience is really past... (Alleluia!)

...Heaven is joined with you in your advance to Heaven.  When such great lights have joined with you to give the little spark of your desire the power of God Himself, can you remain in darkness?  You and your brother are coming home together, after a long and meaningless journey that you undertook apart, and that led nowhere.  You have found your brother, and you will light each other’s way...

(My emboldening, underlining and some italics, for emphasis.)

Can such beautiful words, so inspiringly crafted, be from any other than Jesus?  Can they serve other than to encourage, uplift, strengthen, enlighten and revivify our joy, for our journey Home?

Onwards and upwards!

Brian Longhurst

Holiness created me holy.

Perfection created me perfect.

                      From W.67

March 17th 2010

Dear Friends,

Jesus tells us in ACIM that wholeness is ours, but the only way we can receive it (because we seemed to throw it away when we dreamt a dream of separation from our Source and from our Self) is to give it to our brothers in the seemingly fragmented Sonship.  Since we cannot give what we believe we do not have, giving wholeness is an affirmation to ourself that we have it to give.  That requires faith because in our perceived separated state of mind we appear not to have wholeness but instead, littleness, fragmentation, scarcity, fear, guilt, death; hardly properties denoting wholeness! 

The principle of giving in order to receive is of Eternity; difficult to perceive from the upside-down t&p perspective.  But because in Eternity, Heaven (which, let us not forget, is now; not in the future — maybe), there is but one of us in the Sonship of Papa, we are, in reality, giving to our Self, since there is but our Self to receive our gift.  So, giving and receiving are, in effect, one and the same thing.  

This principle is one of what Jesus described to me as PLFs, so our sensory perceptions — including perceptions of giving and receiving — are misperceptions if they are not in harmony with the eternal, unchangeable PLFs.  In t&p we see giving and receiving as opposites, in which the giver loses something and the receiver gains it. This is a very good example of our urgent need for mind retraining, if we truly desire to get back home from this illusory ‘far country’ of fear, dis-ease and death to the reality of eternal love, peace and joy.

The PLF of giving in order to receive, because they are one and the same thing, applies to true forgiveness also.  To receive what is rightfully ours — and always has been ours, because we are the beloved Son of the Source of Wholeness — we have to remember, and believe beyond all doubt, that Papa’s Son is the sum of all the apparently fragmented parts of the Sonship, reunified as the One that is our true — whole — reality.

How can we receive the wholeness that is already ours if we do not believe — i.e. lack faith — that we are whole?  When Jesus healed people from infirmities of mind and/or body in the long ago, he said to them ‘Your faith has made you whole.’  Thank goodness that statement survived ego’s attempts at fragmentation, distortion, dilution and dissipation of Jesus’ mission on Earth.  It is faith that we can be made whole — or receive the wholeness that is already ours — that enables it. 

To be one in the Sonship, Which is created in the likeness of our Father Creator — LOVE — we must be love; or, to be more accurate, we must remember that we are love, just as Jesus remembered that he was (and is, forever) love.  He said that the prince of this t&p world (ego) had nothing in him (Jn. 14:30).  We can infer that ego, then, is the opposite of love, since all that is of this world is the opposite of Eternity. 

Love is giving, so we must choose, desire, remember to be love in order to be whole, because only by believing that we are whole can we give wholeness, and therefore, receive it.  Clearly, it is a ‘full circle thing’; should we be surprised at this, being that it is a ‘Papa thing’? J 

So, giving wholeness is acknowledging that we have — and are — wholeness (holiness) and therefore have it to give.  This is to do with loving our neighbour (or brother) as ourself.  If we do not love our neighbour as ourself we are affirming that we do not actually love ourself, and so, although wholeness is ours we are depriving ourself of it. Loving some of our neighbours may seem easier than others.  But that is the same as believing that we can be partially whole.   

Loving and forgiving Pol Pot, Joseph Stalin, Idi Amin, Adolph Hitler (all the usual ‘suspects’) may go against our ego-enthralled conditioning.  That is a litmus test of how ego-enthralled we still are, in spite of any possible self perceptions to the contrary.  But this is no cause for concern that wholeness (or salvation, restoration to fullness of remembrance of Who we really are) is beyond us.  All that is asked of us is that we desire it.  Our real Self will accomplish all the rest for us, at a pace and in a way with which we will be comfortable.  Of course, we have to really desire it, and ask Self to perform it in and for us.   

So, we could say:

“Holy Spirit, this is all a little too confusing for me, and I acknowledge freely that I cannot be, give or receive wholeness of myself, because I still harbour illusions of who I am and who so many of my ‘neighbours’ are.  But, even though those illusions of ‘sin’, or error, or evil seem so solidly real to me still, I truly want to believe and understand that they are not real, so that I can begin to see past them to the reality of the innocent, whole, glorious oneness of the Sonship in us all, including me, regardless of whatever my level of self-esteem may seem to be. 

This is my desire, and I gladly give it to You to perform it and make it permanent for me because I cannot do it myself.  Further, I am willing to leave it all with You, not keep taking it back from You, and allow You to not only do it for me, but keep reminding me to leave it with You every time I am tempted to grab it back.  I also acknowledge that You work ‘behind the scenes’, from the within into the without, and if I cannot see rapid results in the without, it doesn’t mean You are not doing it.  I am also willing to admit (however reluctantly at first!) that if things are moving slower than I want, it just might be something to do with me delaying the desired outcome, by interjecting ego attitudes in various slots, rather than You being slothful!  Oh, and by the way, I am overjoyed that desiring it is all You need of me; it removes a huge, unwarranted burden of self-expectation.” 

If we believe wholeness is neither who we are nor what we have, we therefore believe we cannot give it, and that prevents us from experiencing ourself as being whole.  That is just how ego wants it, ensuring its illusory (but very real-seeming) continuation in the fragmented part of our mind.  Far better is it to give credence to the still, (initially) small Voice within our mind that is all loving, all giving, all caring, all beneficent, all empowered, all patient, and brings us peace, joy, enlightenment and comfort unimaginable, in contrast to the clamour, doubt, darkness and fear that fills our mind when engaged in ego’s principality of t&p.  

That still, calming, loving Voice is with us always because that is Who we are — Self — and is therefore inseparable from us, and we from It.  We have lost touch with Self and His speaking, but regaining touch is as easy as we are willing to permit it to be.  I have been inestimably blessed by inner awareness of Papa, Jesus and the Spirit of Truth, which has come, purely and simply, from a willingness to accept that They love us and are there for us. There is nothing ‘special’ or unique about this gift; we all have it because it is irreversibly and irrevocably given to us at our creation.  For the encouragement of any who are fearful or doubtful about their facility for such blessed awareness, here is a recent example of such communing: 

Holy Spirit, I know You are within me now, as always.

It’s My middle name. 

We don’t hear much about wholeness in our daily lives from the institutions of church, state or the medical world.  It is not something ego wants us to focus upon, because the flaws in the ego script for our lives would soon become apparent.  But wholeness is the entire objective for us of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. If we wish to change scriptwriters we will soon find that there has been a very big hole in our existence, which They can fill with wholeness if we are willing to allow it.  Papa knows only of wholeness; nothing of fragmentation.  We can choose to be aware, once more, that we are of one Mind with Him, since that is the likeness in which He created us, and which is, therefore, our true, unchangeable reality. 

Love,

Brian Longhurst

March 24th 2010

Dear Friends,

Most of us, I feel sure, will agree with the adage that ‘God is love’.  Love is benign, caring, protective, motivated by goodwill and tenderness.  Worth sticking with, one might say.  Yet, according to Jesus in ACIM (is there one amongst us who professes to know better than he?), God’s one Son, created in the likeness, and with all the attributes of his Father Creator, had a ‘mad moment’ of wondering what it might be like to go off on his own, away from His Father’s House (see the parable of the Prodigal Son, Lk. 15:11 ff).

This momentary thought set in motion the apparent separation of the Son from His Father, and the Son from the oneness of His Being, into a chain reaction of division, or fragmentation; into an ever-increasing number of seemingly individual, self-operating units, each with its own separate mind, and a body to transport it around in and do its bidding (when I was born there were 2 billion bodies on Earth; now there are nearly 7 billion and rising rapidly).

Love (and therefore, its Source, since they are indivisible) is inescapably everywhere, and the only chance of getting away from what is everywhere is to engage in fantasy, wherein we can imagine whatever we want.  But imagining is not the same as reality, however much we may choose to perceive it as such.  And, assuredly, with the power of our all-knowing mind at our disposal, we have fooled ourself into believing that what is but fantasy is real and that we are separate from God and Eternity, in a state that is, were it possible, the seeming opposite of reality, our true Home.  That fantasy perception is, I hardly need say, known as time and place (t&p).

But to imagine being separate from Love, we had to imagine what was not Love, or we would not be, even illusorily, separate, or apart from It.  ‘Love’ is with a capital L here because it denotes the Perfect Love that is Who and What God, the Creator Spirit, Is.  Anything less than that is not actually Love, but a counterfeit form that Jesus calls ‘special love’ in ACIM; but that is another whole subject!

Love is open, giving, transparent, ubiquitous, unlimited, unchanging, universal, has no hidden agendas.  It is not some of those things, interchangeably, some of the time, but all of them (and, more besides), uninterruptedly, eternally.  That in itself tells us that It is not of t&p, though we are at free choice about whether we wish to manifest It in t&p.  And we know that is possible because Jesus demonstrated It in t&p.  Not only so, but because he overcame ego — the opposite of Perfect Love — we, his brothers, from whom he is eternally indivisible, will also overcome ego, and are heading in that direction right now, as he is in charge of the GRP that is taking us there.  That GRP is infallible and unstoppable.  That news is not just good, but out of this world J. 

There is but one ingredient lacking for its completeness: our willingness to believe.  That willingness enables the unreal world to be transformed into the real world — the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth — for the believer.  The GRP will perform that transformation for us all because a) the GRP, or Atonement, has all the resources of Eternity at its disposal, and because b) in reality (Eternity) it is already complete.  In linear time terms (since we believe we are in linear time, we have to have a linear perspective on events in order to give them meaningfulness in the context of linear time within which we are currently perceiving them) it will be completed by the leavening of the third measure of meal, and all the fragments restored to wholeness and oneness as Christ, Papa’s one, beloved Son, in Whom He is well pleased.

Meanwhile — getting back to the thread — to imagine being in a place, or state of mind, where Perfect Love is not (otherwise there could be no separation, even in fantasy), has to mean imagining, fantasising, dreaming a state of being in which Perfect Love is not present in our separated mind.  That may appear to some as a highly controversial, inflammatory even, statement.  But the proof of the pudding is in the eating; for if It were present, we would be whole, as Papa created His Son, and that is manifestly not so.  The only way that could be possible is to imagine a state of being that is Its opposite.  

Since imagining ourself as being what we are not is a betrayal of our true Self, we have, at a deep level in our unconscious, perceived ourself to have ‘sinned against Heaven and before God’ (Lk. 15: 18).  But here is what Jesus says about this in ACIM:

The betrayal of the Son of God lies only in illusions, and all his “sins” are but his own imagining.  His reality is forever sinless.  He need not be forgiven but awakened.  In his dreams (he believes) he has betrayed himself, his brothers and his God.  Yet what is done in dreams has not been really done.  It is impossible to convince the dreamer that this is so, for dreams are what they are because of their illusion of reality.  Only in waking is the full release from them, for only then does it become perfectly apparent that they had no effect upon reality at all, and did not change it.  Fantasies change reality.  That is their purpose. They cannot do so in reality, but they can do so in the mind that would have reality be different. (T-17.I.1)

This is an act of ‘make believe’, such as children play.  It is not creating, but a substitute for creating, which can only take place in reality.  Creating is extending oneness, and is an aspect of reality, which is Perfect Love.  It cannot function as part of an illusory separateness, so a make believe substitute is all that can ever hope to take the place of creating, in the deluded state of mind that besets us all the while we believe the illusion of t&p is reality. 

And so we believe that the act of two bodies coming together and making more bodies is creating life.  But, if Papa has but one Son, and that Son is not a body, but, like his Father, is Spirit, then making more bodies is not creating, or giving life, as is commonly perceived; it is an act of dividing the one Son into more separated fragments.  Creating is extending oneness, which increases and strengthens it; contrarily, dividing oneness diminishes and weakens it.

Extending oneness is of the mind, not of bodies, for true creation is of God, a gift He extended to His one Son because His Son is created like Him, with all His attributes.  True creation is therefore of Eternity, and bodies have no part in Eternity; they are but an illusion of t&p.  We are not a body; we are like our Father Creator.  Reunifying, or rejoining in oneness of mind, not bodies, restores to us our true creative reality.

This is possible only by willingness to remember who we really are.  Jesus tells us we are the light of the world, and light — true, spiritual light, the light of Life, not light as perceived by bodily senses — is Love; Perfect Love.  So if that is who we are, only by a willingness to be that can we fulfil our only function here and be restored to our true Being.  We can only be restored to that by a willingness to give up our belief in littleness, mortality and the attendant grievances.  And that is only possible by forgiving our brothers and ourself for all that we have never actually done, but simply dreamed.

It makes inestimable sense to be completely who and what we are, rather than a sorry, fearful, limited misperception of ourself, seemingly stuck in time and place, forgetful, gone like a shadow in a fleeting moment, only to have to keep reappearing as another and yet another illusory shadow because our unbelief keeps us stuck in t&p.  If this were our true nature, Papa’s Son would be incomplete and He would not be able to keep creating like His Father: forever extending His all-giving, perfectly-loving Being. 

Since the Son is created like His Father, that would make His Father incomplete. How can God be incomplete?  The idea is preposterous.  If He is Perfect Love, and Love is — must be — giving, He could not be what He is if He withheld part of Himself in His creating/extending/giving activity.  That could only be an act of imperfect love, a quality of Being that no soundly reasoning mind could contemplate as attributable to Him.

It may be said that each new persona-in-a-body is complete in itself and thus, producing more bodies is an act of creation.  Yet no body is able to ‘create’ or make more bodies alone, thus demonstrating that no body is complete in itself.  But Papa’s one, reunified Son is complete in Himself, because He is created like His Father.  Thus, the Son of God is not a body.  Completeness is of Mind, and completion is the result of the rejoining of the fragmented minds back to the one Mind of Eternity, Heaven, God.  That is the Atonement of which Jesus speaks in ACIM.

This reunifying of the Mind that appears split, divided into myriad, separate fragments trapped in ever increasing numbers of bodies on the carousel of birth and death, has to take place here, in t&p, so that we can be — are being — prepared, made ready to be restored to our eternal reality of oneness as Papa’s one Son; Christ.  Jesus is, blessedly, our template, come in a body — a communication device — to communicate and demonstrate to his brothers (who believe they are bodies still) the truth that we are what cannot be contained by, or in, a body.

This might be seen as truth (Jesus) being brought to illusions (bodies), but he came to bring the illusory fragments of the Sonship back to the truth of their reality as the one, unified Son. As he says: Bringing illusion to truth, or the ego to God, is the Holy Spirit’s (and therefore, Jesus’ and also our) only function.  Keep not your making (i.e. the illusory, temporal entity we have made of ourself) from your Father, for hiding (the truth about) it has cost you knowledge of Him and of yourself (i.e. our true Self). (T-14.IX.1:4, 5.)

Ego would have us believe that it is impossible for us to be all of one mind, because we see ourselves as myriad bodies, each with a separate mind.  But one-mindedness is an idea, an understanding, an awareness, and does not entail bodies.  It entails belief.  Or at least, a willingness to believe; for if we are but willing to believe, the Holy Spirit will transform our sceptical, unbelieving, misperceiving mind into a knowing-of-a-certainty-beyond–all-doubt mind.  It is a mystical process over which self-will has no control; a process in which we must relinquish, of our own free will, all desire for control in order for it to happen. 

If we are willing to do that, the Holy Spirit, our true Self, will lead us to a state of Being that is nothing to do with bodies or time and place.  In fact, this mystical process of awakening minds and restoring them to remembrance of their oneness renders them, and all illusions, obsolete.  In this process ego is dispelled, and ceases to be part of our mind as it becomes healed and rejoined.  Ego cannot be part of a healed mind because ego is of time and place only, and healed, reunified mind is Christ Mind, and is of Eternity only.  Eternal Mind, Christ Mind, can and will eagerly engage with a willing mind in time and place, but a mind engaged with time and place cannot engage with Christ Mind.

But what about our bodies? They are our identity.  We will lose our identity, then we really won’t know who we are.

Does a butterfly have a moment’s concern for its chrysalis once it has remembered what it is, and emerged, soaring in the light of its true reality?

To soaring!

Brian Longhurst

March 31st 2010

Dear Friends,

‘Knowing’ is not a thinking process.  It is an awareness, a recognition, an acceptance, a remembrance of what is so; what is true, what is real.  Since what is true and what is real is nothing to do with t&p, but only of God and His immutable laws, ‘knowing’, and/or ‘knowledge’ as used in ACIM and here, refers not to observations or perceptions, such as ‘That traffic light just turned red’, or ‘It’s a lovely day’.  Knowing is awareness of unchanging, eternal truth, and these two examples, from t&p conditions, are certainly changeable!

Knowing comes from deep within our mind, from the place of remembrance of Who, What and Where we are, and always, uninterruptedly have forever had our Being.  In contrast, perception is only possible in the upside-down and back-to-front unreality of t&p, where we try to make sense of the nonsensical. 

That does require thought processes, most of which take us round in circles, with history endlessly repeating itself until our thought processes — aided by Self, even when we are unaware of that aid — take us near enough to truth that He can gently, lovingly steer us toward right-mindedness. We have been trying to make this world our reality, our home, but it is not, and never can be, other than in fantasy.  To slightly paraphrase the words of Paul to the Corinthians:

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but when that which is perfect is restored to our memory then shall we know even as also we are known. Then that which is imperfect shall be done away.

While we believe ourselves to be in an illusory, alien place — which is nothing more than a confused state of mind — we can still have faith in the reality of our true Home in Papa.  In fact, faith only has any serviceable meaning while we are in this dream state; for when we waken to reality we know, as Paul implies, of a certainty beyond all doubt, and that knowing, or true vision — which is a clear, enlightened state of mind — replaces faith.  Faith is a belief in what we do not see or understand.  When we see reality and understand it with our ‘single eye’, or unflawed vision — which is a state of mind, undetectable by bodily senses — faith vanishes away because now we know.  

In the illusion, thought processes are necessary because nothing actually means anything, and we have to try and make sense of our misperceptions, and give meaning to a constantly changing unreality.  It seems so real to our bodily senses (all designed to be taken in by a changing, illusory projection onto the screen of our consciousness) that it requires a change of attitude — from belief in what passes away to what is eternally, unchangingly perfect — to consider that such a ‘radical’ idea that nothing in t&p, all of which is constantly changing, means anything.  But, as Jesus reminds us, in God’s creation, Eternity, nothing changes; if perfection changed it could only become imperfection.

But when we ask to be grown in faith and are willing to allow our true Self, the Holy Spirit, to take the helm, He will gradually, at a pace with which we are comfortable, shine away the fog of misperception.  This will bring us to a place which is near enough to eternal, unchanging reality, that a spark of remembrance, of renewed understanding will bridge the gap and bring an instantaneous awareness of what is real; the absolute certainty that is knowing.

This is not yet all knowing, for we are journeying back to remembrance at a pace with which the Holy Spirit knows we are comfortable: one step at a time.  There will be ‘small’, or partial remembrances; not of the ego-scripted past, but of who we really are and of our true Home; of our oneness in the Sonship.  These, with continuing faith, will gradually come together into a complete picture as they begin to be recognised as the parts that make up the wholeness that — reunited with our brothers, through forgiveness, in Papa — we forever are.  It can be likened to the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle gradually being fitted together until we see the whole picture.

Ego knows that our starting out on this journey spells its end, and will use every device at its command (including our willingness to continue believing its story and its stage backdrops of a ‘physical’ universe of passing shadows, from galaxies to bodies, are real) to distract us and ambush our intent to awaken. 

Masquerading as ourself, ego says, ‘I must understand this problem, so that I can deal with it’.  Conversely, our true Self, the Spirit of Truth says, ‘Give Me the problem so I can deal with it by exposing it for the illusion it is by shining the light of eternal truth on it, and it will simply disappear’. It is worth reflecting on the fact that He is the Spirit of Truth, not the body of truth.  One might even say we can choose between the Spirit of Truth and the ‘body of lies’.

This is the difference between Eternity and t&p, Heaven and Earth.  In Heaven, our true, eternal and only Home, we know there are no problems because the light of truth shines there, and problems only appear to exist when we deny ourself the ever-freely-available light of eternal truth by choosing to maintain a veil between us and the light, obscuring it from our view. 

There is no problem in reality, and never has been or will be.  But we have removed ourself from reality.  This causes us to believe there is not just one problem, but ever-increasing numbers of problems, threatening to overwhelm us, because in egoland ‘fragmentation, division, separation’ is the name of the game.  And all the while we seek for solutions to the apparently ever-fragmenting problems of this world, we can and will never find the solution because the only problem is that we believe we are in it.

This denial shuts us off from the light of spiritual discernment which shines through our own within, where, and only where, Heaven and its Creator and ours, Papa, have Their dwelling place.  We do not find Them because we look in the wrong place: without, where They will never be found.  Jesus told us this two-thousand years ago, and only now are some of the fragments beginning to believe it.  The vast majority are still some way from that belief.

In t&p, without the light of spiritual discernment — and believing we are separated from our Father Creator, our Self and the perfect love, light, joy, peace, all-sufficiency, safety and protection that are freely ours — problems are thus perceived, and so they become our experience.  That is the difference.  Perception is not reality, it is seeing what we believe because we believe what we have been told.  We have been told we are ‘sinners’, unworthy, mortal, and deserving of punishment for our wickedness. 

We have established institutions in the name of God and Jesus to inure us in this perception.  And even when we see through the sham and the mockery of reality presented by such institutions, and repudiate their doctrines and their dogmas, we remain so steeped in the impression they have made upon our psyche over innumerable incarnations, we cannot see that that impact is still deep within us. 

Any who doubt this might ask themselves if they are ready to stand before their brethren and declare to them, knowing beyond all doubt, ‘I am the light of the world’.  For this is the truth of our Being; we can know this because Jesus, who knows the truth, tells us this is so.  Can speaking the truth be arrogant; delusional; insane?  It is arrogant to deny the truth when its light shines lovingly upon us and we refuse to welcome, receive and joyfully accept it unto ourselves.

In Heaven, love is known, because there, the light of eternal truth illuminates all reality and shines away all illusions.  If it were not so it could not be Heaven, for illusions would still be perceived.  When love is known, how can there be any perceptions or illusions?  Knowledge, which is truth, is known, not believed; all doubt is removed.  Forever.  Love, Perfect Love, is knowing that all is well; there is no doubt, no fear, no guilt, no uncertainty of who and where we are.  When we know, have and are Perfect Love we have perfect trust.  Such loving, being and trusting are not of this world, for it is ego’s domain, and ego is the opposite of Perfect Love.

But while we appear to be in this world we do not have to be of it.  In fact, actively choosing not to be of it is, of course, the only way of escaping from it.  For any who are puzzled about how this could be possible, all that is necessary is to look to Jesus, who embodied Perfect Love right here in t&p, so that we could know it is possible, and have an example to emulate.  This requires overlooking the illusions of fear, guilt and mortality.  Impossible?  Only if we believe it so.  Our faith shall make us whole, and in wholeness is no guilt, fear or death.

Ego would have us believe what our bodily senses show us, and to have faith in that.  But in ACIM Jesus reminds us that we cannot believe in ego and the Holy Spirit, for the two are irreconcilable, and we must choose for one or the other, alone.  Ego will keep us riding the carousel of birth and death; do we believe it is a free ride, a joy-ride?  If so, the price is beyond our ken.  Holy Spirit will lead us on a journey without distance and without price to our freedom from illusion, forever.

The book of Genesis speaks of a ‘tree of knowledge of Good and evil’, saying that if we ‘eat its fruit’ we shall surely die.  In Heaven is only knowledge and it is, of course, only good.  Therefore, since Heaven is the only reality, having knowledge of good and evil can denote but one thing: a split mind.  A split mind can only be an illusion, and indeed, it does seem to be so in t&p, even though that does not affect our true Being — Self — Who is One-Minded: God-Minded.  Because we are, in truth, the Son of God, good is not beyond us.   

Indeed, we are free, here, to choose good or evil.  Many of us try to choose a sprinkling of both — saying, if questioned, just like Adam and Eve, ‘I was beguiled’ — but ultimately, that will not get us Home.  Steadfastly espousing only good and eschewing evil will get us off the carousel.  Many will say, ‘Easier said than done in this dog-eat-dog world’, but we have all-empowered Help if we can only believe, and ask for that Help.  And all that is required of us is the desire, sincere and earnest (because Self is not fooled) to espouse good and eschew evil.  He will perform our redirecting toward the Light for us and lead us unfailingly There, if only we are willing to co-operate by following His lead.

It is not possible to know good and evil, because we can only know truth, reality; and evil is not truth or reality, however much our bodily perceptions may ‘beguile’ us into believing otherwise if we tune in to the news of events in the without.  Evil is made up, fantasy, dreamt, uncertain; part of the overall phantasm of t&p.  Knowledge is certainty and can only be real, truth; and the only real truth is Perfect Love. Evil can be perceived, believed, experienced even, but cannot be known because it is not real.

Nothing can be real that is not of Papa, because Papa is the Source of all.

Forgive us our illusions, Father, and help us to accept our true relationship with You, in which there are no illusions, and where none can ever enter.  Our holiness is Yours.  What can there be in us that needs forgiveness when Yours is perfect?  The sleep of forgetfulness is only the unwillingness to remember Your forgiveness and Your Love.  Let us not wander into temptation, for the temptation of the Son of God is not Your Will.  And let us receive only what You have given, and accept but this into the minds which You created and which You love.  Amen.

From ACIM Text, chapter 16.VII ‘The End of Illusions’.12

Endless love and blessings,

Brian Longhurst

April 7th 2010 

Dear Friends,

In Luke chapter 12 Jesus counsels us to keep the lamp of our spiritual discernment lit, and to be...

...like unto men that wait for their lord... that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately.  Blessed are those ... whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.   And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants.

Since he used multitudinous parables or symbols to describe the Kingdom of Heaven, it is not too big a leap to see that we can compare the above with his parable of the three measures of meal, and see the common numerical denominator. 

The comparison is immeasurably easier at this time of the switch-over from the Piscean Age/second measure to the Aquarian Age/third measure because Jesus, who has never actually left us, is nevertheless returning to our awareness now in the sense that this is the fulfilment measure, in which the resurrection of the fragmented Son to full wakefulness moves into its completion phase. 

So, as we move closer to wakefulness, our discernment of his presence ‘in the midst’ with us grows stronger.  This means we are returning to him rather than he returning to us, since he never left us.

This is not, and never will be, a bodily ‘second coming of Christ’ because Christ — Papa’s Son — is not a body.  Jesus — who, in common with the rest of us in the Sonship of God, is pure spirit, like our Father Creator — emphasises this over and over in ACIM.  Our awareness of him is in our mind, which is where and how we can commune with him, have joyous, inspiring, enlightening, uplifting fellowship with him.  Such fellowship, joining or mind-to-Mind communing, will grow us in remembrance of him and also of our true Self, until we become of one Mind with him, and also with all the other fragments of the Sonship.

This happens a step at a time, at a pace with which we are comfortable; for the Sonship is a loving, joyous state of Being, and Heaven is like unto It.  We are so inured in fear and guilt from our sojourn in time and place that the Spirit of Truth can only lead us back to wakefulness at a pace with which we are at ease.  This is for our wellbeing, and is a measure of the love and tenderness in which we are held.

Ego effected the semblance of an unholy separation.  Holy Spirit works to restore our awareness to the holy state of union.  Since this separation never actually happened but was only a split in our mind, in which the split-off part hallucinated its separation, Holy Spirit’s job is to re-mind us of our oneness and the ineffable bliss of that state of Being.

Fear of the ‘unknown’ causes our ‘rational’ mind to hesitate.  But that reticence is not our mind at all; it is ego, masquerading as us.  If we are comfortable in that reticence, fearful of engaging with the unknown, ‘invisible’ reality, that is an indicator that we are not yet ready to waken, and this is perfectly fine within the Great Rescue Programme.  Jesus and the Holy Spirit are infinitely patient and they are this way because they know the end from the beginning; that the imaginary separation is already over — because it happened only as a dream and dreams are not real — and our union as the Son of God, in God, is untouched, uninterrupted, safe beyond the ability of symbols to describe.

Those who do not feel drawn by that loving reality will remain where they choose for as long as they choose because with Papa there is no compulsion.  If it takes another, or several further circuits of the carousel of birth and death before they begin to feel there is a reality of inner peace that time and place cannot provide, and it is freely, lovingly, tenderly available to them, just as to all, so be it. 

None of that in any way alters reality, and the Holy Spirit will remain with them for as long as they choose to take.  He will continue to speak with them, just as He has always quietly done with all the fragments, of the love of Papa, of Heaven; of their rightful place there; of how Heaven is incomplete without them; of how Papa yearns for their return to Him from self-imposed exile in darkness, guilt, fear, bereavement. 

Unwillingness to hear Him is the free choice of us all, until we are ready to freely choose again.  Now is the most auspicious moment within the six-thousand year Great Rescue Programme to choose again because the first and second measures of meal have leavened and the third measure is now leavening, or rising up, so we are able to rise up to the place of remembrance with it, and the whole — of which each one of us fragments is an integral, indivisible part — becomes leavened, raised up.

It is no coincidence that A Course in Miracles has been brought to us now; now is the perfect time (how could it be other, with Jesus at the helm?).  ACIM is our self-study guidebook on how to remember who, what and where we really are, and awaken to that reality by the purification process of true forgiveness; abandoning judgement.  For judgement and unforgiveness are ego’s mechanisms for deluding us into believing time and place, death, guilt and fear are our reality.

ACIM explains in exquisite detail how to co-operate with the Holy Spirit; be restored to oneness with our true Self; remember that we are not a body; enable Him to collapse time for us, saving innumerable further illusory incarnations; bring time and place to an end.

He tells us in ACIM that the Holy Spirit is ‘the Voice for God’ all the while we believe we are separated from Him — and therefore believe we could not possibly hear God speaking to us! — and that all the while we believe that, the Holy Spirit will speak to us what He hears God saying to Him for us.  What Papa speaks to us, via the Holy Spirit, it will come as no surprise, is truth; the truth of who we are, our relationship to all creation and to the Creator.

Ego has inculcated fear into us about anything to do with God, Jesus, Eternity, and this makes it difficult for us to feel at ease at the prospect of communing with Them, reacquainting ourself with Them.  Nevertheless, Jesus counsels us to do this: ...enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret... (Mt. 6:6) so it cannot be the ‘wrong’ thing to do.

Whether it is making a start or continuing year after year, communing can seem to be very difficult.  But it is not impossible, and if we have a little willingness to commune, Help will be given, always, to get us past the doubt and fear to the joy and peace that come from such communing. Most might think the difficulty is actually believing the Voice speaks to us.  That is too simplistic a perception.  The difficulty, the obstacle, is doubting ourself, and our ability to hear the Voice.  The Voice speaks with us unceasingly. 

Ego does not want us to hear It, so turns up the volume on self-doubt.  But that doubt is not our doubt because we are perfect, innocent, all-empowered, eternal, invulnerable, all-knowing, (the list is quite long) and entirely descriptive of Papa’s beloved Son — us!  So who, or what, other than ego, could be the cause of doubt that seems to overwhelm us, scare us, keep us in its grip?  Who, then, do we really want to listen to; ego, or the Voice for God, Who tells us who we are and how to get Home?

My heart’s desire above all is to be helpful to my brothers, and the best way I am able to do that is to share experiences of communing with the Voice for Papa, in the hope it will encourage them, help them to recognise how gentle, tender, loving, light-hearted, understanding of our doubts and fears He is, and thus help them gain in understanding of how easy it can be if we are willing to co-operate.  Hearing the Voice for God is not a privilege, reserved for some ‘special few’; it is the God-given (and therefore irrefutable) creation-right of us all, without a single exception. 

Here is a recent communing, shared with this desire in mind:

Dear, beloved Holy Spirit; after all this time I still appear to have so many uncertainties, and that includes my ability to receive Your speaking, guiding, counselling.

What are you expecting?

Well, with You, I should know by now; the unexpected.

Good!  That is a clear indicator that not all has been in vain J.  But my question is genuine; if you expect ‘formal, sit-down, question-time sessions’, this is by no means the only way to the awakening of slumbering minds to spiritual truth.  Such awakening is a spontaneous, living process, of which I am the guiding mechanism, as with all eternal activity with the fragmented Sonship.

Who else do you believe could do this? It’s quite a task for any under-qualified person.

Well, Jesus doesn’t seem under-qualified.

This is entirely so, but who do you think guided him to that place?

Good point, because it had to be You.  I know he was willing, and if I say it myself, it is hard to imagine anyone also more willing than pB.

It is precisely that which assures the continuing progress.  But being more willing, and committed to being in the holy silence will assure it further.

I realise this is a vital area of importance.  It has been very much on my mind to devote far more to this key aspect of rejoining, reunifying with Jesus and all my brother fragments.

Good; excellent.  ‘See thou to it’.

I still am concerned about my ability to hear whatever You know I am ready to hear.

Ah!  Now we are getting to the nub.  Do you believe I am able to a) know what you are ready to hear, and b) bring it to your awareness?

Yes, on both counts.

Then you are not lacking trust in Me.

I trust you completely, as I have said before. It is pB I am uncertain about.

An occasional reminder never hurts. PB would not be in forgetfulness, in time and place, if there were no uncertainties about him.  It is My job to remove them from him.  It is your job to give them to Me; release them from your locker.  Trust in My ability to do My job is all that is asked of you.  For when you trust My ability to do My job, you will have no trouble, no difficulty doing yours.  And limiting Me to ‘sit-down question/answer sessions’ will not comprehensively serve your desire for going forward.  Being more relaxed, accepting, going with the flow, will complement it very satisfactorily. 

I have no limitations on how to get answers, guidance, new remembrances into your mind and understanding.  For example, how many times have you pondered a certain matter, only that same day, or perhaps the next, to read the solution in ACIM?

More than I can recount, but I am aware that it happens with great frequency.

That is because there are no chance events in the unfolding pattern of those who place their life, surrender their leasehold, into the care of Jesus and/or Me.  If you make such an undertaking you fulfil your part of the bargain.  Do you believe Jesus or I will default on Ours?

You have a way of making your questions rhetorical.

That is no accident either.  To focus on the issue concerning you; by more actively setting aside moments of quietness for attunement, directing your mind to the within, where Papa, Jesus and I have Our abode with you, and releasing your thoughts to Us, you create a condition in which an exchange can take place: your doubts, questions, uncertainties for Our enlightenment and understanding.

The ‘words’ that flow when you place yourself in a receptive state are continuous; the ‘sound of many waters’ flowing in abundance, for the quenching of all who thirst.  Drink you freely thereof, beloved.

Thank you, Self.  You know how absolute is my gratitude for your enlightening, illumining of the Path to ease and hasten my journey back Home to Papa, where we all belong.

Bravo!

Peace, joy and love unending be with us all,

Brian Longhurst

I who am host to God am worthy of Him.

                                                                                        ACIM T-18.IV.5

April 14th 2010

Dear Friends,

As we progress into the leavening of the third measure of meal, by which the Great Rescue Programme, or At-onement, will be completed, and we, the fragmented Sonship of God will be fully restored to oneness, the vast majority of the spiritually slumbering fragments as yet believe that time and place is all there is. 

Or at least, that that is all of which it is possible to have any awareness or understanding.  This limited and limiting perception encompasses the belief that ‘we can only deal with what lies beyond — if anything — when we get there’.  By that is meant, when we ‘die’, or lay aside our body. 

That shows how sadly ill-prepared for Eternity almost all of us really are; for laying aside a body does not restore us to Eternity unless and until we are healed of all brokenness through the mechanism of true forgiveness.  That healing must occur while we, God’s Son, still perceive ourself as broken; separated from Him and into fragments. 

Unless that healing takes place within time and place we cannot escape from time and place to the remembrance of our wholeness in Eternity, Heaven.  Laying aside a body does not restore that wholeness because it is our mind that must be restored, and the belief we are a body, or have laid aside a body, is evidence that our mind is split, and therefore, not whole.  Laying aside a body does not miraculously transform a split mind into a healed mind.

Yet, however we perceive ourself, Eternity is where we are all headed.  Sticking our head in the sand will not alter that fact.  It will delay it by an indeterminate number of apparent incarnations, if that is our choice, but choosing to extend the experience of doubt, fear, guilt, littleness and mortality — even though such experience is only a dream — when we can freely choose not to delay eternal joy, peace and perfect love would be considered by most as the choice of a madman. 

Even many of those who have an idea that there is something beyond — Eternity — see the concept as being so vague and indefinable that ‘no-one can be sure if it is there or what it is like’.  Happily, joyously even, this situation is being redressed in a way and at a level of Mind of which ego-indoctrinated mind has no awareness.  Yet.

The reason such distorted thought processes, or beliefs, are so committed to Eternity not having any graspable meaning, is that the part of the mind that holds them is self-limiting to a three-dimensional experience, which we perceive as time and place.  This part of the mind, it hardly needs mentioning, is, unwittingly, under the sway of ego, which is not capable of grasping anything beyond, and does not want us to grasp it either, so maintains the trick of getting us to believe its perception is our perception.

Jesus tells us the Son of God is limitless.  Adherents to orthodox religion believe that, but are also committed in the belief that Jesus is the one and only Son of God — even though the Bible definitively states that we are all the Son(s) of God.  But orthodox religion has many doctrines that are in contradiction, such as the doctrine that God requires of His children blood sacrifices for their sins, in direct contrast to Jeremiah 7:22, which unequivocally states no such sacrifices were ever required by God. 

In Mt. 9:13 Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6 to the Pharisees (who were keen on sacrifice!) that God requires mercy and not sacrifice.  Unlike the Pharisees, who contradicted their scriptures in their own rule-making, Jesus, who deliberately selected that verse from Hosea to quote to them, is hardly going to present himself as a once and for all sacrifice, especially as he went on to say he had come to call people to repentance (which means turning around, or changing direction) not sacrifice.

Letting go of the confused, distracting and contradictory ego thought system, or at least being willing to entertain the true alternative — that remains imperceptible to wrong-minded thinking — calls for a leap of faith.  Ego-thinking would have us cling to upside-down perception to the bitter end, or until a crisis causes us to face no alternative but to rethink.  Even then, ego will try its utmost to get the old order of thinking re-established as the centre of our belief.  But belief in illusions does not make them truth.

The leap of faith would take us into another dimension of Mind, far beyond the limitations of time and place thinking, yet entirely and instantly available to us in time and place, because our true Self is Whole, all-knowing Mind, in constant and complete communication with the Mind of God.  Attunement, or at-onement, with our real Self, and thus, with the Mind of God, is a mystical process that Jesus calls the Holy Instant.  He has much to say about the Holy Instant in ACIM, but here is a taster of it, from T-15.IV:

...The holy instant is this instant and every instant. The one you want it to be it is. The one you would not have it be is lost to you. You must decide when it is. Delay it not. For beyond the past and future, where you will not find it, it stands in shimmering readiness for your acceptance. Yet you cannot bring it into glad awareness while you do not want it, for it holds the whole release from littleness.

Your practice must therefore rest upon your willingness to let all littleness go. The instant in which magnitude dawns upon you is but as far away as your desire for it... Give over every plan you have made for your salvation in exchange for God’s. His will content you, and nothing else can bring you peace. For peace is of God, and no one beside Him...

 ...I stand within the holy instant, as clear as you would have me. And the extent to which you learn to accept me is the measure of the time in which the holy instant will be yours. I call to you to make the holy instant yours at once, for the release from littleness in the mind of the host of God depends on willingness, and not on time.

... You could live forever in the holy instant, beginning now and reaching to eternity...  The holy instant is a time in which you receive and give perfect communication. This means, however, that it is a time in which your mind is open, both to receive and give. It is the recognition that all minds are in communication. It therefore seeks to change nothing, but merely to accept everything...

The necessary condition for the holy instant does not require that you have no thoughts that are not pure.  But it does require that you have none that you would keep. Innocence is not of your making. It is given you the instant you would have it...

(My emboldening, underlining and some italic, for emphasis).

Ego is entirely unwilling to accept what it cannot see with eyes made only to see three dimensions, and to utterly mistrust any who speak of anything beyond — eternal, mystical reality.  It will clamorously shout its protestations at this, saying we must trust no-one, be suspicious of everyone, but especially those who speak of what is beyond sensory perception.

Sensory perception is for seeing the without; but God, Jesus, the true, one-Self — Christ — that we all are, and the eternal, unchangeable Kingdom of Heaven is forever, unalterably within us.  So when we look at our brother — whose true Being is, along with our own, within — with bodily eyes, we are not seeing who he really is.  Jesus tells us in ACIM we are all Christ (he should know!) and until we can see the face of Christ in our brother we are not seeing truly.

This will remain the case as long as we are unwilling to look more closely at our brother.  Without that closer look we cannot see only the face of Christ in him.  Yet it is there, and until we are willing to seek it there we will be unable to find it in ourself.  For we can be restored to Eternity only together, because in truth, which is of Eternity, we are one.  That is why Jesus has never left us and will remain with us... alway, even unto the end of the world (Mt. 28:20)

None of this is new to us; we have simply forgotten it, and though the Holy Spirit will restore us to fullness of remembrance of Who we really are, He cannot do this unless and until we are willing to co-operate with Him in this At-onement process.  This is how and why A Course in Miracles is inestimably helpful, for it comprehensively tells us what that process is, how it works and how to co-operate with it. 

Although it looks hard — impossible even from the ego-indoctrinated, split-off, upside-down part of our mind that is unaware of our real Self — it is easy for the part of our mind that is already awake and always has been, even though to our Earth-mind consciousness it seems to be asleep, or at least, quiescent.  As Jesus tells us in W.68:

Shut off from your Self, which remains aware of Its likeness to Its Creator, your Self seems to sleep, while the part of your mind that weaves illusions in its sleep appears to be awake.

Yet it is fear that keeps us from that co-operation.  There is an old saying ‘Fear knocked at the door; faith answered, and there was no-one there.’  Things, including communing with God, Jesus and/or Self — the Holy Spirit — always seem more fearful until we actually take the plunge and engage with (open the door) what seems (to ego-mind) fearful, and this is immeasurably helped by the certainty that we are not alone.  If we are able to pluck up the courage to take that first step in communing with our fully awake, totally trustworthy brother Jesus and/or Self, each step thereafter is easier, lighter, more peaceful and joyful. 

I share the following communing for the encouragement of all in this:

Dear Holy Spirit/Self; I am, I believe, not afraid to look within to find truth.  Though, if Arten and Pursah are correct, there are still untold ‘issues’ for resolution lurking deep in the ‘basement’ of my unconscious mind.

Alleluia!  That is my burning, yearning desire, above all, that we may restored together to the joy of release from fear to the love and peace of Heaven.

Love and light be with us all, for our joyous restoration to oneness, in Papa,

Brian Longhurst

April 21st 2010

Dear Friends,

Many of us, if asked, might, out of fear, say they are not fearful.  This would be an attempted cover-up of truth by all whose ‘present’ perception is that time and place is reality and Eternity is in the indeterminate future; maybe, possibly, hopefully.  For fear of change does not seem easy to escape if we believe we are in an ever-changing ‘reality’ in which anything can and might happen.

Change is inevitable in time and place, for it is unreality; it is the consciousness of fear.  Only Eternity is reality and is the awareness, the knowledge, the experience of Perfect Love, Joy and Peace... eternally J.  Fear comes from unconscious guilt that we believe we have separated ourself from our Source, resulting in the perception that change is outside our control and is a random, lottery process in which a bad hand is as likely to be dealt us as a ‘good’ hand; and even if we got a series of good hands, every next hand could be a bad one.

However, change, with a benign purpose and an unswerving direction toward the light, in the control of One Who knows the end from the beginning, Who Is all-knowing, all-loving, all-empowered to manage and control the change, is not only without fear, it is an entirely joyful, uplifting, enlightening and peaceful, eagerly accepted experience.  Then the word change could be better understood as transformation because there is a definite objective, an achievable goal.

This transformation is available to all and is known as the Great Rescue Programme, or the At-onement.  It operates through the love and laws of the Creator, under the direction of the Spirit of Truth.  It is a leavening process by which we are raised up to full wakefulness, knowledge and remembrance of our oneness with each other and in God.  It is a gradual process, imperceptible to observation (The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. Lk. 17:20) but that does not mean it is not happening, anymore than grass growing imperceptibly does not mean it is not growing.  The changes are positive, in the best interest of us all, even if not perceived as such through our limited understanding.

If we are willing to co-operate, in the nascent stages the focus on eternal reality may be only occasional, and on time and place events predominantly.  But gradually this turns around as we start to notice events that seem synchronistic, and sudden new thoughts and awarenesses appear ‘out of the blue’ in our mind.  This is inspiration, an enlightening event or process, placed in, or brought to the forefront of our mind by the Holy Spirit.  We begin to recognise that Something Wonderful is happening in the unfolding progress of our life’s journey. 

This dawning realisation catalyses a desire to focus more and more of our attention on Eternity as the certainty sets in that there really is a Divine meaning to our being and a purposeful intent leading and directing the process of our spiritual awakening. This realisation grows our confidence in the empowerment of He Who is taking charge of our life’s journey, and that He knows a lot more about it than we thought we did! What was once perceived as the all-important events and activities of time and place somehow seem less and less significant. 

We are not, and never have been, alone in this transformation, not just of the direction and purpose of our life but of our very Being.  If we were it would be chaos, just like the illusion of being separate from God is chaos.  With God’s perfect plan, all is perfectly, lovingly ordered.  How could it be otherwise?  The difference now is that our Guiding Light, the Voice for God — Who has been quiescent in our journey because we gave charge over our life (a leasehold) to ego — now, in response to our asking, takes the reins.  When we authorise Him to lead us, and we mean it, He will do so, unfailingly.  That is when things begin to happen that make sense and our life turns around.

The gradual shift in awareness diminishes the fear of change as our attitude and understanding become more enlightened.  I say gradual but the change can be, and will be as rapid as the Holy Spirit — Who knows everything, including everything about us — knows the pace at which we are ready and able to comfortably progress.  In that sense, we are ‘in charge’ of the awakening because it happens in direct response to our desire and willingness for it to happen. For some it will be much more rapid than for others.  This does not mean those who are slower are less ‘worthy’.  It simply means we all begin from a different degree of forgetfulness.

Jesus places much emphasis in ACIM upon the importance of our willingness to co-operate with Self.  We begin to realise that life itself functions according to laws that are not of this world but of Eternity; that they are the opposite of the upside-down, limiting ‘laws’ of time and place.  By understanding and co-operating with them we are able to experience the empowerment that truly demonstrates our Magnitude and Grandeur, that comes only from God, and signals the beginning of the end of littleness, guilt and fear.  It was Jesus’ awareness of this that enabled him to demonstrate the magnitude and grandeur of his being, and guarantees their availability to us all, in response to our desire for and willingness to receive them and accept them unto ourselves.

These Laws of God, or Principles of Life of the Father (PLFs) are simply that, because they function according to eternal, unchangeable principles, designed to ensure love, peace and joy for all creation, including, of course, His beloved Son; us.  If we are not experiencing love, peace and joy uninterruptedly it is because we have chosen to ignore, or forget those PLFs; it is not that they do not exist, or do not work.

Our restoration to remembrance of them and their Source — and ours — is a progressive unfolding, 3-phase process.  The first phase is God-seeking.  This equates with the first measure of meal (the Abraham Measure) and the outer court of Solomon’s temple and the Arian Age in precession of the equinoxes terminology.  In that phase there was an emerging but still primeval sense of there being a Divine Being; remote, judgemental, wrathful. This phase is characterised by a sense of guilt, and the perceived requiring of sacrifice to ward-off the anger of the remote deity and to test our faith.  Any falling short of the mark or wrong-doing was perceived as warranting divine punishment or retribution, maintaining the consciousness of fear.

In his lifetime Abraham progressed from that state of consciousness — in which he perceived God as requiring him to offer his only son, Isaac, as a sacrifice to ‘test Abraham’s faith’ — into the next phase of awakening: God-awareness.  Synchronistically, a ram, caught by its horns in a thicket, came to the rescue and was substituted for Isaac at the last moment, thus saving Isaac (Gen. 22) — and ultimately, therefore, the entire Jewish race.  Abraham was, or at least was a symbol of, the leaven by which the first measure of meal was leavened, or raised up in consciousness from the God-seeking to the God-aware, or second measure of meal state of mind. 

Abraham was the progenitor of a race and a belief-system that raised the God-seeking activity, or consciousness, from belief in an indeterminate number of gods to the perception that there is but one God, the Source of All (Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: Deut. 6:4).  Leaven, or increased understanding from that phase, or first measure, was thus able to be carried over into the second measure.

The second measure, or God-aware phase of the awakening of the Sonship of God, which is symbolised by the middle, or inner, court of Solomon’s temple, was initiated by the commencement of the Piscean Age, at the beginning of which Jesus incarnated.  By that time, resulting from the spiritualising or leavening activity of the Abraham measure, there was an established perception of mono-theism, but that God was still remote; that we, His ‘children’ were separated from Him by our sinfulness, guilt and unworthiness, and still believed sacrifice was needed, to assuage punishment, or atone for sins.

Jesus, the CEO of the GRP, knew all about it, of course, from beginning to end.  He was ‘fully leavened’ or raised up to remembrance of who he was/is, and had come to initiate the leavening of the second, or Jesus measure, to ensure it would enable the transfer of leaven into the third, or completion/fulfilment measure, now getting into full swing.  There is always a delay in the leavening process.  The leaven is added at the commencement of the process but does not fully prove until the process has run its course.

The leavening process is a transfer, or extending, or sharing of understanding, awareness, wakefulness from one awake, or resurrected or raised-up Being to others.  This is what has been happening during the second measure, from Jesus’ time on Earth through the Piscean age. Untold numbers of fragments of the Sonship have — through multiple cycles of birth and death, during which they have come to know, love and espouse their lives to the living Jesus, and by that association with him — become gradually raised in awareness from first and second phase understanding of God and our relationship with Him (God-seeking and God-aware) to third-phase understanding: God-filled.

This final phase is symbolised by the Aquarian Age, and also by the Holy Place of Solomon’s temple, which was separated from the Holy of Holies by a heavy veil.  The assurance that completion of the leavening process would occur is symbolised by the rending of the veil, revealing to our awareness the holiness/wholeness of our resurrected mind to its true, eternal, all-empowered, God-filled  state.

As mentioned above, the leavening or raising-up process takes time to prove.  But those of us who espouse our lives to Jesus and the At-onement process, or GRP throughout multiple cycles of birth and death are now being enlivened; are ‘live yeast’.  We — all who so desire — have been and are being quickened, enlivened, activated by our espousal to him and the eternal truth he came to bring back to our remembrance.  We are now, by the untold millions, moving with him into the third measure of meal, for its leavening; ‘till the whole is leavened.’ (Mt. 13:33.)  

This is a gradual process, imperceptible to those who are looking for it with time and place, ego perception, which, by its distorted, unbelieving nature demands proof (By what authority doest thou these things? Mt. 21:23).  But not imperceptible to those of us who are willing to relinquish the ego leasehold on our lives into the trustworthy care of the Spirit of Truth, and to believe.  Belief clears the path of the barriers we have erected to revelation, enabling our vision of eternal truth.

Because the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, those who are seeking in the without cannot see it, and cling to old-order perceptions.  There are still first-measure religious practises of animal sacrifice as ‘atonement for sins’ taking place today.  And the majority of adherents to second-measure, God-aware, institutionalised religion, perceive themselves in a separated state from  an angry, judgemental God, whose appeasement is possible only by the crucifixion sacrifice of Jesus, in whose blood they must be covered, or washed, to be saved from eternal damnation by the God they claim is the God of unconditional Love.   Two-thousand years ago Jesus said ‘Beware the leaven of the Pharisees’.  Today’s equivalent is ‘Beware the leaven of the Laodiceans’ (see Rev. 3:14 ff).

This backward-looking attitude of still the vast majority is of no consequence to Jesus and those who are with him at the vanguard of the Kingdom programme.  This is because the resurrection process gathers momentum, right now, not at an arithmetic rate, but at an exponential pace, across the full spectrum of perception, awareness, experience, belief and understanding of human experience.  Not one slumbering fragment shall be left unawakened.

Jesus says to us:

Let me be to you the symbol of the end of guilt, and look upon your brother as you would look on me.  Forgive me all the sins you think the (fragmented) Son of God committed.  And in the light of your forgiveness he will remember who he is, and forget what never was (the dream of separation).  I ask for your forgiveness, for if you are guilty, so must I be.  But if I surmounted guilt and overcame the world, you were with me.  Would you see in me the symbol of guilt or of the end of guilt, remembering that what I signify to you you see within yourself?

(T19.IV.B.6)

And:

Send forth to all the world the joyous message of the end of guilt, and all the world will answer.

(T19.IV.B.7:6)

With the end of guilt comes the end of fear and with the end of fear comes the end of time and our return as one to Eternity.

Let us rejoin and go onward together in love, peace and joy, to Eternity,

Brian Longhurst

Spirit am I, a holy Son of God, free of all limits, safe and

healed and whole, free to forgive, and free to save the world.

(W.97)

April 28th 2010

Dear Friends,

In John 7:46 it says, of Jesus, Never man spake like this man.  Happily, and thanks largely to A Course in Miracles, there are now increasing numbers amongst us who are 1) better able to understand him at a deep esoteric level, and therefore are b) learning to speak, live and be like him.  The numbers moving into this state of Being will continue to grow exponentially as the unfolding GRP progresses now toward its completion. 

We are told elsewhere in the New Testament that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is (1 Jn. 3:2).  The fact that this is discernible right now by those who seek, not in the morning paper or on the six o’clock news, but within, is surely an affirmation of the fulfilment right now of this prophecy by John more than 19 centuries ago.

There are those who might say ‘He has not yet appeared, so it cannot be the fulfilment until he appears’.  Yet in this exchange between Jesus and Philip lies the answer to this attempt at a delaying manœuvre:

If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.  Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.  Jesus saith unto him,  ...he that hath seen me hath seen the Father... (Jn. 14: 7-9)

Seeing the Father cannot be a bodily-eyes experience (since He is not a body but eternal, living spirit) or an intellectual perception but an inner, mystical awareness/attunement/knowing of Him that is possible only to an open mind.  And since Jesus equates himself with the Father, we can know that the appearance of Jesus in the midst, to us in these times, is nothing to do with bodies or bodily-eyes seeing, but an awareness of his living presence within us, as specified by him in Jn. 14:23:

If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we (i.e. Papa and Jesus) will come unto him, and make our abode with him.  And also: At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you (Jn. 14:20.)

Assuredly, one of the things that he ‘spake as never like another’ is when Jesus tells us we will never die if we believe in him, because he is the way, the truth and the life.  Yet just about everyone, still today, perceives death as an inescapable reality.  Who is right?  Who will we believe?  Is Jesus mad, or delusional, or both; or are we, who perceive death as reality, mad, or delusional, or both?  The dictionary defines delusion as ‘a belief or impression that is not in accord with reality’.  This tells us that the reality of which Jesus was aware was not the same ‘reality’ of which we believe we are aware.

Can there be two realities that are not in accord with each other?  If they are not in accord, only one can be reality and the other must be illusion.

In 3-dimensional time and place there are levels of perception and this causes continual confusion and misunderstanding amongst the fragmented Sonship.  But even for those with limited, literal-minded perception it is not hard to see that Jesus is not speaking about bodies.  And this is supported by Paul’s writing to the Corinthians:

Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.  ... we shall all be changed, ... and the dead (i.e. the spiritually ‘dead’, or, more accurately, ‘asleep’; self-imprisoned in a lump of clay in three, limiting, constricting dimensions) shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed (i.e. awakened).  For this corruptible must put on (i.e. awaken to) incorruption, and this mortal must put on (i.e. awaken to) immortality. (1 Cor. 14: 50-53)

Clearly, Jesus is not speaking about bodies; but still, for a significant segment of humanity, there is a desperate clinging to the idea of our magically awakening, being raised up from the grave even, to the unlimited infiniteness of Heaven, yet still, somehow, within the limitations of bodies.  Since all bodies are different, how can ‘we shall (all) be like him’ refer to bodies?

The evidence is overwhelming that the thinking about and understanding of Eternity from within the confines and limitations of 3-d, time and place perceptions is, not surprisingly, upside down and muddled.  How to get us back on track?  We could try listening to Jesus, but ego has so distorted our perceptions and understanding of him (hardly surprising if we are trying to see straight while standing on our head) that most of the fragments today know next to nothing about him and/or are fearful of him.  Yet ACIM is straightforward because it tells the truth, plainly.  Any difficulty we may have understanding it is due to lack in the light of spiritual discernment, not because it is convoluted. 

One way to get more light of spiritual discernment is to ask Jesus and/or the Holy Spirit to shine it in our mind.  They will if we ask, with a willingness to believe They will.  In fact, They are constantly shining it, and it is only unwillingness on our part to receive that blocks our discernment of the light. 

Trying to understand eternal reality from an earth-mind perspective is somewhat akin to looking through the wrong end of a telescope.  We are coming at it from the wrong starting place, by believing what is not real to be real and what is real to not be real.  This back-to-front, upside-down perspective means we have adjusted ourself — or tried to — to unreality, spiritual blindness, from our true, all-seeing, all-knowing, all-loving reality that needs no adjustment, nor can it ever be adjusted except in fantasy, dream, illusion.  In such a distorted state of mind we will perceive ourself as sinful, unworthy, little, limited, mortal, separated from God and from our Self. 

Here is some of what Jesus says about this in this extract from chapter 20, section III, of ACIM:

Sin as an Adjustment

The belief in sin is an adjustment.  And an adjustment is a change; a shift in perception, or a belief that what was so before (our oneness in Eternity) has been made different.  Every adjustment is therefore a distortion, and calls upon defenses to uphold it against reality.  Knowledge requires no adjustments (or defences) and, in fact, is lost if any shift or change is undertaken.  For this reduces it at once to mere perception; a way of looking in which certainty is lost and doubt has entered.  To this impaired condition are adjustments necessary, because it is not true...

Adjustments of any kind are of the ego...  The ego is the self-appointed mediator of all relationships, making whatever adjustments it deems necessary and interposing them between those who would meet, to keep them separate and prevent their union. It is this studied interference that makes it difficult for you to recognize your holy relationship (with each and every brother in the Sonship) for what it is.

The holy (whole) do not interfere with truth.  They are not afraid of it, for it is within the truth they recognize their holiness (wholeness), and rejoice at what they see.  They look on it directly, without attempting to adjust themselves to it, or it to them.  And so they see that it was in them, not deciding first where they would have it be.  Their looking merely asks a question, and it is what they see that answers them.  You make the (illusory, time and place) world and then adjust to it, and it to you.  Nor is there any difference between yourself and it in your perception, which made them both.

... The world the holy (whole) see is one with them, just as the world the ego looks upon is like itself. The world the holy (whole) see is beautiful because they see their innocence in it.  They did not tell it what it was; they did not make adjustments to fit their orders.  They gently questioned it and whispered, “What are you?”  And He Who watches over all perception answered... (as He always will if we sincerely ask.)

Seek not to make the Son of God adjust to his insanity.  There is a stranger in him (ego), who wandered carelessly into the home of truth and who will wander off.  He came without a purpose, but he will not remain before the shining light the Holy Spirit offered, and you accepted.  For there the stranger is made homeless and you (our true Self) are welcome.  Ask not this transient stranger, “What am I?”  He is the only thing in all the universe that does not know.  Yet it is he you ask, and it is to his answer that you would adjust...  And of the one blind thing in all the seeing universe of truth you ask, “How shall I look upon the Son of God?”

Did you meet your brother with joy to bless the Son of God, and give him thanks for all the happiness that he held out to you?  Did you recognize your brother as the eternal gift of God to you?  Did you see the holiness that shone in both you and your brother, to bless the other? (We cannot do any of these unless we are willing to commit ourself to see past illusions by eschewing judgement and espousing true forgiveness.  And in such commitment will we receive God-Empowered Help.)  That is the purpose of your holy relationship.  Ask not the means of its attainment of the one thing that still would have it be unholy.  Give it no power to adjust the means and end.

... raise your eyes unto your strong companion, in whom the meaning of your freedom lies.  He seemed to be crucified beside you.  And yet his holiness (wholeness) remained untouched and perfect, and with him beside you, you shall this day enter with him to Paradise, and know the peace of God.

Such is my will for you and your brother, and for each of you for one another and for himself.  Here there is only holiness (wholeness) and joining without limit.  For what is Heaven but union, direct and perfect, and without the veil of fear upon it?  Here are we one, looking with perfect gentleness upon each other and on ourselves.  Here all thoughts of any separation between us become impossible.  You who were a prisoner in separation are now made free in Paradise. And here would I unite with you, my friend, my brother and my Self.

Your gift unto your brother has given me the certainty our union will be soon (as soon as we will allow it).  Share, then, this faith with me, and know that it is justified.  There is no fear in perfect love because it knows no sin, and it must look on others as on itself... The innocent see safety, and the pure in heart see God within His Son (our each and every brother, not just Jesus), and look unto the Son to lead them to the Father...  You and your brother now will lead the other to the Father as surely as God created His Son holy, and kept him so.  In your brother is the light of God’s eternal promise of your immortality.  See him as sinless, and there can be no fear in you.

(My emboldening and some italic, for emphasis)

 To Perfect Love and 20:20 Vision, and with endless blessing for inner peace,

 Brian Longhurst

Thank You, Papa, for Perfect Love, and for transforming unholy relationships into holy relationships, that we may be healed of brokenness, and restored to oneness in You.

May 5th 2010

Dear Friends,

In Pamela Silberman’s wonderful book Simply Being   One Year with Spirit the Holy Spirit says to Pamela:

There is just one thought that seems to separate you from God – only one.  This one thought has the entire world built up around it.  Whenever you feel you have to dismantle the entire world in order to step forth towards home, therefore making the journey seemingly impossible in form (i.e. while appearing to still be with a body, in time and place), remember this.  It is only one thought you need to correct.  Only one thought needs to be recognized and released.  This one thought is the key to the door of a dream world appearing to go madly awry.  What is this one thought?

I am not as God created me.

How, then, can we meaningfully correct this one errant, mad, mistaken thought?  Well, first, we have to become absolutely clear that is not ‘we’, our persona self, or ‘little self’ that will perform it.  How could we? The fact that we believe we are persona, little, limited, restricted, and have forgotten Who we really are means we cannot correct our mistaken beliefs and perceptions by ourself.  Happily, we are not by ourself.  Ever.

Our true Self, Who knows everything — yes, everything — is with us, closer than our shadow, every moment, right now, always and forever.  He will perform that correction for us.  He can and will perform it because He knows everything and has been empowered by God — Papa, our perfectly loving Father Creator, of Whom we are, in truth, a perfectly loving, all-empowered extension — to fulfil this one function. 

So He cannot fail.  In fact, He has not failed, for the task is already completed.  We have just not become aware of that because we are slumbering yet awhile.  As we gradually emerge from that state we will move into the place of remembrance, and then we will see and we will know, even as we are known. 

There is just one tiny part we need to play in this correction process.  Willingness for it to happen.  Co-operation.  Nothing else at all.  Sound too good to be true?  Ego would have it so, but it is not so. 

If it is that easy, why, then, have we not all flocked to co-operate with the Holy Spirit, Who, after all, is our Self?  Not someone else.  He would have to be separate to Be someone else.  But He is not someone else; He is ‘us’.  You, me, all of us, uniting us as one.  We are all one, appearing, illusorily, mistakenly, as many.  He is not separate from us.  We just have believed, for too long, that He is, and so it appears that way.  That’s what happens when we seem to have spiritual astigmatism.  That is being corrected for us, and then we will see straight.  If, or rather, when, we are willing.

The reason we have not all flocked to co-operate is fear.  Why are we fearful?  Why would we be fearful of the Truth, of Perfect Love, of release from limitation, scarcity, pain, decrepitude, death?  Guilt.  According to Jesus in ACIM, we believe, in our upside-down, back-to-front, split-off, unconscious mind (ego) thinking, that we have separated ourself from God and that He is angry with His Son for this ‘attack’ on Him. 

So we must hide from Him, as Adam and Eve hid from Him in the allegory of the Garden of Eden, covering themselves, in the vain hope He would not find them and punish them.  We have covered ourselves with bodies, hoping He will not find us and punish us.

Yet, in the parable of the prodigal son, we see that his father was not angry with him, either when he went away or when he returned.  Neither is, nor ever could be, our Father angry with His beloved Son.

We feel, at a deep, unconscious level, guilt for ‘spurning’ our Father’s love, and because our thinking is upside down, we believe that He is made in our ego-perception image — attacking, vengeful, punishing.  So if we come out of hiding and return to Him, He will judge us for our ‘sins’, find us guilty and punish us. 

But we can know that this is completely untrue by reading what happens when the ‘prodigal’ son returns and says, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.  But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet...and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.

Why, one might readily ask, would Jesus tell this parable if it were not true for us, Papa’s ‘prodigal’ son, as we make our way Home to Him?  It is obvious he told the parable to illustrate our perceived predicament, to assure us we truly have nothing to fear from Papa.    Jesus says our dream of separation is insane; a ‘mad moment’.  In light of this, what, pray, is continuing to hide, out of fear of retribution for our ‘sins’, if not insanity? 

In all the years — decades — during which I have been blessed by experience of the intimate, wise, loving, tender, infinitely patient, understanding, gentle, fun, relaxed nature of the living Jesus, there has never, ever been a moment in which anything he said or did was cause for me to be fearful of him.  Yes, in the early years of my journey with him, I was hesitant, uncertain how to ‘be’ in his company, but it was always he who put me at ease, winning my absolute confidence, love, trust and relaxation in his presence. 

In the fewer years — 15 or so — that I have been blessed in intimate relationship and communion with Papa, there has never been a single moment in which anything He did or said was cause for me to be fearful of Him either.  On the contrary, all the encounters with Jesus and Papa have been reassuring to me of the unconditional, non-condemnatory acceptance (of me and all humanity, as I am/we are) and love for me (and all mankind) by God, Jesus, Heaven and all who are its citizens.  This includes our entry into the Holy of Holies (please see SFGS, chapter 11, paragraphs 2-5 and 25-33 for details).

So, Holy Spirit, our all-knowing, all-loving Self, of Whom we have absolutely nothing to fear, will restore us to full remembrance of Who we really are.  We, in our fully restored, healed, re-unified mind, are, and always have been, Christ, God’s one, eternal Son.  Jesus tells us that when that happens and we are released from the misperceptions of the seemingly split-off, divided mind, we will see in our brothers only the face of Christ, and that this is a reflection of our own true, One-Self Christ.

At present we appear to see myriad fragmented individuals, so what is that about and how does the switch back to true, singleness of Vision take place?

Judgement prevents us from seeing only the face of Christ in our brothers.  Only relinquishing judgement enables the change from bodily, double vision to true, eternal, Spiritual Vision.  Spiritual Vision is an attitude of mind, a state of awareness, of remembrance, re-cognition of eternal Truth, which is all-encompassing — of our Self, our brothers in the Sonship and our Father Creator.  ‘Form’, or bodies, and all that we perceive as being outside ourself, have no part in true Vision, because we are like our Father — pure Spirit — and all there is, in all Eternity, all Creation, is within.  Time and space have no part in true reality.  Only within will we find the Truth of All Being. 

True forgiveness is the mechanism that facilitates this transformation of false seeing to true Vision.

By the process of our adopting and practising true forgiveness, and the commitment to relinquishing judgement — true forgiveness and judgement are mutually exclusive — gradually (at a pace with which we are comfortable), spontaneously, judgement falls away and ceases to be part of our habituated thinking, or mindset.  This is Holy Spirit-led, with our co-operation, motivated by our desire for healing of ourself and all the fragmented, broken Sonship. 

Judgement is based on past misperceptions about our brothers (and ourself).  Relinquishing judgement frees us from the carousel of recurring cycles of the past repeating, from one incarnation to the next, building up karma layer upon layer.  The names and circumstances differ, but the same broken relationships accrue more and more karmic ties, keeping us chained to each other in fear, unforgiveness, grievances, blame, guilt, attack, separation, instead of unified in Love.  This applies at the interpersonal, group, national and international levels, as is presently, readily observable.

All the while judgement keeps us tied to the past we cannot enter the Eternity of the present; ‘now’, in which we are — and remember, become aware that we are — reunified in the Sonship of perfect, innocent, endless love, peace and joy.

Here is a suggested exercise to practise true forgiveness, and thus obtain release from separation, restoring us to wholeness.  This does not require a face-to-face speaking of the exercise because we are engaging the intermediary power of Holy Spirit to effect it for us.  Indeed, to speak such words to the face of one who is not ready to hear them could be highly counterproductive.

Dear Blank I choose gladly to forgive you for all the things that in truth you have never done, that I may freely receive the forgiveness that is rightfully mine.

Now are we forgiven, and free to see only the face of Christ in each other.

True forgiveness enables us to see only the face of Christ in our brother because it frees us from attachment to judgement, which is of past misperceptions.  True vision, which is only of the eternal NOW, free of misperceptions, is then unveiled, revealing to us the truth about our brother, and about our Self, and releasing us from entrapment in past misperceptions.

By commitment to the practise of true forgiveness, the blocks to our awareness of Love’s Presence are removed.  This may not always appear to happen immediately or instantaneously (though startlingly rapid transformations/healings are quite commonplace), but if we have asked Holy Spirit to be in charge of the process He will effect its outworking, regardless of how long it may appear to take in linear time terms.  This is not ‘maybe’; but it is worth remembering that doubt is the great dismantler of faith, without which our awareness of reality is not possible. So one-pointed commitment to faith and trust is a vital ingredient to our experiencing the healing. 

Since time is an illusion, living in expectation of an ‘instant fix’ is likely to interfere with the process.  We must give it into the care and control of Holy Spirit and leave it there, because our lack of understanding of the process can derail it if we interfere.  It is like digging up seedlings to see if they are growing.  The disruption can prevent the desired outcome.

If a friend asks us to do something for him that he is unable to do, he only needs ask us once and we will do it if we are loving, caring people. But if he keeps asking, over and over, and in spite of asking keeps attempting to do it himself, the chances are it will not succeed because of his interference.  Yet countless numbers amongst us do this every day, in our prayers and our actions. 

Ask, give, leave, thank.

Blessings for restoration to wholeness,

Brian Longhurst

Thank you, Holy Spirit, for healing my mind.

May 12th 2010

Dear Friends

We can look at life from two perspectives: the temporal perspective and the eternal perspective.  One of these is true and the other is false.  The two are incompatible and irreconcilable.  It hardly needs be said which is true and which is false.  Yet, for most of us, even though we ‘know’, or accept, that time and place, or the temporal perspective, is false, an illusion — simply because it is not eternal, and anything that both constantly changes and passes away cannot be true or it would be eternally, unchangeably true — we continue slavishly to look at life from the temporal, and thus, the illusory, perspective.

Jesus tells us in ACIM that when we react at all to illusions we are not listening to the Holy Spirit (T-9.III.4:1).  That does not mean we must stop enjoying or appreciating birdsong, or beautiful landscapes, or music, or whatever.  What it does mean is that we can appreciate all such, immeasurably more, when viewed from the eternal perspective, through the vision of our True Self.  Put another way, relinquishing all judgement about whatever we observe or experience with our bodily senses, and simply accepting all, remaining centred and focussed on the peace within, all distortion of our vision ceases and we become aware of peace again.  Judgements deny us peace.

Many would say relinquishing judgement is impossible, because appreciating beautiful things is a judgement that they are beautiful.  Others might look upon the same thing and not see it as beautiful, but ugly, or boring, or discordant; so how, then, can either perception not be a judgement?  But it is acceptance of whatever turns up, allowing and observing it, without making any judgement, that will enable our inner peace and stillness to remain with us, and not to come into and out of our awareness.  For if it does, that means we are fluctuating between time and Eternity, trying to accept irreconcilable perspectives both as reality.  That can but lead to confusion, doubt and uncertainty.

If we truly desire to awaken to our True, Eternal Being — Christ — in which there is no fear, hate, doubt, scarcity, dis-ease, decrepitude or death, but only Perfect Love, Peace and Joy — eternally — then continuing to choose to view life from the temporal perspective will not serve us.  This is because, with God-given free will, what we choose becomes our truth.  But if what we choose changes or passes away, it is not reality.  Choosing illusion does not make it Truth; it makes it judgement.  Judgement precludes, shuts us off from, Knowledge.  If we choose judgement we chain ourself to the past, preventing our release into the Eternity of Now, which is unchanging oneness. 

Oneness, which is wholeness, is one mindedness, and we cannot be of one mind if we are judging each other and ourself.  Judging is condemning, and when we judge another we condemn ourself by continuing to chain ourself to time and place.  Time and place is ‘the principality of ego’, and the church’s perception of ego is Satan, the destroyer.  Even if we think we are not having that bad a time in egoland, it is noteworthy that ego is still destroying us, one day at a time, whether it takes ‘three score years and ten’, more, or less.  The sentence is still ‘inevitable’; we are on death row.  As Holy Spirit says to Pamela Silberman in Simply Being   One Year with Spirit:

...I say, “The wages of sin are death,” because if you did not accept the one error that has you perceive yourself apart from God, you could neither accept nor have any perception of death.  Death is always the end result of all perceptions of limitation and separation.  (My emphases.)

In John’s Gospel, chapter 8, we read of the woman, caught in adultery, and who was, by Mosaic Law, to be stoned to death.  The religious authorities tried to use this moment to trap Jesus into committing a heresy, should he have attempted to get her off the sentence. Jesus makes his famous statement, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.  Jesus then stoops and writes with his finger in the dust of the ground, and everyone slinks away.  He then stands up and says, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?  She replies, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee.

The connection between judging and condemning is shown in chapter 12 of the same Gospel, in which Jesus says, And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.  In ACIM Jesus reminds us that we, his brothers in the Sonship, are all invited to join with him and contribute our part in the salvation of the world.  How else can we become like him?

According to Jesus there is one way and one way only to relinquish judgement, and therefore, our self-imposed death sentence.  That one way — true forgiveness — cannot fail to release us from judgement, condemnation and death.  How characteristic of our upside-down, back-to-front, split-off mind — ego — to ascribe our judgement, condemnation and death to God.  

Any who would judge, condemn and sentence to death one of their own children for making a mistake, or even many mistakes, or errors would be deemed insane.  Yet, how easily, how readily, we accept the suggestion that this is how our loving Heavenly Father’s Mind works.  Assuredly, only ego could dream up such a mistaken perception.

By steadfast commitment to practising true forgiveness until we have mastered it — just like Jesus — (and this is not just possible but inevitable; how long, how many more incarnations it takes, being our only free choice, because the awakening is happening, just like the seasons progress and the world turns, and we cannot prevent it), we release our brother and ourself, from judgement, condemnation and death, back into eternal oneness in Love, Peace and Joy.

Many may still say ‘We are in time and place, so how can we avoid that being our perspective?  We take our perspective from our place of observation or experience, so it is inescapable’.  This thinking conveniently (or inconveniently J) overlooks the reality that it is precisely that misperception that has caused us to believe, and therefore experience, the illusion of time and place as our ‘truth’.  If, instead, we choose to change our perspective to that of Holy Spirit, however hard it may seem — especially as we start out — we immediately, automatically, unavoidably engage the Help of Self. 

To try to understand the magnitude of such an engaging — temporal self-limitedness with eternal All-Empowerment — from the temporal, limited perspective, is like a raindrop trying to comprehend the power of an ocean’s surging tide.  Yet even such a comparison is inadequate beyond conscious comprehension.  And it is this engaging that guarantees our restoration, our resurrection to full remembrance of our Christ-Self.

This engaging has already taken place.  It began the instant separation from God appeared to happen.  Now, as we progress toward reunion, its activity — the GRP — gathers momentum, operating on two fronts.  One is to help us be aware of how we are placing our faith in false beliefs and perceptions, and the other is to shine the light of Truth in our minds, so we can see the contrast and choose to bring our illusions to Truth, for their dispelling.  Here is what Jesus says about this:

It is impossible that the Son of God lack faith, but he can choose where he would have it be. Faithlessness is not a lack of faith, but faith in nothing (i.e. that time and place is real). Faith given to illusions does not lack power, for by it does the Son of God believe that he is powerless. Thus is he faithless to himself, but strong in faith in his illusions about himself. For faith, perception and belief you made, as means for losing certainty and finding sin. This mad direction was your choice, and by your faith in what you chose, you made what you desired.

The Holy Spirit has a use for all the means for sin by which you sought to find it. But as He uses them they lead away from sin, because His purpose lies in the opposite direction. He sees the means you use, but not the purpose for which you made them. He would not take them from you, for He sees their value as a means for what He wills for you. You made perception that you might choose among your brothers, and seek for sin with them. The Holy Spirit sees perception as a means to teach you that the vision of a holy relationship is all you want to see. Then will you give your faith to holiness, desiring and believing in it because of your desire.                          (T-21.III.5,6. My emphases.)

There are many messengers now singing their part of the New Song, ‘to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised...’ (Lk. 4:18) and all are being conducted from Holy Spirit; even those who are not consciously aware of it.  These ‘Choristers of Truth’, singers of the New Song, are amongst us right now and we are all invited to join in and become saviours of the world, just as our brother Jesus.  How else can we become like him (1 Jn. 3:2)?  Those who do not yet feel ready to add their counterpoint have ever-increasing opportunities and help to learn a part from those already in the Choir, whose numbers increase daily.

In addition to Jesus’ ‘Oratorio’, A Course in Miracles, are already many complementary choruses.  Here are a few: The Disappearance of the Universe (Gary Renard); Simply Being  One Year with Spirit (Pamela Silberman); many writings by James Twyman, including Secret of the Beloved Disciple; Synchronicity, for Goodness’ Sake (Brian Longhurst J).  There are untold numbers more, and being added to daily.  Pasted here are some extracts from a review of the penultimate-mentioned book, on Amazon, offered by David-Leonard Willis:

...surrender is not failure but ... real growth cannot start until we ask for help. If you want love, give love. In giving we receive. In pardoning we are pardoned.

... Many are ready for what is about to happen but many will be fooled by the simplicity of the message. There are two simple truths that we need to accept if we are to move to the New World (i.e. The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth) based on the laws of love. The first is that "You're ready". Ready to release the fearful beliefs that bind us to the concept of separation; ready to accept that (perfect, eternal) love is the foundation of our existence. The second is "You are Holy".  

When you realize that you are one with the Divine Pulse of creation, that you are one with the holiness of God, then you see God in everyone you meet. When you accept these two messages you will recognize the next teacher who will take you to the Door of Eternity - the door that has always been waiting for you to enter, but you have been convinced that you must die first (the ‘lie of satan’).  The only barrier to entry is fear.

... the world of fear sits beside the world of love and you choose the world you want to perceive. When we choose love, the world changes. The world you (then) perceive is the result of that single decision. Find the Divine in everyone and in the ordinary. Look past appearances and see God's face in everyone at all times... See the world through the eyes of God, the eyes that see everyone as the same, blanketed in holiness and grace. Release your fear; enter the Door of Eternity through the person in front of you.  ...Each one of us is called to be a channel of peace - that's the real focus of our spiritual path. Humanity stands at the brink of reality itself; we have only to accept the two truths.  

‘Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:  So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that the Kingdom is near, even at the doors.’ (Mt. 24: 32, 33).

‘And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.’ (Rv. 21:4)

Alleluia!

Brian Longhurst

Holy Spirit: with You, I have nothing to hide;

for pretence, or holding up masks.

May 19th 2010

Dear Friends,

We are so inured in the perception of individuality, each with a separate identity, private thoughts, interests, attractions, foibles, that the very idea of becoming alike seems alien.  And the idea of becoming like ‘Old Whatsisname’, with all his petty ideas, arrogance, self-importance, narrow and distorted opinions on just about everything, seems like an idea to be avoided at all cost.  Now if he were to become like me; well, that would be a much better bet!  So ego would have us keep thinking in this persona-like manner.

But, of course, we will not become like each other, because the likeness with which we will become is nothing to do with personas, but with a resurrected state of Mind, a state of Being restored to wholeness that has left behind all personal considerations, fears, doubts, concepts, beliefs, opinions.  In a word, littleness.  That state of Mind and Being is not someone else, but our Self.  The idea that each persona will, somehow, disappear, or be swallowed up in some ‘Super-Being’ is fearful to most of us.  We think this means a loss of so great a magnitude that we do not wish to contemplate it.  So we cling to littleness in a variety of ways, such as exaggerating our idiosyncrasies, seeking ways to prolong our time with a body, seeking power over others instead of power with them.

This is fear-motivated; not a good starting point.  Yet this is what motivates all time-and-place-centred thoughts and actions.  Happily, Eternity-centred thoughts and actions are also possible in the dream state of being with a body.  It is all a question of choice, and according to our desire, so are we free to choose.  The fact that we can choose Eternity-centred thoughts and actions demonstrates that we are not, and cannot be, separate, from each other or from God.  It is only an illusion called fear that enables us to believe separation is possible.  Fear comes in a sizeable compendium, along with an endless array of surprises, including doubt, uncertainty, limitation and its pièce de résistance: death.

Many might be affronted by Jesus’ assertion in ACIM that belief in time and place as reality is insane.  Yet truly, only an insane mind could choose the consciousness of fear, with its terrible price, in preference to having and being Perfect Love, Peace and Joy, eternally; and ours but for the choosing.

Most, assuredly, would say they want peace, freedom, justice, happiness for all — the KOHOE — but how many of us are willing to commit to the one thing that is guaranteed to bring it: substituting judgement with true forgiveness?  The qualities that make the KOHOE what it is cannot be simply a veneer on the surface of the old, ego, order, which is founded in judgement, because it would continue to foment beneath the surface, erupting around the world like volcanoes.

The Kingdom of Heaven is within us, regardless of whether or not we have awareness of it.  We have awareness of what we choose to have awareness of — that is what free will bequeaths us.  We cannot choose two irreconcilable states of awareness and being.  If we choose one, it is at the expense of the other, and vice-versa.

All the while we believe time and place is all we can be certain exists (how’s that for an upside-down perception!?), so we will remain committed to seeking in the outer for solutions to our manifold and ever-dividing problems in time and place.  But time and place is a judgement, not a reality; and judgement denies us inner peace because peace is of the Kingdom.  And the Kingdom is not of time and place, but of Eternity, and is only available to us — while we appear to be in time and place — by seeking within, where the Kingdom IS. 

Such is our level of attachment to judgement — without which we would have true vision and all knowledge — that we are unwilling to surrender it.  Yet, until we are willing to relinquish judgement and replace it with true forgiveness we cannot become aware of the peace that is always within us, because true forgiveness is the prerequisite to our restoration to remembrance of the Kingdom.  Plainly put, we cannot enter the Kingdom without first forgiving our brother for all that he has, in truth, never done, and thus releasing our brother and ourself from judgement, guilt and fear.

Judgement denies us awareness of peace, and the opposite of peace is war.  Judgement leads to war.  War is happening on every street in every country because of judgement.  This is the fundamental cause of war at every level.  The insanity of this is demonstrated by the absurdity that people actually believe peace can be achieved by fighting, killing, dying for it.

This is all very well, many will say, but how do we give up judgement? It affects every aspect of life in time and place.  Judgement implies choice; choice between which to value more — true vision and knowledge or perception.  It implies questioning everything because we are lacking in faith and trust — in ourself, our brother and God.  But we can take a leap of faith by choosing to trust not our self but our Self.  Our Self is the Voice for God within us, Who speaks to us the truth of our Being —Christ, the Son of God as He created Him.  Here is what Jesus tells us about the Holy Spirit:

THE HOLY SPIRIT

Jesus is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, Whom he called down upon the earth after he ascended into Heaven, or became completely identified with the Christ, the Son of God as He created Him (and is our true reality, and therefore, our destiny, with him).  The Holy Spirit, being a creation of the one Creator, creating with Him and in His likeness or spirit, is eternal and has never changed.  He was “called down upon the earth” in the sense that it was now possible to accept Him and to hear His Voice.  His is the Voice for God, and has therefore taken form.  This form is not His reality, which God alone knows along with Christ, His real Son, Who is part of Him.

The Holy Spirit is described throughout the course as giving us the answer to the separation and bringing the plan of the Atonement to us, establishing our particular part in it and showing us exactly what it is (what it IS, now; not ‘will be’, at some indeterminate, future date.  All we need do is ask Him what it is and He WILL reveal it to us). He has established Jesus as the leader in carrying out His plan since he was the first to complete his own part perfectly. All power in Heaven and earth is therefore given him and he will share it with you when you have completed yours. (This does not imply we have no power in Heaven and Earth until then.  As we accept the truth of our reality, so are we empowered, one step at a time, starting right now.) The Atonement principle was given to the Holy Spirit long before Jesus set it in motion.

The Holy Spirit abides in the part of your mind that is part of the Christ Mind (and as we come to believe this, so do we come to experience it).  He represents your Self and your Creator, Who are One.  He speaks for God and also for you, being joined with Both.  And therefore it is He Who proves Them One.  He seems to be a Voice, for in that form He speaks God’s Word to you.  He seems to be a Guide through a far country, for you need that form of help.  He seems to be whatever meets the needs you think you have.  But He is not deceived when you perceive your self entrapped in needs you do not have.  It is from these He would deliver you.  It is from these that He would make you safe.

You are His manifestation in this world.  Your brother calls to you to be His Voice along with him.  Alone he cannot be the Helper of God’s Son for he alone is functionless.  But joined with you he is the shining Savior of the world, Whose part in its redemption you have made complete.  He offers thanks to you as well as him for you arose with him when he began to save the world.  And you will be with him when time is over and no trace remains of dreams of spite in which you dance to death’s thin melody.  For in its place the hymn to God is heard a little while.  And then the Voice is gone, no longer to take form but to return to the eternal formlessness of God.

(C.6.  My emphases)

‘The Holy Spirit abides in the part of our mind that is part of the Christ Mind.’  So says Jesus.  ‘He represents our Self and our Creator, Who are One.’  These words are so powerful, affirming and empowering that we can be confident in trusting them and trusting Holy Spirit to be our Guide.

The question arises, Can we trust ourself?  Can we stop questioning and start accepting?  Our self is a misperception and does not exist because it is not eternal.  Our Self is our reality, is eternal and is trust worthy.  I share a recent communing with Self, for encouragement of all who desire to make the leap of faith to trusting Self:

Dear Holy Spirit, Sometimes I wonder, do I really know how to let go and start giving myself to You...? (At this point He interrupted me loudly and emphatically)

DON’T START QUESTIONING! Questioning is an ego pastime.  Remember that, and simply start surrendering instead.

Affirming is building, reassuring, strengthening.  Practise affirmations for your focussing, centring, uplifting.  Say: ‘I am... Just as Papa created me; I am... loved, unconditionally and eternally, every moment; I am... forgiving of myself and my brothers; I am... loving; I am... compassionate; I am... caring; I am... free’ ... You can add to the list as inspiration moves you; but always keep it positive and it will always be truthful and uplifting.  Remember: doubt is ego’s dismantling device.  All IS well. I am with you always.

The Kingdom of Heaven is within us.  If we are willing to seek it there, we will find it because we have unfailing, all-empowered Help.

Alleluia!

Brian Longhurst

May 26th 2010

Dear Friends,

According to Jesus in ACIM, in time and place we are separate, alone and lonely.  Many may say this is not so, because we have friends and loved ones with whom to share our lives — the good and bad times.  But, unless such relationships are holy relationships, in which forgiveness of all illusory karmic ‘debt’ has been completed — i.e. given into the care of Holy Spirit for correction and healing — and the journey Home being joyfully undertaken together, as one, in communion with Holy Spirit — Self — then any such relationships with friends, family, loved ones are, at best incomplete; of time and place only, not of Eternity.  

If not of Eternity, relationships cannot be whole, and therefore, holy, because ‘holy’ means whole, or complete.  Even though we may appear yet to be in time and place, when we ask Holy Spirit to transform ‘special’ relationships, or ‘unholy’ relationships into holy relationships, we, and our relationships, become of Eternity.  This is the beginning of empowerment.

We cannot begin to experience spiritual empowerment until we are willing to become familiar with our true Self and accept that this all-knowing, all-loving Self is our true Being.  Until then, something we believe is who we are — a mortal, limited, little persona-self, functioning under the burden of upside-down, ego-dominated thinking, perceiving and believing — appears as a heavy veil, obscuring our true Being and empowerment and preventing our experiencing it. 

The dictionary defines the verb ‘Commune’ as To share one’s intimate thoughts or feelings with, and the noun ‘Communion’ as the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings. 

There are few in this world with whom most of us feel able to share and exchange intimate thoughts and feelings, no holds barred, because time and place is the consciousness of fear, and trust — absolute, complete, total, unequivocal trust — is very sparse on the ground.  Jesus and the Holy Spirit, our true, eternal Self, Who abides in the part of our mind where Christ Mind abides, are absolutely, completely, totally, unequivocally trustworthy.  

Yet, because we are so inured in mistrust, from having spent too long in egoland, most of us, even those who claim a religious faith in Jesus, find it very difficult to unreservedly share and exchange their most private, secret, intimate thoughts, feelings, doubts, fears, joys with Jesus.  And as for the Holy Spirit, who knows who He is, let alone how to get in touch with Him?  As recently explained,

Questioning is doubting.  Doubting is unbelieving; an affirmation of commitment to littleness. 

Not only to littleness, but also, loneliness, limitation and fear.  But,

Asking is desiring to know; a request for help in remembering what is already known, but temporarily forgotten.  Asking is seeking, enquiring, opening, allowing, trusting, believing.   Questioning is doubting, dismantling, destructive, negative.

And unbelieving.

Awakening to remembrance of Who we really are is not Jesus or Holy Spirit giving answers to persona questioning (remember, questioning is doubting, unbelieving; not seeking), but is our emergence from persona questioning into Knowing the answers without question.

Jesus and Holy Spirit know everything about us.  Everything.  Past incarnations, mistakes, judgements; the whole ball of wax.  Unlike most of those we might perceive as our friends and loved ones, They do not judge or condemn us.  It is easy to judge and condemn another — and/or ourself — if we believe ‘sin’, wrong-doing, offence has been perpetrated.  But They know (not believe; know) none of us has done anything wrong because time and place is a dream, an unreality, nothing.  Who would judge and condemn for the ‘offence’ of dreaming?  They see, with the true vision that is of Eternity, that we, the apparently fragmented Sonship, have made errors of perception; are mistaken in our beliefs. 

Errors and mistakes need correcting, not judging and punishing.  Jesus and Holy Spirit are equipped with all knowing and all empowerment, so They see clearly our mistaken beliefs and are able, easily, painlessly, quickly, lovingly, trustworthily, non-judgementally, to correct our perceptions, replacing them with true vision, so we, also will see clearly again.

Jesus tells us ...I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world (Mt. 28:20)

He, who was a man, may be perceived as easier to relate to, even two-thousand years after he was with a body, than Holy Spirit.  My first awareness of, encounter with, Jesus was in the mid-1960s but it was more than another 30 years (please see Diary entry dated ‘Late October 1997’ for details) before I had an encounter with, and thus, became aware of, the Holy Spirit. 

So, Jesus our friend, guide to Eternity, ever-loving brother — if we will... enter into thy closet, and ... shut thy door (on the outer world) (Mt. 6:6) — promises us ...where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them (Mt. 18:20).  And he, whose word cannot be broken, further tells us... Behold, I stand at the door (to our inner Being, not the outer world!), and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup (i.e. commune) with him, and he with me. (Rv. 3:20).

What the dictionary does not mention is that commune has as its root meaning ‘Joining together as one’, specifically, one mind.  Another word for commune is, of course, attune.  In both words, the last three letters hold the key to the meaning, being of the same root as ‘one’.

Communing, or attuning, with Jesus is a very sound starting point on the journey back to remembrance.  It is not hard to envision sitting in a comfortable chair across from him, having loving, unguarded, friendly, intimate fellowship.  It is a good practise to have a notebook and pen at the ready, and as we turn our thoughts toward him and relax as we get accustomed to the idea of him fulfilling his promise to be there, in the midst with us, we can ask him anything on which we sincerely seek his guiding counsel. 

Ego will not want us to do this, and will resist such an endeavour most strenuously, throwing all manner of objections into the ring, all fear-driven; such as, Why would Jesus want to commune with me? I am unworthy; he is too busy to bother with the likes of me, etc., etc.  Truly, such concepts are complete misperceptions.  I assure you with every ounce of assurance I can muster, that communing with each of us, one-on-one, is precisely what Jesus wants, longs, yearns to do.  Here is his message for each one of us, to reassure us and calm our fear and set our mind at rest in his presence:

Little One(s): I would speak with you.  Be not afraid.  I am your friend.  I reach out my arms in love towards you in gentleness, in caring, in compassion, in understanding.  I long for you to know me, to open your heart to my gentleness and to receive my blessing, that your lives may be uplifted, and that joy may enter in and wash away your caring and your burden, and that you may have life, new and abundant.

Ponder these things and speak with me, and in the stillness I will speak with you.  Peace, be still.  All is well.

(Recorded September 8^th 1991)

Truly this is the Master Jesus as I have encountered, known and experienced him for 45 years: unconditional Love, tenderness, gentleness, understanding, acceptance, trustworthiness.

If anxiety and apprehension are experienced, simply sit comfortably and breathe.  Allow, observe, notice, but do not wrestle with, any thoughts that might crowd in.  Surrender and acquiescence are the order of the day J.  Peace is not an adversarial state of being, but an acceptance.  One could start off addressing to Jesus such words as,

Jesus, I know you are my friend; I believe you want me to be your friend also, so I can be at ease in your presence, as I know you are in mine.  I want that above all, and believe you want it also.  So, I am going to sit here, envisioning us being comfortably together. 

Thank you for your infinite patience and unconditional love for me...  I love you, and want to get to know you completely as my trustworthy older brother, here to help me find the Path back to where I truly belong, and accompany me, for my inner peace and reassurance, as I don’t know the way alone, and cannot find it without your help.

The words can, and indeed, must be, our own, from the depths of our heart and in all sincerity.  Otherwise, the exercise is entirely fruitless.  In all sincerity and patience, much fruit will be borne, and our hearts, minds and lives will be filled with joy ‘beyond the pleasures of Earth’.

Such a communing, or attuning, exercise can be greatly facilitated from the outset by asking Jesus for his guidance on an issue that troubles us.  This can be written on our notepad, addressing the issue to him, inviting his input for clarification or reassurance, believing he knows how to help us, bring light to the scene, to clear our confusion.  This will open the door of our mind for him to enter with his response, which can then be written down as we experience the words coming into our mind. 

It is well worth writing because this does help to bring order and logical sequence to one’s thought processes, whether they be ‘our own’ or his, seamlessly superimposed into our mind.  After all, the concept of separate minds is an illusion; in truth, we are all of one mind — Christ Mind.  Communing, or attuning, is practising getting back into that state of one-mindedness, and will pay heavenly dividends.

Love and endless blessings for inner peace and joy,

Brian Longhurst

June 2nd 2010 

Dear Friends,

From 1967 until the end of the second millennium CE I practised the Service of Mystical Communion with Christ (SMCC), a ritual given from Spirit, under Christ authority, to Olga Park, for attunement with the Christ Mind.  This is described in detail in chapter 3 of SFGS.

Communing with the Christ Mind activates a progressive mind-awakening process. We are led, lovingly, caringly, tenderly, one step at a time, at a pace which is always comfortable for us, toward the Light of Eternal Truth.  This blesses us and brings an awareness that we are on the Path Home. 

Inner peace and joy replace fear and guilt, opening our eyes to the fact that Perfect Love is Who we really are; just like our Father Creator, in Whose likeness we are created.  As our awareness of that reality grows, with it comes a deep, all-encompassing longing to share, or extend, that love, peace and joy to all who are willing to receive such priceless treasure.

Communing with Christ Mind (or Holy Spirit Mind; there is no difference, They are one in the Mind of God) calls for commitment, because ego-dominated minds fear the Light of Eternal Truth, due to perceptions of unworthiness resulting from erroneous belief that we are sinners; that the apparent gulf between us and God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit seems so great as to be unbridgeable. 

This is an illusion which the practise of communing gradually dispels, to be replaced with a growing awareness that there is no separation between us and all our brothers in the Sonship of God or between God and us, His one, beloved Son.

Toward the end of the second millennium my own unfolding awareness had arrived at the place where I was comfortable communing with God — Papa — and Jesus, informally, spontaneously, at any moment, regardless of circumstances or events around me. 

Ultimately, although the formal, structured service of mystical communion with Christ is a very beneficial instrument to help any sincere seeker after spiritual truth and reality, natural progression in awareness of and confidence in our ability to attune with the Mind of God and Christ takes us to a place where we no longer need the outer, formal structure.  This was so for Jesus and it is inevitable that it becomes so for us as we become like him (1 Jn. 3:2). 

As stated in chapter 12 of SFGS:

When one is on a journey, it is serviceable to have a vehicle to facilitate that journey.  When the journey has been completed and the destination reached, the vehicle has served its purpose and can be dispensed with.  Indeed, if the vehicle is not dispensed with and one remains within the vehicle, it can turn from being a means of conveyance into a mechanism of restraint and limitation, even imprisonment, preventing progress into the next phase of life operations from commencing at the point of destination, or completion, of that preceding phase...