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1When 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; for the Way back Home to the Eternity we know as Heaven is a series of journeys, opportunities or stepping-stones, each having its beginning as its predecessor comes to its natural conclusion, having completed its cycle. For all of Life in the illusory, manifest universe operates in cycles, from birth or germination, through the growth, flowering, fruiting and eventually seeding stages. This is a process that operates at every level, from single-cell life units to solar systems and galaxies.
2So has been for me a vehicle, the Service of Mystical Communion with Christ as assembled by our beloved friend ‘the Teacher’ — David, son of Jesse/John, the seer of Patmos — and brought into the Earth life by the agency of Olga Park. It has been a magnificent, all-sufficient vehicle, with Jesus of Nazareth, the Anointed Messenger of the Holy One, as driver and guide, along with innumerable other fellow travelling companions from the Realms of Light whose lives are resonant with the great desire of Jesus for the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. These diverse travelling companions, including and particularly Jesus himself, have made this journey one of love, joy, peace, protection, enlightenment, blessed good fellowship, wonderment at what (and who!) might lie around every next corner.
3It has been a journey which, one could say, began with my meeting with Olga Park in 1965 and which could be said to have come to its conclusion when Jesus walked with me up the beautiful, landscaped pathway toward the white cube structure, morphed into its golden portal through which I passed into the joyous, welcoming presence of Papa, the Holy One, the Creator Spirit, our Heavenly Father, into the Holy of Holies; the Place of Togetherness in/from which one takes the next and completing step back into the Oneness from which we have come.
4Thus were fulfilled the words of the Master to me in 1996, ‘My job is to lead you back to God.’ He had accomplished the task he took on when I asked him to be my Lord, my Guide. In reality, of course, he had taken it on long before I asked him, because he knew well before I (in my Earth-mind consciousness) did that this was to be (And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear. Isa. 65: 24) because it had been agreed between him and me ‘afore time.’
5When the Tutor has completed his undertaking to teach the pupil — the student of the ‘Mysteries’ — and the student has ‘graduated,’ the relationship between the two undergoes a fundamental change. At the start, the student is ‘down here’ and the tutor is ‘up there’ in terms of the student’s perception of the relationship between them and of the Mysteries. If the Tutor does a good job (and I can vouch that there is no better tutor than Jesus of Nazareth — ‘For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known’ Lk. 12: 22) then the time will assuredly come when that graduation will occur. Then the tutor will welcome the graduate and bid him (or her) to ‘come up higher,’ knowing that his graduate student has been well prepared to go on and do great things, to fulfil the potential with which he began his studies, his journey.
the student will see that he also has been grown by the Good Husbandman into a place of greater spiritual awareness and empowerment.
6The student will be instinctively, intuitively, aware of the change in the relationship and of the growth in his own stature. He who was revered from afar, perceived as being so much loftier as to be in an almost unreachable place, is now seen from a much uplifted vantage point; still as being all-wise, unconditionally loving, all-sufficient; but the student will see that he also has been grown by the Good Husbandman into a place of greater spiritual awareness and empowerment. This in no way dishonours the tutor, reduces or diminishes him from his true and rightful station. On the contrary, it honours him and affirms his place as the great teacher that he truly is. The mark of a good Master is not how many students he has but how many he brings to graduation.
7Then, the former student has completed that journey and it has made him ready for the next journey; from being a seeker of the light to a bringer of the light (Ye are the light of the world… Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven. Mt. 5:14 & 16).
8After the experience of entering the parlour for afternoon tea with Papa, I was not sure where I went from there, and contemplated this very carefully for some time. Although I knew this event was the ‘entering in’ to the Holy of Holies, the question was: What happens then? And the answer at which I have arrived is that the Holy of Holies is, in a greater sense, not just a place but a state of being into which one enters, as a Citizen of the Kingdom of God, and in which one is able to come and go freely, but whether in or out, one remains a citizen of the Kingdom just as a citizen of a country on Earth is a citizen of that country whether in it or travelling abroad at any given moment. I realised that entering into the Holy of Holies is entering into ‘the Togetherness’ with the Creator Spirit and that after the initial entry process and the period of adjustment that takes place after such a magnificent, wondrous event, one’s awareness emerges into a further state of being, which is that even more than being in the Togetherness, one is indivisibly within ‘the Oneness’ (I and my Father are One). This is the final part of the returning-home, GRP process, and our own, Earth-mind-conscious self-will (ego), action or determination plays no part in it.* It is in response to the desire of our heart and soul that we are drawn by the Creator Spirit, one step at a time, at a pace with which we are comfortable, able to assimilate the meaning of the process and remain in a state of peace, harmony and balance.
9These are terms that hardly describe the reality and the awesome meaningfulness behind it, but it may help to think in terms of ‘the Togetherness’ as being in the presence of another person; you are you, ‘here’ and they are they, ‘there’ — even if ‘here’ and ‘there’ are not very far apart, such as two lovers, totally enwrapped in each other, physically, emotionally and spiritually, but still being two individuals, having separate and distinct identities and personas, engaging harmoniously and even rapturously with each other. Being in ‘the Oneness’ is a totally knowing awareness that there is no difference, no distance, no separateness between oneself and the universal, omnipresent, eternal Creator Spirit; that ‘His’ Mind is your Mind, indivisibly One. One has access to It at all times, is It and, there is none of It which one’s Self is not; none of It is withheld from one’s Self because one is the ‘One-Self.’
There is no reason or cause for fear at this process of awakening into the Oneness; it is not about becoming less but about becoming more.
10Yet, even more amazing and difficult to find words to describe is the absolute awareness that this does not bring an end to Self. Self becomes fully restored to Its rightful place as the One Son of the Father Creator; a state of being that is immeasurably greater and more magnificent than one’s former, apparently separated ‘little self,’ with all its finiteness and limitations. That will never for a moment be missed or yearned for again, because one has moved from the Adamic consciousness, ‘Red Earth’ (ego) end of the spiritual spectrum to the ‘Blue Heaven’ (Self-realised or ‘God-filled’) end. There is no reason or cause for fear at this process of awakening into the Oneness; it is not about diminishing but increasing; not about becoming less but about becoming more. Much, much more. Immeasurably more. Everything, in fact. Who amongst us would not, in his right mind, be willing — eagerly willing — to exchange his littleness, his limitations, his mortality, for Everything; eternally?
11This is who we are. Each and every living soul, incarnate or excarnate. So when Jesus said ‘I and my Father are one,’ (Jn. 10:30), it was entirely true for him, but it is also true for all of us. Jesus remembered this truth, but most of the rest of us have forgotten it. He was fully God-filled, having travelled the path back to Oneness. We are some way back on that same path, in a state of varying degrees of forgetfulness about who we really are (Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: 1Jn. 3:2). Jesus came to remind us. Will we choose to remember or will we choose to remain clothed, or even bound, in conditioning that denies us our reality by stating that we are all separate from God because we are all ‘sinners’ and have fallen short of the mark in the sight of God? That is like saying a young child has been ‘naughty’ and therefore must be thrown out of its parents’ house and banished forever, no longer ‘worthy’ of its parents’ love and acceptance. Is this proper parental behaviour? How much more will our Heavenly Father continue to love us unconditionally regardless of our mistakes, or misperceptions? If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? Lk. 11:11-13.
12*It is made totally and unequivocally clear in ACIM that the ego is the upside-down part of our mind that came into being as a result of a momentary, delusional attempt to separate our self from our Heavenly Father. Of course it is impossible to be separate from God because He is the Essence, the Source, the Origin of Life, Love, Creativity, knowledge and awareness that occupies every part of Creation.
13The separation is, therefore, an illusion but very real-seeming to those of us in the Earth life who see the ‘physical’ universe — including our own bodies — as the reality, the truth, the actuality for them.
14According to ACIM the upside-down part of our mind (not brain) is the antithesis of all that characterises the Creator Spirit (unconditional Love) and manifests in our Earth-life character as negative, accusatory, judgemental, capricious, comparative, critical, spiteful, attacking, fearful, manipulative, self-serving, guilty. This is ‘Satan’ as characterised in religious mythology. Until humanity is able to metamorphose from its self-perception as a crawling ‘caterpillar’ into a soaring ‘butterfly,’ all those unKingdomly qualities will continue to manifest in the Earth-dimension of human consciousness.
15‘Ego-mind’ is very powerful, deceiving, guileful, and release from it’s insidious, possessive hold over us is possible only, first, by desiring it and second, by accepting the help of Papa God, the Holy Spirit and the first ‘butterfly’ — Jesus — (all three of Whom act in unison, as One Mind, One Being). That requires a shift of perception from the ‘I will’ of ego-mind self-determination to the ‘I AM’ awareness — which is the absolute certainty of all-knowing — of Eternity.
16This is no more possible for the human intellect than it is for the intellect of a caterpillar to effect its own metamorphosis into a butterfly. It is nothing to do with intellect (which is a device of ego-mind to prolong our illusory state) but is of the Life Force, which is the Spirit of the living, eternal Creator. The caterpillar, led by the drawing power (which is Love) of the Life Force (God), withdraws from its previous, Earth-crawling activity and is dissolved, at a cellular, molecular level, then recreated in its true form as the butterfly it always truly was, is and will be.
17This allegory is equally true, at a metaphysical, mystical, spiritual, esoteric level (the true, eternal reality) for God’s Children: us.
18We have to be willing (that is, desire) to allow Him to lead us in this process, accomplish this for us, because He has endowed us with free will and He never withdraws that free will and imposes upon us what we are unwilling, or unready, to receive.
19This is the only real challenge facing humanity today, and all the other perceived challenges stem from failure to recognise this real challenge — actually, opportunity — and embrace it, totally.
20Fortunately for us, Jesus does recognise this and has implemented the GRP, for us all, (including those of us who have no awareness of it, or refuse — through ego-mind contrariness and perversity — to recognise it) and he is empowered for this by the Source of All, our Heavenly Father. Resisting it is, as ego-mind humanity is experiencing, noticeably less comfortable and noticeably more fearful, painful and destructive. Co-operating with him and the GRP will enable its accomplishment more quickly and more comfortably for each of us. We are at free choice, every moment.
21The GRP is centred around the recognition that the physical universe and all that is in it is not God’s creation but is a projection of ego-mind; that none of it, including us, is really here; that this is nothing more than a dream, and that we are all One in the Sonship with God, the Father Creator, in Eternity (otherwise known as Heaven), have always been and always will be; that therefore none of what appear to be events that have been taking place here has actually happened and therefore we are not, and cannot be, guilty of the ‘sins’ of this illusory world; that the only way to break free of ego’s hold on us — that keeps us coming back here in vain attempts to outwork and resolve the karma accrued from one incarnation to the next — is to recognise this and release ourself and our fellows who appear to be here with us by enacting a procedure Jesus calls true forgiveness, as distinct from false forgiveness.
22The difference between true and false forgiveness is:
23False forgiveness is when the ‘sin’ is acknowledged and then forgiven. However, the flaw in this misperception is that by acknowledging the ‘sin,’ we give it reality. This is a ploy of ego mind, which wants us to be bogged-down in a false world of sin.
24True forgiveness. Here, the words of Jesus from ACIM are the most serviceable to our forming a clear and uncluttered understanding:
25(True) Forgiveness recognises that what you thought your brother did to you has not (actually) occurred. It does not pardon sins and (therefore) make them real. It sees (instead, that) there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven. What is sin except a false idea about God’s Son? (True) Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and then lets it go. What then is free to take its place is now the Will of God. (My parenthesised words and italics). (ACIM Workbook, page 401).
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