This “Story of Cay” is just a story. A desired story. Everything that appears inside this story is only a reflection of what is happening in the mind at the time. Stories interpreted by the ego bring suffering because they are an attempt to prove that the separation is true. Belief in separation, the denial of true nature, results in pain. How can it not be painful to have everything and yet deny it? Wouldn’t this cause pain?
Stories interpreted by the Spirit bring great insight and learning and joy. Or as Jesus puts it in the course, ‘unlearning’ what ‘I’ thought ‘I’ new about who I am and who everyone else is. Only a the idea of a separate ‘I’ needs to ‘know’ something. This desire to ‘know something’ is to bite from the apple of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Duality.
Yet your mind speaks against your learning as your learning speaks against your mind, and so you fight against all learning and succeed, for that is what you want. 11 But perhaps you do not realize, even yet, that there is something you want to learn, and that you can learn it because it is your choice to do so. (T-12.V.7. 10)
All that can be ‘learned’ is ‘how not to love’, yet love is the highest desire. And with the unlearning there is recognition that people around me are only collections of thoughts and beliefs and stories that I’ve “bought into” in my mind. This is what Jesus means in the course when he refers to “reflections”. When we look out at what seems to be the world, we are looking out at what the mind is mis-creating in every moment.
These ideas and concepts remain only as long as energy is devoted to them. What ‘I’ – the idea of a personal identity ‘knows’ about love is wrong and this is happiness. It is impossible to ever be happy with a definition of what love is. What is happy about a belief in a who would withhold His love from one Son yet somehow give love to others- how could that ever work? A God who punished with arbitrary abandon? A God of haves and have nots. When God is ‘made’ into a self image- the idea of a separate identity, this is the image of fear. The image of selective love. As these thoughts are forgiven the idea of separation falls away. It is impossible to be separate from Source. All that is.
It may seem difficult to admit that ‘feeling separate’ from God is a choice made in every moment. Only the idea of a separate identity can seem to turn away from the light that is ever present. How could this be so simple? To look away from light there seems to be darkness. Yet the immediacy of turning toward the light to see what is true is so immediate and powerful, reveal that there is only light. Grace pours in as with increasing gratitude to my brothers for what they were bringing into my awareness- the places in the mind where there is a belief in attack. Happiness – true identity- knows nothing. This a great gift from Jesus. How could this be? The whole life ‘in the past’ seemed to revolve around analysis and thinking about everything. Thinking and analysing IS the idea of a past – that something can be known. It objectifies experience.
The other day I went to the butterfly exhibit the other day at a local botanical garden, Olbrich. I noticed that when I was looking at the butterflies how I was comparing, looking for the “prettiest one”. Which color do I favor more? The blue, the green. NO not that one, this one. And Spirit reminds that this happens with every thought that is associated with a belief in separation: there are constant comparisons. There always seems to be something else to look for, to feel better about in the future. This is starting to feel lonely and tiring. The desire for rest is recognized, to rest in that holy place of stillness. That it is the opening to be shown another way.
Is it not He Who knows the way to you? 2 You need not know the way to Him. 3 Your part is simply to allow all obstacles that you have interposed between the Son and God the Father to be quietly removed forever. 4 God will do His part in joyful and immediate response. 5 Ask and receive. 6 But do not make demands, nor point the road to God by which He should appear to you. 7 The way to reach Him is merely to let Him be. 8 For in that way is your reality proclaimed as well. (W-189.8)
When ‘going naked’ and empty to Spirit, something beyond the idea of a separate identity is revealed. Grace pours through. It is the Holy Instant- the recognition of totality. This is Holy communion, without a thought or concept there is only the recognition of the Holy Instant. It felt so far away for what seemed so long. It appeared to be hidden, yet it is always present. Seemly seen then not seen, or ‘forgotten’. When examined closely it is seen that this is impossible to forget. It is accepting the idea of separation which seems to cast it aside repeatedly. The separate ‘I’ does not believe this is ‘it’. It is a profound notation.
The sense of separation preserves itself by describing it or “storifying” (turning it into a story as it was experienced so it could be ‘shared’ in the future) each experience that Spirit had shown. That is the separate identity (sleeping) is an attempt to deny true nature by creating a story around the recognition of what is always here. The ego identity is in ‘love’ (derives pleasure) from perpetuating itself by describing experience, rather than being true nature! To let go completely to it, whatever it is in whatever way it expresses itself. Just notice it.
Glory is the recognition that the next time it is looked for it is STILL there, always there. The Holy Instant, by the grace of God, it just is.
The holy instant is the miracle’s abiding place. 2 From there, each one is born into this world as witness to a state of mind that has transcended conflict, and has reached to peace. 3 It carries comfort from the place of peace into the battleground, and demonstrates that war has no effects. 4 For all the hurt that war has sought to bring, the broken bodies and the shattered limbs, the screaming dying and the silent dead, are gently lifted up and comforted.(T-27.V.3.)
It is no different from Simon Peter denying knowledge of Christ three times. Christ can be denied thousands upon thousands of times, yet remains always. The ‘separate’ identity tries to deny what can not be denied! Ouch! Every moment with a brother is an opportunity to see the Truth. It is blessed and joyful when the mind servies the purpose of love and sees that there is no other. Every moment of joining with Spirit, with a brother. Joining to see what is always joined. Trust building with a brother is trust building with God.
It feels beautiful to share around the experience of the Holy Instant because it is so simple and precious. It is an experience that one who feels separate hungers for, seeks and truly desires. Or so the deceived mind believes. ‘Let me feel this!!, Let me know God,’ are the thoughts. Why am I not experiencing this love of God if he is so much around?’ Deep down I didn’t believe I deserved it and I kept stumbling around in ego thought patters. The desire of ego identity is to be separate and special. As Jesus said, looking through the ego’s eyes will be the last way the Holy Instant can be experience. Yet there is a burning, ‘I had no idea what it was, this Holy instant. Is God withholding something from me? It is talked about sages from Jesus, Buddha, Ramana, Papaji, Mooji, Rupert Spira, Adyasanti and Douglas Harding. ‘I’ll be the last person to see it’. Now it is seen that all along it is always here, only the idea of a personal identity can seem to ‘withhold’ from the recognition of God.
It is the precious moment of recognition of our true nature. It sounds far off. It sounds like it should be earth shattering, and it is in its on way. It ends the world as the idea of a separate identity ‘thinks’ it can be known. True nature is still and quiet. It is subtle, like a butterfly landing on your nose. A whisper recognition of what is always here.
The butterfly of recognition is that quick and gentle. It’s like having lived with a butterfly on my nose for all this time and missing it. It is that close and personal. There is nothing special about it, yet it is precious. Peaceful. And as has been shared many times throughout the ages, it recognizes no time nor space. The very concept I had of what God is blocked it from recognition. It is where truth abides and where by direct experience we will know in the experience that there is no time nor space. Spirit keeps saying, explore it, so you will recognize the truth of the self and what is given. Be it. Look at the world as this. It is that that arises before the thought of a separate self, the little I, just as the sages have said. The beauty of lesson 189 sings in the mind:
I feel the love of God within me now.
Simply do this: Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. 2 Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, of every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. 3 Hold onto nothing. 4 Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. 5 Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God. W-189.7
A few videos that point to the recognition of the holy instant- that moment of awareness that there is no separation can be found in the resources section. It is that pure awareness that “what is” before thought arises, the “I am” presence”, it is the gentle noticing of what is arising – thoughts, images, forms, that helps grace to recognize itself. The mind training of the course is designed specifically to open the mind to this experience.
How helpful to note that recognition seems to ‘unsettle’ that which keeps wanting to claim separateness! Spirit reminds that the ego thought of preserving separateness will look upon this experience of recognition with fear, as it looks upon the light with fear. It will move forward quickly to block the experience. I remember the Spirit showing me in my mind a bag of thoughts and this vast open space and asked me which I wanted to believe was true. Right after the experience my thought of separation went into almost immediate experience of “feeling attacked’ by a brother to prove separation. Again another opportunity to join quickly with a brother. I denied it for what seemed awhile. It is helping each other by joining to see though these tricks that is the greatest gift.
It is valuable to remember that from within the experience of the Holy Instant, from within the experience of light and what might be described as “looking out” from the experience, there is no fear. Fear can not be found. Fear arises only from the ego looking at something. When explored the open, timeless, formless, effortless, fearless can be experienced. No judgement can be found. Spirit said, keep going back to the Holy Instant, rest within in it, see what is true within it, look out at the world from it. Let the mind go within this formless shapeless undefinable, and grace arises to recognize itself. The experience of it helps to convince the mind that yes indeed, this experience, which seemed so easy to throw out by the ego, by a single thought of separation, by a story, by an image, can be experienced and remembered again with an open mind and heart. So trust in it, rest in it, and explore true nature and accept the heritage of the peace that surpasses understanding.
What is beautiful about noticing what is true within the experience of the Holy Instant is the power to evaporate the belief in a separate self, because no separate self can be found. What will deny it, even if the Holy Instant is experienced, is guilt and that is why Jesus gives us forgiveness to clear the guilt that blocks its recognition. Fear is the mechanism of attempting to deny the One, fear that ‘we’ have abandoned God and will be punished for it as guilt will be used as an excuse to draw attention from true nature. This is what makes the acceptance of true nature seem so difficult and why the mind training is so valuable, to recognise when the kingdom is given away as the mind “wanders” into dreaming and abdicates it’s true nature of peace. Jesus says:
An untrained mind can accomplish nothing. 4 It is the purpose of this workbook to train your mind to think along the lines the text sets forth. W-in.1.3
Thankfully Spirit keeps calling to the One, Oh Son of God, think again. I am here always. This recognition is an instant away as the untrue falls away and it is seen this is all there is, always.
With love and gratitude,
Cay
