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ACTIVATING THE LIGHT IN THE LORD'S PRAYER:
THE INFINITE COURSE Margareth Lee |
Copyright
1999
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Foreword In his book 'In Tune with the Infinite' (1915) Ralph Waldo Trine remarks, that 'the great world war …. surely would not have been necessary, if we had lived our Christianity, instead of mainly lecturing about its Founder'. In this book that has been avoided. Here the teaching of the divinity of man, so concisely framed by Jesus in the Lord's Prayer, has been explored. He has given us his teaching to lead us to enlightenment, not just to help us improve our earthly existence or to aid us in collecting more earthly treasures or to reach any other earthly goals. That is a side-effect at the most. This book is a product of the Christian Mystical Association, as my teacher Joshua called it. That is not an organization in the world, but an organization in the mind. The following teachers on my path are part of that: Jesus and his book 'A Course in Miracles' and its American teachers from the Endeavor Academy Joshua and Liberty, the leader of Endeavor Academy who is called the 'Master Teacher', Greta, Robert Jan Visser, Ritah, Arty, Clark and many others: Marianne Williamson and Louise Hay, who first introduced me to this way of thinking through the program of Oprah Winfrey on television: the books by Joel Goldsmith, James Allen, Gardner Hunting, 'Lessons in Truth' by Emilie Cady and some books from Unity Church, like Dana Gatlin's 'God is the answer': Mary Baker Eddy and her book 'Science and Health with key to the Scriptures': Masaharu Taniguchi; Lee Coit; The Masters of the Far East: The Science of Mind by Ernest Holmes: The work of Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme, W. John Murray, Joseph Murphy, Wayne Dyer, Martin Kojc, Iyanla Vanzant; the work of Herbert Beierle, founder and dean of 'the Church of God Unlimited': and I could go on and on and on. Also many books about the Lord's Prayer have been written. Especially the interpretation of Emmet Fox in 'The Sermon on the Mount' is worth mentioning. From my personal relations in the first place I want to thank my daughter Yvonne, who walks hand in hand with me on the same path to heaven, and who greatly encourages me. She has contributed a lot to this book. I am so grateful that she reflects my transformation. I am also grateful for the support of Joshua Scholtmeijer, Cisca Mager, Mieke Verhulst, and Lucenda, who so lovingly act as students and for their gentle lessons. I also want to thank Nathalie Verbeeten and Elise Coppelmans for their love. Last but not least I thank all others on my path, they have all blessed me. In our process of transformation we encounter the same message everywhere, in other words and with different accents, but in essence words that resound in us. The knowing in us recognizes the Truth we have projected outside of us and it expands in us, till our whole being is permeated with it and all mortal concepts and thoughts are healed. We are happy and deeply thankful for these road signs and our awakening. Thank You Father! Margareth Lee Introduction The Lord's Prayer Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done On earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily bread: And forgive us our debts As we also have forgiven our debtors; And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever, Amen. (New American Standard Bible) Jesus gave us this prayer, which contains all mystical wisdom in a nutshell. According to Emerson, prayer is 'contemplation of the facts of life from the highest viewpoint'. This prayer certainly represents the most elevated viewpoint the human mind is capable of. Everyone is praying all the time, whether we are aware of this or not and everything we ask for is given us. God always answers all our prayers. The world we experience shows us that it is necessary to ask for something else, to learn to pray differently. And in the beginning that can be difficult, because the human thought-world is directly opposed to the divine. This prayer was never meant to become an overlearned response from which not a syllable penetrates our mind, as is the case for most of us now. With this prayer in our thoughts every moment of our earthly existence can be holy, until our whole life has become one holy moment. Then every moment is the same, whatever seems to be happening. And at the same time all things become new. This is what eternity looks like. Jesus said, 'man does not live by bread alone, but from every word that proceeds from the mouth of God'. The Word of God sustains us and when it lives in us as part of our consciousness, our human existence becomes divine. The Word of God slumbers in us; it does not consist of the words in our holy books, but of the consciousness in which we read these books. And that consciousness awakens to remembering the Truth through contemplation and meditation. The Truth truly frees! God reveals Himself in our consciousness as our consciousness! Truly closer than our breath. You are that which you are looking for. However, that cannot be taught, because it is an experience. Experiencing divine Truth is the function of prayer. The truth is that consciousness is all there is. And you are It. Our consciousness is not the same as our thought-world. Human thinking is based on narrowed perception. Consciousness is not the result of evolution, but the world came to be as a result of consciousness. You have constructed the world as the denial of your own reality. You have no reference by which to establish what you are, because everything you believe is true for you. You experience everything you believe. I AM THAT I AM (Exodus 2:14). Still you are destined to know Reality and Truth. The measure of your reality, the Truth that you are, unites you with everything, because God is Love and Oneness. Love is all encompassing. It contains love for everything in awareness. In the divine light we only see with the loving gaze of God. And then you see that you are the perfect expression of divine consciousness. Chapter 1: Divine Fatherhood: the love of the Almighty, our oneness and our divine attributes. When we pray 'Our Father' that is a confession of faith. We recognize our oneness with each other and with God by vocalizing that we realize that we all are children of one Father; that that Father is divine and therefore so are we; that He is very favorable toward us, yes, loves us exceedingly and unconditional, as may be expected from a divine and therefore perfectly loving father. In this prayer only 'us' and 'our' are continually used; I, me or mine do not appear. Everything revolves around our common experience. We ask nothing just for ourselves, but for all humanity. Whoever prays the Lord's Prayer, should be aware that there is essentially no difference between us, regardless of our physical appearance. Regardless of skin color, sex, age and other physical and personal characteristics, we are children of a divine father. Though we are individual centers of consciousness who experience everything from a unique perspective, it is the same Spirit who processes all these experience-worlds. It has been said that God is only the Father of the ones who have faith in Him. And it is true that only those who have faith in Him can experience their oneness with Him and each other in Christ. If we do not acknowledge God as our Father, whom do we see as our creator? No matter how much we try, we cannot become something we are not. We can totally identify with the ego, with an image of limitation and littleness. But what comes from God is changeless and forever will remain as He created it. Even if we don't have faith in God, He always has faith in us. And we can only temporarily put ourselves out of reach of His grace in our imagination. In the gospel of John (10:30) Jesus claims: 'The Father and I are one.' Now it was considered blasphemy to call yourself God and a mortal sin, which merited death. Presently the ego still will not allow you to know or proclaim your reality, but fortunately it is no longer punishable by death in our society. So John tells us (10:31-39): 'The Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus replied, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?” The Jews answered, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God.” Jesus answered, “Is it not written in your law, “I said, you are gods”? (Psalm 82:6). If those to whom the word of God came were called “gods” – and the scripture cannot be annulled – can you say that the one whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world is blaspheming because I said, “I am God's Son”? If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” Then they tried to arrest him again, but he escaped from their hands .' Through the ages the holy men and saints of every religion have said the same thing over and over again and their bodies were silenced. But the truth about us cannot be silenced. The ego always finds Truth offensive. It feels it is being rebuked and punished. That is why part of you may not like what Jesus tells you, while another part is deeply touched. Truth pushes against the conceptual prison walls you have erected in your mind. The human mind is split and contact with Truth reveals that. Truth does not need sugarcoating. That, for which it is meant, will recognize it and be thrilled by it. That is why not everyone can handle Truth. It depends on the degree in which you shun the light. If you are someone who tries to excuse evil and thus makes it real, you will tend to consider the vision of the Holy Spirit as black-and-white. Because He sees that the evil you experience is not real and therefore can dissolve into the nothingness from where it came, if you let it. So the aim is not to pretend we don't see evil or to try to smooth it over. We do see evil, because we see all the evil we had made up and in which we believed. The aim is to hold it under the Light of Truth and Reality and ask of yourself; is it real? Alongside every evil we perceive, we lay the Truth and if it is someone else showing us our old lies, we speak the Truth to that person. Then you have arrived at a point where you say; I see the dreamer and I see his dreams. I no longer project, because I am the Christ. Only the ego-mind projects. I see my brother as he really is and I also see what he thinks he is. For this I offer healing. I don't judge him, I don't blame him for being ignorant, but I hold Truth before him. Much of what comes hereafter can be experienced as quite uncomfortable. It is so threatening to the ego, that it crucified the teacher of this knowledge. The goal is to be freed from the walls that have been erected in your mind against Truth. You desire liberation of old ideas and conditioning. This is an attempt to push against those walls and that can cause discomfort. You will not only find things here that conform to your old thoughts. That is not the aim. It is the aim to learn something new, not just to find confirmation for your own ideas. That, which is comfortable, hinders and limits us. Some think it 'dualistic' and experience it as harsh. Only the ego thinks Truth is harsh. When you confront the ego with Truth, it always feels condemned, because it condemns itself. The ego tries to cause confusion by distorting the Truth. When the distorted thought-system of the ego tries to use the sword of Truth, it just looks clumsy and ridiculous. In the same way it distorted the Master's words. An example of this is the translation of part of the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus is quoted as saying; 'blessed are the poor in spirit'. Who are they? Spirit is divine, how could Jesus then glorify lack of spirit? Of course he did not. The text was in fact; 'Blessed are those who ask for awareness'. When we are willing to have our consciousness expanded, we are blessed. While we do not understand the law, that states that we always experience what we believe, we will reject the magnitude that is really ours. And attack those who do not join us in littleness. So everywhere Jesus went, they tried to stone him for speaking the truth, but nothing could contain him, not even the grave. His words have been distorted and the focus was directed at adoration of his personality, making him the exception, rather than the example he intended to be. In the last century many have come forward, who had the courage to speak the Truth, as taught by our Master, Jesus. And we, the children of God, proclaim that we are made in His 'Image and Likeness' and therefore we are just like Him. God is Spirit and therefore so are we. We have the same abilities and attributes. That characterizes the relationship with our father. God has not created us as material bodies, but as Itself. As a perfect spiritual being, with all divine characteristics and abilities, such as all-powerfulness and omniscience. Children of God must be divine. And as is narrated in the parable of the lost son, it looks like we have chosen to waste our inheritance by narrowing our perspective to the perceptual vision, which characterizes material existence. We have chosen a very limited vision, in which everything we think we know is based on speculation. But that is only one level of our existence. This is only one aspect of our experience. We are also timeless awareness, where all things and experiences are at the same time. Where there is Knowledge and no perceptual speculations. A state of timeless bliss as opposed to the unreal; perception, ignorance, and therefore doubt and speculation. Our real world of experiences envelops everything, the material world and all other possibilities, which we cannot imagine in perception. We are not a mind in a body; the body is an image in our minds, with which we associate in our material experience. All perceived differences between humans and all forms are just aspects of the material experience. They are possibilities we have concocted, after we made them up. Every thought has its substrate in form. That was Our Will. However, it was not our will that our journey into form should make us suffer. But to experience form we had to limit ourselves and as it were hypnotize ourselves. And we could not foresee what the consequences would be. We only have to awaken to our divine reality to escape our self-made prison, the world of pain, suffering, sickness, growing old and death. And then we also realize what a great experiment this has been. We have been able to experience the impossible: a world which is godless; a world with two opposing powers, in which we seemed to be separate from each other and from God. A world in which the strong survive and in which our differences determine our value. Seen from the other side, where we perceive everything the right way, these ideas are incredible. The seeming difference in spiritual development is also no true difference, because it is linked to time. And time is an illusion. We are all unique individual aspects of one Spirit and everyone represents a unique perspective. Everything that is in the awareness of anyone is in the awareness of all. It will all be integrated. We experience a little piece of eternity at a time; the experience of states which are linked to time are finite and therefore very small. We are evolving to the realization of oneness. That manifests on the surface in our social organizations and values, in which equality and oneness are central. Nothing can keep us from awakening to the realization of our inner connectedness. The transformation goes on all the time. Everything is a picture in the mind and is being played in awareness; but what a picture! Matter that thickened from the atoms of the 'big bang' and gives form to everything, is of magnificent complexity and diversity. Every material evolution reflects the true evolution of becoming aware. The boundaries that limited thinking has assumed, are all incorrect. Every new horizon offers a view of new vistas. There is always more. Every new level of awareness opens new perspectives and is expressed in new conditions. Progress is eternal. Every door is open. We are liberated when we are no longer attached to the illusion of the perishable and valueless that our world consisted of and when we have also released our disgust of it. Amazed amusement is the only correct reaction to this world which we pretended existed. The ridiculous can only elicit ridicule. And all together we will express divinity, as soon as there are enough who do that. And indeed we are always doing that, even if part of our being pretends to be something else. Because time does not exist, it is part of the experience of godlessness. Your true Self looks from timelessness, where all Knowledge is, into the experience of time. There is only one time: now. And the divine NOW is timeless. And there is only one place and that is in God. There is no place God is not. God is always with you. The unconditional love of the Almighty does not resemble any human love. It is not connected to any form. Usually an earthly father does a lot for his children; how much more can we expect from our divine Father, Who is almighty and loves us completely! God created us and saw that it was good. And He has not changed His Mind, because in essence we have not changed. We cannot change, because from God only the unchangeable good, the divine, comes forth. We are always one with God, despite our seeming experience of separation. And we are always connected in His Mind. We are one and furthermore, we are loved by no lesser being than the Ruler of the Universe. We are godly children. Our Source gave us everything in our creation. Nothing was denied us. We have the same creative ability, the same all-powerfulness as our divine Father. Our Father is not an angry, vicious man who wants to hurt us in the name of love. When the Spirit brought us forth, He made us as Himself, invulnerable and imperishable. From God only the perfect can come forth. All the fear and resentment which determines our thinking, our feelings and our actions, are caused by our identification with a vulnerable, mortal, contrived self; a ridiculous lie. Spirit cannot die. All the suffering we experience, is imposed by us. It is not the Will of God. Our Father loves us and wants us to be happy. Though negative experiences can lead us to the light, they do not come from God. We can only experience them if we see our self as separated. Love never teaches through hate. We can only be happy if we accept our divine inheritance again. Let us realize who we really are and let go of every identification with the small self image. We are not mortal and powerless. We are not victims of a cruel world, at the mercy of poverty, suffering, sickness, pain and death. In the divine reality, which is the only one, we are immortal and through the divine love and mercy the all-powerfulness, which gives us the opportunity to experience anything we desire, is available to us. God Himself has placed every desire in us, including the desire for more. A desire used by the ego to focus our attention on that in which the unfolding of the divine truth is not to be found. Every desire is desire for God. We fill it in by ourselves with all sorts of substitutes. Haven't you noticed that a fulfilled desire does not give satisfaction, that every satisfaction is only short-lived? Desire continues to exist. If you have one thing, you already desire the next or more of the same. This happens until you no longer value the valueless. That which pleases the ego is always small and perishable. Nothing that is temporary can ever make you truly happy. Only Knowledge of God can really satisfy you. However, without the desire for more, no mortal could be tempted to give up the need for experiencing dualism. For the human being who is not awake, becoming aware seems like destruction, because it is the end of all that is familiar, everything one is attached to. The special relations, that shut out the world, growing old together, the distinction between people, this limited thinking does not exist in divine reality. That is why it is a miracle, if you are willing to follow the path of light. So it is not the desire itself that has to be overcome, for it is not the desire for more that leads us into the consciousness that is chained to matter, but the desire which is focused in the wrong direction. If we would desire nothing more than what we are aware of in duality, that would be the height of hopelessness. If you would think that that which constitutes your reality is life, that that was all there is, you would want to die in the end. Only by seeking, can we experience the grace of God. Because that is how we show our willingness to receive His grace. Seeking is a denial of God, for God is here and now. But you must and will seek until you are fully aware of this all the time. Deep inside we know that we have the ability to experience the infinity of Reality. It is often said that we should accept our experiences, that we should not resist. Do you overcome suffering by accepting it, even loving it, as some say? It is impossible to accept suffering, if we think that it is real. Under the much glorified acquiescence a giant amount of resentment and fear of God is hidden. We can only do this if we accept our unwanted experiences in the realization that they are not based on Reality. We don't have to change anything, because our circumstances change automatically as we are transforming. Everybody experiences limitations. There is a seeming diversity and the one seems to suffer more than the other does, but there is no real level in suffering. Human life is unimaginably painful. It looks like you can maintain yourself and only when you have arrived at the other side of the water do you see how grim human destiny is. Everything that aims at betterment of outward circumstances is only substituting one painful illusion for another. That is why it is useless to repair your situation; only if your thinking changes, changes that endure come into your life. Behind all our desires is the desire for genuine fulfillment. Desire seems to be based on discontent with our current experience. However, every desire is the desire for our divine good, God, but man does not know where to find It. We long for love and want to be loved; and we do not realize that we can only experience that through feeling it. We long for Truth and seek it in outward appearances and things. However, in us is a spiritual might that shows us the Truth, when the Christ has lit this light in us and that power is awakened. We long for power, for we have erased our true power from our memory and now we feel helpless and powerless. However, all the power of God is available for us. We long for freedom and do not realize that we always are. We long for justice and do not see that perfect justice is at work in our lives; that our thinking and our beliefs create all our circumstances and that all the evil we undergo is only in our experience through our imagination. It is impossible for two almighty powers to co-exist. And if there were an evil power that was subject to the power of God, God would know evil and be sinful. God knows no evil and gives no evil and in Reality it does not exist. Reality consists of an everlasting stream of blessings. Man expects to find love in a mortal relationship, but only divine love can make us feel true love. This love is indescribable; it is energy, not just a feeling. Many claim that there are indeed forms of total love here; the love of a parent or love between so-called soul mates were given as examples. Or the love of a millionaire, who has generously given all his money away in the course of a couple of years. Once you have experienced divine love, the love of mortals is nevertheless like a shadow in a mirror, that distorts everything. Love itself is always pure and immaculate, but the thoughts and especially the fears that accompany it, hang like a veil in front of it. What is parental love essentially? In our special love for our children we fill them with fear by teaching them to fear the world and to identify with a body and to think that they have to take care of everything themselves, in stead of relying on divine providence. They learn that in every life evil can strike every moment. It is just a matter of time. Everybody sooner or later receives a portion of suffering. The best they can expect is a smaller portion than others and to travel in reasonably unblemished state on the road to old age and death. They also learn that their parents show more love when they are 'nice' than when they are 'naughty' and so they learn that love must be earned. They learn exactly what they want to learn, all in all. That there is a world in which good and evil alternate. It is for this that we came here and we have all become perfect dualistic thinkers. Without realizing it, we do not give each other the love we truly deserve. We see each other as less than we really are; we all are a manifestation of divine Spirit and excessively lovable. However, personalities do not love; that is in essence not part of a limited self-definition. And yet love is in all and everything is done out of love. The paradox here is that out of love we give hatred and limitation to everyone who wants to experience that. We think that concern is an expression of love, but it originates in fear. Whoever walks in darkness, expresses love in this way. He offers hate, not love, because he does not rely on divine care. Of himself he can do nothing for another; because people cannot really help each other ultimately. It is God Who takes care, God Who helps. Let us not ask for hate any more. Let us finally claim our true inheritance. The love of people for their partner is usually looking to get something. If that was not so, they would love everyone. If someone they do not care for, loves them, that means nothing to them. So the other has nothing they want. Love between 'soul mates' can be a very beautiful experience; but for how long? In dualistic thinking loss is possible and consequently unavoidable. The belief in a special soul mate originated when people in the west learned about reincarnation. Under hypnosis they went back to 'previous lives' and discovered that they had previously had a relationship with their beloved. Two errors are at work here. In the first place there is no incarnation, let alone reincarnation, though there is the experience of it. All time is going on all the time, there is no past or future; there is only the now. And that is not happening on some other level, it is happening on the only level that is real. The experience of time is the experience of an illusion, pretending something. It is like special spectacles we are wearing to see reality differently. If the past is part of the story we tell ourselves, a holographic image, what is reincarnation then? The second error involves the special nature of the relationship. The one, in whom a soul mate is perceived, should rather be considered a traveling companion. A saying that is much quoted calls us 'spiritual beings on a human journey'. This needs to be corrected: we are one spiritual being on a human journey. We are all soul mates. We are one. And the only relationship is a divine relationship, in which your own transformation is served by the relationship. You connect to that which you see in the other. That, with which you connect, determines the relationship. You can see beautiful mortal qualities in the other, but remember that all these 'virtues' have an opposite. And you will experience them, either within or outside of the relationship. If you connect with the Christ instead of with the mortal personality, the relationship is stable and filled with consistent, unconditional love and peace. You do that by letting go of your definitions about the other. What you labeled as lazy at first, or as egotistical, or as an inflated ego, you can then recognize as fear. And you can ask yourself why you are faced with it; what conviction in you shows you behavior that seems to be laziness or egoism or misdirected pride? In every relationship the other only reflects your thoughts and convictions. You always attract people who only reflect your thoughts and beliefs. It is not your job to change another, but we can try to give the other that in which he or she seems to fail. And at the same time realize that their dreams cannot change their Reality and the Truth and the Light in them. We do not have to approve of that which can only elicit aversion, but we should keep in mind that everything we see belongs to the realm of time and is therefore temporary. In fact it is completely in the past. The other is nothing that he thinks he is. What is eternal? The other is that. What is unlimited? The other is that. See his reality and in light thereof you will discover your own light. See the masterpiece of God in the other and he will hold a mirror up that shows you the same. It is very easy to love another if you see God in him. That is the road to happiness, for it changes your vision of life. You lose your fear of your neighbor and that is a large part of the fear that oppresses you. However, call no one good, because personalities are not good. See only the Christ in your brother. All true beauty that you see in another is potentially in everyone and comes from God. In a spiritual relationship you can appreciate the one who is with you very much; but if that is someone else then yesterday, you will not grieve or feel resentment, only gratitude. Then you do not need a special relationship, because you realize that everything in your experience is there to help you expand your realization of God and to expand your consciousness. Every relationship is meant to show you the Truth. And for this purpose exactly the right kindred spirits are placed on your path. In the vision of God we are all perfect. Everything in his Awareness fills God with joy and love. This is what we feel for everyone on our path when we reflect this consciousness. A relationship, which brings you nearer to the experience of who you really are, is a relationship with God. And that is the only real relationship. Everyone knows examples of altruistic behavior. There are many who give away relatively large sums of money. We call someone who risks his life to save another, a hero. Regularly someone, who was trying to commit suicide, is saved. If the savior would realize, that life is immortal and untouchable and that every form of dying is a form of suicide, he might be able to give something of real value to the saved one. Maybe then he could convince the other, that suicide is no solution to problems; that that, which seemingly can be killed, is not real. He should first realize however, that consciousness cannot die. You can only escape by awakening. This also demonstrates that mortal divisions are untenable. Selfishness as well as unselfishness do not exist. By being unselfish your self-esteem rises and usually also that of the people who know you. It is wonderful to feel good about yourself. You will have given yourself that joy. And when you experience everything and everyone as part of yourself, you give freely. You give to your Self and it benefits everyone, including you. It may seem as if there is sacrifice involved. However, that is impossible, when love is given. The need to take care of others, to heal them, to give them love, are all inspired by God. Only the one, who teaches us about our own power, our divine abilities in oneness with God, truly helps us. Everything you furthermore do, serves to make the other accessible for growth of consciousness. But do not make it real! For every need you perceive in the other, is your own. You do what you can; for some that is the giving of money and material things, others give of themselves. These gifts are usually directed at the body. However, everything is used for the good by the Christ, therefore every gift is valuable. And isn't it wonderful if you are enabled to give something of lasting value, namely Knowledge concerning who the other really is and what Reality is? Everyone with whom you are connected, who you manage to reach, is in turn connected to many others. In the end you do everything for your Self; in individual sense and in the complete association the constructive power of love is for your own good. Serving others is in your own best interest. You can only give to yourself anyway. That is very far-reaching. What would serve you best if you lived in a nightmare of your own making? Wouldn't you want to hear that it is just a dream? True giving is surrendering to the point of surrendering all your thoughts to the Holy Spirit. Giving is creating. The Spirit can only create, it is unable to exchange. When you do not give, you do not create and you are in the experience of limitation and death. Then you are stuck in the constructs of your own mind. Everything is your Self. Let go of your identification with a small, limited self. Become aware why you want something; if you think it's money that will make you happy, know then that anything you can buy pales in comparison to the joy God gives. If you look for your happiness in a romantic relationship, realize that you experience love by giving it. Give all the love you possibly can to everyone you meet. And do not forget yourself; the love you are looking for is in you. Do only that which makes you feel good about yourself. If you are yourself you only feel peace. If you go against your own nature, you feel pain. You are a beloved child of God. You are a miracle, for you originated in divine imagination. Treat yourself as God would. And more and more you will see yourself with the joyful, elated vision of God. Realize your true Self; let us think, feel and act as God meant us to, according to our true nature. Chapter 2: The location of God; what is Heaven? The words 'Our Father' say a lot about who we are, what our relationship with God is and what our relationship to each other is. When we say 'who art in Heaven' we do not mean that God dwells in a physical location, somewhere above us. Everything is spiritual and heaven is just like everything else, a state of mind. God is always in heaven; the heavenly, high consciousness is God. God is all there is, outside of God there can be nothing. Everything that seems to be outside of heaven, is made up, it is a simulation, an illusion. The divine consciousness is only aware of the divine. In such consciousness there is no place for relative perception, for the discrimination and the separation of the narrowed mortal view. But we cannot live in a private world. Even in that there is oneness; agreement concerning reality was necessary to make it real for us. To be able to experience a world of separation we even had to agree about that. You needed witnesses for the mad idea that you could be a separate being in a body. If nobody supported you in that notion, you would have given it up long ago. In mortal perception the question surfaces; how can you say that war, crime, illness, poverty, old age and suffering are not real? And why would you say that, what's the use of saying that? What we call evil does have a place in the world of our experiences, but it does not originate in divine reality or in the workings of a malicious power; it is just the product of human ability to experience. Which is fortunate, because if God or an evil power outside of us were responsible, how could we ever escape? There is no God and evil, there is only God. When we say that God is the only power, we say that Reality is absolutely good. We admit that 'evil' can seem very real sometimes. It might seem as if fate has turned against us, as if there is a conspiracy to make us suffer. However, that is not so. Everything is waiting to be looked upon in a different way. There are no limits for us. We can experience anything we want. There is no power at all to stop us. Nothing can keep us poor, unhappy, sick, unsafe or unloved but us. When we focus our attention on God, the almighty good as the only power, all our problems disappear into the nothing from whence they came. God is everywhere and good. God must then also be all and in all. Therefore all is good. God is therefore also in everyone, even in your so-called 'enemies'. As Iyanla Vanzant says 'your brother is God, cleverly disguised as an idiot'. When you focus on his mistakes, you will not be able to perceive his divine essence. Behavior is on the surface and its nature is temporary and passing. We must not make mistakes real, then every seeming evil will disappear from our thought-world. Moreover, God always shows you what you want to see. If you want to see the Christ in your neighbor, enough people will come who want to show you the face of Christ. Those who had the role of 'pressing your buttons' en activating you to forgive, change or disappear from your world of experiences. Of yourself you cannot change anyone. The Holy Spirit changes people, because only He knows their heart and their path. You cannot decide how others should behave. A human being cannot decide what is right. Everyone assumes to know what is enlightened or spiritual or right behavior, but mortal judgment is always wrong, for it is based on wrong assumptions, which are diametrical to Truth. We are here to let go, not to act holy. Human beings are always pretending. In doing that, you eventually lose contact with your true feelings. It demands courage to be genuine. But genuineness leads to happiness. The goal is not to pretend anymore. We have tried to remake God to measure up to our mortal standard; and we made a God who demands that first we suffer and die to get to heaven. And during this whole ordeal you have to love God above all. Who could do that? It is a sensitive topic, the belief in a heaven after death. We can learn something from the experience of people with a 'Near Death Experience' (NDE), who entered the light. We prefer to refer to it as a 'Near Life Experience' (NLE). Every kind of experience in which the mind dissociates from the body is an experience of transformation; therefore it could better be called a 'life' experience or 'near life' experience. And we decide how we come out of it. We decide whether we go home or not. And if not, we continue to experience this illusion of separation. And the purification of our thought-world. Because the last judgment is the moment we have judged for the last time. That is the moment in which we perceive nothing outside of divine reality. Because if we do not condemn anything anymore, there will be no more evil visible in the world around us. It is an experience of transformation, when we experience the divine light and the Christ, our true Self. If we are not yet ready for it, we return. We are not sent back, because our task on the earth is not finished yet, as people with an NLE reported; that is again an interpretation from the fearful ego, who perceives itself again as banished from paradise. If we could stand to be in paradise, in the state of divine oneness, we would simply stay. But our consciousness still cannot stand the higher level of vibration and we experience God as fire. Man deludes himself that God rejected him; he even made up the myth of 'being driven from paradise'. But we never left heaven; we only began to imagine that we were separated from God. Of course you want to know how you got here. Because you are afraid that you did something terrible and were really driven from paradise. And you are afraid of what awaits you when you decide to return. We use everything to associate spiritual life with misery. For that reason we have made up a fearful malevolent threatening God; for that we used the crucifixion of Jesus. You don't enter heaven by dying. Dying is a thought, for which there is no place in the heavenly consciousness. Your task on earth is not finished when your perception is not healed. Heaven is a place of oneness; thoughts of separation cannot abide there. It is our judgment that keeps us out of heaven, our consciousness that is not whole, but split. Doubt, fear, worry, resistance, they are all expressions of the split in mortal thinking. Moods and changing emotions are also a part of that. Anger, misdirected pride and greed are a distorted, mortal version of the attributes of God. In the healed consciousness they gradually fade. We learn to focus our attention on what we can give instead of on what we can get. We can only keep that which is eternal. And we do that by giving it. Some think that a life without capricious peaks and valleys would be dull. But the emotional state continues to vary; except now it varies from fairly cheerful and calm to joy that can almost not be contained. The divine state of mind also includes passion; it is the same energy as anger, but does not leave us emotionally drained. We are always cared for, safe and invulnerable. Every threat we ourselves have made. God is the only power there is and only God's laws are working. What power does the ghost of poverty have then? What can threaten our health? We can let these phantasms in our mind be purified. We don't have to pray to receive our good, because God has already given us everything. We only have to ask to be awakened and to see reality again. There is no spiritual and material world, as we thought, there is only the divine and therefore spiritual world. Isn't it wonderful to recognize that the world is an illusion that can be undone? On earth the perceptual consciousness will be like the heavenly consciousness. In moments of perfect communication, also called holy instants, you let go of your perceptual associations and you are whole. While we are in time all of us will be aware of our oneness and live in a world in which everyone is willing to stand by each other as a matter of fact. We then know what everything and everyone needs. There are no more so-called private thoughts. They never existed, but then nobody pretends that they exist. No one has anything to hide then. And no one hides from the consciousness of another. Then we do not have any fear from one another and all human loneliness is over. Animals are not afraid anymore and show none of the unpleasant traits we attributed to them, when we were allowed to 'name' them. When we know our divine nature, we will have found peace and happiness and wisdom in ourselves. When we live from the inside out, we are always filled with love, peace and joy, regardless of external circumstances. Disagreeable thoughts full of hate no longer have any power over us. In whatever form they present themselves, we encounter everything and everyone with love, faith and understanding. We know reality and know that in essence we are invulnerable and therefore always safe. God loves us and only good can happen to us. Everything that is not divine and presents itself, is coming to us for healing. Do not project healing outside of you anymore, the healer is inside you. Every thought you have put out there, needs to be healed, until you have reached your last judgment. As we become more aware of the incorrect assumptions our thinking was based on, this is purified more and more. We learn to use our ability to judge to make the only sane distinction and ask ourselves in every circumstance; is it real? You are filled to the rim with opinions due to comparing constantly; but you actually compare the wrong things. There is only one comparison the thinking faculty should be used for: Is it real? You are overflowing with opinions by comparing continuously; however, you compare the wrong things. There is only one comparison the intellect should be used for: Is it real? How do we know if it is real? If it has eternal value, it is real. And if everything shares in it. Your desire to be special and separate from everything is keeping you here. There is no true love here; love here is not all encompassing, it discriminates, looks for limited advantage and is usually temporary and conditional. When we know our divine nature, we are loosed from sickness, worry and destructive fearful thoughts. Not that these do not surface in us anymore; they come along another time to see what we do with them, how we react. We have made them and put them outside and everything we have made will come by for acknowledgement. The Power of God makes us whole. Let us ask for healing of the real cause of sickness, suffering and separation, namely our belief in them and concentrate on divine wholeness. We don't have to try to avoid unpleasantness, we only have to see the reality of Truth, God. This form of renunciation of the world is not a spiritual escape, as the ego would ascertain; the only thing we can flee from are our nonexistent projections, so that we can experience the real world. We do not renounce the world, we renounce the lie. That is true altruism, because the greatest possible service you can offer mankind is to let your consciousness be expanded. We do not close our eyes for all the grief and misery in the world. On the contrary, we assume full responsibility. But we also know there is no solution in the world. You can try as hard as you can, work for this, fight against that, but the problems never cease. By having problems and trying to solve them, you keep yourself outside of wholeness and heaven. In this way you make this world real and affirm over and over again that you believe in it. There is only one solution; let go and let God. We should only be attached to God. You cannot be unattached to life. You don't have to be afraid for that to happen. People, who say you can go too far in that respect, think that something in the dualistic world is still valuable. They do not realize that ultimately we are allowed to let go of 'living' on this level. God sees only oneness, wholeness and love. We, who think we see something else, have placed ourselves outside of divine Reality. We experience something that God does not know and that cannot possibly be real. For people this experience of suffering and death seems very real, but it is a fantasy. As long as we believe in it, we experience it. Not our circumstances cause pain, but our belief in separation. Because we have that power; we can experience everything we believe in. This is how we create this make-believe reality; just by pretending. We experience what we believe. Even though there is a divine world, consisting of absolute values, you can experience every illusion you can think of. If you want to know what your beliefs are, take a good look at your world. The reality you experience, shows you what you believe. We must accept our responsibility for our own fabrications. We reject our responsibility, by refusing to experience that which we have fabricated. Because we have placed time between the moment we made them up and the moment we allow the experience of them in our awareness. And in the meantime they are no longer welcome and we try to get away from them. As long as we do not appreciate them or see that they are not real and therefore ridiculous, they keep coming up in our awareness. Everything is happening in one consciousness. Cause and effect are not separate. The law of cause and effect is not a punishment, as is often thought; it works actually to safeguard your power and to make sure you can experience anything you want. That is the free will, which has been given us. This thought-system is diametrical to actual ego thinking. Ego characterizes it as 'unnecessary complicated', 'too centered in the head', and so on. Of course expansion of consciousness has to be demanding. Ask yourself what the old way of thinking is giving you. Do you really want the world of sickness, loss, suffering, decay and death? Is it God's will that we should suffer and die? If it is not God's will, you are not doing God's will if you experience suffering and death. Isn't it time then to ask yourself how you can really do the will of God? And we can experience another reality that is very close to our true state of being. What is simpler than being your Self? We should not rest until the whole world shares this different perception. We cannot be satisfied until the whole world is saved. For this we were called and we who have made it, must see it with the vision of Christ, so that the illusion of a perishable, dying world can be replaced by eternal life. You do not do that by converting your neighbor. Transformation is individual. If you change, the world changes with you. Of course! Whatever seems to be going on 'out there', your perception of it will have changed. Moreover, you will attract those events and people, who are consistent with your awareness. And the light in you invites all to drink together with you out of the cup of eternity. You can experience Heaven on earth. When you awaken, the whole world awakens with you. And that is happening now! Heavenly consciousness is not just meant for mystics. It is the home of us all. When we recognize this, we are overflowing with joy. In this state which is described as 'rebirth', there is a smiling tranquility in us, the 'peace that passes every human understanding'. Chapter 3: Hallowing and healing the Name of God. After our awakening we cannot refrain from honoring and praising God, for this priceless treasure, this pearl of immeasurable worth we have found inside of us. 'Hallowed be thy name' is an expression of this delight and praise. It is also the affirmation that it is the ultimate destiny of each human being to manifest the characteristics of God fully, in wholeness. We complete God, by expressing the godly. The 'Name of God' refers to the divine characteristics, not to a human name. In our perception we have attributed all kinds of characteristics to ourselves which are not in accordance with Divine Reality. We attribute only unreal characteristics to what we perceive, because we perceive everything in terms of good or bad. However, it is not good or bad, it just is not real. Everything is God and all is in God; everything we perceive that is not godly, must be an illusion. We have made up the world of conflict and suffering and death that we perceive. Perception is based on the senses and on interpretation of the perception through the senses; but eyes deceive and ears lie. In the perceptual world nothing is certain, everything is temporary knowledge, till the next insight makes everything uncertain again. Everything is speculation, hypotheses. That which seems so certain at first, is ridiculed a century later. In the world of human cognition it is very easy to make mistakes. Our perception only shows us small unrelated pieces of reality. This godless world begins with perception, a way of perceiving that is opposite of divine cognition, and divine certainty is replaced by human fallibility. The apparatus of the senses is that which enables us to experience illusions. We can only see small parts of the whole. And the small unreal I seeks with grim unrelenting diligence for everything that witnesses of its own reality and the lie of that which cannot exist; the signs of mortality, sickness, pain, suffering and death. The fear-based perception sees all around it something to be afraid of. And all our judging is based on this fear. To have insight in our phantasms about the world and let them go, healing of our perception is necessary. Our perception can only be made whole again with the help of a higher power. We reach the state of consciousness, in which this is possible, when we open up to the Holy Spirit, also called the Whole Spirit or the Holy Inspiration. The same vision that dished up lies can lead us to Truth. Everything can be reinterpreted in favor of divine reality. When we follow the light of the teacher God has given us, we see the world as God beholds it. We only have to be willing to hear this Voice in everything we hear and to see this Light in everything we behold. And this willingness shows it to us. Which godlike qualities should we have? Altruism is seen as one of the most important Christian virtues. We can ask ourselves if it is so desirable, besides attainable, considering the actual definition of altruism. Behind this ideal is the idea of sacrifice. And God does not require any sacrifice. The only things you have to sacrifice are the convictions that bring you conflict. Your thought-world determines how you feel. Sacrifice is impossible. We do become altruistic, but not in the way the ego prescribes. We want to give our brothers everything that serves the transformation of the mind. We want to teach them, not only through words but also through our example. We cannot act differently; in the beginning maybe only because we see that we are always teaching ourselves. And as time goes by we realize that the experience of everyone is always shared. We experience our oneness. You could call it compassion; this feeling originates in the recognition that it is I who experiences lack, it is I who experiences godlessness. But no one is a body. And we know that we must not make this hallucination real. Our understanding of God is now being healed. If you answer to God's Call, which is your calling, you immediately are in His Service. And all your worldly attachments and delusions are broken or transformed. You enter every relationship as God's minister and every relationship is used by the Holy Spirit to augment your spiritual awareness. And you are used to raise the awareness of God everywhere and to bring the Light everywhere. Many books could be written about the initiations awaiting those who tread this path. And that has been done. Ultimately we have to recognize that God is everything and everything can only be whole. But we see unmistakable evil. When we realize that we are experiencing our own illusions, that God does not know it, we begin to become aware of divine reality. Healing our breach in communication is done by contemplation and meditation. We can get to know and experience God in this way; the divine qualities are revealed in us as the love flowing through us, a love that takes possession of us more and more under every possible circumstance and that envelops everything in our experience. In prayer and meditation we can connect to the divine world. In meditation we connect to our Source and thus receive new vitality and inspiration. Through meditation we are filled with peace and harmony, and pour this out over everyone who comes into contact with us, also over the ones we do not see. So meditation is the focusing of the attention on the divine and everything you do in the process is an aid not to let that attention wander. The intention is indicative of the object of attention. If somebody says a mantra, he does so with a reason. In most cases to seek contact with the divine. You cannot seek God in vain; the prayer of the heart is always answered. How it will look depends on the interpretations you put between yourself and the experience of the divine. God remains Itself, but as soon as the thought process and therefore your old thoughts and expectations start to interfere, you create Him in your own image and likeness. In the Bible we are admonished not to make images of God. Our idols are not just the substitutes for God, in the form of attachment to earthly pleasures, but also our definitions of God. We should not try to define God based on our limited fearful human perception. Let God tell us Who and What He is. It is impossible to understand God within human perception. With our perceptual consciousness we cannot experience Totality, but we can transcend this consciousness. We cannot comprehend infinity with our intellect. The intellect was the tool of the ego up till now, of the filtering mechanism with which we maintain this world of good and evil. Therefore we have to let our thoughts be purified before we can experience our oneness with God. We have to become like children, with the faith of children and set aside everything we think we know. God reveals Himself to those who seek Him earnestly and passionately with an open mind. We unfold spiritually by turning inside, not by rituals or by good deeds. That is where you find the Power of God. Listen to that inner voice. We do not attain the desired result by talking piously about God or by discussions with others or intellectual research; they can witness to desire, but the ideas of others can often create confusion, because the advice of mortal thinking is not based on the right information. Desire and patience are finally answered by God, for those who seek God in the silence. However, it is not necessary to wait to contact God. In the wonderful book 'Working with God' Gardner Hunting states that you do not have to wait for peace and the resulting joy. The things of the earth require time, we reap when the harvest is ripe. But the fruits of the Spirit are always available. As soon as you start to look for the Kingdom, you will find it. You do not have to wait until your mind is purified; leave that to the Holy Spirit. You only have to be willing and to open up yourself in faith for the love, peace and joy God wants to give you. There are many ways to pray. The act of praying is contemplation; turning the attention inward and reflecting on the words. Concentration is often considered a problem. Staying awake and not letting the thoughts wander seems to be a challenge. Admittedly, meditation has to be learned. But when we are willing and persist, step by step we succeed. An inner urge has developed to meditate and be about our Father's business. The world of our thoughts is more and more filled with the divine and where could our thoughts then stray? Many say the Lord's Prayer in affirmative form. And doubtless that is very powerful; that part of the prayer, that refers to divine reality, has come to us in this form. It is the part in which is stated that God is in Heaven, that He rules there and is our Source and governs our life and furthermore, that all power and glory are God's. What we are asking for is to become aware of the divine guidance that is always there. We also ask for help to accept it. It is often recommended to let prayer be accompanied by certain body-postures and gestures. Movements of the body can also be an aid in concentration, especially when physical feelings and movements are an important perceptual mode. You can dance toward God. For some reading the prayer is effective, for others hearing it. No matter which favorite perceptual channel we use to focus our attention on the divine, it may be clear that the power of prayer lies not in ritual repetition, but in conviction. When we pray with faith and trust, it cannot but be effective; it permeates our hidden memories and through the grace of God these are returned to our consciousness. For that is God's Will. The purpose of meditation is to have your thoughts purified and then to leave this mortal world behind you. That is why meditation is not only limited to the time you spend in quiet contemplation, but more and more permeates the daily routine, for it becomes the state of your consciousness. Then your whole life is meditation and you are a master of the stream of thoughts. In that inner silence you hear God's voice. The goal is not to silence our thinking. Thinking is good, the goal is to heal and change the thoughts that surface in us. For that purpose the correct relationship between the thoughts and the thinker must be recognized. You can be a master of your thoughts when you realize that you are connected to one of two sets of thought sets; one of the ego, the mortal set of thoughts, or that of God. You learn to notice the thoughts that come up and transcend the procession of thoughts from the realm of mortal ideas. When you name and examine your desires, feelings and experiences with the aid of the Holy Spirit, you gain insight into your motives. You start to see your life patterns and your convictions. And you recognize that incorrect identification with a limited small self is responsible for all limitations you ascribe to yourself. You learn to look upon all judgments and thoughts without attachment to them and to offer them then to the Light of the Whole Spirit to make them whole. That is how you attain a clear awareness. It is your function to shine light on every mortal, limited thought that passes through you, before allowing it to continue. You cannot leave this world while it is in your awareness; as long as you believe in it you will experience it. You can only experience another world with a changed consciousness. Though it may seem as if we enter another world, we do not leave this world for another. There is only one real world. Only our consciousness and consequently our perception changes. You can only leave the simulation if you experience the divine world, Reality. But that is only possible if you let go of the belief in evil, in opposites, in fact your judgments and grievances. And you cannot do that by yourself. Through prayer and meditation the mortal thought-world, the ego, starts to realize how it works, what it is doing and how futile that is and gives up. It becomes silent. Then that which is real, the real thinker, not influenced by time or space, can manifest. Divine insight dwells in us; there is suddenly an irrefutable knowing in us, so totally different from the conclusions, based on all kinds of hypothesis and fallible observations, to which we were accustomed. However, it is impossible to voice that knowing. In our perceptual experience reality is symbolic. As such words are symbols referring to symbols. As far as it can be called a process, it goes as follows:
As a consequence of this you will experience the blissful stream of awareness and carry in your heart divine peace and joy. You will experience your oneness with God, infinite awareness, and unconditional love and acceptance for everything in your consciousness. It is an indescribable state of mind. God reveals Itself in us as a place of inner peace where we can always enter. A peace so filled with joy that it could be described as ecstatic peace. The purpose of prayer is communion with God. If we sincerely try to focus our attention on that and pray with faith, all power joins our prayer. We do not have to beg for the good, as we used to do based on old-fashioned religious beliefs. We now know that God has given us all the good already when He expanded Himself as us. We only have to realize this. This Self-Realization is attained by recognizing and affirming the reality of it. Whatever may be the content of your prayer, in fact you are always praying for yourself. You are always reminding yourself what Reality is, you keep affirming Truth. In fact the goal of praying and affirming is to convince yourself of the Truth. Despite all the evidence that we receive that Power of God is the only Power and despite the experience of Divine Reality, the belief in that to which the senses witness, keeps popping up for some time. It has taken us a long time to learn to believe in the ego ideas. Although it takes a much shorter time, still it does take some time to unlearn to accept them as truth. Through prayer, our conscious union with our divine awareness, our consciousness expands, in order for love, peace, joy, harmony and prosperity to flow into our experience. In prayer we only have to ask to be enabled to see Divine Reality, the light that is everywhere in and around us. The right prayer affirms that the good has already happened and has happened for everyone and all we seem to see is but an illusion. In Reality there is only love, knowledge and understanding, safety and invulnerability, peace, joy and abundant good. The ego manufactures escape routes to try to make the ego world real. Instead of totally denying that the ego world would be an illusion, it now discerns 'levels'. Then there is the world of common everyday experience, which is very real; and the world of God, which is still very far from us. The ego keeps trying to make the illusion real. However, there is only one level, the level we all are. The rest is like a movie, playing in front of us. We are not a part of it. We can identify with the actors, but it just isn't real. Everything we perceive here, be it beautiful or ugly or good or evil, just is not real. But that only becomes an experience, when we are willing to let go of our belief in illusions. Prayer can only serve one personal purpose; we can ask that our eyes be opened to experience Reality again. Even that request is really superfluous, because it is the only thing that is really going on here. But as long as we seem to live in this make-believe world, it is necessary for us to do that. The purpose of prayer is union with our divine consciousness. When that happens, we usually remember little to nothing about it, we only know it has happened. That which we still remember is distorted, because we only take images in the perceptual dualistic consciousness with us from these experiences. If you are one, there is no witness, nobody to perceive it. The Kingdom of God is in you. When you enter in, every dualism and time ceases to exist. Only timeless oneness is there. There is no I as beholder, one experiencing and something outside of me that is experienced. There is only I. Everything is I. Chapter 4: What is the Will of God? It is the Will of God that we become conscious of our abilities, which He has given to us. In the end we will all rediscover our wholeness and the earthly consciousness will also be permeated by the divine and dissolve into it. 'Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on earth as in Heaven' expresses this truth. The Will of God must be done, because there is only the Power of God. There is nothing that can stop God's Will. That is why it has already been done. The Will of God is always done and anything that could not be His Will is not real. The self-hypnosis we have imposed on ourselves must finally vanish so our divine consciousness, our original state, can take its rightful place. And then there is only life and love, wisdom and insight, peace, joy and safety in our earthly experience, as long as we still perceive this world of forms. It is God's Will that we are divinely led while we are still here, in the world of forms and narrowed perception. It is God's Will that we travel on the road of life in conscious oneness with each other and with God. Because it is God's Will that we are happy. A much heard contention is; if it is not the Will of God that we experience lack of health, suffer poverty and there is lack of love in our life, why do we experience that? Why do we lose our loved ones, are we ill, or at war? Why do we suffer and die? The answer is; because we believe that. Together we have invented a world in which these experiences seem possible. We are convinced that this is what happens and therefore we do not have to be surprised if the blows also fall in our corner. The saying 'into each life some rain must fall' is very illustrative of the mortal convictions. In our lives the law of cause and effect is operating. Dr. Herbert Beierle says in his book 'I am Number One' that we create our reality in very successful ways. By contemplating, longing for, or fearing the effect, we activate the cause. Everything we experience, we have attracted ourselves. We pray the whole time and all our prayers are always answered. We condemn and are in turn condemned. All the negative energy we send out returns multiplied, as are all things we give. We give love and peace, we give delight and joy, and that too is multiplied. He points out that since we want a state of joy and abundance in our world, we should flood our world with that which we want to see in it. Giving all the good we can is therefore in our own best interest. We can advise everyone to experiment with other convictions and ideas and to experience consequently the unsuspected possibilities life offers. Without willingness on your part, demonstrated by focusing your attention on the invisible, you cannot receive divine light and grace. Vision only comes where it is welcome. God's Will is never forced on us. Why would it? In Reality nothing can happen to us and everything we imagine, is only that, a fantasy without lasting consequence. The change in our thought system and in our convictions is a total transformation. Compromise is impossible. Of course there is confusion for a while, as long as our old conditioning still has a hold on us, but our old ideas and judgments are more and more replaced by new, constructive and joyful thoughts. Until the good finally comes to us effortlessly from the depth of our own inner being. You also find that others relate to you in a different way as you let go of your old concepts. As long as you maintain your old identity and confirm it in others, your relationships cannot change. You condemn the other to sickness, suffering and death by seeing him as a personality, chained to a body, somebody who can get sick, can suffer and die. It is the Will of God that we let go of our judgments, our perception of good and evil. And our disapproval of that which we perceive. Because by disapproving we make it real and give it power over us. As long as you worship your concepts, you will defend them and there is no place for God, Truth, for expansion of consciousness. In each of us Divine Spirit, the Christ-consciousness, abides. We are one spiritual being. Yet we each are an individual expression of that, you could say another perspective. And even though the personality is an untenable construction, you will always be you. Living in accordance with God's Will drastically improves our circumstances. Our lives are then filled with love and joy and peace. Limiting circumstances like sickness and other forms of lack still present themselves, but that only happens for the healing of your mind. We no longer have to live in a fearful cramp, with the feeling as if the sword of Damocles is hanging over our heads. Every suffering and every lack we experience is a clear message from our inner being that we are not in harmony with that which we truly are and with that which we desire from life. Especially disease gets our attention. If we look at the body without pasting all sorts of labels on it and without all kinds of demands, it turns out to be an instrument of God, that perfectly does what it has to do. Then you can look in the mirror and see God. Not our body is sick, we have sick thoughts about our body. Our body is perfect. And we will experience that, if we let go of our parcel of demands. We suffer and are being held prisoner by our own definitions. Our bodies and our circumstances are always perfect. The will has been imprisoned by the ego thinking. Although the will of the ego may seem substantial, it is not a free will. It does not create. Only illusions come out of it. When we follow the lead of the ego it may appear as if we have a strong will. We appear to be very dominant or dictatorial. But it is just a style of conduct based on fear. Such behavior stems from fear of limitation and lack of true self-confidence. When you have experienced helplessness, the need for control and dominance rises. However capable a human being handles situations in life, everyone will sometime be faced with a situation for which there is no human solution. The 'self-realized person' is not afraid of limitation and does not feel helpless. Such a person has self-confidence and is strong, determined and independent. Because there is no need for control at all, this person radiates gentleness and kindness. The immovability underneath is not an opposing power; it is the power to surrender. Thus the fearful ego manifests as having trouble to let go of control. It is unable to surrender and brings the experience of weakness and helplessness. Both the weak, fearful person and the dictatorial, fearful person learn to trust. That is the solution the Holy Spirit has for human inadequacy. It is logical that the learning path will be different for both. A strong will is necessary on the spiritual path. It is the will not to accept less than you deserve. You cannot accept the frustration anymore. It surpasses the tolerance and makes one wonder if there isn't a better way of living. When the boundary of our tolerance for pain has been reached, we surrender. The same determination, which caused us to run into a brick wall, then enables us to serve God passionately and to face the stumbling blocks on the spiritual path firm and relentless. It looks like it is difficult to replace the thought system of the ego by the Christ consciousness, but contemplate how difficult it has been to learn to be fearful and careful. Consider how much effort is necessary to survive without God, in a world where everything can attack you any moment. Is the drunk driver who comes toward you slipping and sliding, while you are crossing the street, God? He seems to be able to rob you of your life. Is that life? When you no longer have to judge what danger the things on your path could present, your whole being relaxes. We learn to bring all conflicts and thoughts we have about sickness and lack to the light. When we perceive sickness or lack anywhere, we no longer accept it as an unavoidable part of reality. If it weren't so tragic, it would be amusing. No matter how we experience this suffering, we ask for help to see Reality and not our incorrect construction of it. This is a totally different way to be sick. It is fulfilling our function. And every thought that has been healed in us is filled with light when it arrives at another. This is how we heal the world. We live again in full reliance on the power of God, which has no opposite. Every fear of self-imagined dangers is dissolved in the light of Truth and consciousness. We are now on our way to total fulfillment. What is the Will of God? It cannot be the Will of God that we acquiesce in death, which strikes all around us, in the destruction of all we love, that we have learned to fear. Would a perfectly loving father be able to want that for us? Who would want to have any dealings with a father who takes away our loved ones, who brings us sickness and lack, to finally even rob us of our life? It is not God's Will that we should suffer and die. We have tried to shut God out to experience another will, a fake power. We only wanted to examine every idea in the infinite Mind and this one was truly preposterous! The orthodox say that God wants to be served freely and that we have a free will for that, in order to choose for or against God. And the deepest fear of humans is that this would be true. What kind of a will would that be, that chooses for unhappiness and suffering and against our Father, Whom we passionately love? Everyone always longs for God, because everyone is looking for happiness. God's Will is our will, there is no other. When we do not seem to be doing His Will, we are just examining the elaboration of the idea of opposites and identifying with it, to be able to fully understand it. We seem to be stuck, because we are so skilled at empathizing and believe that we are victims. When you choose to see yourself as a victim, you give your power to everything and everyone outside of you. You probably get a lot of sympathy then, but you're stuck. You will live in constant fear. Therefore, to heal you have to realize that you can choose. And that everything you experience is your own choice. When you confront your feelings and just undergo your pain and your desire to avoid it, the so-called evil in your life dissolves. Resistance does not solve anything. Fighting against your problems only gives them more power over you. Because acknowledging them makes them real. We do not analyze them to find the best course of action. We are used to thinking that some concepts are better than others. But all our choices are meaningless. The ego uses the idea of choices to let us seek endlessly, while we never can find peace due to the way it thinks, in terms of limitation and comparison and judgment. We think that one thing is better for us than another, but what can really be bad in the Kingdom of God? The only valuable choice is letting the Holy Spirit choose for us and so surrender our will to God. We have the freedom to allow the good to manifest in our lives. Then we experience freedom and peace. We can let go of the experience of limitation, and observe worries, plans for the future, control, physical limitations and decay disappear from our experience. Letting go is all that is necessary. No resistance, no defenses, and rejecting every dualistic thought. Every defense makes evil real. The only sin in the sense of waste is doubting God and therefore belief in separation. You do not have to identify with limitation, because you are not that. You are meant to fully realize your potential. You are unlimited. You are fully aware if you say so. There is only one mind awakening. It is our purpose in life to become aware. The most precious thing we can have is contact with our true Self, which is a constant inner presence. Nothing else can give us inner peace and security. Not money or other people. Everything outside of us is unpredictable. The power we seek has to come from inside us. And that inner clarity and purity then becomes the leading power in our lives. We no longer live reactively, and our thoughts are not constantly focused on the past or the future. Then we can be in the now, because we let go of our grievances about the past and our fear for the future. This gift of becoming aware of our divine reality, of our true being, is the only thing we can lack. We have everything for the taking. We are not the powerless, limited beings we thought we were. We can decide to what stimuli and external signals we want to react, instead of feeling like powerless puppets in the hands of others and fate. We can learn to use the spiritual power in us to find true fulfillment. Everything that increases lasting love, peace and joy in us can be part of our experience. We only use a very small part of our spiritual abilities, as long as we use the Law of cause and effect unconsciously. Let us learn to use it consciously to lead the divine life, that is the Will of God. It is our purpose to use our spiritual abilities fully again and when that will be done, this world will no longer exist. But until then, until we remember our true Self perfectly, we are here in this world, remembering to make optimal use of the power that is available to us. We have gone through a lot of trouble to learn to believe in the world and to develop our belief system. It requires a lot less effort to undo it, but from our limited perspective it seems to require a lot of patience. We only experience the graphic representation of our beliefs. All we have to do is change our beliefs and we have tremendous help in doing that. The only thing we have to do is to ask the Holy Spirit for help and be willing to let go of everything that does not belong to divine reality. The Holy Spirit, Who governs the heavenly true consciousness, will bring the earthly material perception to true perception under divine guidance. That is a state of mind in which the mind has taken in its rightful place as an instrument of the soul and no longer controls your life with limiting thoughts and ideas. And then the divine will, which is indeed only our will to be eternally safe and peaceful, is done. Nothing else is possible, for what God wills, is done and has already been done. There is no other will but God's and God wants His creation to be happy and expressing the godly. We have then crossed over to an area that seems to be situated on the border of the mortal world and Reality. From there we can beckon to those on the other shore to come there too. We cannot go back to them and join them on the level of consciousness they are on. Such a form of compassion does not serve them, for it confirms to them that they are experiencing something else than their divine reality. They are served by our acknowledging their wholeness and refusing to accept anything else. In fact they are invulnerable and always blissful. Nothing is the matter with them. The whole drama they think that they are in is not real. And we can look behind the mask they show us. Then we live in harmony with each other and with every manifestation of life. Life is an eternal symphony and the song is called 'Love'. The conductor is Love and life moves to the beat of Love. When you tune in to that, your life is glorious. When the light has come, we do not feel alone anymore. We feel a warm glow that envelops us like a blanket. We feel a gentle presence, always there for us. We experience there is nothing to fear. When the light has come, we are relieved and glad. All our worries turned out to be unfounded, all our striving in vain. The Kingdom of God is eternal and untouchable, but the earthly consciousness, chained to matter, has to become aware of it. Then the Will of God is also manifest on earth. Chapter 5: What is our daily bread? Praying like this teaches us to let go of our belief in lack. We learn to trust in the care of God. We don't have to ask God to provide for our daily needs. Everything necessary to maintain our physical existence is already here. We possess the ability to bring everything into our experience. If we trust in the care of God, realizing that everything is always there for us, we don't have to preoccupy ourselves with that. When we share in the divine abundance we don't feel the need to cut out a piece of it and say 'that belongs to me'. The realization that we possess everything gives the feeling 'everything is mine and is available for me. Everything comes to me as soon as I need it.' It is possible that we possess a lot, but we don't consider it our possession, we consider it Gods possession. We realize that the contact with that which really sustains us, the Source of our life and of all the good in our world of experience, is the true food. God has given us everything and we ask for increased awareness and sharing Gods vision. Jesus said 'first seek the Kingdom of God and all else will be added'. When we try to reach God we will experience the unfoldment of divine care and guidance in our lives in miraculous ways. The miracles we experience when our consciousness allows the revelation of divine reality are too numerous to describe. Our daily bread is our contact with our divine Source; we attain spiritual nourishment through the experience of our oneness with God. God pours His own Being out over us through the gifts of immortal life and unconditional eternal love, truth and wisdom, peace and joy. The material is an outgrowth of this. You can bring everything into your experience, therefore also the material. There is nothing that opposes you, except your belief that something is impossible or takes time or whatever objection. All the good in your experience is just evidence for the glory of God. It is possible to live in awareness of the true being, not ascetic, but in joyful possession of everything that contributes to spiritual growth. One only values the truly valuable, and no longer has a wrong idea about pleasure. Through this one obtains priceless treasures. The fruits of the spirit are spiritual beauty and wholeness. They, who lose the attachment to the material, gain the peace of ceaseless spiritual joy. What do you want something for? For the feeling that it gives you. If something material gives you peace, it is nevertheless a very temporary peace. The peace God gives is everlasting. Mortal consciousness can barely conceive of the feelings of someone who experiences this. It has no comprehension of it at all. It is truly hidden behind a veil. When we have found the Kingdom of God in ourselves, we can want for nothing. We then open ourselves to the divine and receive that, instead of the gratification of our insane wishes. They, who realize that an almighty Father takes care of him or her, have nothing to fear. And he withholds nothing. It is our disbelief which keeps his gifts from our world of experiences. He does not force anything on us. Does God give? He has already given us everything by creating us as Him. What can we ask for that we have not received already? When we realize the magnitude of all that God has given us, our heart rejoices. Until that time we can practice gratitude to silence the continuous screaming of the ego, which always experiences lack and in essence asks for it. We think we would have peace if we had enough money or something else outside of us. However, this kind of peace is short-lived. The peace of God, which we experience, is a joyful, gentle serenity in us, independent of our outer circumstances. Though ultimately these circumstances also reflect our inner peace, because everything that seems to be outside of us, is a product of our consciousness. Everything you seem to see outside of you, is the graphic representation of an idea, a conviction. We are a story-telling species. Everything is a story we tell ourselves. We are trying to define our reality all the time. Jesus offers us a better story to replace our old painful stories. Let go of your stories and keep only those that truly make your life pleasant and therefore have eternal value. There is nothing we cannot possess and experience and we already possess and experience everything we want. If that does not seem to be the case, that is only because we are not aware of what we have requested and how we draw our experiences toward us. We feel like victims; a human being is totally upset about everything. And rightfully so. Mortal experience is a hell of guilt and hurt. Whatever you think is going on outside of you, when you take the responsibility for it, you let go of the projection of guilt. If you are in the middle of problems, you feel like a victim and it is difficult to see that you are responsible for your experiences. Acknowledge however, that you must have asked for them, even if you don't know how. Healing begins when you realize; 'I must have asked for this, because this is what is happening, this is what I am experiencing. I do not understand why; I cannot imagine that I would want this, but that must be so. Help me to change my mind.' And in this acknowledgement your mind has changed and you let go of your misplaced inappropriate identity as a victim. In the human consciousness there is lack of the good, the divine; there is war, famine, poverty, sickness, abuse, old age and death. We don't have to try to get rid of them. We only have to seek the kingdom of God, the contact with our Source. When we seek contact with God every lack disappears from our experience, when our mind is filled with the divine peace, that passes every human understanding. That is what we need, not more things or money or any material thing. You practice gratefulness by telling yourself daily: 'I am thankful that every negative thought-pattern in my consciousness is now being clarified, erased and let go. I now let go of all negative thought patterns that have contributed to the fear of evil, poverty, pain, loneliness, the feeling of inadequacy, losses of any kind and every other insanity lurking in a dark corner of my consciousness. I am thankful that I am free to be master of my own life. I only want to experience my oneness with God and with my neighbors. Therefore I stop blaming and criticizing. I let go of all grievances. I am grateful for everything I enjoy. Living is enjoying. I enjoy my fellow creatures. I enjoy my happy, loving, joyful and peaceful relationships with others. I am grateful for the beauty, loveliness and purity I see in my fellow men, for everything I see in them, I am. Instead of finding faults in others and myself I discover wonderful things in them and in myself. We are angels for each other and we are all here to deliver each other from our self-made prison of limited thinking. I am grateful for the love, which flows through me and which I may express and for the love that is constantly demonstrated to me. I give happiness and happiness flows back. I am grateful that I can look with love on everything. I see the light, the valuable in everything. That is not the perishable good, because that is not real, but the reflection of Divine Spirit. Everything reflects me and I am valuable. Everything in my world of experiences is filled more and more with light and love, peace and joy, because I am filled with light and love, peace and joy. I am grateful because I am rich because of what I really am. I am grateful because I experience the Presence of God.' In this way we could fill volumes with our expressions of gratitude. Every problem dissolves if we so choose. And that is done in a way that brings inner peace and happiness and harmony in our consciousness. Not because the problem has been solved, because that would imply that your state of mind depends on outer circumstances. That is the way in which the little I creates happiness; it fabricates a problem and by going through the process of solving it, it experiences joy. However, we can truly do everything in Christ. We are peace and joy and happiness. And when we focus our attention on that, instead of on so-called problems, there is less and less room in our consciousness for fearful thinking. Nothing external is necessary for joy. It is just there, if you are open for it. It is like the joy of a child skipping and jumping with pure lust for life. Why do we have to ask for our daily bread if God has already given us everything and the flow of divine bounty is always available? God can be reached very easily and is always reaching toward us. The good constantly flows to us. God is always within reach; every break in communication comes from our side. Spiritual guidance and insight are always available. However, by asking we open up ourselves and invite God to share His Thoughts with us. And God comes where we are; we obtain the insight that fits into our frame of reference. Our daily bread is most of all faith and trust in the divine, which God gives us when we ask for it. We are always safe and invulnerable. We realize that through learning to trust. Confidence in God also cultivates self-confidence. For then we realize we can cope with anything the other lays at our front door. The power and the might of God are obtainable; there is nothing we cannot handle. Divine understanding does not come through people, but only through our willingness to refuse every apparent lack of the good and to open our minds to the realization that we are infinite consciousness, manifesting every divine idea. That realization of your Self as the divine 'I AM' brings with it an abundance of health, safety, beauty, peace, joy, godlike abilities, harmony, satisfying work and activities, prosperity, a wonderful home, honor and gratitude, wisdom, insight and knowledge, friendship, affection from all, love which you receive and give and flows through you like an almost tangible energy. You are then the 'light of the world' and automatically bring healing to every contact, because you are healing. And every mind that joins yours receives the same impulse. Every manifestation of sickness or other lack can come to you for healing. Those thoughts are held there in the human mind. It does not matter if it is your body that is sick or if you see another body which harbors that idea. Many think that Jesus admonished us not to ask for abundance, but only for that which is sufficient, with the words 'give us this day our daily bread'. However, abundance is Gods nature. Everything divine is abundant. Love, peace, joy, beauty, divine possibilities and insight are infinite and unlimited. And the world of form reflects that divine abundance. That is what Jesus meant when he said that he has come so we can have more life and have it more abundantly. When we receive our 'daily bread' our cup runs over with divine love and peace and joy and we love to share that with others. We want to bless others with the blessings we ourselves have received. Jesus pointed out that we cannot serve two masters; we cannot serve God and Mammon. Mammon is usually seen as the god of the world, the materialism. But there is more to it. The Mammon represents dualism, the belief in two powers of so-called good and evil, as opposed to one single divine power. That is why Paul said (I Cor.10:21-22): 'You cannot drink of the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils; you cannot be partakers of the table of the Lord and the table of devils.' Those who attest to the power of evil are in fact worshippers of that which they so vehemently claim to reject. Guilt-ridden humans needed a being they could project their guilt on. When Jesus said it is impossible to serve two masters, he meant that the materialistic and dualistic vision is irreconcilable with the spiritual vision. He did not mean that we should live in poverty or that service to God implies 'dying to'. The true meaning of dying to is dying to the little I, the relinquishment of our self-conceit, willfulness, and presumption, and our fearful thoughts. This worship of the Mammon is the attachment to the ego-existence in a world without God. In 'The Cup or Monad', a part of the Corpus Hermeticum, it is said that all the pleasures should be rejected which the body seems to bestow on them who do not make a connection with the other side of the coin. Because you cannot serve God and Mammon. You cannot give yourself simultaneously to the perishable and the divine. And you cannot love the perishable self, for it reminds you of the vulnerability you think you are subjected to. When the perishable no longer fascinates you, you really begin to think; your thinking faculty is being developed and then it is possible to receive Knowledge. You cannot unite the two. It is impossible to bring the perishable to God; and it is impossible to atone God, the unchangeable, with the perishable. God does not know it, cannot know it and will never know it. God does not know that which does not exist. The whole notion of mortality is alien to Him. God is the Good, and nothing else. And nothing else is knowable to Him. When you begin to remember your true nature again, you will finally be able to love yourself, for you are truly loveable. When you choose this Self, you really are at an advantage. It is a profitable choice. It turns you into a God. The Mammon is everything that is external and perishable, the whole mortal realm. And not the attachment to possessions; that is a limited and, for the ego, safe definition of it. The fear of becoming prey to greed, and fear of loss and attachment, caused people to reject the pleasant things of the earth. They feared earthly riches and despised them and condemned them. But if you have received the heavenly treasures, the earthly are also tossed into your lap, unless you reject them on purpose. Because prosperity on earth only reflects spiritual prosperity. Money is one of the visible manifestation of divine prosperity. Earthly treasures are impersonal and useful. They only have the value we attach to them. They who long for the earthly riches, whether they have little or a lot of them, are demonstrating what has value for them. But those who live in forced soberness, apparently value poverty. Detachment does not imply that one should do without something; one just has to live in the realization of being only dependent on God. We are allowed to have everything. We should only realize that the limiting view of the ego, that pleasant financial circumstances could give you peace, is unfounded. There are many rich and very wealthy people, who graphically illustrate a lack of inner peace. You can experience peace, no matter what the circumstances are. We are meant to have everything for the adventures, which we wish to undergo. And that has already been given us; we only have to place our 'order'. We cannot order God around, but he is waiting for us to choose whatever we want from His storehouses. In Christ we are heirs and everything our Father has, belongs to us. Your financial problems are solved if you so choose. Riches, which do not come from the realization of God, bring with them fear of loss and worries. True wealth is the absence of financial worries. When we are aware that riches come from God, we can truly enjoy them. They then bring heavenly harmony and peace, for they are unlimited and universal. They bless all creation. Wealth is a state of mind. Wealth should circulate in your life like air through the lungs. However, you should not cling to money. You should give freedom to money. You own the whole world. God takes care of all your financial affairs. You are only dependent on God, and that also goes for your income. But we do not seek God for the advantages it renders; we seek God like a lover yearns to see his beloved. We yearn for God like someone who is drowning yearns for air. And while we do that, 'all things are added' and we realize it is Gods pleasure to give them to us and are grateful, as we are grateful for all His gifts. But our state of mind is paradoxical, because we feel a certain indifference towards the coming or staying of those things, for we experience no lack. Not only do we want for nothing, for God has given us everything, but in fact we only need God. That is what we really want to experience. Anything else is a diversion. The question is posed how it is possible then that many become rich without minding God. No matter which way man obtains or uses riches, prosperity is still the gift of God. Prosperity is the presence of God. In many descriptions of the Kingdom of God in the Bible examples of worldly prosperity and abundance are used. However, when someone has formed a clear image of that which he thinks is necessary for his earthly journey and sees it as realized and knows that it is done, it is accomplished, whether he does that with something he fears or something he would like to experience. It may take a while, depending on his ideas about the time necessary and the way in which it has to be accomplished. But the (un)desirable is definitely on its way. However, the prosperity of those who do not acknowledge their Source, is temporary and does not bring real love, peace and joy, the true riches of man. They are fearful and dissatisfied. They identify with a body and fear for their lives, their health and their loved ones. Some rich people are very unhappy, because they saw money as a last resort to find happiness. It did not happen and then they give up hope of finding true happiness. If even money can't give it to you, what can? Spirituality and true prosperity go together. And attachment to money or to poverty is not right-minded, for it attests to belief in lack. Money is the root of much good, money is very spiritual. Money is like air, there is more than enough to go around and it is available to us. We don't have to do anything for it. God takes care of His children and gives them everything they need for their earthly journey. Lasting happiness and prosperity come to those who acknowledge their Source, practice His Presence and are thankful for the gifts they have received. And everything is a divine gift, including the talents and energy that enable us to experience prosperity within the frame of reference we have created ourselves. Those who are prosperous because they acknowledge their Source, have faith in the future, in themselves and in others. They allow their inner guide to lead them to people and situations that bring harmony and prosperity to all involved. In all their affairs they only want that which is in everyone's best interest. Their kindness and the peace they radiate make them attractive for others. They have the true sensibility, which does not heed the voice of fear, but that of divine reason. And that one proclaims that everything means them well and everything will work out to their advantage, no matter what it looks like. God wants us to be happy and gives us that which makes us truly happy, if we unite our will with His and restore the communication. Jesus says that it gives the Father pleasure to give us the Kingdom, to give us mastership over all limitations and difficulties we perceive. Every lack we experience, be it lack of health or material means or harmony, is the consequence of a seeming breakdown in communication. It keeps us from living and thinking in the right way. We must be constantly willing to have everything in our experience that seems to be opposed to God, removed; not as something real, but by letting its lie be replaced by the understanding that God, the good, is all. There is no God and an opposite, there is only God! If we would need food, that could only consist of the spiritual gifts of God. Only that can sustain us. Divine Love is our daily bread. And there is always plenty of it, we only have to realize it and accept it. And that Love is expressed in our material experience as our eternal life, harmony, happiness, abundance and well-being. We cannot want for anything, even here, because Love sustains us. Chapter 6: Forgiveness It may be clear that God does not condemn us. God accepts us unconditionally, not like we think we are, but like He knows we are. Why then would we ask God for forgiveness? What are our debts and sins? Having turned our backs on God? Our sin is that we believe we have done so. We believe we are guilty and sinful. We believe that our feverish dreams are real, that we can really be separated from God. Praying for forgiveness aids us in understanding God's love and the value of non-judgment better. If we really think about forgiveness, we will undoubtedly understand how our interpretation mechanism has gone astray. Jesus wanted to convince us that we must forgive. Judgment, criticism, blame, resentment and feelings of guilt and projections of guilt keep us in the hell of limited consciousness. If we want forgiveness, we have to forgive first. Everything we hold against another hangs like the sword of Damocles above our own heads. We only condemn ourselves. As you perceive another, you will perceive yourself. In a vision in which you perceive others as weak and evil or not aware, you will expect that from yourself. If you confirm the image of the other as evil and you do this when you want the other to confess he was wrong, this image is maintained. Who are you punishing? People seem to be continually preoccupied with guilt and punishment; somebody has transgressed and somebody has to pay. Usually they project the guilt outside of themselves, but they are not really convinced of the pseudo innocence they then perceive in themselves, because they also punish themselves. Except that they think they are victims, that they have not created their circumstances themselves. Who judges, judges himself. For 'with what measure you mete, you shall be measured' the Master declared. Who condemns, is condemned to limitation and littleness. And you will have to watch yourself so you don't do the things for which you condemn others. And if you do, you will condemn yourself too, or justify yourself and nevertheless feel guilty deep down, thus lowering your self-esteem. The horrible image most have of themselves, whether they realize or not, attracts experiences of sickness, suffering and lack. You are what you perceive and in fact that can also be described as; what you experience is what you think you are worth. Only one who is awake, so to speak, knows the appearance of true innocence. A child in a television program once posed the question 'why do people do such terrible things?' and everyone was appalled that innocent children were confronted with the cruelty of the world. But the question does not testify of innocence. To be able to pose the question the child has to have knowledge concerning 'terrible things' and apply the mechanism of projection. Such a child has already discovered the matter of guilt and is a participant in the world of imaginary opposites, the world in which 'the other' acts evil. The mortal way of looking and interpreting makes a distinction in 'good' and 'evil', in 'the work of God' and 'the work of the devil'. Everything that is real is the work of God. Everything else is passing and is the work of Nothing; it is not real. We cannot experience our oneness with God if we do not release our guilty consciousness. As long as we think in terms of guilt in ourselves or in another, we judge and thus place ourselves in the separated, comparing consciousness, which we do not share with God and which accordingly is nowhere. God sees no guilt in us; but we need forgiveness, because we are conscious of guilt. And the mask of innocence we try to put on cannot hide our feelings of guilt. We believed God would punish us for our 'sins'. We even wanted that, because we did not want our seemingly weaker brothers to escape their justified punishment. We did not mind forgiving, but first we wanted to watch the other suffer. Because we want 'justice' for the other. However, when someone seems to make a mistake we don't have to punish him. He will already have to deal with the consequences. That is why 'vengeance is the Lord's'. We do not have to execute the divine law of cause and effect. The mistake brings it's own punishment. We have to practice forgiveness. It is to the advantage of all of us if we help him to gain insight, so he no longer makes the same mistake. All the emptiness and acting Of the sleeping and the waking Of the souls they judge so blindly, Of the hearts they pierce so unkindly, They, with gentler words and feeling, Would apply the balm of healing- If they only understood.' 'Kindness, nobler ever than revenge.' Forgiveness has always been an important matter in human existence, as this text by Shakespeare witnesses. In the parable of the prodigal son that Jesus gave us, not only the path of humanity is described, but it also shows the nature of forgiveness. This son left home and went to a far away country, where he wasted his inheritance and finally ended up as a pig tender. When he started envying the pigs their peelings, his eyes were opened and he realized even his father's helpers were better off. He went home, prepared to settle for anything and was received with open arms. Not a word was said about his 'sins'. God welcomes all his children, who died and are alive again. We are not forced to stay in the Kingdom of God, but we can go and waste our inheritance by our identification with a small peculiar I-thought and live in lack. But as soon as we return all that is divine is available for us again. The son who had strayed had a brother, who was angry when he saw how he was welcomed. But the Father told him that he was always with him and shared everything he had. The return of those we consider great sinners should be a reason for joy. Formerly sinners were thought to 'burn in hell'. Well, we all have, for what else is separation? In a state of dullness people do not realize the state they are in; but if hell was possible, this world and its inhabitants are the image of it. Let us rejoice about everyone who finds the way to God and let us lovingly encourage their first hesitating steps on this path. Let us have the same patience with our brothers God has with us. We have projected everything we condemn outside of us and obstinately tried to get rid of these parts of ourselves. But the death penalty will not free us from the criminals, as long as we consider crime possible; the actors only change then, but the roles remain the same. The script needs to be replaced by God's. When we set out on our journey into the world of godlessness we encountered all sorts of things on the way, with which we have identified. Until we were on our farthest point from God. Then the great reversal sets in, like an elastic cord being outstretched. First the lack of awareness and the belief in a world of the senses keeps increasing. When it is maximally outstretched it propels back. Slowly at first, then faster and faster. And on the way back, the way out of ignorance, again you see all the things you first perceived and believed and you can change your mind about them. In this way your belief, your collection of convictions is 'tested'. It is a process of letting go of your old conditioning, of deprogramming. This process of letting go of your own projections is called 'forgiveness'. You decide not to use your mechanism for interpretation any more and stop judging according to mortal reasoning. Are you then not allowed to judge anymore? Mortal thinking cannot not-judge. What we can do is to mete by another measure. However, that requires great self-discipline and a way of thinking totally opposed to the current thought system. Mortal perception is inherently dual. That is why a quantum leap is required for the step to monism, of which the fundamental assumption is the belief in one power. In dual thinking being critical is seen as a benefit. A 'critical mind' is considered a sign of intelligence. Spiritual living however requires we put our own limiting judgment aside. We have heard the contention that our intellect, our judging ability was given us for a reason. And there is in fact a way to use the intellect well. But only after it has become the Holy Spirit's servant. Why would one want to cling to judging? What is it in you that needs to emit all sort of criticism? There are almost as many opinions as there are people. Look at the world all that judging has brought about; is that the world you want to see? And to keep your criticism to yourself is a very good exercise to learn to offer your limiting thoughts to the Holy Spirit. That also goes for the unavoidable criticism of the faultfinding you see in others. Then you can truly experience miracles. So in fact it is not about non-judging. Perception is judging. In perception there is always a perceiving I and the object of perception; a subject-object relationship. You can only expand your judgment to include everything. When we try not to judge it ends in judging even our own thoughts instead of expanding our consciousness. But we can examine what our judging thoughts say about ourselves. Your judgments are only valid for one; you. Above all we can ask ourselves if we want that thought, given the world it shows us. If we draw the conclusion we do not want that thought we can ask the Holy Spirit to share his vision with us. And believe it or not, that willingness is all that is necessary. Let the Holy Spirit judge for you by shining the light of Truth on your concerns. Everything you perceive is judged by the Whole Spirit as divine or unreal. The idea that the world in which there is a power not of God is an illusion, would be a senseless idea, if you could not influence the experience of pain. But when you let go of the idea that you are small, powerless and afraid, alone in a hostile universe, accompanied by unreliable temporary allies, who can turn against you at any moment, and claim your true identity, you experience that this world is an illusion. To be able to perceive the real world we must reject the unreal one. But that is very easy. You only have to take one good look at the mortal world; if you did you would absolutely have nothing to do with it. One who has seen how ridiculous and impossible the idea of this world and the vulnerable, suffering humanity is, just can't stop laughing. Our true I will resurrect laughing. Of course the problem is your addiction to your identification with a limited conception of yourself. The I that feels the need to cling to grievances in order to maintain a definition of itself as helpless victim and an apparent relationship with the world. This little I-thought sees pitfalls and problems everywhere and does not want to sound the retreat. It will argue that spiritual living and surrender to God is not easy. However, that is only an argument born of resistance. What is more difficult than living outside of God? Surrender has to be practiced, because for a while we have to overcome our resistance to let go of our control; but the rewards are so huge, we finally do it gladly. And moreover, it is inevitable. The objective is not to destroy your being. My teachers Joshua and Liberty explained that our individuality does not have to be destroyed, it only needs to be released. And that is done through undoing your old negative thought patterns. Behavior changes as a matter of fact if the thinking changes. It becomes intolerable to you to do something that does not reflect the divine spirit in you. That just hurts too much. Do not subdue yourself to this habitual addiction. You die from habit. Come home; do not be afraid. As Joshua said: 'You will still be you. And all the way home you will be you. There is no place you stop being you. In a sense you only allow more of yourself in. In that sense there is not really a radical shift. You continue to remain you. In fact it is an expansion of consciousness. You allow more in. And the more which you allow, will be you. Everything you are aware of, has to be you, hasn't it? You are still you and you still do what you do. But your purpose in life has changed; you are dedicated to oneness and wholeness. To totality. You are now going in the right direction. And now you discover that you are more yourself, which is extremely joyous for you.' It is wonderful! In Psalm 40:4 the transition is described as follows: 'He put a new song in my mouth. A praise from our God.' Joshua continued to say: 'You don't have to give up anything; because if you would have to give up anything you might not have wanted to come home. Of your own free will you let go of many things, because you have learned to evaluate their worth and you let go of that which is not valuable. You don't have to give up anything, because when you dedicated yourself to oneness, everything was given you back radiantly new. You lose nothing and you don't have to sacrifice anything. The purpose is to leave suffering behind you. You only have to let the conditioning of which your personality consists, be undone and find your individuality again. That is all the resurrection is. You just open up to more of yourself. But only you can do that.' Finally you will not be really content, though you will experience peace. But the longing for more has been placed in you by God. God is infinite and the objective is to experience that infinity. And so you will still experience everything as a borderland and say; I still want what lies beyond this, further than this. On that I focus my gaze; I focus my gaze on that which transcends my current experience. It does not end here, it only begins here. That is what I want to express here; this is only a beginning. This is where it starts, and you must enter here, so the journey can begin. Nothing happens till you embark here; only the illusion of chaos and pain and confusion. It is very simple to experience another world. To eradicate suffering, sickness, poverty, misfortune, confusion, death and any kind of lack you only have to replace them with love, peace, joy, awareness of abundance and of your power to attract whatever you focus your attention on, life and divine reality and truth. No sacrifice or loss is necessary to atone us with God and become aware again of our oneness. All our stories of sacrifice in order to atone with God are born out of this fear. God demands no sacrifice from us. On the contrary, the 'purification' of suffering brings us into contact with a God, an image, not worthy of this name. The plan of the ego for deliverance is doomed to fail. The god of the ego is weak and powerless; as soon as you let go of this idol and focus on the One, Who is and gives pure love and bliss you experience the powerlessness of the terrifying ego-god. Nevertheless, some suffering is experienced. For to experience our oneness, we have to give up our identification with the ego. And for a brief moment that may feel like a loss. Letting go of your own will and surrendering to the Will of God sounds very dreadful to the ego. It is the fear of death of the ego. As the ego loses its grip on us more and more dreams and thoughts of death and fantasies of death arise. It is the ego seeing it's end nearing and its fear to die. However, the Whole Spirit provides you continually with the experience that surrender only brings the good into your life. God wants you to be happy and that cannot be said of the ego. Doing your own will means you do things at random. Because you have no overview of all the factors in every situation and therefore you do not know what the outcome will be. That is why life seems inconstant for those who follow their own rules. They think someone has to lose so that they can win. Their actions are motivated by fear of loss. When you surrender to God you arrive in situations in which everyone wins and has the same. Then you find out that fear has hampered you to function optimally. You experience indescribable joy. Knowing that you are safe and living fearlessly makes indescribably happy! There are people who think that fear is necessary to stay alive. Even a book has been written in which it was stated that God has given us fear to protect us from this world. A God who knows fear would be a fearful God. And a God who knows this world of sin, sickness, suffering and death would be a sinful God. If sickness existed, God would have to be the cause of it. An omnipotent being who subjects his children to sickness, pain, suffering and death cannot be trusted. This god of the ego was a very effective way to keep us away from our true Source. The punishing, condemning and angry God we made in the image and likeness of our little I. This God is terrifying. Man invented an angry God, to give him an excuse to do his ungodly will. Ego, the mechanism that maintains this world, does its utmost to keep us here and a god in its own image and likeness is one of the means. The love of the god of the ego is conditional and changeable. But God is |