Sharing an idea does not diminish, it can enhance.

Remember that spirit knows no difference between having and being. The higher mind thinks according to the laws spirit obeys, and therefore honors only the laws of God. To spirit getting is meaningless and giving is all. Having everything, spirit holds everything by giving it, and thus creates as the Father created. While this kind of thinking is totally alien to having things, even to the lower mind it is quite comprehensible in connection with ideas. If you share a physical possession, you do divide its ownership. If you share an idea, however, you do not lessen it. All of it is still yours although all of it has been given away. Further, if the one to whom you give it accepts it as his, he reinforces it in your mind and thus increases it. If you can accept the concept that the world is one of ideas, the whole belief in the false association the ego makes between giving and losing is gone. T-5.1.1: 5 - 14

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

There are many experiences where sharing increases gain not diminishes such as sharing a song, a joke, applause, an idea. The sharing enhances, it does not diminish.

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to accept one another and encourage spiritual development by sharing ideas, singing songs together, applauding when things give us joy, sharing our humor.

Today, share a joke, a song, an idea and watch it blossom among those involved.

It’s not what you get but what you give that engenders peace.

The ego literally lives by comparisons. Equality is beyond its grasp, and charity becomes impossible. The ego never gives out of abundance, because it was made as a substitute for it. That is why the concept of “getting” arose in the ego’s thought system. Appetites are “getting” mechanisms, representing the ego’s need to confirm itself. This is as true of body appetites as it is of the so-called “higher ego needs.” Body appetites are not physical in origin. The ego regards the body as its home, and tries to satisfy itself through the body. But the idea that this is possible is a decision of the mind, which has become completely confused about what is really possible.T-4.II.7: 1-9

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

A Course In Miracles can be thought of as a book of humor and its narrator, Jesus, as a comedian. The things Jesus describes in A Course Of Miracles point to the incongruities and absurdities of the ego which are funny when one understands how what the ego would have us believe is so different to how things really are.

Conditional love, based on the principle of getting, will never make one happy or contribute to an experience of peace. Conditional love is always about “more,” “more,” “more” and is never satisfied. Nothing, it seems, is ever good enough. The ego is always grasping, manipulating, bribing, blackmailing, conniving, and then, with a straight face, calls it “love.” When one steps back and simply observes this phenomenon with a degree of objectivity and perspective, it seems like such a joke, the appropriate response is to laugh. Jesus, as he was being tortured and crucified, said with a laugh, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” And they didn’t know what they were doing, and we still don’t to this very day, over 2,000 years later.

But, Jesus teaches that there is a better way and that is the way of unconditional love and the life of Spirit rather than of the ego.

Today, consider that we have a choice about what matters to us. Is it conditional love or unconditional love? Do we want to live our lives and judge their value on what we get or what we give? Today, set aside our striving for what we can get and strive to give. Start with a smile.

Don’t worry. Be happy.

I have said that the abilities you possess are only shadows of your real strength, and that perception, which is inherently judgmental, was introduced only after the separation. No one has been sure of anything since. T-3.V.1 - 2

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The Jesus of A Course In Miracles has a real sense of humor. The quote above makes me smile. No one has been sure of anything since the separation. We just make stuff up as we go along and argue about who is right and who is wrong and what is right and what is wrong.

In Alcoholics Anonymous it is suggested, in step eleven, that we share our spiritual awakening that most of the time we are insane until we turn things over to our Higher Power.

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning which is to be found in the non dualistic Oneness with our Transcendent Source abiding in unconditional love.

So today as Bobby McFerrin  sang “Don’t worry. Be happy.

Where is peace and joy to be found?

 

I cannot unite your will with God’s for you, but I can erase all misperceptions from your mind if you will bring it under my guidance. T-3:IV.7:7 A Course In Miracles

The Jesus of A Course In Miracles points out that before we can enter into the presence of God we have to purify our minds of the things of the ego. We have to choose whether we will give up our willfulness and align our will with the will of God or if we will continue to pursue our happiness in our own ways. Most of us continue to go our own way and don’t understand why we are so unhappy, depressed, anxious, fearful, and guilty.

In Alcoholics Anonymous it is suggested, in step three, that we make a decision to give up our willfulness and turn our will over to the care of God.

In Unitarian Universalism we join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Is this truth and meaning to be found in the pursuit of our willfulness or in something Transcendent?

Today, a simple question is raised about where our peace and joy is to be found. Jesus tells us in A Course In Miracles that where we look for peace and joy is up to us. Today, we are taught that we can make this choice at any time.

Ultimately, what we have to offer is our own state of being.

The sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself. This means you recognize that mind is the only creative level, and that its errors are healed by the Atonement. Once you accept this, your mind can only heal. T-2.V.5:1-3

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

The Atonement is the healing of the separation of humans from God. The Atonement means that we recognize, acknowledge, and accept our Oneness with our Transcendent Source. This requires that we drop our egos which terrifies us. Thus, it is said that humans are afraid of love.

Once we accept and join with the Unconditional Love of God we radiate a healing presence to others.

It is suggested in Alcoholics Anonymous, in step twelve, that we, having had a spiritual awakening, carry it to others. We do this by our presence with our own state of being.

In Unitarian Universalism we join together to affirm and promote a free and responsible search for truth and meaning, and this search will first take us to fear and consternation when we realize that we have to give up our egos if we are to find what we are looking for. On the other side of this fear and consternation is great peace and joy as we become one with the All.

Today, it is suggested that we manage our fears by detaching from our egos and realize the peace and security that comes from residing in the Tao.

Nothing real can be threatened

Spiritual vision literally cannot see error, and merely looks for Atonement. All solutions the physical eye seeks dissolve. Spiritual vision looks within and recognizes immediately that the altar has been defiled and needs to be repaired and protected. T-2.III.4:1-3

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Once spiritual vision has been awakened a person cannot go back to being ignorant. The saying “Ignorance is bliss” is not true. We are all destined, as part of our spiritual development, to wake up. Having woken and become aware of our spiritual capability the awareness of this capability is irreversible. If we fall asleep again, we will be aware that we have fallen asleep and want to wake up again. We would rather be awake than reside in dreams.

In Alcoholics Anonymous it is suggested in step ten that we continually take a personal inventory and when we are wrong to promptly admit it.

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Once we start on the search it becomes apparent that we have a responsibility to continue with patience and persistence. To give up the search is not possible once we have begun because now faith has been instilled that there is a better way.

Today, we are told that spiritual vision cannot see error but only wholeness (holiness) and when wholeness is not present, we immediately adjust our vision to see what is real and not what is unreal. As it says in the introduction to the Course, “Nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.”

Make me One with Everything.

Evolution is a process in which you seem to proceed from one degree to the next. You correct your previous missteps by stepping forward. This process is actually incomprehensible in temporal terms, because you return as you go forward. The Atonement is the device by which you can free yourself from the past as you go ahead. It undoes your past errors, thus making it unnecessary for you to keep retracing your steps without advancing to your return. In this sense the Atonement saves time, but like the miracle it serves, does not abolish it. As long as there is need for Atonement, there is need for time. But the Atonement as a completed plan has a unique relationship to time. Until the Atonement is complete, its various phases will proceed in time, but the whole Atonement stands at time’s end. At that point the bridge of return has been built. T-2.II.6:1-9

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

This passage is dense. There are a lot of ideas expressed in it. If it were unpacked, deconstructed, here’s what we might learn:

1. Evolution is a process which moves forward absorbing the learnings from the past and making use of them in the future.

2. Evolution seems paradoxical because we return to our nondual oneness as we move forward shedding the events, activities, experiences of the ego world.

3. This evolutionary process seems to take time in the world of the ego and its culmination is the realization of the Atonement when time will end because it no longer has any purpose.

In Alcoholics Anonymous it is suggested, in step eleven, that we improve our conscious contact with God. This step encourages us to seek the Atonement, the healing of the separation of human beings from the Oneness.

In Unitarian Universalism we join together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person which resides in our shared Divinity. It is through division and separation that we have created hell and the recognition of our shared Divinity brings about the Atonement.

Today, we remind ourselves that we seek to be One again.

We are extensions of God’s unconditional love not creatures of our own making.

All fear is ultimately reducible to the basic misperception that you have the ability to usurp the power of God. Of course, you neither can nor have been able to do this. Here is the real basis for your escape from fear. The escape is brought about by your acceptance of the Atonement, which enables you to realize that your errors never really occurred. T-II.I.4:1-4 A Course In Miracles

Deep down all human beings feel inadequate and defective because they know that their ego is not real. It is all pretend. Their ego is not who they are. It is this ignorance of who they really are  that gives rise to anxiety, the most frequently diagnosed mental disorder in the United States today. People medicate in an attempt to minimize if not eliminate this anxiety. The anxiety is a spiritual problem not a psychological and medical one so the attempt to medicate it while it can temporarily diminish the distress does not heal.

In Alcoholics Anonymous it is suggested, in step three, that we make a decision to turn our willfulness over to our Higher Power. Step three is after step one where we recognize that our lives are unmanageable because we have thought we can make ourselves better all by ourselves.

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to accept one another as we truly are and encourage our spiritual development.

Today, it is suggested that we rise above fear by realizing that we are the perfect extensions of God’s unconditional love and not a creature of our own making.

Trust that unconditional love never fails.

A miracle is never lost. It may touch many people you have not even met, and produce undreamed of changes in situations of which you are not even aware. T-1.1.45:1-2

The shift in perception from conditional love to unconditional love is like throwing a rock into a pond which causes a splash and then concentric circles of ripples that extend outward moving through the whole body of water. The changes made in the pond cannot be seen, heard, or sensed completely and they emanate unperceived through the space. Unconditional love is like the rock. We cannot know the influence it has on the world but we trust that it has salutorious effects.

In Alcoholic Anonymous it is suggested, in step twelve, that we carry the message of the power of the program to induce a spiritual awakening for the world of humanity. How the message moves and the influence it has we can never know, but it is trust that we have that the seeds we sow will germinate and grow and bear blossoms and fruit.

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to accept one another and encourage spiritual growth that contributes to an actualization of the potential of humanity to realize that we are One.

Today, we generate a confidence in the idea that unconditional love is never lost but in miraculous ways creates changes for the better in a myriad of situations and lives.

Get your shit together and emanate good vibes into the universe.

By recognizing spirit, miracles adjust the levels of perception and show them in proper alignment. This places spirit at the center, where it can communicate directly. T-1.1.30:1-2

Remember a “miracle” in A Course In Miracles is a shift in perception from the world of the ego or conditional love to the world of Spirit or unconditional love. There is a huge difference. When we get our perceptions in alignment with Spirit first and foremost, the experience of our life is transformed from fear, guilt, resentment, anger, and grievance to love, peace, joy, compassion, and grace.

In Alcoholic Anonymous it is suggested, in step eleven, that we enhance our conscious awareness of unconditional love through prayer and meditation, and in A Course In Miracles it is suggested that we enhance our spiritual consciousness through forgiveness.

In Unitarian Universalism, we join together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person which is born out of unconditional love which is the love of God being channeled into the material world of incarnations.

Today, it is suggested that we have a choice between ego or conditional love, and spirit or unconditional love. When we get our priorities straight we get our shit together and emanate good vibes into the universe.

Suspending the temporal order is when miracles occur.

Miracles are both beginnings and endings, and so they alter the temporal order. They are always affirmations of rebirth, which seem to go back but really go forward. They undo the past in the present, and thus release the future. T-1.1.13:1-3

We have expressions like “Time stood still,” “Where did the time go?” “I lost track of the time.” In A Course In Miracles the experience of the eternal present is what is called “The holy instant.” In these experiences the temporal order has been suspended and there is no past or future we are simply in what psychologists call a “flow state.” When we experience these states it feels like a miracle.

In Alcoholic Anonymous it is suggested in step eleven that we improve our conscious contact with God. A way of improving this contact is to enter into flow which is as pleasantly mood altering as any chemical and with no hangover.

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote the love for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. When we experience this love we feel as if we are one with everything and time stands still.

Today, it is suggested that we become aware of and welcome the suspension of the temporal order. It is in that space that miracles occur.