Cosmic consciousness awaits.

The branch that bears no fruit will be cut off and will wither away. Be glad! The light will shine from the true Foundation of life, and your own thought system will stand corrected. It cannot stand otherwise. You who fear salvation are choosing death. Life and death, light and darkness, knowledge and perception, are irreconcilable. To believe that they can be reconciled is to believe that God and His Son can not. Only the oneness of knowledge is free of conflict. Your Kingdom is not of this world because it was given you from beyond this world. Only in this world is the idea of an authority problem meaningful. The world is not left by death but by truth, and truth can be known by all those for whom the Kingdom was created, and for whom it waits.T-3.VII.6: 1-11

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

This paragraph pretty much sums up the whole Course. If we drop the ego and its perceptions we know, more clearly, the truth which is our Oneness with God.

In Alcoholics Anonymous it is suggested in step eleven that we improve our conscious contact with God. This means dropping the ego, its perceptions, and its consequent false beliefs.

In Unitarian Universalism we join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning which is not to be found in the perceptions of the ego but in the abiding knowledge that is within.

Today, it is suggested for a minute or two at a time that we take a few deep breaths and turn within and relax into the oneness of cosmic consciousness.

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Stop and smell the roses.

Your starting point is truth, and you must return to your Beginning. Much has been seen since then, but nothing has really happened. Your Self is still in peace, even though your mind is in conflict. You have not yet gone back far enough, and that is why you become so fearful. As you approach the Beginning, you feel the fear of the destruction of your thought system upon you as if it were the fear of death. There is no death, but there is a belief in death. T-3.VII.5:6-11

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

What we really fear is not the death of the physical body but the obliteration of our ego which we have made and believed in as if it were real when it really is an ephemeral illusion. A Course In Miracles teaches that there is no death of the non dualistic Oneness of which we are a part. When the drop of the ocean dissolves back into the ocean does it die or become one with the All and live on in the whole?

In Alcoholics Anonymous it is suggested, in step eleven, that we improve our conscious contact with God through prayer and mediation which is a means of dropping the ego and turning our will over to the Higher Power of our understanding.

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person which springs from our Transcendent Source which is eternal and never dies.

Today, it is suggested that in little ways we set our egos aside and abide in truth, goodness, and beauty. In other words, “stop and smell the roses.”

Look at your life and see what the devil has made.

Look at your life and see what the devil has made. But realize that this making will surely dissolve in the light of truth, because its foundation is a lie. Your creation by God is the only Foundation that cannot be shaken, because the light is in it. T-3.VII.5:3-5

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

Once a person understands the metaphysics of A Course In Miracles, the verses in the text can make the reader laugh. As Flip Wilson, the comedian, used to say through his Geraldine character, “The devil made me do it” we, once we understand the teachings of the Course, can say continually, “The ego made me do it.”

In Alcoholics Anonymous it is suggested, in step one, that our lives are unmanageable as long as we allow the ego to be in charge.

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning because we have become aware that the “truth” often taught  is not the real truth. It dawns on us that there must be a better way to live our lives than what our social conditioning has attempted to get us to believe.

Today, it is suggested that we “look at our life and see what the devil has made” and ask ourselves if this is really what we want.

What do you think about what you think?

Images are perceived, not known. Knowledge cannot deceive, but perception can. You can perceive yourself as self-creating, but you cannot do more than believe it. You cannot make it true. And, as I said before, when you finally perceive correctly you can only be glad that you cannot. Until then, however, the belief that you can is the foundation stone in your thought system, and all your defenses are used to attack ideas that might bring it to light. You still believe you are an image of your own making. Your mind is split with the Holy Spirit on this point, and there is no resolution while you believe the one thing that is literally inconceivable. That is why you cannot create and are filled with fear about what you make. T-3.VII.4:4-12

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

We arrogantly think that our belief makes things true. The bumper sticker says, “Don’t believe everything you think.” What we think about our perceptions is created in our own minds and isn’t true unless we have aligned our mind with the Holy Spirit.

In Alcoholics Anonymous it is suggested, in step eleven, that we improve our conscious contact with God. The AA slogan is “Let go and let God” or simply “Let it go.” It refers to our illusions and interpretations of our perceptions which are unloving.

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning and this search begins by thinking about what we believe and realizing its illusory nature.

Today, it is suggested that we think about what we think with the goal of adjusting our thinking to align with the Holy Spirit.

Our inherent worth and dignity comes from beyond our ego.

T-3.VII.4. Eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge is a symbolic expression for usurping the ability for self-creating. This is the only sense in which God and His creations are not co-creators.

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

Another way of thinking about “eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge” is the metaphoric moment of the separation into dualism from the Oneness. What humans created in their own image is not anything that God created and it being in the world of the ego is what the Course calls an “illusion” because it is not real.

In Alcoholics Anonymous it is suggested, in step one, that we admit what we have done and that these illusions are unmanageable. In step three it is suggested that we turn our belief in our imaginary power to create ourselves and our lives over to God as we understand God.

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This affirmation and promotion assumes our willingness to acknowledge that this inherent worth and dignity is not self created but is inherent, that is, comes from our Transcendent Source.

Today, it is suggested that we recognize and acknowledge the origin of our being and that it comes from beyond our ego.

You are free to know the Kingdom of Heaven any time you choose.

There is no one who does not feel that he is imprisoned in some way. If this is the result of his own free will he must regard his will as not free, or the circular reasoning in this position would be quite apparent. Free will must lead to freedom. Judgment always imprisons because it separates segments of reality by the unstable scales of desire. Wishes are not facts. To wish is to imply that willing is not sufficient. Yet no one in his right mind believes that what is wished is as real as what is willed. Instead of “Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven” say, “Will ye first the Kingdom of Heaven,” and you have said, “I know what I am and I accept my own inheritance.” T-3.VI.11: 1-8

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

This paragraph points out the paradox of our rational mind. If one wonders if one has free will the person is not exercising their free will so to ask this question makes no sense. Either you know you have it or you don’t.

When, as is suggested in step eleven of Alcoholics Anonymous, we improve our conscious contact with God, we come to know who and what we are and our free will is apparent because we have turned our willfulness over to the will of God and we have become one with the Tao. As Lao Tzu taught in the Tao Te Ching, “The Tao does nothing, but leaves nothing undone.”

In Unitarian Universalism, we covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning, meaning that we have the ability to search for and find the God of our understanding which pursued patiently and persistently takes us to the non dualistic Oneness of Cosmic Consciousness.

Today, it is suggested that we shift our focus onto the non dualistic Oneness however briefly and realize that we are free to do this any time we choose.