A Course In Miracles Workbook Lesson #70, My salvation comes from me.

 Lesson #70

My salvation comes from me.

If you are waiting around for someone else or something else to make you happy and save you from your distress, your dysphoria, your emptiness, lots of luck.

John Bradshaw, the substance abuse counselor, called it “the hole in the soul.” With what will we fill it? Not from things outside, but from things within. Jesus said that the kingdom of God is within us.

We learn in Alcoholics Anonymous, in the first three steps that our lives are unmanageable on our own, and that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity, and that salvation comes from turning our will over to the care of God as we understand God. “Let go and let God” is the slogan encouraging this. Discerning God’s will is a process of looking within not outwardly and it is from within that salvation comes.

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote seven principles the fourth of which is the free and responsible search for Truth and meaning. And where is this Truth to be found and where is this search to take us? The search takes us within not to idols in the external world.

Today we are asked to take 10 - 15 minutes twice during the day to consider the idea that salvation comes from within not from without. Can we give up the pursuit of the idols of the ego which left us disillusioned, disappointed, angry, afraid, resentful, and full of grievance. Remember, “God loves ya, baby!” Remember that your salvation comes from within you.

A Course In Miracles Workbook Lesson #69, My grievances hide the light of the world in me.

 Lesson #69

My grievances hide the light of the world in me.

When our mind is full of grievances, resentment, fears, anger, I cannot see the light of the world which is deeper down within me.

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. To find this truth and meaning we have to leave the outer world of the ego and search the interior world of the Spirit.

In Alcoholics Anonymous we are advised in the fourth of the twelve steps to do a fearless moral inventory which is the journey within beyond all the mistakes, remorse, guilt, shame, blame, accusations, regret, and fear to the clear, calm world of peace and joy which resides deep down within every human being because we all have inherent worth and dignity.

Today we are asked to take 15 minutes and just sit still and watch the cloud of grievances which block our view of the light of the heavens. The clouds will gradually evaporate and separate and let the light shine through. The resulting peace and joy we experience in basking in the light is well worth the effort.

My Kind Of Church Music

Anthem by Leonard Cohen

A Course In Miracles Workbook Lesson #68, Love hold no grievances

 Lesson #68

Love holds no grievances

What would make a person walk around pissed and upset? What would make a person resentful and want to retaliate against another? The feeling of victimhood. Playing the victim is not a healthy stance to maintain in life. It overlooks and rejects a love for oneself and for the interdependent web of existence of which we all are a part. Grievance separates, it does not join and so grievance keeps us from the experience of being a part of what we truly are, a member of the Body of Christ, a part of the non dualistic Onness.

In Alcoholic Anonymous, in step Twelve, we are asked to carry our spiritual awakening as a result of doing the previous steps to others and to continue the practice of the steps. One of the slogans of wisdom from AA is to take one’s own inventory and not to be taking the inventory of others. When we shift our focus from what we perceive as the mistakes that others make to the mistakes that we have made, and continue to make, we experience peace.

In Unitarian Universalism as we covenant together to affirm and promote its seven principles, we are reminded in the third principle that we are to accept one another and encourage their spiritual growth out of love for one another. This encouragement is a form of nurturance not a form of condemnation for their deficiencies. It is strength based not deficit based.

Today, we are asked to take 15 minutes and review all those toward whom we hold grievances and to release it by looking at the Divine Spark in them rather than what might have hurt us. We are willing to give up making other people responsible for our unhappiness. It is a rising above the unfairness and injury on the ego plane and moving to a place of safety and comfort in the world of the Spirit. If we are truly loving, we love unconditionally not conditionally because we have learned that Love has no grievances.

My Kind Of Church Music

Three Little Birds by Bob Marley

A Course In Miracles Workbook Lesson #67, Love created me like itself.

 Lesson #67

Love created me like itself.

Deep down within us we each are a brilliant diamond. Peace Pilgrim called it the “Divine Spark.” Then we are born and that brilliant diamond becomes covered in dirt and slime and this becomes encrusted and when we look at ourselves what we see is the dirt that has been baked on and not the brilliant diamond the dirt is hiding.

The ego puts so many barriers and obstacles to the Love that is deep inside of us and is our natural inheritance. Step four in Alcoholics Anonymous asks us to make a fearless moral inventory of all our mistakes which involves the worship of the false idols that the ego entices us with. We were led to believe by the ego that all these worldly things would make us happy whether it was money, sex, power, status, and alcohol and other mind alterting chemicals. We were tragically tricked and have come to realize that these things of the ego are not Love and not of our true nature.

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person and we reject the ego’s notion that we are mud. We see beneath the mud to the Divine Love at our core.

Today we are asked to take 10 - 15 minutes to meditate on the idea that we are part of the Love of creation and not the mud and slime that the ego has tricked us into thinking we are. And then to remind ourselves hourly that Love created me like itself.

My Kind of Church Music

All You Need Is Love by the Beatles.

Good News for 10/21/20 - Not everthing is canceled.

 

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This principle is not canceled.

A Course In Miracles Workbook Lesson #66, My happiness and my function are one.

 Lesson #66

My happiness and my function are one.

Human beings want to be happy. The basic question is what will make them so? Abraham Maslow, the psychologist, gave us a model: the hierarchy of needs. The first is to meet our physical needs for food, water, warmth. The second is safety and security. The third is a sense of belonging, having our place in the world. The fourth is self esteem, and the fifth is actualizing our potential. Some say that at the end of his career he added a sixth which is unification with the Transcendent. Nowadays, some say that the sixth need should be the first because it overarches all the others. Today’s lesson teaches the same thing: that happiness and my function, eschewing the separation wrought by the ego and joining with the non dualistic Oneness, are the same thing. This joining is brought about by forgiveness.

In Alcoholics Anonymous, the twelfth step tells us that as a result of working the program we have achieved a spiritual awakening and we are to carry this message to others and to apply the awareness of this spiritual awakening in all our affairs.

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote seven principles, the practice of which brings great happiness as we live our faith in these principles and become the light of the world.

Today, we are asked to take 10 - 15 minutes to reflect on the idea that God is love and giving up the path of the ego to journey on the path of the Spirit gives us great happiness. Our function in the world is to continually ask ourselves “What would Love have me do?” and then do it. The resulting happiness and residing with Love not only makes us happy but engenders a sense of joy and bliss.

A Course In Miracles Workbook Lesson #65, My only function is the one God gave me.

 Lesson #65

My only function is the one God gave me.

We are conditioned by society to think that there are so many things that will make us happy. Sooner or later we come to realize that this is the Big Lie. Things on the path of the ego are impermanent, illusionary, and whatever happiness they seem to bring is very temporary. 

In growing desperation it finally dawns on us that there must be a better way and we begin a search for a more satisfying and fulfilling sense of purpose and meaning. It is this dawning that brings many of us to A Course In Miracles.

In today’s lesson, #65, we are told that our only function is the one that God gave us and that is to work for the salvation of the world through forgiveness. All other goals and functions are meaningless in comparison to this. In Alcoholics Anonymous the third step encourages us to make a decision to turn our will and lives over to the care of our Higher Power. This is a huge step and takes constant reminders and practice, Thy will, not my will, be done. Let go and let God. If God is with you who can be against you?

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to affirm and promote seven principles, the fourth of which is the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. This search takes us to a place where we realize two things: first, that we have inherent worth and dignity and are loved unconditionally by the Transcendent Source of our existence, and second, in this realization we have the power to save ourselves and the world through forgiveness for the insane beliefs that the idols of the ego would ever make us truly happy.

Today, we are asked to set aside 10 - 15 minutes to review our false beliefs that the things of the ego would ever make us happy and that our only function is to realize this, embrace it, and release other people and circumstances from our insane expectations that they make us happy.

My Kind Of Church Music

Don’t worry; Be happy by Bobby McFerrin