Are we searching for truth and meaning in the world of the ego or the Kingdom of God?

Your past learning must have taught you the wrong things, simply because it has not made you happy. On this basis alone its value should be questioned. If learning aims at change, and that is always its purpose, are you satisfied with the changes your learning has brought you? Dissatisfaction with learning outcomes is a sign of learning failure, since it means that you did not get what you wanted. T-8.I.4:1-4

A Course in Miracles (p. 280). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

The world of the ego teaches us all kinds of things which are false and not in our or our fellow humans best interest. Have the things of the ego made you happy?

In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. What is it we are searching for? And where are we searching? How satisfying and fulfilling has our search been so far?

Today it is suggested that we consider whether our search for truth and meaning is more satisfying and fulfilling in looking for things in the world of the ego or the Kingdom of God.

Would you have peace or anxiety?

Every response to the ego is a call to war, and war does deprive you of peace. Yet in this war there is no opponent. This is the reinterpretation of reality that you must make to secure peace, and the only one you need ever make. Those whom you perceive as opponents are part of your peace, which you are giving up by attacking them. How can you have what you give up? You share to have, but you do not give it up yourself. When you give up peace, you are excluding yourself from it. This is a condition so alien to the Kingdom that you cannot understand the state that prevails within it. T-8.I.3:1-8

A Course in Miracles (p. 280). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

The response of the ego is conditional love. Whenever you love conditionally there is always a price you pay. The price you pay for loving conditionally is you give up peace because you have set conditions which must exist in order for you to experience happiness. Do you really want to do this? Is this price of losing peace worth the conditions you set?

In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This inherent worth and dignity makes our unconditional love appropriate.

Today it is suggested that we ask ourselves, “Would I love conditionally or unconditionally?” Peace or anxiety will be your experience depending on your choice,

Discerning God’s will instead of listening to the voice of the ego.

The distractions of the ego may seem to interfere with your learning, but the ego has no power to distract you unless you give it the power to do so. The ego’s voice is an hallucination. You cannot expect it to say “I am not real.” Yet you are not asked to dispel your hallucinations alone. You are merely asked to evaluate them in terms of their results to you. If you do not want them on the basis of loss of peace, they will be removed from your mind for you. T-8.I.2:1-6

A Course in Miracles (p. 279). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

The question “How is that working for you?” can be asked consistently, and as we reflect we can ask the Holy Spirit to help us discern the will of God for us.

In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. We need not do this searching alone. We can ask the Holy Spirit to help us discern God’s will. Who is it that God wants me to become, and what is it that God wants me to be doing with the life I have been given?

Today it is suggested that we become aware of the power we give to the things of the ego to distract us from discerning and doing what we believe is God’s will for us.

Knock and the door will be opened to you.

Knowledge is not the motivation for learning this course. Peace is. This is the prerequisite for knowledge only because those who are in conflict are not peaceful, and peace is the condition of knowledge because it is the condition of the Kingdom. Knowledge can be restored only when you meet its conditions. This is not a bargain made by God, Who makes no bargains. It is merely the result of your misuse of His laws on behalf of an imaginary will that is not His. Knowledge is His Will. If you are opposing His Will, how can you have knowledge? I have told you what knowledge offers you, but perhaps you do not yet regard this as wholly desirable. If you did you would not be so ready to throw it away when the ego asks for your allegiance.T-8.I.1:1-10

A Course in Miracles (p. 279). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

Jesus makes it very clean that the goal for learning the teachings of A Course In Miracles is peace. With peace comes knowledge which might also be called awareness and which the Course teaches is experience not intellectual understanding. The pursuit of the things of the ego will not bring peace nor awareness and so happiness, peace, always seems just out of our reach. It is suggested that when we give up pursuing our own will and instead accept God’s will for us then peace and awareness becomes our experience.

In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. This truth and meaning is to be found in accepting God’s will for our own.

Today it is suggested that we turn our will over to God’s will for us. Further, we can and should ask the Holy Spirit for help in doing this. Jesus said as reported in Matthew 7:7  “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

Be aware of the Whole of which we are a part.

You cannot deny part of truth. You do not know your creations because you do not know their creator. You do not know yourself because you do not know yours. Your creations cannot establish your reality, any more than you can establish God’s. But you can know both. Being is known by sharing. Because God shared His Being with you, you can know Him. But you must also know all He created, to know what they have shared. Without your Father you will not know your fatherhood. The Kingdom of God includes all His Sons and their children, who are as like the Sons as they are like the Father. Know, then, the Sons of God, and you will know all creation. T-7.XI.7:1-11

A Course in Miracles (pp. 277-278). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

The drops may not know the ocean and may not even recognize one another but the Ocean knows the drops. The drops are part of the whole whether they recognize it or not and that is the Truth,

In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the awareness of the interdependent web of all existence. As the monk said to the hot dog vendor “make me one with everything.”

Today it is suggested that we consider the whole of which we and our brothers and sisters are a part.

Be aware of the Force within you.

Out of your natural environment you may well ask, “What is truth?” since truth is the environment by which and for which you were created. You do not know yourself, because you do not know your Creator. You do not know your creations because you do not know your brothers, who created them with you. I have already said that only the whole Sonship is worthy to be co-creator with God, because only the whole Sonship can create like Him. Whenever you heal a brother by recognizing his worth, you are acknowledging his power to create and yours. He cannot have lost what you recognize, and you must have the glory you see in him. He is a co-creator with God with you. Deny his creative power, and you are denying yours and that of God Who created you. T-7.XI.6:1-6

A Course in Miracles (p. 277). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

The Truth is that God is creation. Like Luke Skywalker said, “May the Force be with you.” Luke’s statement is not precise. You are part of the Force and so it would be more accurate to say, “May you be aware of the Force within you and in your brothers and sisters.”

In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. This search will take us to the awareness of the Force, the Ground of Being, our Transcendent Source, our Higher Power, God.

Today it is suggested that we reflect on the Force within us which some simply call Life.

Look for the Divine Spark in every living thing.

When a mind has only light, it knows only light. Its own radiance shines all around it, and extends out into the darkness of other minds, transforming them into majesty. The Majesty of God is there, for you to recognize and appreciate and know. Recognizing the Majesty of God as your brother is to accept your own inheritance. God gives only equally. If you recognize His gift in anyone, you have acknowledged what He has given you. Nothing is so easy to recognize as truth. This is the recognition that is immediate, clear and natural. You have trained yourself not to recognize it, and this has been very difficult for you. T-7.XI.5:1-9

A Course in Miracles (p. 277). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

Comedian Flip Wilson, when he did his Geraldine routine, would say, “What you see is what you get, honey!” in a sassy, mirthful way. When we have light in our soul we see that lightness all around us, and when we have darkness in our soul  we see darkness all around us. But the spark of the Divine is in everyone if we look for it. Look, it is there even if it is hidden behind barriers and obstacles.

In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Some of us see the light within ourselves and therefore in others.

Today it is suggested that we look for the Divine Spark in every living thing.