IS THERE AN OPTIMUM WAY THE COURSE CAN BE STUDIED...PRACTICED....AND INTEGRATED INTO DAILY LIFE? Why do you think that I started out with a lesson that says, “Nothing that I see means anything” if it were not to wipe out every single confidence you have developed at the level of your ego awareness? Where’s the logic in that if you are coming from an ego level in looking for intelligent structures that can be easily grasped. If your ego can grasp it, you are stuck. How can you reach beyond your presence sense of things if you are still valuing your present sense of things? QUESTION: I feel very fortunate to be here as I came here with a lot of questions in mind as pertains to the study of A Course In Miracles and being clear on the understanding. My question is really, is there a particular way or an optimum way that the Course can be studied, practiced and integrated into daily life that would be most effect for most people? ANSWER: The ego grasps for structured intelligence. Intelligence is a living, flowing movement of Being. The ego looks for logic and in finding it substantiates itself. The Course is, shall I say, structured in a way that confounds the ego. It is not meant to satisfy the ego. If you find yourself confused in your reading of the Course you can bet your bottom dollar that you are learning more than you imagined. That actual movement in terms of this shift of consciousness is occurring. Now, I encourage you to approach those books without any attempt to analyze and categorize principles. Read the books and observe yourself and pay attention to the changes that occur in you. Pay attention to the insights that come to you. You are the focal point, not the books. You are not to become buried in the books. They are there to serve you. They are calculated to serve you and they serve you by not satisfying the ego’s demands for conceptualization. The Workbook itself is aimed at unsettling the ego to a degree that your divine selfhood has the opportunity to register with you. Why do you think that I started out with a lesson that says, “Nothing that I see means anything” if it were not to wipe out every single confidence you have developed at the level of your ego awareness? Where’s the logic in that if you are coming from an ego level in looking for intelligent structures that can be easily grasped. If your ego can grasp it, you are stuck. How can you reach beyond your presence sense of things if you are still valuing your present sense of things? The Course is very specifically put together. The words are very specifically chosen so as to keep your ego busy in nonsense while your soul is touched by the truth. So that your deep memory of your divinity and of Reality may register with you--emerge and remind you of your essential actuality as the Sons and Daughters of God. Let the books move you or not move you. Understand that from the ego level, you don’t know whether you’re being moved or not! But I guarantee you if you will read those books without judgement you will be moved even though you may not understand. Which means your ego may not understand what in the heck is happening or whether anything is happening. But if you are willing to read without judgement--and do understand that categorizing and conceptualizing something constitutes the providing of judgements, then the Course in conjunction with your divinity, will constitute a movement of awakening. The only way I can tell you to read those books is non-judgementally without preconceptions and without requirements upon it. Upon what are you going to base your requirements if it is not your memory? And if you succeed in getting those books to fit your requirements, then you will have limited it to where you already are and there is no point in reading them then. There is a great deal of talk about interpretation of the meaning of the Course. Do you understand that your soul doesnt interpret Reality? It simply feels and experiences Reality. It is the ego that wants to understand. It is the ego that wants to define. But the experience of Reality defines Itself—wordlessly. Your experience of Reality is Revelation. And when you are in the flow of “Behold I make all things new” then the conscious experience of Being is the ever-present experience of Revelation. It is therefore, the ever-present experience of that which you have not experienced before. In order for the Course to be of any value to you it has to shake you out of the rut that you have gotten yourself into and so if you want the maximum benefit of the Course, you will not try to get the Course to fit your rut. I encourage anyone who picks up the Course, not to assume that you know what the Course is for. If you knew what the Course is for, you wouldn’t need the Course. Because you would be Awake. And it is a very simple fact, that as you wake up—as things become clearer, you will see things in that Course that not even your best intellectual thinkers can find in it today because it addresses many levels and there are deeper meanings than you can imagine there. But they will only become apparent as you have the experience of being clearer. Every time you pick those books up, pick them up as though you had never seen them before. Pick them up without preconceptions or pre-existing definitions. Definitions are structures—static structures that lock you in. And as I have indicated before, if you manage to get the Course to conform to your rut, then there will have to be another Book that will route you out! There is a book entitled, “Christ in Concrete”. That is like life in death formed—life stuck like a photograph of something that is ever-moving. Develop a perfectly clear explanation of the meaning of the Course or of any truth and you will lose truth – like the photograph of a river, when what is in the photograph has long moved on. The truth is in you. It is living. It is moving—ever revealing Itself as the fulfillment of your being. And you will experience a great deal of awakening before the Course will no longer support your increased clarification by substantiating it for you. In other words, the Course does not have a very narrow spectrum so that you could only go through a fraction of your process of awakening before it would no longer have value for you. But the truth is in you. It is not in the Book. And the Book is there to support your clearer experience of the Truth that you are. The Capital “T” Truth that you are--the Presence of God that constitutes your individuality. Don’t let any book become the focal point. Don’t let any church dogma become the focal point. Don’t let any philosophy become the focal point. Don’t let any science become the focal point. It is YOUR experience of your Christhood—your experience of the Reality of You as the undistorted Presence of the Father that must remain the focal point. And science and religion and philosophy must support that. Or it is being used as a means of denying or distracting you from Reality. A holy book is a book that uncovers your wholeness. You are the one who is worthy of adoration and the respect. The holy book is just paper and ink but the ideas have their aliveness in your recognition of your divinity. So let your recognition of your divinity remain the clear focal point. Now, you are in this weekend observing a phenomena. The phenomean of listening and the result of listening. That is more significant than anything I have said. The Course is the evidence of the phenomena of listening and the result of listening. That is what is important. Because both Helen Shucman and Paul Tuttle are individuals just like you. Nothing special. (laughter ) Nothing specifically different from you. The process of listening and the intelligent healing answers that come as a result will be for each of you the evidence of your integrity as the direct expression of the Father. Now, when I was walking around as you are, and I said, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father,” that is what I meant. All there is of me and all there is of you is what the Father is Being. And when you, from an ego standpoint, are willing to yield up the ego frame of reference and yield to the Father within you which is the Intelligence within you—the Soul (with a capital “S) within you—the Life (with a capital “L) that is within you—the Truth (with a capital “T ) that is within you. The Love (with a capital “L) that constitutes every fiber of every aspect of what you are. When you yield to that and let that come forth, then you are being the Christ. Because you are letting the Father be the only Thing Present and you are not claiming a private personal selfhood that can flaunt itself and be a challenge to the Presence of the Father--a challenge to you as you genuinely and truly are. So let’s not get too hung up on words. Let’s not get too hung up on trying to understand your way into the Kingdom of Heaven. Because you won’t understand your way into the Kingdom of Heaven. You will feel your way in in the sense that I described feelings yesterday. But you will only FEEL when you shut up long enough – not to be providing the static that blocks your experience of truth. Let those who wish to define words and present “authorized” interpretations, do so. But realize that that is their trip. That it doesn’t represent Truth. And that they will get valuable learning out of it and that you do not have to do likewise. You asked a question about the Course and I am not addressing myself only to the attempts to dogmatize it or provide an authorized interpretation of it, because the same thing has been done with the Bible. The same thing has been done with any “teaching” that people have found valuable. It is as though one must take the Christ and turn it into concrete so that one can get hold of his Christ. When the fact is that one must let himself into the flow of his reality, the Reality of his Being so that he may be the spontaneous movement, not of his will, but of the Father’s Will that constitutes Real Individuality. What you really are. That’s the end of the answer. ~exerpt from Gathering with Raj/JESUS in Vermont Conducted by the Northwest Foundation for ACIM nwffacim.wordpress FaceBook: https://facebook/groups/183859725130360/ All of the activities of the Northwest Foundation for A Course In Miracles are provided without charge or obligation. This is possible because of thoughtfulness, love extended without conditions. Such is the nature of Gift. As a result these materials are available to you, because someone like you has already gifted you with them. And, at Rajs instruction, these materials will never be sold. If you would like to add your thoughtfulness and love, to gift others with the availability of these materials, please contact nwffacim.org -----oOo----- Now I am present with and available to every single one of you, everyone at every moment. And so it is my intent in being with groups of people like this to make this fact known and by Pauls presence and demeanor also convey the fact that my being available doesnt require of anyone any special talent, because Paul is about as regular as anyone else on this planet and has no special talent in order to hear me. Does that clarify that for you? For those of you who are students of A Course In Miracles, I will take this opportunity to point out that my time spent with Helen Schucman was also not a special instance. And although there have been some expressions of the fact, or the idea-not the fact-the idea that everyone else cant expect the same sort of relationship with me or with Guidance that she experienced, is untrue. It is an attempt to elevate her, and to elevate the Course into a false position of religious respect, whether it is stated that way or not.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 16:35:19 +0000
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