saddest

WHILE EXPERIENCING THE PEACE OF GOD,
I HEARD OUR CAT WALK INTO THE ROOM

Last Thursday morning, January 3, 2002, cold but bright and snowy, I sat down on the couch in my study to begin the day with Lesson 3 of Jesus’ A Course in Miracles:

I do not understand anything I see in this room.

Before starting the lesson, I closed my eyes and allowed myself to experience the full weight of my grievances and conflicts. I was in a state of mind so uncomfortable, so conflictual, so fearful that I just wanted to experience the peaceful state of mind that I Am. That part that I am well aware of,  but often out of contact with. I said, desperately, “Jesus, help. Just, please help me now.”

          Then I began reading the lesson:

Apply this idea in the same way as the previous ones, without making distinctions of any kind.  Whatever you see becomes a proper subject for applying the idea. Be sure that you do not question the suitability of anything for application of the idea. These are not exercises in judgment. Anything is suitable if you see it.

When I got to this sentence, Anything is suitable if you see it, I looked up, stared out the window, closed my eyes, marveling at the phrase, “if you see it.” Whoa! It is not there until I see it.  SUDDENLY, I found myself plunged deeply into an ocean of utter peace, enveloped in warm currents of love, the peace of God, the only real state of mind.         

I am now truly in the present. 

Into His Presence would I enter now. 

Into His Presence do I enter now.
In His Presence am I now.
I am His Presence.
I Am That.

I am not a body.  I am free.
For I am still as God created me.

 There is no awareness of body sensations. 

There is only awareness of deep stillness and peace. 

I am one Self, united with my Creator. 

And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them;
that they may be one, even as we are one.
I in them, and Thou in me that they may be perfect in one. 

There is only awareness of being drawn deeper into the expansive mind. In this peace, there are no thoughts. No mind chatter. This peace is always available. Always accessible. Only my preoccupation with fear thoughts prevents it from dawning in my awareness. 

I will be still an instant and go home.

Peace to my mind.  Let all thoughts be still. 

Now in writing this it is no longer necessary to use the convention of bold type to distinguish the words of Jesus from my words. We are perfect in one. God shares His Fatherhood with you who are His Son, for He makes no distinctions in what is Himself and what is still Himself. What he creates is not apart from Him, and nowhere does the Father end, the Son begin as something separate from Him. There is only a sense of breathing into a space in my skull behind my eyes, the space filling up and expanding, being infused with the peace of God. 

There is only vast silence, stillness, tranquility, serenity, light, love, space. 

Here comes, floating into this space, a clear, complete Thought. 

In my defenselessness, my safety lies.

Silence.

That I have designed my grievances, my conflictual thoughts to preoccupy my mind with images, so that I will not experience the Thoughts of God that are beyond this limited awareness is a joke on a vast, cosmic scale.

My grievances hide the light of the world in me.

I need not defend myself against these grievances because they are not real. Only the peace of God is real.

I am surrounded by the love of God.

This is my direct experience.

Sinking deeper and deeper into this love and peace.

                                                                  Nothing real can be threatened.
                                                                  Nothing unreal exists.
                                                                  Herein lies the peace of God.

I am sustained by the love of God.

Only revelation enters into this clear mind.

Revelation takes the form of sentences from A Course in Miracles. 

My heart is beating in the peace of God.

I am now certain. I walk into the world, safely.

 

I am in the world, but not of the world. 

I Am That, breathing in the peace of God. The images I see are limned by this peace. Limned came floating in, and when I looked it up, subsequently, I saw the perfection of its appearance. It comes from Latin, illuminare, to illuminate books, ultimately from Latin lumen, light. This inner light lightens the images I see, much like halos.

I simply breathe into the space in my skull, remembering God, as I walk this earth, accessing the always-available light. 

I am the light of the world.

Right now, sitting on the couch, I am quiet, yet alert, so attuned that I hear our cat walk into the room. She jumps up onto the arm of the couch next to me. But this time, instead of customarily meowing and pawing my shoulder for attention, she pauses for a moment, moves to her position behind my head and begins purring.

My equivalence to purring remains uninterrupted.

The hush of heaven holds my heart today.

Only Thoughts of God enter in.

God is the Mind with which I think.

Here.

Now. 

And now, as I watch the black ink pour from my pen, forming words on the white page of the notebook, I find I am entering, again, now, into that peaceful state, that deep ocean to such an extent that I have to put down the pen and enter in, fully.

The memory of God comes to the quiet mind. 

I don’t know how much time just went by, but I rouse myself enough to pick up the pen again to complete this sentence. 

And so the two experiences are melding together, last Thursday and right now. The time between sentences is getting longer and longer, picking up the pen harder and harder. 

Two words come into mind: remembering and gratitude.

Today you can achieve a state in which you will experience the gift of grace. You can escape all bondage of the world, and give the world the same release you found. You can remember what the world forgot, and offer it your own remembering.

I am so grateful that I am not as I made myself, grieving and conflictual and fearful.

The self you made is not the Son of God. Therefore, this self does not exist at all. And anything it seems to do and think means nothing. It is neither bad nor good. It is unreal, and nothing more than that. 

I am so grateful that I am as God created me, his holy Son.

Our gratitude will pave the way to Him, and shorten our learning time by more than you could ever dream of. Gratitude goes hand in hand with love, and where one is the other must be found.

And, again, now, gratitude takes me deeply into the ocean of peace, and I put down my pen as I finish this sentence, whispering to you, Gentle Reader, “Join me in the peace of God.” 

You Are That.