(Paper #0999-8)

 Several years ago I was doing Workbook Lesson 71, “Only God’s plan for salvation will work.” I read about our ego believing the source of salvation is constantly perceived as being outside ourself. Our ego believes that any perceived source of salvation is acceptable provided it will not work. Such is its diabolical insanity.

 I read that the ego’s basic doctrine was “Seek but do not find.” I could certainly relate to that thought, having done it for so many years (and probably lifetimes). But then I was told I must follow only God’s direction if I was to succeed. I had to be totally willing, and to seek there only.
 Having studied this far, I was told to ask Him very specifically:

 I considered these questions and decided, “All right then, I WILL ask, and just see what happens.” After all, all the things I had been doing had not worked and I had nothing to lose by asking.

 I settled myself into my big rocking chair, closed my eyes, and asked the three questions. In my meditative state, it was as if my mind left my body, chair and room, traveled out the window and off, off a very long way through the trees to a quiet and tranquil place. I was very peaceful and content for some time and had almost forgot about asking the questions. After what seemed a long time, I decided to “come back.” Then as I came through that place of “lucid dreaming,” that twilight zone of not awake but not asleep either, it happened! I “heard” the Voice which said, “Go ye to all the world and speak My Truth to all those who are willing to listen.” The Voice was quiet but very firm and authoritative. I knew that It had told me what I was to do, but how was I to accomplish it? After all, the world was a very large place. How could I possibly travel over all of it with His message?

 I remembered teachings from the Course that told me He would instruct me, if I was to listen and that He would go before me preparing the way, removing all obstacles in my path. I did not understand. It all seemed so big and impossible. But I had been diligently studying the Course for several years and had the “feeling” I should begin to write a monthly paper about the truths I had discovered. About the same time, I felt guided to form an “A Course In Miracles©” study group locally to share the opportunity of studying it together with others. I realized I would teach what I needed to learn, and that those who came to the group were my teachers just as I was theirs.

 I kept writing my monthly papers, faithfully attending our local study group every Monday evening. In the back of my mind I still had a gnawing feeling that I was not completely fulfilling the mission I had been given. Every time I asked a new question, going into meditation, I always got the same answer, “Why do you ask Me this when you haven’t done what I told you to do?” It was hardly soul satisfying and I still had that old gnawing feeling.

 Then it happened! I became aware of the Internet and the World Wide Web! Of course, this was my answer! This was how I could reach the world! I already knew what I was to say and to whom I was to speak, but my computer provided the missing link to my original question. A great weight was lifted from my mind as I recognized this was how He removed the blocks of going to “all the world.”

 I had written one paper each month for six years and now had two large binders full of them. I organized a web site and a home page. I began to edit the papers and get them out on the Internet. I was on my way to fulfilling my mission. How wonderful! The purpose of all the years I had studied the Course and written my papers fell into place, as I finally understood I had been guided all the while and it was now taking place.  I could picture God smiling as He said, “Well, finally!”

 So, if you feel so guided and want to see what we are saying, “catch us” on the Internet at: -

 In our dream, we have left our beautiful Home of Perfection, Completeness, Joy and Eternity to investigate the possibility of there being something more, something else.  We had it all, but our natural condition was Innocence.  One of the basic properties of Innocence is curiosity.  It is as if we had gone to our Father, God, and said we would just like to go and examine time and space to see if we could experience something other than our Self.  An insane idea perhaps, but in our Innocence we knew not of insanity.

 God knew we must satisfy ourself that nothing could be better than Everything and said, “Certainly My Son, go and investigate whatever you choose to prove to yourself the Totality of Oneness, and when you are ready to realize the Perfection of One, then return to Me.”  He wants us to be co-creators of Truth with Him, but also Knows that we can’t do that except by our own choice.  If He had said, “No, I forbid you to go away from My Kingdom,” He knew we could never be co-creators with Him by OUR will, and such was not His Will.  He knew we had to prove it for ourself, before we could understand that He was Right, and that there WAS nothing else but Truth.  Only the “truth is true. This is the hardest lesson you will ever learn, and in the end the only one.”  (T-14 II 2:1 and 2)

 So, here we are, off on our voyage of discovery.  Actually, there is nothing TO discover as it is as it always has been.  So our “voyage” is really one of REMEMBERING what we really are.  The forms our voyage takes are many and varied.  We choose what it is we believe we need to experience to complete our remembering.  Some awaken sooner, some later.  For some it is easy while for others it is much more “painful.”  It is important for us to realize that we have chosen our own experiences, they are all very necessary for us as we begin to “remember”, one step at a time.

 Here we are in our own little cocoon of a world, trying hard to remember what it is we think we have forgotten.  It is as though we have isolated ourself off from our other brothers and have built a tight cocoon of all our circumstances, thoughts, beliefs, needs, and specialness.  Our world, our cocoon, is different than that of others, and most times it is very difficult, if not impossible, to see beyond it.  We think we have something to prove, something to fight, something to discover.  While we think we have a problem, we will never see the Answer.

 But all of this is not without purpose.  In our “pupa” learning stage, it is quite necessary to build our cocoon and be within it.  As we grow, we begin to know we must struggle to force our way out of our cocoon.  The struggle itself is what fully develops us and makes us ready for our life as the beautiful butterfly.

 The story has been told of a man watching a butterfly struggling with all its might to escape its cocoon.  Thinking to help, he opened his penknife and cut a slit in the cocoon to make it easier for the butterfly to escape.  His intention was one of compassion and love, but he did not know that the butterfly needed the struggle to make it strong for its new life.  The insect squeezed easily out of its cocoon, fell to the ground and died.  It had not developed the strength it needed to go on.

 And so, we will continue to struggle with all our lives until we have perfected our strength and emerged as the beautiful butterfly necessary to fly Home and once again be co-creator of beauty and love with God as He intended in our creation.

 Very often it seems that someone we notice has chosen a very difficult and painful path.  Our first reaction may be to rush out and “save” him from his distress.  But wait!  Remember, he has chosen his difficult life for a very good reason, even if he can no longer remember having done so.  Therefore, it is not up to us to judge or interfere, but to send him all our love as intently as possible.  Such is our destiny for having been there to witness, and his for having chosen his path.  It has all been decided before time was and has a mighty purpose for all concerned.

 Nothing is by chance.  There are no accidents – and everything I experience is a lesson for me to learn.  That is true whether I am a participant or an observer.  If the situation still bothers me, I have not learned my lesson.  When l can observe, allow, send my love and come away with all my love still intact, I have learned the lesson.

 And so, life in our “cocoon” is a place of learning to see the difference, to grow and mature and to gather our spiritual strength for the great “push” into our destined existence.  It is a necessary process for all of us who chose to come into the cocoon of earth.  The metamorphosis is a natural and necessary one.  Fortunately we have Guidance through it, when we ask.

 Webster’s Dictionary describes metamorphosis as “a change of form, structure, substance or function.”  Such is the spiritual change we are all undergoing so we can return to the beautiful Child of God and our heavenly function of co-creating with God.

 Robert Perry and Allen Watson have recently written a new book (#23 in their series), which discusses this thought and its process in detail, and is titled, “LET ME REMEMBER YOU.”

 The YOU being referred to is, of course, GOD.  The title itself implies our one “problem” and is the key to our awakening, our salvation, our rebirth and our return to the Light, which are all the same thing.

 Sometimes “GOD” is a fearful subject, because so many of us came out of a mis-guided background, engendered by the fear of those who taught it to us.  They had to project their own fear of punishment and damnation and so attempted to get rid of it by seeing it in us (projection).

 But the GOD that ACIM talks about is a God of Love, not one of fear.  Therefore, He cannot be found where fear is taught.  It is always necessary for us to remember that there are two “God’s“, just as there are two “you”s.  While we keep seeing the god of fear, we will never find the God of Love.  ACIM is all about GOD; it uses the word 3,638 times!

 Our first thought correction is to abandon our concept of God as an old man in a long white dress who may be alternately loving and punishing.

 God is not a man at all (there IS no form in Heaven), but is rather THE Idea of Perfect Oneness.  There is nothing outside that Oneness, so everything that truly exists, lives within God.  We are His Stars, but He is the Heaven that holds us up and together.

 In our creation, God intended us to be co-Creators of Love, along with Him.  We still have all the Power of God within us.  We can create as He intended, or mis-create as we have done, and are doing, by choosing form and independent thought over What God thinks.  Such is our ego, and our ego world.  It is not real, but WE think it is.  And that is our problem; we have forgotten What We Are!  The solution, of course, is to wake up to our reality and be back to our Self as part of the created Christ in the Heaven of God’s Mind.

 Heaven can be thought of as “the Song God sings to the Son, and the Son sings to God.”  It is a continuous and eternal process, never ending and always complete.  We can step away from it for a while, as we have chosen, but the Song always continues for us to observe again, when we are ready.  We have no “problem” except to allow ourself to awaken again and once again be part of the Song.

 So GOD is the central theme of everyone’s life, whether they will remember it or admit it or not.  There is no argument.  There is no other choice.  What you are has already been decided by God. When  you decide to remember it and wake up, is up to you.

 Robert closes Chapter One in the book by saying in relation to our concept of having actually separated from God, and established our own kingdom where God cannot enter: -
 “And now we look around us and see no God.  We look within and feel no God.  We conduct our lives without much thought of God.  Even the most religious among us are spending most of our time thinking about something else.  We wonder why God is so strangely absent, so nonchalantly remote.  The question of whether there is a God seems to be a real question, one with no proven answer.  The whole issue of God seems to be one that we can pick up or put down by our own choice.
 We don’t realize that this is all a ruse, a trick of the mind.  We don’t realize that we HAD to make a world in which God seemed to be an optional issue, an elective.  We had to do so because, underneath the conscious level, every one of us exists in mortal terror that God is out to pay us back for a primordial sin of metaphysical proportions.  We don’t realize that, underneath that agreement, He is our eternal Love in Whom we live and move and have our being.“

 IF YOU GET THE CHANCE, READ THE BOOK.  IT IS A MIND OPENING AID IN OUR AWAKENING PROCESS, AND JUST WHAT IT IS WE ARE AWAKENING TO.

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