Universal Reading for 1 May 2023 It Is All About Our Relationship with Self, Others, and God
1. Addiction
That which takes us out of focus with our gratitude for and love of God, one another, and ourselves.
It can be any behavior, substance, focus that is not Father directed.
What other people have to say about you. What you say to yourself when you point out your weaknesses.
Compulsive behavior.
Guilt is the most destructive addiction of all.
Habits, good or bad in form that distract from God and His Love for His Son.
Let your inner guidance reveal to you what is keeping you from Father and what you can do about it.
2. Your acknowledgment of others…
Remembering God FOR them until they remember Him for themselves.
Is to see them as forgiven.
Our relationships with others come secondary to our relationship with Father and Self. Only then do we KNOW the other.
3. Holy (Wholly) Spirit
You might say it is our Right Mind which remembers it is Christ and is of One Mind (Whole) AND it includes Father’s Voice.
Understand that the Spirit speaks in many different ways and through all of Creation.
Learn the symbolism or at least be aware of the spiritualism of nature and songs, phrases, and so on that may have special meaning to you because the Holy (Wholly) Spirit will use all of these things to communicate with you.
Be open to your feelings, sensing, and hunches.
Let Him Guide you out of the confusion.
4. Depression
Lack of awareness of God’s Love.
From the lesson you will find in full below:
“1. ²You cannot stop with the idea the world is worthless, for unless you see that there is something else to hope for, you will only be depressed. ³Our emphasis is not on giving up the world, but on exchanging it for what is far more satisfying, filled with joy, and capable of offering you peace. ⁴Think you this world can offer that to you?”
I felt that the Course Lesson for today applied to this reading so much that I had to share it with you as an extension of #4 on Depression.
My thoughts* on ACIM Urtext Lesson 129 for 8 May 2023.
Beyond this world there is a world I want.
* There is another world right here that is blessed with God’s Presence and Love. This understanding brings me great joy.
1. This is the thought that follows from the one we practiced yesterday. ²You cannot stop with the idea the world is worthless, for unless you see that there is something else to hope for, you will only be depressed. ³Our emphasis is not on giving up the world, but on exchanging it for what is far more satisfying, filled with joy, and capable of offering you peace. ⁴Think you this world can offer that to you?
* This should be the calling card for A Course in Miracles. It defines exactly what the Course offers without specifically saying that you will find God and the Holy (Wholly) Spirit, and that you will find Self and Oneness by recognizing Christ in All That Is.
2. It might be worth a little time to think once more about the value of this world. ²Perhaps you will concede there is no loss in letting go all thought of value here. ³The world you see is merciless indeed, unstable, cruel, unconcerned with you, quick to avenge and pitiless with hate. ⁴It gives but to rescind, and takes away all things that you have cherished for a while. ⁵No lasting love is found, for none is here. ⁶This is the world of time, where all things end.
* Powerful!
3. Is it a loss to find a world instead where losing is impossible; where love endures forever, hate cannot exist and vengeance has no meaning? ²Is it loss to find all things you really want, and know they have no ending and they will remain exactly as you want them throughout time? ³Yet even they will be exchanged at last for what we cannot speak of, for you go from there to where words fail entirely, into a silence where the language is unspoken and yet surely understood.
* This is beautiful. Please do not bypass the beautiful world that does exist by jumping into the place of silence too rapidly. The reason I say this is because your participation as a light in a darkened world is a part of the process or “journey without distance.”
4. Communication, unambiguous and plain as day, remains unlimited for all eternity. ²And God Himself speaks to His Son, as His Son speaks to Him. ³Their language has no words, for what They say cannot be symbolized. ⁴Their knowledge is direct and wholly shared and wholly one. ⁵How far away from this are you who stay bound to this world. ⁶And yet how near are you, when you exchange it for the world you want.
* Oh, I am NOT saying that this is not to be found today. I suspect that this communication is found in the peace that NOTHING in the world of darkness can disturb. I am just asking you to recognize your purpose in the world of the ego as the “light of the world” as well.
5. Now is the last step certain; now you stand an instant’s space away from timelessness. ²Here can you but look forward, never back to see again the world you do not want.
* Bear in mind that once you are in the Atonement the Holy (Wholly) Spirit will allow you to see the darkness of the ego-made world with forgiveness and be a light therein. This will be for as long as you are in the body. Maybe beyond that if this is part of what you have signed up for, your ”contract”, if you will.
* The word “never” can be understood as that you will never again see the world as real. And even that can be a process as it has been with me and my addiction to emotional eating. In other words, you will still have a role to play in the ego-world but you will not see yourself as truly there because you understand it could not be real.
³Here is the world that comes to take its place, as you unbind your mind from little things the world sets forth to keep you prisoner. ⁴Value them not, and they will disappear. ⁵Esteem them, and they will seem real to you.
* One of the big things that can hold us is the idea of devotion or obligation to our particular ideology, tradition (meaning past family), or posterity (meaning our children). What will happen in the Atonement is that you trade all “single focused objectives” for the objective of serving the WHOLE of Creation and the WHOLE of Christ. All become your mother, father, sibling, and child for WHOM you remember God and His Perfect Love for His Son.
* I am not suggesting that you give up your roles or responsibilities as some ideologies do. I am only saying that to be aware that your inner awareness of who they are does shift and you need not feel as if you are betraying or deserting them. Indeed, the Atonement is the ONLY true way to hold onto them.
6. Such is the choice. ²What loss can be for you in choosing not to value nothingness? ³This world holds nothing that you really want, but what you choose instead you want indeed! ⁴Let it be given you today. ⁵It waits but for your choosing it, to take the place of all the things you seek but do not want.
7. Practice your willingness to make this change ten minutes in the morning and at night, and once more in between. ²Begin with this:
³Beyond this world there is a world I want. ⁴I choose to see that world instead of this, for here is nothing that I really want.
⁵Then close your eyes upon the world you see, and in the silent darkness watch the lights that are not of this world light one by one, until where one begins another ends loses all meaning as they blend in one.
* This may or may not happen to you exactly like this in FORM. However, it is asking you to see that light is not separated or broken it is one, as is water, as is God’s Son.
8. Today the lights of Heaven bend to you, to shine upon your eyelids as you rest beyond the world of darkness. ²Here is light your eyes can not behold. ³And yet your mind can see it plainly, and can understand. ⁴A day of grace is given you today, and we give thanks. ⁵This day we realize that what you feared to lose was only loss.
* In this, we do not lose anything but gain All That Is for this is what we ARE.
9. Now do we understand there is no loss. ²For we have seen its opposite at last, and we are grateful that the choice is made. ³Remember your decision hourly, and take a moment to confirm your choice by laying by whatever thoughts you have, and dwelling briefly only upon this:
⁴The world I see holds nothing that I want.
⁵Beyond this world there is a world I want.
