Inspiration
The insanity does not come from having chosen to see something other than the Mind of Christ. The insanity that you experience as your pain, your suffering, your seeing and your drams comes from your mistaken choice to become identified with what arises in the field of awareness.
My experience of this lesson
I cannot say how relieved I was to read this. I had somehow attached to the idea that I made a dreadful mistake. I know that in A Course in Miracles Jesus tells me that God does not hold my mistake against me, but I still could not get past this original error. I was stuck on the error, and confused about why I did it. If heaven is everything it is cracked up to be why did I choose to turn my back on it?
Jeshua is helping me to see how it could have happened and how silly it is to be upset by it. Since beginning this book I have gone from thinking of myself as a bad child who probably was not going to be spanked but only because my Father is willing to overlook my bad behavior, to seeing myself as an unlimited being created to create. Sure I got myself into quite a mess but it was all in good fun. It lost its sense of innocent curiosity when I became identified with what I made.
I am practicing seeing myself as the director of this little play rather than the lead character. It is taking a lot of vigilance on my part. I am in such a habit of identifying with the character that I forget I am the writer and the director. I am simply noticing when I am identifying with my story and sometimes that is enough to change my perspective. What has been most helpful for me is to realize that it doesn¡¦t matter. There is nothing to be upset about or to regret or to feel guilty about. This story I mistakenly thought of as my life is just a story in the mind of Christ. It is not real so why should I feel guilty or upset about what happens. I am trying to loosen my grip on it and to have more fun with it.
Healing the past
Here is something interesting that happened yesterday. I started the day by spending a couple hours on the phone with my mind healing partner, Loretta and she gave me an idea. She was talking about how time is an illusion and that everything is happening at once. I know this is true and is the reason why it does not matter when we forgive. I have often ¡§gone back in time¡¨ to forgive. I had a wonderful experience doing this with my mother. She has Alzheimer and doesn¡¦t know me anymore, but mind to mind we had a forgiveness session about something that happened when I was a thoughtless young woman. I felt the release of the past and it was a beautiful thing.
So why not expand this process? I have been thinking about my children a lot because of writing my book on the subject of raising children. This is what I did. I started with my oldest son, Scott. I remembered myself carrying him in my womb and I returned my attention to how I felt at that time. I then allowed the Love that is God to flow through me to that child in my womb. I had no plan as to what was supposed to happen when I did this because, as Loretta pointed out, Love knows what to do. It knows what is needed.
I imagined myself a clear conduit that simply allows Love to flow through it unencumbered by egoic needs. It was a very lovely experience. Then I thought about a time when he was very young. We were visiting with a friend of mine who had children. All the kids were playing and we adults were talking. I decided to go to the store for something and got in the car to leave.
As I was driving away, I glanced at the rear view mirror and saw that child running as hard as he could to catch up with me. I felt a flash of guilt and then immediately projected it onto him. I thought, ¡§Couldn¡¦t I even go to the store without that child?¡¨ I stopped for him and told him that I was coming right back and he could stay and play but, of course, he wouldn¡¦t let go of me. My guilt could not let me look at how badly I had scared him, so I became angry.
My idea was to send Love to Scott at this time in his life to heal what I was unable to cope with as a young woman. What I discovered is that I could not do it because I was still so caught up in the guilt of the moment. I had never forgiven myself for that moment and so my guilt and need to be forgiven was clogging up the conduit. So instead of directing Love to Scott, I directed it to that young inexperienced mom that I used to be. At first I didn¡¦t feel anything, and when I asked Holy Spirit what to do, He gave me the idea that I needed to return in feeling to that moment.
I really didn¡¦t want to do that. It was not my best moment and I felt ashamed. But the idea of being able to forgive and to heal both Scott and myself motivated me to do this. I went right back to that time and felt everything as if it were happening right now. The difference is that I was also the compassionate watcher.
I felt all the emotions, the fear of not knowing how to be a mom, the guilt at doing so badly at the job, and I saw the moment when I chose the ego solution of projection. I felt all the anger and frustration of being a mother and saw it as the child¡¦s fault. I sent Love to that young woman and in sending Love, I forgave her in my mind. The shame I felt before was replaced by compassion. It was a very emotional moment.
Once I had cleared that old grievance against myself I was able to direct Love to Scott. It flowed freely and this time the tears were tears of joy. I continued doing this process for awhile using different times in Scott¡¦s life when memory suggested it would be appropriate. It makes a great five minute Christ meditation. Healing in this way feels like expressing myself as Christ. I did a lot of self forgiveness as well, a lot of releasing of the past. I am going to do more.
I wondered if it made any difference to the Scott I know now, and once that would have been a big thing to me because of the guilt I was carrying around about how I raised him. But without that guilt which had melted away with the forgiveness I was able to hear the Holy Spirit assure me that the gift of healing was waiting for Scott. He would accept it when he was ready.
All quotes are used by kind permission of the Shanti Christo Foundation. To buy a copy of this profound book visit their website at www.shantichristo.com. I invite your thoughts and comments.