Inspiration
You are perfectly free at all times. Everything that is experienced has been by your choice and at no time has there been any other cause.
What I am learning from this lesson
There is so much to learn from this section that I hardly know where to begin. I am completely responsible for everything that happens in my life. I know this is true but I keep thinking there might be exceptions. The more I practice radical responsibility, the more I hope there are no exceptions. This works only if it is absolute. I am ready to claim responsibility and so I am vigilant for the ego thoughts that someone or something else is to blame.
Inspiration
It takes great courage and faith to look upon all of your creations your thoughts, your feelings, your manifestations with love and with the innocence of a child.
What I am learning from this lesson
Ego would have everything judged and assign that judgment to my self worth. If I think that my friend has betrayed me the ego has already begun its work by telling me that betrayal is possible and that it happens outside of me and I am an innocent victim. Of course there is nothing I can do to change the betrayal. I can defend myself and must do so if I hope to survive the betrayal. It then attacks me further by suggesting reasons I deserve to be betrayed. I feel as if I am embattled from without and from within.
The Holy Spirit teaches me that nothing outside of me can affect me in any way. Whatever my friend says or does is a perfectly neutral event. The meaning I gave it was my own creation. Even that creation is perfectly neutral. I created this whole situation in which I see my friend as a betrayer of friendship. It is a creation. All creation is neutral. The other voice tries to convince me that I am only as worthy as my creations and that creating betrayal makes me unworthy. Spirit tells me that failure is not even remotely possible. I was created to create. I created, therefore I succeeded.
Now the only thing left to do is to decide if I am happy with the direction of my creation. If not, I am still perfectly free and still a perfect creator. I can create differently; not out of a sense of having messed up the first time, but rather out of joy in living the life of an unlimited creator, I create differently.
When I chose to experience a cold I knew I did it. I created this cold. I saw the moment in which I invited this creative idea into my mind. I saw the ego twist the creation and heard its strident voice blaming and condemning. But I remembered that I am the creator of all my thoughts, my feelings, my manifestations. I looked with love and innocence on this newest manifestation and appreciated the power that is mine as God’s Son. Wow! Look what I have done! It is good.
I played with this idea for awhile, practicing seeing where discernment ends and judgment begins. Practicing seeing how the ego would see this cold as a failure and would urge me to project its cause outside myself. The germs did it! But I will not deny my own power and I will not condemn myself for exercising the power of creation. This is what I was created for. Well, ok, I might find another way to exercise that power since I don’t seem to enjoy having a cold. But never, never again will I deny my self.
When I decide to pick and choose those creations I want to claim, I am denying my self and denying my power. I am also creating the illusion of separation. In order for me to project my feeling of betrayal, my friend must become separate from me or who will there be to betray me. In order to deny my responsibility for manifesting my cold, an array of sick brothers who must become separate from me and there must be bacteria called into creation which are also somehow magically separate from me.
Each time I deny my creation and try to foist it off on someone else, I must create someone else. I must decide all over again on the separation. So over and over again, day in and day out I make that original decision to separate myself from my Self, to see myself as separate and different. My many selves become my enemy, full of betrayal through words and the passing of germs.
This depressing state is simply the result of denial. It occurs because I judge my creations, find them wanting, think I am my creation and therefore wanting, hide my face from that sense of wrongness by flinging it outward and flinging with it my birthright as creator, Son of a Creator. Holy Spirit, I open my heart and mind to the joy that is mine as God’s holy and loved Son. I open my heart to my creations, and accept each one as good and perfect. I open myself to Your Guidance, and gladly welcome Your help as I choose the direction of my next creation, and my next, and my next. Thank You, my beloved Father for my existence. My heart overflows with gratitude and with love for You.
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.