What is God? (Part 1)

God is Causal Mind

Contrary to what many of us have been duped into believing, God is NOT a bearded old man looking down on the world from a big shiny throne up in Heaven. Our Heavenly Father is NOT, in fact, a person at all, nor is Heaven an actual place. Rightly understood, God is the Supreme Creative Mind or Causeless Cause that, "in the beginning" extended and/or projected the Creative Thought Force that brought into being all that is, has ever been, or ever will be. 

All that is, has ever been, or ever will be is, therefore, God's creative EFFECT. This effect is known by various names, some of which are the Son of God or Sonship, Creation, Christ, the Christ Mind, and the Kingdom of Heaven.

Oh, yes, my sleeping brother. All of these terms are synonyms for the Christ-Self, Holy Mind, or Superconscious Sphere our Souls comprise in Divine Reality. Because God's "Sonship" includes everything the Father created "in the beginning," its membership extends to the Souls within ALL lifeforms, not just human Souls -- and certainly NOT only Jesus.

Think about this the next time you order a hamburger -- or step on a cockroach.

In the dream-desert, Jesus SYMBOLIZES the Christ-Self we all comprise in Divine Reality. That Christ-Self is the "loaf," and our individual Souls are the torn-off pieces or fragments of that greater "body." This is the idea Jesus tried to get across to his disciples at the Last Supper, when he urged them to break the symbolic bread "in remembrance of me." He meant, "Break bread on occasion to remember that you are all parts of the Christ-Self, as am I." He did NOT mean, "Imagine consuming my flesh as a wafer to remember how I died for your sins."

As a symbol of the Christ-Self, Jesus represents the purified State of Grace all human beings must attain before returning to or -- more accurately -- REMEMBERING their True Identities as the Perfect and Eternal Idea the God-Mind willed into being "in the beginning." When he says (in John 14:6), "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life," he means, "I am the WAY because it is I who will guide you along the path back to Christ-Realization; I am the TRUTH because it is I who helps you see through the Great Deceiver's illusions; and I am the LIFE because it is I who symbolizes the immortal Christ-Self we all are deep-down in the core of our beings."

Got it? Good, because our Savior's message is lost on those who erroneously insist Jesus was God's "only begotten Son."

As Jesus himself explains in the Manual for Teachers, The Christ, Christ-Self, or Christ Mind still abides "within the Mind that is His Source." That Mind -- the God Mind -- is our Holy Home, now and forever. In that Holy Home, Jesus tells us, we (as Souls) are still as perfect and innocent as God created us "in the beginning."

The God-Mind in which we dwell eternally is a Superconscious Sphere of Knowledge or Omniscience. The part we occupy is called Heaven or the Kingdom of Heaven. Contrary to what many religions teach, our Souls do NOT go to Heaven when they drop the maya-perceiving instruments their physical bodies actually are. Rightly understood, Heaven is the natural state of Omniscience or Knowledge our Souls share with their Creator. Heaven is NOT, therefore, a reward Souls receive for repenting or being "good"; it's the All-Knowing state-of-being to which they return by remembering what they really are, where they really are, and how they really think and will.

WHAT they are is God's Holy Son; WHERE they are is inside the God-Mind, safe, sound, and impervious to anything Satan can dream up to deceive them into believing otherwise; and HOW they think and will is the same way God thinks and wills.

Jesus affirms much of what I've just explained in the following excerpt from Lesson 45 (God is the Mind with which I think) of the Course's Workbook for Students:

You think with the Mind of God. Therefore you share your thoughts with Him, as He shares His with you. They are the same thoughts, because they are thought by the same Mind. To share is to make alike, or to make one. Nor do the thoughts you think with the Mind of God leave your mind, because thoughts do not leave their source. Therefore, your thoughts are in the Mind of God, as you are. They are in your mind as well, where He is. As you are part of His Mind, so are your thoughts part of His Mind.

To summarize: Only the thoughts we share with the God Mind are REAL and TRUE. Everything else is smoke and mirrors conjured by the Ego Mind -- the Anti-Christ, Devil, Great Deceiver, or Alien-Mind that broadcasts the Dream of Separation into our sleeping minds. Rightly understood, the Ego Mind weaves a Dark Veil, Etheric Web, or Auric Shell around our Higher Minds to block our memories of God, Heaven, and our True Identities.

This "egg" is the cocoon in which we see ourselves as earthbound caterpillars. It's also the Cosmic Egg or Womb in which we prepare for rebirth as the Sons of God we really are. Rightly understood, the Cosmic Egg is a purification chamber, rather than an evolutionary environment.

In Heaven, all thoughts are shared (telepathically) between Father and Son. Everybody knows everything there is to know, so there's no need for words or language. Behind the Ego Mind's Soul-memory barricade, Dark Veil, Etheric Web, or Auric Shell, we can't hear God's direct transmissions, but we ARE still connected to His Mind. And, thanks to Jesus, we CAN hear the Holy Spirit, who "speaks," "sings," or intones on God's behalf through the Christ Mind.

Technically speaking, Heaven isn't just the Holy Home of the Christ Mind. Being the spaceless sphere the Christ Mind occupies within the God Mind, the Kingdom of Heaven IS the Christ Mind. We don't just live there, in other words; we make up that shared Superconscious "kingdom," sphere, or realm. This is the Great Truth Jesus attempts to impart when he says things like "You are the Kingdom of Heaven" and "The Kingdom of Heaven is spread out upon the earth, but men do not see it."

The Kingdom of Heaven is spread out on the earth as the Soul or Divine Spark within all living things. That indwelling Holy Light is the only part of this world created by God "in the beginning." It is, therefore, the only part that's Real and/or Eternal. We don't see that Spark as long as we perceive the world and our fellow creatures through the Dark Veil of ego-manifested opposites and grievances. 

To behold the Kingdom of Heaven all around us, we must look inward -- deep into the Higher Mind memory "banks" of our Souls. Those ethereal storage units are the chakras, which are blocked by the Ego Mind's unreal opposites, unloving thoughts, fear-conditioning, and grievances. The at-one-ment apparatus that enables our inner-sight or Holy Vision is the Spiritual Eye or nous -- the intuitive "eye of the heart." Only by opening this symbolic "single eye" can we look through the Dark Veil into the chakras. And only through this "single-eye" -- as Jesus explains in the Bible AND the Course -- can we perceive the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

Why must we turn our focus inward? Because the TRUTH is in our minds, NOT in the forms we perceive as outside and unconnected to us. What we perceive "out there" is merely our fearful thoughts and beliefs, projected outward in material form. More specifically, what we perceive with the body's senses are materialized symbols of the wrong-minded errors that blind us to the inner-Truth. To correct those errors, we have to forgive ourselves and everybody else for being duped into believing what happens in the external world is not only REAL, but also consequential.

I'll revisit these and other Great Truths in future posts. Up next, we're going to talk more about how the God Mind thinks, wills, and creates, so be sure to read on or come back. 

My Path to A Course in Miracles

Let's begin our journey together with a little background on your guide. Like many people, I followed a long and winding path to A Course in Miracles, which I began in earnest in March or April of 1997. Along the way, the Holy Spirit helped me remove several "obstacles" that stood between me and what turned out to be my True Path.

I began this life as a Catholic, but only attended weekly Mass and Catechism until age eleven -- the year before I would have received the Holy Sacrament of Confirmation. In high school, I became what was then called a "Jesus Freak," but gave up my Christian clique when they forbade me to hang out with my "worldly" friends. Thereafter, I explored many alternate paths before eventually returning to Catholicism in my mid-twenties. At that point, I actually learned the theology on which the religion is founded. Unable to accept some of these beliefs, I walked away from the Church of my upbringing (and many past lives)

For the next several years, I had no spiritual foundation. Consequently, I grew increasingly depressed and began contemplating suicide. Rather than act on this impulse, I called a psychologist, who saw me immediately. At our first session, he asked if I had a philosophy of life.

“Not really,” I answered. “As far as I can tell, life is meaningless and random.” I proceeded to share my cynical theory that human beings were the accidental offspring of horny aliens and apes. While I didn’t really believe this, I had no better explanation to offer.

He listened patiently before asking with a concerned smile, “Do you find that philosophy useful?”

When I answered that I didn’t, he advised me to work on developing a more heartening spiritual belief system.    

Thereafter, I explored several paths, none of which felt right. Fast forward to my mid-thirties. While taking an astrology class at a New Age bookstore in Pasadena, Calif., I noticed—and was drawn to—A Course in Miracles. Thumbing through its pages, I saw the Christian language within and, turned off by it, put the book back on the shelf.

A few months later, I was awakened one Sunday by a powerful inner prompt directing me to get out of bed and go to Mass at the local Catholic Church. I did as instructed and strongly felt the Holy Spirit’s presence at the service. I continued going to weekly Mass and, a few months later, I signed up for an adult confirmation class. At the start of the first session, the facilitator led the class through a guided meditation.

“Imagine yourself walking on a beach,” she began. “Now imagine that Jesus appears and walks with you. What do you say to him? What does he say to you?”

Normally, I don’t have much luck with visual meditations. But this time, I DID see Jesus walking with me on the beach. I spoke to him from my heart about my doubts. In response, he explained that faith was a choice. Then, he asked, “What do you gain by NOT believing in me?”

The next moment, I saw myself at a crossroads. The road to the left was a continuation of the one I’d been on, which had only made me increasingly unhappy. The road to the right disappeared over the distant horizon. I couldn’t see where it went, but I KNEW it would take me to a better place. As I chose the RIGHT road, I also chose to believe in Jesus.

Having removed this obstacle from my mind, the Holy Spirit used my then-boss to steer me toward A Course in Miracles a few days later. At the time, I had a stressful job in the public affairs office of an elite private college. I was divorced, unhappy, and Ego-bound. One day, my supervisor, who was not to my knowledge a “spiritual” person, came into my office and set a book on my desk.

“I was in a bookstore last night,” he said, “and got the strangest feeling I needed to buy this for you.” The book was Deepak Chopra’s The Path to Love. That night, I read the whole book, which resonated with me deeply.

The next day, my boss came into my office again. This time, he handed me a copy of a transcript from an NPR interview with Marianne Williamson, who, as it happened, was an alumna of the college I worked for. In the interview, not surprisingly, she talked about A Course in Miracles. Her descriptions spoke to me, so at lunch, I went out and bought the book. That night, as I read the Text and started the Workbook, I knew I’d found my True Path.

This happened in April 1997. I know because, for some reason, I dated some of the Workbook Lessons. On the evening of April 17, an inner-voice I knew to be the Holy Spirit’s spoke to me. A month or so before, I’d started an intense relationship with someone with severe emotional problems. When he ended the relationship as abruptly as he’d initiated it, I was heartbroken. While lying in bed agonizing over what to do, the Holy Spirit’s still, small voice said (inside my mind), “You’re asking the wrong questions. The right question is: What have I lost if I choose love?”

The question sparked an epiphany. In that moment, I understood, for the first time in my life, that we experience love not by GETTING it from someone else, but by GIVING it without reservation. If I continued to love this man, whatever form the relationship might take, I had lost ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

When I look back on these experiences, I can see (and hope you will too) how carefully and actively the Holy Spirit guided me to the Course. I also recognize how He helped me surmount two major obstacles to “choosing right.” Not my horny alien theory, but my rejection of organized Christianity and, with it, Jesus as my “savior.” Like many “recovering” Catholics, I had thrown out the baby with the bathwater. To reclaim the baby (Jesus), I also had to forgive the bathwater (Catholicism) for being contaminated by wrong-minded thinking.

All right, so ... that's my story -- or at least some of it. I'll share more of my spiritual history and experiences as we move forward. In the meantime, why don't you tell me a little about yourself in the comments. Are you doing the Course? If so, how long have you been at it? If not, what path are you following and why?