Genesis Reinterpreted

Now that we've dispensed with the preliminaries, let's decode the symbolism used in the first chapter of the Old Testament Book of Genesis. Does it really say that God created the world and everything in it in seven short days? No, because God's Will is done all at once, from Alpha to Omega, in the Holy Instant of Milta. More to the point, our Heavenly Father didn't DO anything Genesis describes directly, because the word "God" was an erroneous substitution for "Elohim," a plural Hebrew word meaning "Divine Grace."

I explained all of this -- and a whole lot more -- in Part 1 of this series. If you're coming late to the party, I strongly suggest you read that post before this one -- or, better yet, start from the very beginning with my post dated January 6, 2023.

Okay, so ... with the correct wording restored, the opening lines of Genesis read as follows:

In the beginning Elohim created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of Elohim moved upon the face of the waters.

Based on all we've established thus far, the Elohim powers could NOT have created Heaven and the planet we call "Earth" in literal terms for two indisputable reasons. The first of these is that Heaven, being eternal, has always existed. The second is that the dream-universe was, according to Genesis, “without form, and void” at this point in time. There were, in other words, no perceived galaxies, solar system, planets, or other astral objects -- and wouldn’t be for thousands (if not millions) more dream-years.

If, then, this description is valid, it must mean something OTHER than what it APPEARS to mean (which it absolutely does). That Elohim created “heaven” and “earth” when the void was “without form” tells us the Spirit of Grace re-engineered the dream-realm to serve the Shared Will of Father and Son BEFORE we imagined the drifting clouds of matter consolidating into solid forms. Thus, that “darkness was upon the face of the deep” indicates that, even before "the intrusion of fire and ice" blocked God's tonal transmissions of Agape, the Ego Mind's fear-based thought-system had jammed the channel through which God speaks to our Souls.

Moving “upon the face of the waters” does NOT mean Elohim flew over the oceans, as many Biblical interpreters (both scholarly and clerical) wrongly presume. If there were no planets, how could there be oceans?

The obvious answer is: There could NOT be. 

The "waters" in Genesis aren't the wet stuff; rather, they symbolize thought vibrations. Luminously interpreted, “Moved upon the face of the waters” simply means the Spirit of Grace acted in the formless void to change its purpose from miscreating through fear-based thinking to learning or remembering how to create again in accordance with the Law of Love.

As you contemplate these events, keep in mind that Elohim changed the world's purpose NOT by tinkering with the structure of matter, as many occult "scientists" falsely report, but by tinkering with the vibratory "wiring" within our image-projecting minds.

To confirm the accuracy of what I’ve just explained, let’s consult the Gospel of Mary, another of the early Christian texts unearthed at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945. Written by Mary the Magdala, the "beloved disciple" and wedded wife of Jesus, the Gospel of Mary first resurfaced in 1896, but events conspired to keep its discovery secret until two more copies were found many decades later.

In Mary’s gospel, Jesus says the following about the nature of matter: 

All nature, all formations, all creatures exist in and with one another, and they will be resolved again into their own roots. For the nature of matter is resolved into the roots of its own nature alone. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Here’s what he means: Matter consists of vibratory thought-waves, projected outward in image-forms symbolizing the underlying idea. Although fear-based, that underlying idea is still creative thought or “spirit.” Thus, matter and spirit share a cause-effect relationship. They are not two separate things, but ONE idea in different stages of manifestation. To dissolve matter, therefore, we must purify our minds of the dense fear-based thoughts through which we project the illusion of form in collusion with the Ego Mind.

When we stop projecting the dark and dense emotions of fear and guilt, in other words, the illusion of solid matter will simply disappear. What will then remain is the only thing that’s REAL: The Great Light of God's Mind in which “all nature, all formations, all creatures exist in and with one another.” 

Got it? Good. Let’s get back to Genesis.

Here’s what happened next, according to the Old Testament account:

And Elohim said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And Elohim saw the light, that it was good, and divided the light from the darkness. And they called the light Day, and the darkness they called Night.

Did the Spirit of Grace create visible light at this point in time? No, because the Ego Mind projected the image of suns much later to support the illusion of physicality. What Elohim ACTUALLY did was shine Holy Light into the "dark void" of fear-dominated perception. Like most things in the Bible, “Day” and “Night” are symbolic references. “Day” represented the Light of God the Spirit of Grace brought into the dream to change its purpose, while "Night" symbolized the dark deceptions or unreal opposites the Ego Mind manifested to block the Higher Mind "receivers" of the Separated Ones.

The ancient Chinese Yin-Yang symbol represents this duality of this concept of Day (mind-awake) and Night (mind-asleep). Like everything else the Ego Mind touches, the symbol's real meaning has been distorted over time. Yin and Yang are NOT two opposing forces (such as male and female) working in harmony, as modern philosophers erroneously profess. They are two opposing forces, only one of which is REAL.

Originally, the word "Yin" meant "firm," while "Yang" meant "yielding." The "Yin" aspect of the universe encompassed, therefore, the perfect, eternal, and unchanging aspects of Creation, while "Yang" symbolized the ever-shifting dark opposites that blocked the "Yin" from our awareness. To see the truth of our being, early Chinese sages RIGHTLY advised, we must seek and honor only the "firm," "light," or "eternal" components of being. 

Thus, in the story of Genesis:

Day = Yin = the "firm" or "light" creations of God (mind-awake/knowing/Agape-inspired)
Night = Yang = the "yielding" or "dark" manifestations of the Ego Mind (mind-asleep/perceiving/fear-inspired)

Genesis continues as follows:

And Elohim said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” And [the] Elohim made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And [the] Elohim called the [upper] firmament Heaven.

Most ego-deceived Biblical interpreters take this to mean Elohim (or God) divided the sky from the oceans on Day Two of the (Re) Building Cycle. That is NOT, however, what it says at all. “Firmament” means “sphere” or “realm,” while the “waters,” as explained, were the two opposing thought-systems (Day/Light/Yin or Night/Darkness/Yang) the Separated Ones would be able to choose between after the Atonement Plan was activated.

To divide the Higher Mind “waters” or thought-vibrations from the lower-mind “waters” or thought-vibrations, Elohim established a “realm” in-between Heaven (Superconsciousness) and “earth” (Ego Consciousness). The Spiritual Triad is that middle “realm.” To return to Heaven-proper, we must first pass through that middle-firmament. This is what Jesus means in the New Testament AND the Course when he says, "Nobody can reach the Father except through me." Nobody can, in other words, restore their mind to Superconsciousness or Knowledge without first passing through the corrected perceptual state of Christ Consciousness.

Throughout the Course, Jesus calls this middle-firmament or Spiritual Triad the Inner-Altar.

To verify the accuracy of my interpretation, let’s look more closely at the Hebrew word translated into English as "Heaven." The word was Shamayin, which (like Elohim) is PLURAL. Etymologically, Shamayin combines two smaller words: sham or samu, meaning “sky” or “lofty,” and mayim, meaning “water.” What Shamayin means, therefore, is “lofty-water,” Higher Mind, or Higher Thought.

In Jewish theology, Shamayin has three levels. The highest is the dwelling place of the Lord of Hosts; the middle level houses “the living”; and the lowest tier is “the realm of the dead.” Most Jewish scholars and teachers understand these three levels as Heaven, Earth, and the Underworld. In actuality, they are the three “planes” or “kingdoms” governed by the Trinity Powers of Elohim, which are:

Throne of the Lord of Hosts = Seventh Plane, the dwelling place of the Spirit of Grace, who represents the Father part of the Will to liberate the Sonship from Ego-enslavement;

Land of the Living = Sixth Plane, the dwelling place of the Christ and Christ-Realized Souls (the “living” who’ve overcome “death” through "resurrection");

Land of the Dead = The Fifth Kingdom, the dwelling place of the Atman or Soul-Self and awakening Souls who’ve not yet "resurrected" -- i.e., “realized” their shared Christ Identities or Wholeness.

Let’s proceed to the third symbolic “day,” on which the Spirit of Grace reportedly did the following:

And Elohim said, “Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear”: and it was so. And Elohim called the dry land earth; and the gathering together of the waters they called seas: and they saw that it was good.

The meaning of this passage suffers greatly from unilluminated translation and interpretations. We now know that the “waters under heaven” are the lower-mind planes of Ego Consciousness. To gather them together in one place, Elohim organized the drifting and divided Souls into orders or "kingdoms" below the Spiritual Triad, but still in the “waters” of perception. Based on various things I’ve read, these orders are roughly as follows:

Fourth Kingdom = Humans
Third Kingdom = Non-Human Animals
Second Kingdom = Plants
First Kingdom = Minerals or Protoplasm (depending on source)

In the passage under discussion, the Hebrew word translated as “seas” was yammin or yamin, which means right hand, right-mind, or Higher Mind. The word translated as “dry land” was hey-yabbasah. Hey means “to reveal” or “true revelation comes from Heaven alone.” It refers, therefore, to the third power of Elohim: the illuminating Light of God within all living things. Yabbasah, meanwhile, means “dry,” “withered,” or “ashamed.” The word translated as Earth was Adamah, which has come to mean earth, soil, or ground, but didn’t at first. Originally, Adamah was the name of the allegorical Garden of Eden, the paradise God created for His Souls to practice creating.

Similarly, the Hebrew word adam has come to mean “man” or “humankind.” Originally, the word meant “red,” while its root (dam) meant “blood.” Adam, therefore, symbolized the Souls in Adamah. In the dream, Adam is represented by the Atman -- the Divine Spark or Christ-fragment in all lifeforms. In the dream-realm, that Spark is a chip off the old block, so to speak. As such, it's the same color as its Source: the One on the Ruby Throne referenced in the Book of Revelations.

This particular Genesis passage is, in fact, a great example of how off-base literal or unilluminated interpretations of the Scriptures can be. This confusing description has nothing to do with the land and water we perceive on Planet Earth. Rather, it echoes the allegory of Adam and Eve AND the Course, both of which describe how, under the Ego Mind’s corrupting influence, the Separated Ones believed they had shamed themselves in the eyes of God. To escape their disgrace, they fled (projected their split minds) into a lower realm devoid of the “waters” or "graces" of the Higher Mind. They descended, in other words, into the denser plane of ego-body consciousness. And it was then that they jammed their communications with God.

That Elohim gathered together the waters of yamin (the Soul’s repressed Higher Mind memories) means the Trinity Powers extended the Inner-Instrument into the lower realms of Persona and Matter. In so doing, they equipped the Separated Ones with an internal mechanism that would 1) restore their direct communication with God and 2) gently and gradually bring them back up the six levels they fell down.

On the proverbial third day, Elohim transformed the Ego Mind's barren worlds into habitable learning environments for the sanity-restoring At-one-ment curriculum. Shrouded in fear, guilt, and physical bodies, the Souls shared the belief they required food to survive, and thus made the need real in the dream. In Truth, they only needed the manna of God's Saving Grace, which the Christ Mind provided through its vibratory "Song of Heaven."

On the fourth day, according to Genesis, the following occurred:

And [the] Elohim said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the Day from the Night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth”: and it was so. And [the] Elohim made two great lights; the greater light to rule the Day, and the lesser light to rule the Night: they made the stars also. And Elohim set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the Day and over the Night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and Elohim saw that it was good.

This passage SEEMS to describe Elohim creating suns, stars, and moons; but we know that can’t be right because, like God, the Spirit of Grace creates through Divine Will. The two great lights Elohim "made" were the Christ Light and the Divine Spark or Atman, which "gave light upon the earth" from the Spiritual Triad or Inner-Altar. Being within us, these two lights divide the light (Spiritual Truth) from the darkness (Ego-manifested deception).

The next section of Genesis reads:

And Elohim said, “Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that [they] may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.” And they created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and Elohim saw that it was good … [and] blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.”

In the Course, Jesus tells us unequivocally that the Ego Mind made our physical bodies to perceive separation and the sense of limitation and littleness it engendered. Thus, Elohim could NOT have created birds and sea creatures, as this passage SEEMS to suggest. To decipher the real meaning, let’s again consider the symbolism.

Waters = the vibratory levels of thought, now organized into seven planes

Open firmament of heaven = the three higher planes of the Trinity Powers

Because this Biblical passage mentions whales and birds, we can infer that the Souls from the Third Kingdom (non-human animals) were now “falling” into bodies on the denser physical plane. So, Elohim said, more or less: “Let the corrective devices we’ve provided bring the fallen Souls back to the Spiritual Triad in great numbers.” They also encouraged the body-clad Souls to “be fruitful and multiply” so more of them could enter the new Atonement Academy they’d reengineered the dream-world to be.

“The whole [reproductive] process was set up as a learning experience in gaining Grace,” Jesus explains in the Course's URText. He also says that procreative sex was introduced as “a creative tool” for two primary purposes. The first was to enable Souls to make new homes for other Souls and lovingly “parent” them, as God parents us. The second was to allow Souls to “live” many lives with the goal of improving their "Records."

On the symbolic sixth and final day, Elohim did the same for the remaining Souls from the Third Kingdom, as well as for the human Souls in the Fourth Kingdom. Regarding human Souls, Elohim said:

“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” So [the] Elohim created man in their own image, in the image of the Elohim created they him; male and female created they them. And [the] Elohim blessed them, and said unto them, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

Let's stop here for a sec, because I need to explain that the Hebrew word translated as "dominion" in the passage above actually means "to lower oneself." Contrary to popular presumption, Elohim did NOT command human Souls to rule over the lower orders of body-clad Souls; they commanded us to right-mindedly perceive ourselves as EQUAL with all the other orders of Creation.

This is what Jesus attempts to express in Matthew 35:40, when he says, "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." What we do to ANY lifeform, in other words, we do unto our own CHRIST-SELF (and will receive as we gave).

In the Course, Jesus also explains that we can't get back to Heaven until we RIGHTLY perceive that we are one with and equal to the Souls in ALL lifeforms. This is, in fact, how we "save" the lower orders of Creation. In the Manuel for Teachers, Jesus also lists "Gentleness" as a characteristic of Advanced or Enlightened Teachers of God. Gentleness, as defined by Jesus in this section, is identical to the Yogic "yama" or virtuous discipline of Ahimsa, non-violence, or harmlessness -- the guru-prescribed moral practice of not harming any living thing.

In case you're still on the fence about God's position on our treatment, consumption, and/or extermination of His Sons in the bodies of animals, fishes, and insects, read the rest of Genesis. In what is arguably the least cited passage in Biblical history, Elohim specifically instructs the Souls on earth to EAT ONLY PLANTS!!! 

The passage regarding the final day of the building cycle is also the one from which we got the crazy idea that God made human bodies in His mirror image. Since Elohim is a divine thought-force, the above CANNOT mean she/they made human bodies like theirs or that we physically resemble them or God (as we've already established). It has to mean, therefore, that the Graces did something to remind us of our resemblance to God in terms of our shared Holiness, Will, and Creative Powers -- the aspects and attributes of divinity we elected to forget when we chose earth over Heaven.

What did Elohim do to help us remember these aspects and attributes? The answer is: She/they installed an ingenious mechanism within us to accomplish God’s Plan over time and within the parameters of free will. In Course terms, that inner-instrument consists of the “Temple” (the lower four chakras or planes) and the "Inner-Altar" (the upper three chakras or planes).

Based on what Jesus explains in the Course, the Inner-Instrument also is equipped with the "tools" or components listed below. For ease in cross-referencing, I've added the now more familiar Hindu/Yoga terms for each of these elements in parenthesis where applicable. 

—An ever-sounding Call to Awaken (the Aum or Cosmic vibration)
—An embedded compulsion to return to God (Atman)
—A reasoning part of the mind that can learn Spiritual Truth, up to a point (Buddhi)
—A pre-set time (chosen by us) for the Shared Will to activate within our dreaming minds;
—A gentle force to uncoil that Will, once activated (Kundalini);
—An upward path for that Holy Will to follow as it uncoils over time (Sushumna);
—An inward-looking "eye" to enable correction (the Spiritual Eye);
—Two curative powers to “grease” the whole machine (the Great Rays within the Ida and Pingala nadis).

An invisible “body” sheathes these elements within us. That “body” is known by many names. Some call it the Astral or Subtle Body; others call it the Soma Pneumatikos. In the Course and the New Testament, as I’ve said, Jesus calls this Inner-Instrument "the Temple." He also states in no uncertain terms that the Temple to which he refers is NOT the physical body.

As I understand it, this Inner-Instrument and the physical body have nothing to do with each other, as each is projected by a different part of our dreaming minds. The Temple is projected by the Christ Mind, while the physical body is projected by the Ego Mind.

In the simplest possible terms:

Physical Body = instrument to enable lower-mind perception

Spiritual Body = instrument to restore Higher Mind perception

While experiencing ourselves in the world, we seem to wear this invisible Spiritual Body under our flesh-and-bone perceiving instruments. In reality, our "being" extends everywhere. With the addition of the Spiritual Body, Elohim made it possible for us to hear God again. We could not, however, hear God’s Voice yet. Before the Elohim powers could activate the plan, they had to wake up the Great Rays, which still slept in the Christ Mind. And that, in a nutshell, is how Jesus saved the world.

I'll describe all that Jesus did to earn the title "Savior" in a future post. For now, just know that even after Jesus awoke the Atonement Rays, the Christ Mind couldn’t communicate with its Soul-fragments unless invited to do so. The Elohim powers had erected the cell tower, so to speak, but we still had to turn on our phones to receive Christ's calls. Giving us this choice preserved free will -- or appeared to, at least. 

Other devices built into the Great Plan would eventually force the surrender of even the most stubborn hold-outs. I won’t go into what all of those devices are. Just know that nothing occurs by accident. Absolutely nothing. And all things work together for the greater good or accelerated awakening of everyone involved. To judge events without understanding the complex tapestry of whys, whatnots, and wherefores is to perceive them without context.

Okay, so ... that's my spiel on Genesis, but there's more to tell about the Elohim powers. Lots more. So, be sure to come back for the next installment in my "Who or What is Elohim?" series.

What is God? (Part 3)

God is Love
We’ve all heard the expression “God is Love,” but what does this statement really mean? Well, it means this: God, being the Causal Source of Perfect Love, extended His Mind-Self -- through the Creative Force of Perfect Love -- to create more Perfect Love. God is, therefore, the Causal Mind or Generating Source of the Divine Idea of Perfect Love, the Creative Force is the Absolute Divine Will through which God extends or projects that Divine Idea, and the Sonship or Christ-Mind is the Creation, Effect, or end result of that three-party creative process.

Being the Father's thought-creation, the Son must and will remain forever in the mind of its Source. Being an extension of the God-Mind, the Son also shares its Father's creative powers. The Son also can, therefore, expand Creation by extending its "Mind-Self" -- the created effect of God's first extension. God's Son or Effect can NOT, however, extend its "Mind-Self" unless it 1) shares the Father's Will and 2) obeys the Father's established laws for Perfect Creation.

Before we get into what the Father's Will and Laws dictate, let's clarify what Jesus means by the phrase "Perfect Love." For starters, he means a kind of love that is not of this world and, therefore, incomprehensible to our concrete human intellects. What the world calls "love" is NOT what love really is, he repeatedly points out in the Course. What the world calls "love" is fear disguised as love. It is, in fact, the imaginary opposite the Ego Mind devised to block our memories of Perfect Love.

Or, as Jesus explains:
 

No law the world obeys can help you grasp love’s meaning. What the world believes was made to hide love’s meaning, and to keep it dark and secret. There is not one principle the world upholds but violates the truth of what love is, and what you are as well. Seek not within the world to find your Self. Love is not found in darkness and in death. Yet it is perfectly apparent to the eyes that see and ears that hear Love’s Voice.

Satan's wolf-in-sheep's-clothing version of "love" is what Jesus refers to in the Course as "special love." This deceptive replacement for God's Perfect Love includes self-love, familial-love, and romantic-love, all of which promote exclusivity, separation, and ego/body-self identification, rather than inclusiveness, unity, and Christ/Soul-Self Identification.

In future posts, I'll say more about "special love," "special relationships," and "specialness" in general. For now, just know that "special love," being a form of fear, prevents Perfect Love from entering our dreaming minds. To open our hearts to God's Presence again, we must give up our desire for and/or attachment to "special love" in all its deceptive guises. The level of ego/body-self surrender (not sacrifice!) this entails is difficult for most people to imagine, let alone achieve. But achieve it we MUST if we wish to liberate our Souls from Satan's silky cocoon.  

Because these two conceptions of "love" are, in fact, opposed, let's set the genuine article apart by calling it not "love" or Perfect Love, but Agape -- the Greek word for Divine Love. Understanding what Agape is and how superior it is to the Great Deceiver's pathetic substitutions is vitally important, so let me walk you through the differences.

Let's start with Agape's etymological origins. As a noun, the word first appeared in the mid-3rd Century BCE in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. Agape’s use a a verb dates back as far as Homer, the presumed author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. In Homer’s time (8^th Century BCE), however, Agape was understood to be synonymous with affection.

In the New Testament's First Epistle of Paul to Timothy, Agape is more accurately described as arising “out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.” Elsewhere in the original Greek New Testament, Agape also referred to the “covenant of love” existing between God and Creation. That “covenant” is reciprocal, all-encompassing, and all-inclusive. God loves the Souls comprising the Sonship, and those Souls love Him right back. Being part of the God Mind, those Souls also love their fellow God-Creations and their own (real) Creations as much as they love their Creator.

 

When Jesus uses the word “Love” in the Course -- and in English translations of the New Testament -- he often means Agape, which is, in fact, the word he originally used. Actually, he probably said Hooba, the Aramaic word for Divine Love. In case you don't know, Aramaic is the language Jesus spoke when he walked the earth in a body. As an educated Jewish rabbi who grew up in Egypt (where his family fled to avoid the Massacre of the Innocents), Jesus also would have spoken Hebrew, Coptic, Greek (the common language of trade and literacy in his day), and probably some Latin (the language of the Romans who ruled Judea). But, by all accounts, Jesus delivered his sermons in Aramaic, the spoken language of the common people of Nazareth, Galilee, and Jerusalem in those days.

 

Like Agape, Hooba describes an overflowing, unconditional love that seeks nothing in return. The Divine Idea we ARE and always will be in God's Mind, Hooba and Agape have nothing to do with ardent affection or passionate desire; rather, they describe a general feeling of goodwill, loving kindness, and/or charity toward our fellow creatures. What we think of as “Christmas Spirit” or "brotherly love" embodies the general idea. Inherent in the definition is devotion, loyalty, and service to God, other Souls (not other people's egos!), and the spiritual aspects of life.

As an aside, when I say "charity," I mean wishing only the best or highest good for others; NOT giving to the "less fortunate" at the level of form. To perceive anyone as "less fortunate" -- or "less" ANYTHING -- is to see them through the Ego Mind's truth-distorting Dark Veil of separation, scarcity, and comparison. The only REAL charity we can give anyone, Jesus says in the Course, is to open their mind to Spiritual Truth. He also says we can only help others in this way if 1) we are awake or "healed" ourselves, 2) if the person is receptive, and 3) if we are the "teacher" assigned to this "pupil" in the Atonement Plan.

How do we know if someone we meet is receptive and/or one of our pupils? Jesus will tell us when both parties are ready to begin their teaching-learning partnership. He will also tell us exactly how we are to help them. Because anything we attempt to do without his direction can prove detrimental to the curricular progress and/or well-being of both people, we should NOT attempt to help others on our own.

Okay, yes. What I'm saying SEEMS to go against everything the world defines as "charity" -- and that's the point. How the world defines "charity" is as big a trap as how the world defines "love." To give "charity" or "love" as God defines these "ideas," we must give them to all at the level of shared mind and thought, NOT at the level of separate bodies and material objects or money. What we give in this manner -- in meditation and prayer -- we will receive quid pro quo.

Rightly understood, these charitable exchanges of loving thought are the "miracles" the Course prepares us to perform. These reciprocal thought-transactions are, Jesus tells us, the only real way to heal anyone of separation-mindedness. And separation-mindedness, he also explains, is the root cause of EVERY problem we face in the world.

Before we can perform these mutual mind-healing "miracles," we have to 1) hear the Holy Sprit's "Voice" with our inner-ears and 2) view everyone with the perfect equanimity of Christ's Vision. We can NOT, in other words, perceive ANYONE as "more," "less," "different," or "separate" than we are by any comparative measure the Ego Mind contrived to blind us to our SAMENESS or ONENESS with everything God created.

Stated more simply: To help or heal anyone in the true sense of the word, we must perceive and love everyone as the God-created Souls they really are -- NOT as the insane ego-body "characters" they play in the dream-world.

I'll say more about miracles, how they work, and how we do them in future posts. For now, let's get back to our definition of Perfect Love or Agape. Jesus affirms some of what I've already explained in the following excerpt from the Course's original dictations:

Love is one. It has no separate parts and no degrees; no kinds nor levels, no divergences and no distinctions. It is like itself, unchanged throughout. It never alters with a person or a circumstance. It is the Heart of God, and also of His Son. 

Elsewhere, he just as affirmingly says:

Love knows no bodies, and reaches to everything created like itself. Its total lack of limit IS its meaning. It is COMPLETELY impartial in its giving, encompassing ONLY to preserve and KEEP COMPLETE what it would give. In your tiny kingdom you have so little! Should it not, then, be there that you would call on Love to enter? Look at the desert, dry and unproductive, scorched and joyless, that makes up your little kingdom. And realize the life and joy that Love would bring to it, from where IT comes, and where it would return WITH you. 

In Workbook Lesson 127 (There is no love but God’s), Jesus also tells us: 

Love cannot judge. As it is one itself, it looks on all as one. Its meaning lies in oneness. And it must elude the mind that thinks of it as partial or in part. There is no love but God’s and all of Love is His. There is no other principle that rules where Love is not. Love is a law without an opposite. Its wholeness is the power holding everything as one, the link between the Father and the Son which holds Them Both forever as the same. No course whose purpose is to teach you to remember what you really are could fail to emphasize that there can never be a difference in what you really are and what Love is. Love’s meaning is your own, and shared by God Himself, and so are you unlimited as well.

In the Workbook for Students, the word “Love” appears in the title affirmations of sixteen lessons:

Lesson 46: God is the Love in which I forgive.

Lesson 50: I am sustained by the Love of God.

Lesson 67: Love created me like Itself.

Lesson 68: Love holds no grievances.

Lesson 127: There is no love but God’s.

Lesson 189: I feel the Love of God within me now.

Lesson 195: Love is the way I walk in gratitude.

Lesson 229: Love, Which created me, is what I am.

Lesson 246: To love my Father is to love His Son.

Lesson 264: I am surrounded by the Love of God.

Lesson 274: Today belongs to Love. Let me not fear.

Lesson 293: All fear is past, and only love is here.

Lesson 298: I love You, Father, and I love Your Son.

Lesson 310: In fearlessness and love I spend today.

Lesson 344: Today I learn the law of love; that what I give my brother is my gift to me.

Lesson 350: Miracles mirror God’s Eternal Love. To offer them is to remember Him, and through His memory to save the world.

Lesson 352: Judgment and love are opposites. From one come all the sorrows of the world. But from the Other comes the peace of God Himself.

 

Notice that when used as a noun, the word "Love" is usually capitalized. Only when used as a verb is "love" lower-case. Christ's treatment of the word as a proper noun supports my assertion that he means Agape in these lessons, rather than the changeable emotion the Ego Mind defines as "love."  If you're still in doubt, read Workbook Lesson 127: There is no Love but God's.

Because there is no English equivalent for Agape or Hooba, Jesus substituted “Perfect Love,” “Eternal Love,” "Divine Love," or just plain “Love” for the same idea when he dictated the Course. Whichever word Jesus may use, he makes his meaning abundantly clear by reminding us -- in the Bible AND the Course -- that God's two GREATEST commandments, rules, or laws are these:

1)   Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your Soul, and with all your mind; and

2)  Love your neighbor as yourself (because your neighbor IS part of your Christ-Self and also, at the Soul level, God’s Holy Creation).

These two directives underpin the Law of Love so often mentioned in the Course. Jesus spells out what that Holy Law decrees in Workbook Lesson 344 (Today I learn the Law of Love; that what I give my brother is my gift to me). In the text of this lesson, he says the following:

This is Your law, my Father, not my own. I have not understood what giving means, and thought to save what I desired for myself alone. And as I looked upon the treasure that I thought I had, I found an empty place where nothing ever was or is or will be. Who can share a dream? And what can an illusion offer me? Yet he whom I forgive will give me gifts beyond the worth of anything on earth. Let my forgiven brothers fill my store with Heaven’s treasures, which alone are real. Thus is the Law of Love fulfilled. And thus Your Son arises and returns to You.

Elsewhere in the Course, Jesus drives home the point that giving and receiving are "one in Truth." Part of what he means is this: Anything we "give" to other people and/or the world in general (through the thought-system or mind we choose to interpret reality for us) we will receive in kind as manifested or ideated form. To receive the love we all crave so much, we must love God with all our hearts and minds by thinking ONLY kind and loving thoughts about everyone and everything.

Is this a tall order? Hell, yes. Is it possible to achieve? Yes, with time, practice, focused effort, and abundant willingness.

What Jesus also means (which took me until this week to figure out) is that, when we focus our attention on the Holy Spirit's "tone" in our minds, we are giving and receiving healing miracles simultaneously. That "tone" is the vibratory echo of the Creative Force of Grace ringing inside the Higher Mind channel through which God communicates with His dreaming Souls. This "tone" is what Jesus calls the Voice for God, the Song of Heaven, the ever-present echo, the Holy Spirit, and the Atonement, among other similar phrases.

This same tone is what Hindus, Yogis, and Buddhists (among others) call the Om or Aum vibration.

Being the Holy Spirit, this "tone," "echo," or "song" is the BRIDGE back to Eternity, Heaven, or Sanity. As that Bridge, this "tone," "echo," or "song" transports us from the lower levels of consciousness through the higher three levels of restored sanity, before God lifts us out of the dream altogether.

At various points in the Course, Jesus says it's the job of God's Teachers to 1) teach those who can't hear the Holy Spirit's Voice, 2) get their assigned pupils to the Bridge, and 3) teach themselves out of a job.

To that -- and to you -- let me say this: At least half of the Course's Text and Workbook are devoted to getting us to the Bridge, while the other half discusses what to do to go "the rest of the way." And yet, nothing I've read about the Course -- by Marianne Williamson, Ken Wapnick, Jerald Jampolsky, Gary Renard, Beverly Hutchinson Neff, or any other self-styled ACIM teacher -- says ONE WORD about any of this. These so-called teachers also do little more than pay lip service to the foundational tenet that the world is an ILLUSION we must GIVE UP to master the at-one-ment curriculum.

Well ... I'm sure there's a good reason for all of this in God's Great Plan, so I won't judge or condemn any of these well-meaning brothers in Christ. What I will say is this: I'm going to tell you how to get to the Bridge. You might not like what you hear -- or be willing to meet the requirements -- but I'm going to tell you anyway ... because that's the job Jesus gave me.

I can't, however, tell you everything you need to know today. What I can share at present is that our concrete human intellects can't comprehend how we can save ourselves and the world just by listening to this ringing sound in the silence of deep and focused meditation. Our Souls do, however, understand and also greatly benefit from the time devoted to concentrating on this healing tone. Like an internal tuning-fork, this tone reminds us of the Higher Truth we forgot, and also enables us to fulfill our assigned forgiveness and teaching functions.

This is essentially what Jesus means when he says, in Workbook Lesson 169 (By grace I live. By grace I am released), "As you take the role assigned to you, salvation comes a little nearer each uncertain heart that does not beat as yet in tune with God."

Elsewhere in the Course, when Jesus says, "We need do nothing" (except sit and wait for the Holy Spirit to come), this is also what he's talking about. We must, however, prepare ourselves to hear the Holy Spirit's Voice -- and that's where a good human teacher comes in handy. At the risk of overstating the obvious, a good teacher will 1) hear the Holy Spirit's Voice themselves and 2) want to teach their students how to hear it, too -- so they'll no longer need a human teacher. 

I heard the inner-ringing as a child, but forgot all about it until I started hearing it again two or three years ago -- while doing Self-Realization Fellowship's nine-month correspondence course. SRF wasn't my path, but Paramahansa Yogananda knew of what he spoke -- for the most part, anyway. What he got wrong, I'll strive to get right as we roll along.

Let's get back to the Law of Love, which Jesus describes in Workbook Lesson 344. The first thing he says is that the Law of Love is God's, not ours. He then says that, when in league with the Ego Mind, we try to acquire the worldly "treasures" we desire on our own, rather than in the giving-receiving partnerships mandated by the Law of Love. We strive, in other words, to appease our avarice for Satan's temptations (i.e., money, possessions, worldly power, sexual lust and gratification, "special love," etc.) through taking, buying, or self-interested willing, rather than by GIVING the THINGS OF GOD -- all of which are mental -- to our fellow Souls or brothers in Christ. Since Satan's "treasures" are only worthless vapor, all we gain in this unholy bargain is a longer sentence in hell.

The Law of Love is also known as the Law of Giving and Receiving and the Law of Karma. Karma is NOT, as commonly misperceived, a product of the Law of Cause and Effect. Why? Because, as I've explained, there is no CAUSAL MIND in the dream-world. We excluded God and the Creative Force of Agape, remember? It is the Law of Love -- not the Law of Cause and Effect -- that makes it SEEM as if we can generate real effects in the dream-desert. What we actually "manifest" are the "thought-gifts" we give over time to ourselves and others.

The good news is that we can expunge these unreal effects through the practice of True Forgiveness. True Forgiveness is, in fact, the ONLY way to clear the Karmic Record, short of having everything done to us we've done to others since the dream began. As Hindus and Buddhists have understood for centuries, that Karmic Record binds our Souls to the Wheel of Rebirth. 

That Wheel is depicted on the Wheel of Fortune card in the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. Take a moment to study the symbols in the image above, because every little "doodle" tells us something about how the Dream of Separation works. The four yellow figures, for example, are what I like to call the Holy Spirit's Rays of Atonement. In the Bible, these same Holy Powers are known as the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It's only the Ego Mind's fearful interpretation of these HELPFUL powers that makes them seem menacing.

The books the winged creatures are reading are the Karmic Ledgers each helps us clear through their prescribed lessons in True Forgiveness. The jackal is the Great Deceiver, whose thought-system binds us to the wheel, and the snake represents the Creative Force of Divine Will uncoiling over many dream-lifetimes. Hindus and Yogis call that serpentine force of God's Will "kundalini."

In the Course's original dictations, Jesus mentions the Record, karmic debts, and reincarnation several times. Unfortunately, these informative references were cut from the Foundation for Inner Peace's "Standard Edition" prior to publication by a presumptuous editor. Other advanced teachings were also altered or removed, as I'll explain in future posts. For now, just know that anyone seeking enlightenment, at-one-ment, or Soul-purification through the Course should study the URText, rather than the "Standard" or "Original" editions. Why? Because (among other reasons) the URText is the ONLY version still containing Christ's critical teachings about sex and sexual desire.

Why do Christ's teachings about sex matter? Because, as Yogis and Buddhists have understood for centuries, we can't hear the Aum vibration as long as we seek to "join" with others at the level of the body.

And on that piquant note, let's close today's post before it gets even longer. In the next, I'll describe in more detail how God creates and why we can't create anything real in the Dream of Separation. 

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. 

Epiphanies, great and small

 

Heaven Itself is reached by empty hands and open minds,which come with nothing
to find everything and claim it as their own.

—Jesus Christ, A Course in Miracles

When A Course in Miracles first came to me, through an undeniable act of Spirit, I remember thinking two things. The first was that the teachings DEFINITELY came from Jesus Christ -- not Helen Schucman, the clinical psychologist who scribed this "metaphysical masterpiece." In no way could an ordinary human-being have conceived the perception-reversing pedagogy this extraordinary book presents. My second thought was that the elevated mindset the Course promotes seemed nearly impossible to apply on a daily basis.

These many years later, I’m not yet enlightened, but I do feel the presence of Christ burning in my heart, I can hear the ever-present echo of God’s Saving Grace in my head, and I absolutely perceive the world and its purpose very differently than I did before starting the Course back in 1997.

My point is this: The Course delivers what it promises if we interpret the teachings correctly and do our part in the ego-undoing process. We must read and reflect on the mind-bending concepts presented in the Text; we must do the daily lessons that enable us to apply those ideas; and we must strive to see the world not as our egos would have it be, but as the Soul-liberating learning-simulator it actually is.

I can’t tell you how often I try to impress this upon my fellow Course students - and how stubbornly they resist doing the work that will free them from the pain and suffering caused by their own wrong-minded thinking. They’re miserable, poor Souls, yet they persist in choosing hell over Heaven day after day. When I grow frustrated with their Truth-blocking obstinance, the Holy Spirit gently reminds me that my earthly ministry is NOT OF ME.

I am only HIS messenger.

The same is true of this blog. I’m not writing all this to make money or attract devotees. My only desire is to be truly helpful to those, like myself, who seek Spiritual Truth through A Course in Miracles. Whether my readers are three or 3,000 in number makes no difference to me. Many or few, they are parts of my Self – the Higher, Christ-Self I am and always have been in Divine Reality.

Launching THE HOLY MEETING PLACE on the Feast of the Epiphany wasn’t accidental – nor was it strictly my idea. When guided (in meditation) to launch the blog on this date, I knew that January 6 marked the arrival of the three Wise Men in Bethlehem. I also knew the event was symbolic, rather than historical, as are most things in the Holy Bible. What does the Adoration of the Magi represent? News of the Savior's birth reaching the "gentile" or non-Jewish peoples of "the Orient," the vast region comprising India, Arabia, and the Far East.

Through subsequent research I learned that the Feast of the Epiphany is observed on a different date in regions still using the Julian calendar. Christian churches in these eastern regions celebrate Epiphany on January 19, which just happens to be my body-birthday.

Happy accident or a carefully orchestrated part of God’s Great and Perfect Plan? The answer is ALWAYS the latter, as Jesus attests in the Course.

Noteworthily, the later Feast Day commemorates the baptism of Jesus, rather than the arrival of the Three Kings in Bethlehem. Why is this noteworthy? Before I answer that, let me explain that the word "epiphany" predominately means "the revelation or incarnation of God in the world." In Christianity, the word is mainly applied to the incarnation or manifestation of God in the world as the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Western Christians, believing Jesus was God-incarnate from birth, celebrate the Epiphany when the news of that presumed incarnation spread to the "gentiles" in India, Arabia, and the Far East. Eastern Christians, conversely, believe Jesus attained, realized, or remembered his inner-divinity (i.e., embodied only the Christ-Self) through the ritual purification of baptism.

In actuality, Jesus first wholly embodied the Pure State of Grace that IS Christ Consciousness not at birth or through baptism, but at the event described in Mark 9:2-13, Matthew 17:1-13, and Luke 9:28-36. He experienced this TRANSFIGURATION from Son of Man (lower-self body-ego identification) to Son of God (Higher-Self Christ-Spirit identification) AFTER and as a desirable effect of his forty-day ordeal in the "desert" or "wilderness." As explained in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus was repeatedly harassed by Satan during an extended period of isolation and fasting. During that time, according to the Epistle of the Hebrews, the Evil One tempted Jesus "in every way that we are, except without sin."

We'll discuss the accuracy of that statement another time. For now, just know that Satan departed in defeat only after Jesus resisted EVERY offered temptation. Shortly thereafter, Jesus went into the mountains, where he experienced what Christians RIGHTLY understand to be, "the revelation of the eternal glory of the second person of the Trinity" (as per Britannica.com).

In case you don't know, the second "person" -- or, more accurately, ASPECT -- of the Holy Trinity is the Son of God, Sonship, or Christ Mind. Having been reborn as the Son of God (through Transfiguration or Christ-Realization), Jesus returned to Galilee to begin his three-year ministry in the world.

As I said, almost everything in the Bible is symbolic or allegorical, rather than literal or historical. This is, in fact, true of all scriptural texts, including the Course (despite what one prominent ACIM teacher would have us believe). When it comes to sacred texts, "literal" is code for "unilluminated." The deeper meaning of these teachings is revealed by the Holy Spirit through illumination. Without the luminosity ONLY God's Spirit can provide, we can NOT interpret the Higher Truths these texts impart with any degree of accuracy.

Unfortunately, many unilluminated teachers, preachers, and self-proclaimed "authorities" have tried to tell us what these stories mean down the ages -- and erroneously believe they've succeeded. All they've really succeeded in doing is twisting the Higher Truths these texts contain into contradictory and fear-inducing hogwash that obscures rather than clarifies their meaning.

Having been gifted with scriptural illumination, I will shed much-needed light on the teachings of Jesus Christ, as presented in the Course, the New Testament, and other scriptural texts. In this post, I will de-code the two allegories mentioned above: the Last Temptation and the Transfiguration. Let's start with the story of the Last Temptation, in which Jesus goes alone into a "desert" or "wilderness," where he passes forty trying days fasting and resisting Satan's many temptations.

Okay, so ... did Jesus really do this? Probably, but that's not the point. The point is that he was acting out a script for the rest of us to follow. That script was written by the Holy Spirit, to show us the way out of the Dream of Separation.

As in most allegories, the elements in the story of the Last Temptation have deeper symbolic meaning than a literal reading can reveal. Jesus isn't Jesus-the-man exclusively, for example; his character in the story represents the Soul or Son of God WE ALL ARE in Divine Reality. Likewise, the "desert" or "wilderness" isn't a specific physical locale; the "desert" or "wilderness" in the story symbolizes the illusion of physical existence we only THINK is real. That illusion takes place in the imaginary "world" we PERCEIVE through our lower-mind bodily senses. 

That Jesus was alone during his ordeal in this metaphorical "desert" speaks to the isolation, loneliness, alienation, and abandonment we experience in the dreamscape variously known as the Kingdom of Darkness (Christianity), Brahmanda (Hinduism), and Samsara Maya (Buddhism). That Jesus fasted to the point of starvation while in this emblematic "wilderness" denotes the terrible hunger and/or thirst our Souls feel in the barren wasteland of nothingness this Godless hallucination actually is.

Contrary to popular belief, God did NOT create the illusory Kingdom of Darkness, Cosmic Egg, or Sea of Samsara. Nor, for that matter, did our Father in Heaven make the bodies through which we experience the illusion of physical existence. All visible matter is woven from the fibers of FEAR, a dense thought-substance we produced eons ago to block our memories of God, Heaven, and our True Identities. Fear, Jesus tells us in the Course, is the UNREAL opposite of God's Perfect Love. As such, he also explains, fear "literally starves the Soul by denying its daily bread."

The Soul's "daily bread" isn't made from yeast and flour; it's the "manna" that flows from Heaven into our minds in blessed streams of God's Saving Grace. Elsewhere in the synoptic gospels, Jesus describes these Soul-sustaining streams as the "living water" that alleviates our thirst for ALL worldly temptations.

In the Course, Jesus uses the dreamscape-as-desert metaphor several times. In one especially pointed reference, he says, "A desert is a desert is a desert. You can do anything you want in it, but cannot change it from what it is. It still lacks water, which is why it is a desert. The thing to do with a desert is to leave."

We leave the desert, he tells us in the synoptic gospels, by drinking the mind-purifying "waters" of God's Saving Grace. He does not, however, specify WHERE we find this Holy Water or HOW we drink it. That's because his instructions were removed by unenlightened men who sought to replace the Holy Spirit as God's messenger of Higher Truth in the dreamscape.

In the Course, Jesus DOES disclose the WHERE and HOW. The WHERE is within us and the HOW is listening in deep silence. Why, then, does nobody teaching the Course in the world today (insofar as I'm aware) say as much? The answer is: Because most (if not all) of them are still chasing mirages in the desert at some level. 

We'll talk more about the WHERE and HOW in future posts. For now, let's return to the Last Temptation. In the story, Satan offers Jesus some rocks and says, "Hey, if you're so powerful, turn these stones into bread to sate your hunger." By refusing to perform this little "trick," Jesus is sending us a message. What does he want us to learn? That the Soul he represents in the story can't nourish itself with anything Satan made. To understand the message, we also must understand that Satan -- NOT God -- made the dream-world of time, space, and matter. It was also Satan, and NOT God, who made our bodies and everything we seek to make them more beautiful, wealthy, powerful, healthy, popular, happy, or comfortable.

The story of the Last Temptation also conveys the Great Truth that to leave the desert of earthly existence, we must reject ALL the temptations, false idols, and/or Anti-Christs Satan uses to spin "cocoons of fear" around our Higher Minds. To break free of these amnesic "sleeping sacks," we must remember that we are and always have been God's free-flying butterflies -- not the Great Deceiver's earth-bound caterpillars.

To escape our perceptual pupas, we must empty our hands of possessions, our hearts of grievances, and our minds of every idea the Devil would have us believe and defend. As long as we still desire EVEN ONE of the Evil One's sticky threads of deception, we will remain his web-bound prey.

Let's now turn to the Transfiguration narrative, which is similarly allegorical. In parenthetical shorthand, the story's actual meaning is this: After defeating Satan (the Ego Mind) in the desert (the lower levels of consciousness), Jesus (the Soul) will go into the mountains (of Higher Consciousness), which it will climb until it is purified enough to experience "Transfiguration."

Okay, so ... why am I telling you all of this? The short answer is: Because it matters. I hinted at this earlier, but now I'm going to drive the point home: Everything Jesus did on earth symbolized the journey we all must take to return to God, Heaven, Knowledge, Omniscience, Superconsciousness, or Spiritual Sanity (choose your preferred term). More than just instructive allegories, the events recorded in the synoptic gospels are the milestones the Holy Spirit set in place, through the life of Jesus Christ, to mark the path we all must follow out of the metaphoric "desert" or "wilderness."

Those milestones are inside us, not "out there" in the physical world. Hindus, Buddhists, and other metaphysical teachers call these internal markers "chakras." In the Course, Jesus refers to them as the Lamps of Heaven or Lamps of God. Using these "lamps," he tells us, the Great Rays light our way back up the metaphorical ladder we climbed down into deeper and denser levels of the illusion of physical existence.

The rungs of that ladder represent the levels of consciousness, perception, or Self-awareness our Souls dropped down over time. To reawaken to or remember who, what, and where we really are (and always have been), we must climb back up those "rungs" in the same order we descended them.

We must, in other words, RETRACE the steps we took, downward and outward, into the "desert" or lower levels of consciousness after the Fall from Grace, Detour into Fear, Great Projection, or Exodus from Eden (again, choose your preferred term).

The ladder I've just described is the same one famously seen by Jacob, in the dream described in the Book of Genesis. Rightly interpreted, our reincarnating Souls are the angels the Biblical patriarch saw moving up and down the rungs (as pictured below).

Understanding the steps, their correct order, and what they actually signify is, therefore, crucial to anyone sincerely seeking to master A Course in Miracles. Ditto for anyone striving to attain enlightenment through another form of the Holy Spirit's at-one-ment curriculum. While there are SEVEN steps in total, the New Testament only describes the higher three: Baptism, Transfiguration, and Ascension. Translated into broader metaphysical terms, the higher three stages of awakening are these:

Fifth Step: Baptism = Self-Realization
Sixth Step: Transfiguration = Christ-Realization
Seventh Step: Ascension = God-Realization

When Jesus says, "Follow me," this is what he means. To return to God, Heaven, Knowledge, Omniscience, Superconsciousness, or Spiritual Sanity, we need to follow the trail he blazed 2,300 years ago. To follow that gentle path, we must strive every hour to empty our hands, hearts, and heads of the Evil One's temptations, unholy opposites, misguided teachings, wrong-minded values, and false beliefs. At the same time, we must strive to open our hearts and minds to the Higher Truths God would have us learn, cherish, and teach. We can't undertake this perception-reversing journey on our own, Jesus tells us. To return to Christ Consciousness, we must step back and allow the Holy Spirit -- our inner guru -- to show us the way to go.

That being the case, we must be clear about 1) what the Holy Spirit is, 2) how God's Spirit speaks to us, 3) what to listen for, 4) what to do (or not do) to hear His Voice, and 5) how His Voice peels away Satan's sticky threads of deception -- not only from our own minds, but also from all the minds connected to ours in the Golden Circle of Creation. Once again, none of the books or blogs I've read about the Course explains any of this accurately (if at all). At best, the authors of these books and blogs offer very limited or elementary explanations of the teachings. At worst, they profess to understand what they do NOT, thereby misleading their readers and followers.

Or, to quote what Jesus says in the Gospel of Thomas: "If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a hole." 

I don't mean to be critical or sanctimonious. I'm simply calling it as I see it. To escape the "desert" of pain and suffering, we have to stop chasing mirages and drink ONLY the Living Water of God's Saving Grace. We drink that metaphorical "living water" by going inward in meditation and listening for the ever-present echo of God's Saving Grace. We DO NOT do it by "enjoying" the world's offerings, asking our followers for money or positive reviews, moving to Hawaii or the Himalayas, or by preaching political activism.

The image on the Ace of Cups in the Rider-Waite Tarot beautifully depicts the purifying streams of God's Grace flowing from the Higher Mind "waters" of Christ Consciousness into the polluted lower-mind waters of Ego Consciousness. The symbolism employed in this particular deck is highly illuminating. I will, therefore, discuss the useful symbols on various cards from time to time as we move forward. Like everything else in the Valley of Death this world really is, Tarot cards can be used for the Ego Mind's purposes or for the Holy Spirit's. Also like everything else in the arid wasteland of existence, only the Holy Spirit's interpretations are truly helpful to those seeking enlightenment.

Okay, phew. Let's stop here for today, because I've thrown a lot of information at you and I'm still just clearing my throat. If your head is swimming, don't worry, because I'll explain all of these ideas -- and may more besides -- in greater detail as we move forward.

Up next, I'm going to answer the BIG question "What is God?" in a multi-part series. So, keep reading or, better yet, subscribe or follow THE HOLY MEETING PLACE you don't miss any new illuminations.