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Metaphysics

 

“Into Christ Presence”
Transcript of ACIM Gather Welcome Message
January 29, 2005
-Jeffrey Lake -

Welcome everyone. It’s such a beautiful opportunity for us to join together and to come from a place of presence and depth, to come and let the Holy Spirit speak through us, to retranslate what seems to be broken perception, to retranslate so that we can experience the innocence of who we are. It’s so wonderful to be here. It’s just such a gleeful experience of being in the present moment and expressing from that place of certainty and love and innocence. I have tears of joy in my eyes because of this great purpose and what it shows us. There’s a deep sense of gratitude and understanding that I feel in my heart for the whole. There’s a deep sense of love and intimacy that I feel and it’s certainly felt by all of us when we join together in sessions and workshops or over the phone. When we join together we have the sense of intimacy, that synergy of awakening. That’s the fast way, the synergy of joining together. The focus is always about the present moment and living in that synergy, that communication, living in the communion with God and expressing that to our brothers consistently. This is the only purpose we have in the awakening. The only goal is the Peace of God. All other goals fall short of this goal because God’s Will for us is perfect happiness – it’s what He inspires for us.

The universal inspiration, which the Course in Miracles calls the Holy Spirit, is consistently inspiring us but when we become attached to the word, to the idea, to a religion, when we get attached to the world and objects of time and space and form idle relationships with them, we are no longer in that inspiration. This is what it means to be asleep in the unconscious state and this unconscious state is not what God has inspired for us. So this is the awakening, the awakening mind. This is our only purpose, to awaken to the flower, awaken to the bloom of the Christ Presence within us. God’s shines his light on this radiant flower, and we as that Being have such potential to being consistently in joy. That joy is the expression of the blooming Christ Presence, it’s the fragrance of awakening. But, it’s our addiction to the ‘i-know-mind’ – ‘I know what God is, my God is right, your God is wrong, I know something because I read a book, my interpretation is right, I know who I am and who you are’ that denies our experience of the blooming. This is the very structure of mind that denies the communication; this denies the intimacy, the synergy that’s available to us unabatedly. And that is why it is so very important for us to go in carefully, deeply and openly to see what it is that obscures that truth of our reality, that keeps the bloom from it’s full potential by blocking the light. So, I want everyone to take a good look at what you brought in with you tonight. What we brought in is what needs to be exposed because the Course in Miracles says, “This is not a course on teaching you about love for you are love. It’s a course on removing the blocks to loves presence.” This is our purpose. This is our practice.

Now, I hear all the time about ego in terms of ‘my ego and your ego’, but there is only ‘ego’. The main thing in awakening is to see that the ego is false, it is not ‘mine’ or ‘yours’. When one truly looks; when one truly mind watches, one can see with the miracle, from that quiet center within, that one is not the ego. But, when we value things of the world we become confused, and this is the level confusion in which we identify with the level apart from mind, the realm of thought, forms and specifics. We get lost in thoughts and images, lost in the male, the female, the mother, the father, the daughter. We get lost in the human experience, the human condition. We get lost in the conditions that we set upon ourselves. We get lost in the myriad of choices that seem to be presented to us everyday, lost in confusion. But, let us see tonight. Let us join together in communion. Let’s use this room for its only purpose - to expose the ‘i-know-mind’, the very mind that obscures and blocks loves presence. The ‘i-know-mind’ thinks that what it knows is knowledge, thinks it knows what communication is, knows what religion is, knows what the experience of God’s Will is, but really it knows nothing. How is that so? It is so because it does not inspire consistency. It does not inspire honesty. It does not inspire patience and love. So, let’s use time wisely and maximize this hour together now. Let’s collapse time by joining together to expose the ‘i-know-mind’ now in the holy instant, my brothers. Let’s let the love flow through us, let the movement flow through us. Let’s watch the ego. Let’s not react to it, not hide from it. Let’s watch it from a place of spaciousness, a place of presence. Let’s watch it from the joy of being. Let’s join together. If we have a question, if we have a doubt - let’s expose it! Don’t wait! If you find yourself too frightened, you can talk to me after. But, let’s use this time to not be afraid. My brother, I don’t see you as guilty. You are Me. You are Holy. You are One. To deny your brother is to deny yourself. To deceive your brother is to deceive yourself. All deceit is self deceit. What is it that deceives? It’s the very want for the other, the very want for something other than God. It’s the very want for the pleasure of the world. All want is deceit. Let’s take a look at this want. Let’s take a look at this movement so that we can shine the light, the spark of God’s Mind, upon it so that we can sing and dance. We can have gleeful experiences together. The more we hide, the more we deny, the longer we just prolong the inevitable and this delay in time is very tragic. So, let’s join together to expose it and experience our innocence together. Let’s share it together tonight.

So, I want anyone that has a question to open up to it, please. I want this evening to be very present. This is just not about more theology and more talk. This is not going to be an evening about talking about theology and bantering on about senseless words or opinions. This is going to be an evening about communicating. This is going to be our church service. The church service is now, never ending, it’s the present moment. We’re going to join together to look upon the altar, the defiled alter, the altar that’s been defiled by concepts and beliefs. We know when there’s a thought unlike God that’s arising when we have an emotional experience that’s not peaceful and so we watch that movement. For this reason, I want us to be very present, very alert. But, I want everyone if you can, just to sit back, lay back and let all thoughts slip by and sink into the present and this is what will carry us this evening. Our Presence, not thoughts; our Presence will carry us this evening.

Before we get into our session, let’s read a little piece from ‘A Course in Miracles’. “The memory of God comes to the quiet mind. It cannot come where there is conflict. For a mind at war against itself remembers not eternal gentleness. The means of war is not the means of Peace and what the war like would remember is not love. War is impossible unless belief in victory is cherished. Conflict within you must imply that you believe the ego has the power to be victorious. Why else would you identify with it? Surely you realize that the ego is at war with God. Certain it is it has no enemy. Yet just as certainly, its fixed belief that it has an enemy it must overcome and will succeed and you need to dwell in quiet here with Christ to see his vision.” Welcome everyone!