My website talks a lot about Jesus.Jesus is my savior….not because he died. Not because he rose from the dead.He’s my savior for the very same reason that YOU are my Savior.
You and I and Jesus and Hitler and Gandhi and Princess Di and Mick Jaggar and the entire world of characters we see around us….are the Savior of the world.
They are!Because each person you meet offers you Christ because he is a part of Christ. He offers you the chance to Love, to forgive, to see him as equal to you ~ as God’s Beloved Son in whom He is well pleased!
Your brotherIS you and you are Christ as everyone else is.
Jesus came to tell us this and as we know, it didn’t go over real well!It didn’t go over real well because of the same reaction you just had when I said ‘Hitler’ was a savior. Man, as ego, cannot rise above our judgments and see the truth behind each form we call a ‘person’ and see the Son of God within him just waiting to be recognized.
Why can’t we?It is not because we are bad or good or because we are not yet enlightened.It’s because we don’t want to be enlightened …we want judgment, because it covers the pain, the guilt, the fear induced by an act we cannot recall.An act that we think took us far from the Grace of God Himself….separating ourselves from Him.It is much easier to just see the guilt outside of us.Even when we see it in ourselves, we find the cause as extraneous and blame is the easiest way out.
Even in regards to Jesus…one who knew he was the Savior of the world, we saw one who needed to suffer in order to be considered the Son of God.We could not accept what he said about himself, or about us being the Light of the world.It was much too painful to look honestly at his words.Instead, we saw our sinful natures and that of others as reason to say, “You blasphemer!” and have him killed.
Then, we blamed it on God.We said, “God sent him to die for our sinful nature! It was a necessary sacrifice. That is why we hung him on a cross, even when he told us we were the Light of the world!”
Through A Course in Miracles, Jesus came to set the record straight. He says this to Helen:
“If the crucifixion is seen from an upside-down point of view, it does appear as if God permitted and even encouraged one of His Sons to suffer because he was good. This particularly unfortunate interpretation, which arose out of projection, has led many people to be bitterly afraid of God.Such anti-religious concepts enter into many religions.Yet the real Christian should pause and ask “How could this be?”Is it likely that God Himself would be capable of the kind of thinking which His Own words have clearly stated is unworthy of His Son?”
A Course in Miracles, T-3.I.1:5
No.It’s not!And as insane as it sounds to me now, for many years, I too believed that God did do this.But because of incessant spiritual curiosity and open mindedness, my fear of God turned into a constant drive to understand more fully…more personally, what it all meant.I became obsessed, for lack of a better word (one without such a negative connotation) with understanding the message and the life of the man we know as Jesus. The Sacred Self is the outcome of this search.
It is not always easy to hear things about the message of Jesus, as a Christian. The ego still holds many captive to the illusion that sacrifice can earn Love, including my own, at first.In fact this belief is what has made the crucifixion meaningful and the very reason that the message of Jesus became obscured, if not lost on so many. Would God ask sacrifice of anyone…to ‘prove’ Love to Him?
Jesus did not die to save you.Jesus lived to save you by telling you that you do not die and are already saved.
Why don’t you die? Because you are the eternal Son of God.You are the Christ….who has found himself in bits and pieces of ‘many’ in the world, all of us thinking we are separated souls, fallen from grace; thus the metaphorical story of Adam and Eve, present in almost all religious mythology.
But we are not separated personalities.We are the same Son….the One Son of God. We have made these separate sons (ego) as a substitute for the truth of who we are, out of guilt and we will not be truly happy until we return to the awareness of this blissful, incredible Love of Oneness!
Many have experienced this Oneness in revelation, such as myself.But revelation is not enough, as it is God’s communication with us.It is our communication with Him, where we come into full Remembrance. I cannot stop (much to the annoyance of many) until I reach back to God, with you, and we reclaim ourselves…our membership, as the One Son of God.
We are the very Son of God.Jesus knew this about himself and did not fret about death, or torture, or any such thing, knowing the second his body was beaten and nailed up to that cross, he was man no more but Spirit only and found Himself watching it all and feeling only pity and forgiveness on each blessed savior that laughed at him, and later regretted it, or later, killed more in his name. Either way, he knew, they would come, eventually, to the same realization that you will come to…..Jesus was right ~ you ARE the Light of the world and you are my Savior, as I am yours.
Hold me in the Light and forgive me my errors as I will forgive you yours. Hold yourself in the Light and see the Christ within you.He loves and forgives the entire world and sees only Peace without.He sees no one more guilty or more holy or more worthy of God than another.
We will awaken together or not at all.That’s because we have already awakened! This is where ‘time’ comes into play and we see how the ego uses time to keep us unaware of this fact.
Jesus (2000 years ago in earth time) was awake ~and since he woke, he took us all with him!
We are Awake!!!!But immersed in the illusion of time, like a net, or a veil in front of our eyes, it is as if we have fallen asleep.We still believe in time (ego’s contraption) and what we believe in is true to the Son. If you and I can together, let go of what time has done to us, which is to forgive it, we will be in the same awareness that freed us when Jesus forgave the world!
Forgive, stand in the moment with your face to the sun and do not look back, nor forward!Simply be in the place where Jesus knew he was the Son of God and let no need of sacrifice nor belief in death or sin come between you and me and the truth of our Oneness.
We are One with God which means we are One with one another.In this realization, we feel completely peaceful and joyous. We are able to have this awareness through the body/person that we are!!!!I have experienced this and though no words can translate properly to explain it, it is Real.
We need no sacrifice of death nor belief in one person dying for our sins to know that we are God’s Eternal Son.We need only let go of the belief that we need to do anything but accept Love as our inheritance, see each person without sin and we will BE LOVE.
“The innocence of God is the true state of the mind of His Son.In this state your mind knows God, for God is not symbolic; He is fact.” T-3.I.8
Peace and Truth Abide in Us.
Diane L. Perretto
Do you remember Heaven?
It takes but a moment to remember what we have forgotten, or so the Course came to tell us. Yet page after page, prayer after prayer, hope after hope, do you still look out and see a world divided by hate?Take heart.
“The miracle but calls your ancient Name, which you will recognize because the truth is in your memory.And to this Name your brother calls for his release and yours.Heaven is shining on the Son of God.Deny him not, that you may be released.”
T-26.VII.16
Forgiveness is the only ticket Home; the ONLY one!
No, we cannot say, “Well, I’ll sacrifice this or that, I’ll show I am good by my actions; I’ll never steal, I will not hate, nor covet my neighbor’s wife.I will go to church, I will pray for others, I’ll be giving and kind.I will earn my way Home now that I realize where I am.”
No earning is necessary because Hell is not a place but a mistake. It is a lapse in our memory; a wish to replace our real home with a temporary one that we think will suffice and where we can hide from what we think we did.
Forgiveness alone negates all reasons we think keep our awareness of Heaven far from our memory.Reasons such as sin and attack, hatred and guilt, sadness and loneliness.All of these are effects of our thoughts, to attack our brother and our self.
“Forgiveness is the answer to attack of any kind.So is attack deprived of its effects, and hate is answered in the name of love.To you to whom it has been given to save the Son of God from crucifixion and from hell and death, all glory be forever.For you have the power to save the Son of God because his Father willed that it be so.And in your hands does all salvation lie, to be both offered and received as one.”T-26.VII.12:2
And so we see, we are free as soon as we want to be.And hell is transformed to Heaven in the Son’s mind, where we have slept in frightful dreams, far from our Father, far from our creations of Love.You see, our creations are Love.
They are the Thought of Love, which gently flows over all dark thoughts, and releases the Son from the grips of hell because where Love enters, hate, which is like darkness, fades to nothing, which darkness is!Our Creations are our thoughts of sharing Love, of the Light of Love.They are of giving and receiving and growing the One Thought God had to every living and non living thing; every being that seems to be before our blessed eyes! Love lives in me and in you and we have this Love at the tip of our memory!
One more time, we must be reminded, this ability to Create with God, to find our Home, is found through forgiveness.That is because it cannot be remembered fully while believing in time. Time is the medium through which sin is recognized and held tightly in place.Forgiveness is the way out of time. We find Heaven in the Present Moment.
For now, use time wisely by using it to learn how to forgive, and be released from the grips of Hell.
Learning how to find the Light that you are, is what your life and all of our lives, is about. You teach yourself how to undo the trappings of darkness (ego), to discover the Light. This is why you are here reading this right now. Discovering the Light, is to discover your Sacred Self. You have never left the light, but have only buried it! We teach ourselves who we are by our actions and thoughts. We learn who we are from ourSelves.
If we learn who we are from an incomplete source (ego), we learn that we are incomplete. Nothing incomplete could be truth. If we learn who are from Love, we learn that we are whole and therefore, part of Truth, which is Holy.
What is it to teach or to learn from a foundation of love?
Love is whole. Love lacks nothing and so the foundation of learning and teaching with Love, will be sufficient unto itself. The well of inspiration and devotion of Love is truly endless and complete, extending Itself to all who seek it..... but the key is to seek it.
Jesus did not teach love
He taught us how to 'remove the blocks we have made to the awareness of love' within ourselves. We cannot extend nor feel the extension of that which we have not accepted as our own. We ARE Love. Your spouse is Love, your child, your mother, all that walk the earth, are a Light of Love, hidden under a veil.
Do not hide your Love....do not let pride or pain keep you from showing Love to another, to being Love for another. When we give Love, it is all we get in return. It does not matter what another does or does not do; it our giving Love that allows us to 'remove the blocks' to the awareness of it! If we want it, we must give it away.
That is why we cannot teach Love, but only Be Love.
God's Love of which we were created, is complete; so we are ineffective teachers until we experience Its wholeness. All other love we experience, is ego love which is not really love at all but a shadow of the love which made us. This is why Jesus told us we could tell one who is awake, by their fruits. The fruits of the ego's love is rotten, wanting to receive without having given. Wanting to give, to get, the fruits are barren and unable to produce.
The ego's experience of love, being barren and unable to reproduce, is a fragment without knowledge of the WHOLE, hoping to be the whole itself. The ego puts conditions on love because it thinks that by controlling love, and life, it will get what it needs.
But fragments cannot teach about the whole and will always be in need.
How do we remove the blocks to the awareness of Love?
As A Course in Miracles teaches, we remove the blocks to the awareness of love, through FORGIVENESS.T
here are many religions, many philosophies dedicated to finding God.And they are all capable of being an authentic path, but not one is true unless it involves the path of forgiveness.Although each path expresses forgiveness uniquely, it is the same experience of letting go of our blocks to the awareness of Love.
Practicing forgiveness is the earthly expression of God’s Love, and God's Love is needed to complete ourselves, being made from It.
The root of our darkness is in our inability to see ourselves as God sees us; wholly forgiven, wholly loved, and therefore, Holy. And so we can say, the root of evil is an untrue perception, often referred to as ILLUSION. If we are Holy, each and every brother and sister is equally holy.
THERE REALLY IS ONLY ONE PERSON TO FORGIVE
To become free of illusion, we need to forgive it (let it go.) How do we forgive an illusion? By forgiving ones self for believing we are not part of Love. We forgive ourselves by simply being aware of things we think and things we do that are not out of Love This requires looking honestly at the ego's love without judgment. Calling upon the Un-named....the Unseen....Spirit, is the ONLY way to look at the ego; Spirit lives within us all; we only have to ask. Ego will not ask, and will not look but only project the perceived sin onto our brothers.
Spirit will show us that there is no one else that needs forgiving but ourselves. If no one needs forgiven but ourselves, all sin in others must therefore be part of the ego's illusion.
An important aspect of understanding this is to understand that blaming ourselves, or blaming another is exactly the same, for within and without are the same. Your brother, being one with you, is not truly 'without', and so when you forgive yourself, you are forgiving your brother. Self blame is of the ego, and it condemns all others if it condemns itself.
Forgiveness is a quiet recognition, and though it seems it would be a painful sacrifice of admitting wrong, it is more like an acceptance of Love that washes away blame and sadness.
Jesus and His Last Useless Journey
Jesus, 2000 years later, through Helen Schucman in A Course in Miracles, tells us that he has taken the "last useless journey to the cross." He tells us the crucifixion is done, and we need do this no more.
Having been raised Christian, when I first laid eyes on those words, I could almost grasp them, as I had been taught that his death 'saved the world.' But it was a different sort of 'saved' that I began to understand in his careful use of our language in the Course and subtle ability to help us see the strange need we had for his death, to atone for our own sins.
Like most things in the Course, it took a while to think upon the meaning, and integrate it into my own relationship with the world, and figure out just why he said it was the 'last useless journey.'
Then, Wow! One day, it just came to me. I got it. I was busy wallowing in sorrow and pain and feeling as though I had helped the last person, I had cared about their last problem, and I had taken the sadness of someone else upon my own shoulders, for the last time! And I realized, what a useless journey it was to do all those things......for my own salvation, and supposedly for theirs.
I came to see that no one needed saved, but me, and it wasn't by 'good deeds' or mighty acts of courage and sacrifice but by the simple recognition that I was Loved, and therefore, I was free from trying to find it...... in others, in sacrifice, out there. Now, I understood giving could only come from a place of Abundance, and not from a place of sorrow and lack. Now, my giving was done without attachment to outcome, for the outcome was already evident in my own Peace!
The Son's crucifixion repeats itself countless times in our own self blame, and each time, attempts to find another crowd to be its witness.Wallowing in self pity, we find a million reasons for sadness and for guilt, for attack, and for defense.Yet when we ask, with the tiny willingness we may have left inside, to hear His Voice for truth once more, we can see the futile, painful path of projection outside of our selves or onto others, and the endless cycle of hell that we choose.
Jesus of the Course, with perfect attention to detail and careful wording, teaches us that we choose Heaven, and we choose Hell, but we cannot have both. The last useless journey to die as a sacrifice to teach mankind, is the last one because Jesus finally understood this Love we are. He knew that our Home is Heaven. He found it out, for us all.
He was not a special human being, he was a human being who realized we are all Spirit, and not human at all! We are all special in that we are all sons of God. We are not special, as compared to other sons of God.
There is no other to forgive because we have given all the meaning there is to what we see ‘out there.’ We have given meaning to sin, by our inner 'sinfulness.'
The inner and the outer are the same. If there is something we feel needs to be forgiven outside of us, it is truly coming from inside our mind.
Other people's actions hold only the meaning I give to them, and the power over me that I project onto them.How can I forgive an illusion of what I am, if it is not real?
How can I not love and embrace the silly child who thinks he is all alone without a Savior, and so acts out in fear?
Each brother, as Jesus tells us over and over in the Course, and all he says or does is only ever a call for love, or he has become aware of God’s love, and is extending it to me. It cannot be both, and it must be either.
Never can it be anything else since the choice is always only between truth and illusion, fear or love and I am giving the meaning to what I hear him say or do, so I will see either fear or love.
I choose love when I forgive myself the need to project blame onto my brother.
I am Love, because that is What has created me.How can I ever feel lonely, when He remains with me?
REJOICE... we are LOVED beyond belief.
The Truth is in YOU
Truth is not found.Awareness of it arrives quietly, for it is within You.
It gently opens sleepy eyes, reluctant.It sweeps us with Joy and Contentedness. It is consistent and without flaw, forever supported by Reason and expressed by the Inspired.
Truth cannot attack, nor judge because the truth is, we are innocent!We know when Truth has come by the Peace it induces. Peace that surmounts all obstacles put in the way, by our self.Peace that blesses others, even when they attack and hate the Truth they see and hear in those who have embraced it.Truth will heal all, for all is One.
Truth is unequivocal and unambiguous.It is thorough and without contradiction.It does not ‘see’ but lays the conflict down by seeing it as nothing.
It turns our cheek, by its comforting Knowing.A Knowing that sees unity in everything, and everyone. Truth cannot be perceived nor can it exist outside of you.It is you. Can an eye see itself?It is the you Who Knows the Self.When it speaks, it convicts our soul with whispers of Hope and Joy ~ if we would only listen.
The truth sets us free.
It frees us from expectations from and of this world, and let’s us see our real inheritance, Eternal Thought, Joyful and Content, Giving and Receiving always.
It frees us from judgment upon ourselves and others.Why judge the innocent and free communication that dissolves all conflict?
It frees us to see conflict for what it is….a defense against Truth. The Truth frees us to feel joy when terror strikes, and all around us, others scream and wail of a meaningless world, a violent and tireless fight, an immoral place.We feel this joy because we know these screaming, wailing, tireless egos are only defending against the Truth, which is impossible! Truth cannot live in immoral, violent places which have no meaning.Truth does live, and so we know, the immoral, violent and meaningless world is not Truth.
But Truth will open eyes ready to see the Loved world; the one God has given us.
Thank God for His unending and Giving Love!
The Spirit of All
It is the space between the brush and the canvas
Where Spirit gives.
The moment between the in breath and the exhale
Where Life lives.
It is the pause in the music
That defines its flow.
And the tension of two bodies
Where love is known.
It is in the opening of the eyes,
Not the scene that is viewed.
It is the space between my pen and the paper
Where God lives in you.
“Yes, you are blessed indeed.Yet in this world you do not know it.But you have the means for learning it and seeing it quite clearly.The Holy Spirit uses logic as easily and as well as does the ego, except that His conclusions arenot insane.They take a direction exactly opposite, pointing as clearly to Heaven as the ego points to darkness and death.”
A Course in Miracles, T.14. Intro:1:1-5
What is it.....to be BLESSED?
“Creating is the opposite of loss as blessing is the opposite of sacrifice.” A Course in Miracles T.7.IX.2:5
In the Course, we learn that we are Co-Creators with God.He is Creator, and we, created.He tells us that like our Creator, we Create.
In the English language, the use of the word create is used alternately with make.But in the Course, we are taught that to Create is not the same as ‘make.’
'To make' is what man does with his hands and brain. Making requires an act, and something must be added on to something to make something else.
To create is reserved to the realm of Spirit where there is no act; no use of time or space, or effort.We do not create things, or bodies.Not because we can’t but because that is not what Creating creates. Creating is the extension and expansion of what it is and Creation could only be Love. We know this, because God would create only Love and nothing else can come of Love, but Love. Therefore, Love is all there IS which has been or ever will be created. This is the same as saying ‘God Is, and always will Be.’ We can say then, that God simply IS. And what Is, is Love.
Just as Creating extends what Is, loss is the attempt to limit what Is. This makes them opposites, as stated in the Course quote. If Creation is extending Love, then Loss is the attempt to limit the extending of what Is. We, who were created by Love cannot limit Love’s extension. To do so, would be to limit God.
This means we cannot lose Love because there can be no loss in Creation if it only extends and expands, what Is. When we understand the relationship of creation and loss we can understand many more things.That is how Spiritual growth occurs. It extends from one understanding to another by a simple willingness to hear. ‘Right minded’ (spirit) as opposed to ‘wrong minded’ (ego) thinking, extends from this willingness alone.
BLESSING AND SACRIFICE
The next understanding to which Spirit leads us is that there is no need for sacrifice.There is only blessing! As the quote states, we can understand that sacrifice is blessing’s opposite, in the same way that creation relates to loss.
What is blessing?
To understand what blessing means, we must stand in agreement that ‘giving is receiving.’ Blessing gives of Itself, and receives what it gave, exponentially. We can only give that which is Created for us to give. And as we already established, God Created only Love. Therefore, a blessing is to give and receive only Love. Just as a blessing is to receive Love by giving it, sacrifice is an attempt to receive love by taking away from or denying something in order to get what we desire.But Love cannot be received by taking. The exchange of nothing for everything is still nothing. Sacrifice is meaningless to Love, because giving Love can never be a sacrifice. Love, when expressed in earthly terms, can and does willingly involve giving something to someone, and when it does in the Spirit of Love, it is no longer sacrifice, is it?It is a pleasure; it is a blessing. Giving Love is the only way to receive Love.All is gained and nothing is lost. Nothing lost means no sacrifice. Soon, we are led to see how ridiculous it is to think that taking away or denying ourselves something can allow us to receive something. We gain nothing by sacrifice but an empty spot in need of filling.A spot we thought would be filled, with Love. Sacrifice fosters a false sense of love, for it is an attempt to barter with God’s creation of Love, which we cannot do.
When awareness of God’s creative force of Love is blocked, we seek to ‘take’ it from somewhere, some place, or someone.
There IS no sacrifice needed nor is it even possible in Love because… “Love is sufficient unto Love.’ Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet.
And that is why Jesus says that blessing, which gives and receives Love, is the opposite of sacrifice, for sacrifice is a denial of the abundant blessings of Love within.
DEATH and LIFE
For the same reason, and following the same understanding, there is no death; there is only life. Life is the extension of Creation and Creation is Love.
So, Life can be understood as the extending or the expansion, of Love. Therefore, Life, is Love.
Love is not subject to death for Love is not a thing or a person, capable of dying. Therefore, Life cannot die.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
We are God’s Creation ~ We are therefore, Love. We, who are God’s Creation of Love are blessed, as co-creators with the ability to create Life.
To be blessed with this creative ability is to be one who extends and receives blessings of Love. This extending, creating, blessing of Love is Who we are and Life is the fabric in which it is expressed.
This Life is Eternal because Blessings of Love can only continue on forever as they are being extended, creating more Love!
We are the essence of that Creative Force, blessing everything with Love. This is how we create, as co-creators with God. Again, from the Course: “Eternity is one time, its only dimension being ‘always.’This cannot mean anything to you until you remember God’s open Arms, and finally know His open Mind.Like Him you are always in His Mind and with a mind like His.In your open mind are your creations, in perfect communication born of perfect understanding.Could you but accept one of them you would not want anything the world has to offer.Everything else would be totally meaningless.God’s meaning is incomplete without you, and you are incomplete without your creations.Accept your brother in this world and accept nothing else, for in him you will find your creations because he created them with you.You will never know that you are co-creator with God until you learn that your brother is co-creator with you.”T.9.V.7A Course in Miracles How happy and joyous we are in this abundant state of Love! Blessings of Love….
I hope you enjoy my stories, and share them with others. Often times we are comforted by clarity, and the purpose of my writing is to help do just that. Without clairty, Vision is not possible.
