Begin with standard opening. Call forth Sananda, Kuthumi and Lord Maitreya, asking them to take the group in a merkabah to Sananda's ashram and to overlight and guide your reading and discussion.

Read chapter 4, "The Christ Consciousness and How to Achieve It," in Soul Psychology (Vol. 11). Discuss how these principles are working in your life.

Take a break. In the second half you can either continue this discussion or listen to the audio tape, "Core Love Meditation," or as an alternative, read the meditation, Invoking a Shower of Core Love and Core Light, beginning on page 75. Ask these three masters to help in this meditation. Take time for sharing afterward. Standard closing ceremony. Social time.

Soul Psychology (Vol. II)
Chapter 4
The Christ Consciousness and How to Achieve It

Forgiveness is the key to happiness
A Course in Miracles

About forty years ago, a woman by the name of Helen Schucman channeled a set of books called A Course in Miracles. These books were written by Jesus Christ and telepathically channeled to Helen much like the Alice A. Bailey books were channeled to her from Master Djwhal Khul.

I can honestly say that in the past twenty-two years these books have had a more profound effect on me than anything else I have ever studied. A Course in Miracles is basically a set of teachings about attitudinal healing. The basic premise of these books is that there are two ways of thinking, two philosophies of life, and only two. Every person in the world follows one or the other. There is the voice of the Spirit, or of the Christ, and there is the voice of the ego. They could also be called the voices of your higher self and of your lower self; the voices of the big "I" and of the little "i"; the voices of the Holy Spirit and of glamour, illusion, and maya; the voices of the Holy Spirit and of the negative ego.

As children you are conditioned by society to perceive and interpret life from the negative ego's perspective. That is why so many people are so filled with negative feelings and lack of inner peace. A Course in Miracles teaches a very systematic way to undo the negative ego's thinking and begin to think, henceforward, with the Christ mind. The Bible does say, "Let this mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus." Jesus, as we know, was a human being just like you and me who became the embodiment of the Christ by becoming one with the Christ consciousness.

The Christ consciousness is not just for Christians. The Christ consciousness, the Buddha consciousness, the Krishna consciousness, God consciousness - the consciousness of all religions is the same thing. You might have had a lot of negative programming behind your religious upbringing, and it is important here not to get caught up in semantics; all religious or spiritual paths are fine. The new religion of the future is the one that honors and recognizes all religions and all spiritual paths, for they all lead to the same place. The introduction to A Course in Miracles states,

This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time. The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.

This course can therefore be summed up in this way:

Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.

Herein lies the peace of God.

A Course in Miracles is for most people a very difficult book to read and understand. One of my main purposes in writing this particular chapter is to take the essence of the Course's teaching and make it easy to understand. I know during my personal spiritual evolution, a chapter explaining and summarizing the Course in simple language would have been very beneficial. I have also expanded on the Course's teachings to make them more universal and applicable to all religions and all spiritual paths. And I have added many of my own ideas so that you can reach a complete understanding of what "Christ consciousness" really means.

A course in miracles is a required course, the introduction says. What this means is not that everyone has to study these books but rather that all must learn to think with their Christ or God mind. The Lord Sai Baba has said that "God equals man minus ego."

You cannot pass your spiritual initiations and realize God without transcending the selfish, separative, fear-based mind of your ego. The curriculum is set, and A Course in Miracles is just one way of learning the lessons.

The core of A Course in Miracles is that God created you, and your true identity is the Christ. In other words, you are all sons and daughters of God, made in God's image. God is love, so you are love. You don't have to become love; love is what you are. It is only the negative ego programming and conditioning that hides this awareness from you. It is only the mud on the diamond. Even Jesus said, "Everything that I can do, you can do, and More.

The Christian church has misinterpreted the message of Jesus. Sure, Jesus was the son of God, but so are you. Or you could say you are the Buddha, the Hindu Atma, or Eternal Self In the Old Testament the Jewish prophets said, "Ye are gods and know it not." They also said, "Ye are gods and children of the Most High." David, in the Psalms, said, "Be still and know, I am God."

This is why the introduction to the Course says, "Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the Peace of God." Your true identity as the Christ or Buddha or Atma or Eternal Self cannot be changed. That is how God created you. You can think you are something other than this but that does not change reality. You are the Christ, the Buddha, the Atma, the Eternal Self, whether you believe it or not.

The reason you have no choice is that you didn't create yourself; God created you. The spiritual path is really not about trying to get anyplace. It is just the reawakening to who you are. The second step is the practice of being the true Self in daily life.

Where Did the Negative Ego Come From?

The negative ego did not come from God, it came from humanity's misuse of free choice. Man is the only creature who has the ability to think out of harmony with God. The fall, to which the Bible refers, occurred when humans, in the form of monads, or individualized sparks of God, chose to come into matter. It wasn't the coming into matter that caused the fall; it was the over-identification with matter. It was that moment when they thought they were physical bodies rather than God-beings inhabiting or using physical bodies.

In thinking they were only physical bodies, there came the illusion of separation from God and separation from their brothers and sisters. Then came the perception of selfishness, fear, and death as "real." From these faulty premises a whole thought system developed that was based on glamour, illusion, and maya.

Humanity has spent hundreds of incarnations caught up in this illusion. The amazing thing is that what A Course in Miracles teaches is that the fall never really happened. You just think it did. The basic law of the mind is that it is your thoughts that create your reality. Your feelings, your behavior, and what you attract and magnetize into your life all come from your thoughts.

Is the glass of water half empty or half full? Are you optimistic or pessimistic? Do you look at what happens in life as teachings, lessons, challenges and opportunities to grow? Or do you look at things as bummers, problems, aggravations, irritations, and upsets? It ishow you think, interpret, and perceive that will determine how you feel in any given situation.

You have always been the Christ, the Buddha, the Atma, the Eternal Self, and you have always been one with God. All of your negative egotistical thinking has not changed this one single bit.

A good metaphor for this is the dream. When you wake up from a nightmare you are relieved that it was just a dream. When you were dreaming, however, it seemed real. Well, I say now, in this holy instant, wake up! Wake up from the negative hypnosis you have been living in, thinking you are unworthy, unlovable, inferior, separate from God, powerless. In this holy instant, wake up and realize that you are the Christ, the Buddha, the Atma, the Eternal Self. You always have been and always will be.

The great saint from India, Ramana Maharshi, said that the spiritual path is like a person who comes to him asking his help in finding a necklace lost for forty years. Ramana Maharrhi says, well, what's that you are wearing around your neck? The woman, all of a sudden, realizes that she has been wearing the necklace all along. Well, that is how the spiritual path is. You don't have to find God; you already are God and have been all along. It is the insane voice of the ego, or separative mind, that keeps you lost in glamour, illusion and maya.

Sai Baba ways, "The mind creates bondage, or the mind creates liberation." A lot of people downplay the mind as though it were not important, but as Sai Baba says, it is the mind and how you manage it that will determine whether you achieve liberation or remain in bondage.

Heaven and Hell are places, but first they are states of mind. When the ego is your guide and teacher, you are in Hell. When soul consciousness is your teacher, you are in Heaven. Buddha, in his four noble truths, said that all suffering comes from wrong point of view.

You can interpret life from the negative ego's viewpoint or from that of the Buddha or the Christ. It is important to understand that you don't see only with your eyes; you see with your mind, through your belief systems.

The major work of the spiritual path is to clear out all the negative egotistical beliefs from the conscious and subconscious minds, and to replace them with the spiritual pattern of the Christ and the Buddha. The rest of this chapter will go into more specific detail on how to do this.

The Authority Problem

The authority problem has to do with the core issue of who is the ultimate authority in life. The Course teaches that the ultimate authority is God, and that it is God that created you. The ego tells you, however, that God doesn't exist because you can't see Him with your physical eyes; hence, He or She or It is not the ultimate authority. The ego tells you that you are just a physical body, not the Christ living in a physical body.

The absurdity of the ego is quite obvious: God created you, and you created the ego; however, you have been letting the ego be the ultimate authority. It is time to recognize and own your personal power and authority over yourself. It is time to gain mastery over your mind, emotions, physical body, and ego.

It is not God's job to get rid of your ego, it is your job. You created it, so you can get rid of it. God could do it but that would be like giving birth and then doing everything for the child. If you did that, the child would grow up to be completely incapable. Similarly, if God did everything for you, then you would be incapable and there would be no reason to incarnate into this school called Earth life. God doesn't need to learn these lessons - you do. One of the lessons of A Course in Miracles is "my salvation is up to me."

God has already given you everything. You have separated yourself from God by listening to the voice of the ego. In reality, you have never been separated; however, in your consciousness, or your perception of reality, you are separate. This situation can be easily remedied just by changing your thoughts. The Bible says, "Be ye transformed by the renewal of your mind" and "As a man thinketh so is he." Lincoln said, "A man is as happy as he makes up his mind to be."I think it was Emerson who said, "A man is what he thinks about all day long."

It is time to wake up and snap out of this self-created hell of your own negative thinking. It is time to take control of the subconscious mind and stop letting it push you around. It is meant to be your servant, not your master.

How is Attitudinal Healing Accomplished?

The process of accomplishing this attitudinal healing is, in actuality, very simple. What I would recommend is this: imagine that you are surrounded by a golden bubble that protects you from the outside world and other people and also protects you from your own subconscious mind. In other words, you can imagine that all of your thoughts, feelings, impulses, desires, and images are outside of your golden bubble; all of what is termed the content of consciousness is outside of the bubble.

The idea, then, is that every time a thought, feeling, or impulse arises from your subconscious mind, you make it stop at the gate of the bubble, almost as if there were a guard there checking its passport. If the thought or feeling or impulse is positive, loving, spiritual, balanced, Christ-like, of God, then you can let it through the bubble and into your mind. If the thought, feeling, impulse, or desire is negative, egotistical, separative, selfish, fear-based, imbalanced, and not of God, then push it out of your mind. A Course in Miracles states, "Deny any thought that is not of God to enter your mind."

You must understand that the mind works like the physical body. If you want to be physically healthy you must cat good food. If you eat bad food or spoiled food you will get physically sick. The same thing applies to the mind. If you want to be mentally, emotionally, and spiritually healthy, you must let only positive God-like thoughts into your mind. If you let negative, egotistical thoughts into your mind, you will become mentally, emotionally, or spiritually sick.

It is not God or the ascended masters' job to control your mind; that is your job. One of the most important principles of A Course in Miracles is to be "vigilant for God and His kingdom." It is likely that you are not vigilant enough over your mental and emotional diet. You probably live on what I call automatic pilot, not conscious of, aware of, or alert to the thoughts and feelings you allow into your mind from your subconscious mind and from the outside world. You probably do not have enough detachment, spiritual discernment and spiritual discrimination.

When you push a thought out of your mind, it can be likened to a plant that is not being watered. It withers and dies from lack of attention. After pushing the negative thought out of your mind, the idea is to then switch your mind, like a TV set, to the opposite, positive, spiritual, or Christ-like thought, feeling, and image. This is like a new seed that sinks into the soil of the subconscious mind and sprouts.

The law of the mind is that it takes twenty-one days to cement any new habit into the subconscious mind. After twenty-one days it will be automatic to think with your Christ mind. It will not even be difficult. It will be a habit. You might think that habits are always bad. Not necessarily. The idea is to fill the subconscious mind with positive, Christ-like habits and to get rid of the egotistical ones.

Jesus, in the New Testament, applied these principles when he was walking with his disciples and one of his disciples started to complain. Jesus whirled around and exclaimed, "Get thee behind me, Satan!" He was saying no to the ego, which the fundamentalist church refers to as Satan or the Devil.

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of being vigilant. When people in the outside world are negative, the idea is to keep your golden bubble intact and let their energies slide off like water off a duck's back.

You Can Be a Master or a Victim

Spirit guides you to be a master; the ego guides you to be a victim. When you are in your mst consciousness you fully recognise that you create your own reality.You create everything. You create your thoughts, feelings, behaviors, physical health - all that you attract and magnetize into your life. This is based on Hermetic law: "As within, so without; as above, so below."

That which you think and image within your conscious and subconscious minds will manifest its mirror likeness in your external circumstances. The outer world is a mirror of your inner world. Remember that you are a cocreator with God, made in His image. God is not a victim and neither are you.

The microcosm is like the macrocosm. As you learn to control your mind, you then learn to control your emotions. Feelings and emotions do not just happen; they are created by how you think.

There are particular beliefs that cause specific emotions. When you learn to think with with your Christ mind all of your negative feelings begin to disappear. It is a way of thinking that will bring you inner peace, unconditional love, joy, and happiness all the time.

Nothing outside of yourself causes you to think or feel anything. It is your interpretation, your belief, your perception of the situation that cause you to feel the way you do. For example, in the 1929 stock market crash, one person might have jumped out of the window of a building to commit suicide. Another person who lost a million dollars might have said, "Easy come, easy go."

Two people come to work; the elevator is broken and they have to walk up ten flights of stairs. One person curses and swears. The other says, "Oh great, an opportunity to get some physical exercise."

When you walk down the street you can see other people as just other physical bodies or as brothers and sisters in a much larger spiritual family. You see with your mind, not just with your physical eyes.

Your behavior is also caused by your thoughts and feelings. You never do anything that does not have an antecedent in some thought or feeling in either your conscious or subconscious mind. The idea is to completely clean out the subconscious mind of all negative programming. Later in this book I will dedicate an entire chapter to tools and methods for achieving that.

As you achieve mastery over what Djwhal Khul has called the three lower vehicles (mental, emotional, and physical bodies) and control over your negative ego, you become in tune with the soul and eventually merge with the soul at the third initiation.

The soul merge brings you a Midas touch; everything you do turns to gold because you are in harmony with God's laws. As you continue to evolve, your attunement moves from the soul up to the spirit, or monad. You become fully merged with the monad at the fifth initiation and you ascend at the sixth initiation.

As this mastery is achieved, you become able to program the subconscious mind to attract to you anything you need. The subconscious mind works according to the law of attraction, magnetism, and repulsion. The idea is to consciously program your subconscious mind with only positive, Christlike thoughts which will attract to you only positive things from the outside world. It is probable that you are not fully using the incredible power of your subconscious mind. The reprogramming that will allow you to do so can be achieved through the process of denial and affirmation. The idea is to deny the negative thoughts and to be constantly affirming the positive spiritual thoughts. In the chapter on how to reprogram the subconscious mind I provide all kinds of positive affirmations and visualizations you can work with in order to achieve whatever it is you want to create in your life.

Sickness Is a Defense against the Truth

You cause the sickness or health of your physical body. The subconscious mind runs the physical body. This can be clearly proved through the use of hypnosis. If your true identity is the Christ, then how can you get sick? If God isn't sick, then, in reality, you can't be sick either.

You get sick because of your belief in sickness and your indulgence in negative, egotistical thoughts. Sickness is a defense against the truth because the truth is that you are the Christ and he can't be sick. If you hold this thought, then the subconscious mind, which does whatever you order it to do, will keep you healthy.

This applies to the aging process also. If you didn't believe you had to age, you wouldn't. Ascended masters prove this; they can live in the same physical body indefinitely. Saint Germain did it for three hundred and fifty years in Europe. Thoth did it for two thousand years in Atlantis and Egypt. Physical immortality is totally achievable because, remember, you are God.

It is still important to eat well, exercise, and follow God's physical laws until you reach that ascended state of consciousness at the sixth initiation. Many younger souls try to defy God's physical laws at a stage in their spiritual evolution when they are not yet able to walk on water. They will get to this point; however, until they do, it is wise to respect God's laws on the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual levels in a balanced fashion.

The spiritual path is a process. It does not happen in one instant. In one holy instant you can fully realize that you are the Christ and that you are God; however, this illumination must be demonstrated and grounded on the Earthly plane, and shared with others.

The spiritual path does not go straight up to God. It is, rather, a process of attuning upward and then bringing that consciousness downward, back to Earth. God's divine plan is to create Heaven on Earth. You are here as a bridge between spirit and matter. You are here to spiritualize the material plane.

The Holy Encounter

The holy encounter is an exquisite idea presented in A Course in Miracles. It is the understanding that every time you meet another person in the world, it is a holy encounter. Each encounter with another person is, in reality, Christ meeting Christ, God meeting God. Every person you meet, whether you know him or not, is God visiting you in physical form.

This concept applies to animals, plants, and minerals, also. There is only one Being in the infinite universe, and that is God. God has incarnated into infinite numbers of forms. He has incarnated as you and as me, as the animals, plants, and minerals, as everything. Everything has a soul.

Sai Baba has said that the fastest way to realize God is to see Him in everything and everyone, to see Him in your brother and sister because He is your brother and sister. This can be clearly demonstrated by the language. When you speak, you often say, "I feel this way," or, "I am going to the market." Have you ever thought about what the "I" is? The "I" is the God-self or the Christ or the Buddha or the Atma or the Eternal Self. No matter what words you speak in any given sentence, the "I" is the same for everybody. The "I" underlies the mental, emotional, and physical vehicles. God is incarnated as the Eternal I in everything and everyone.

When you see a person on the street as just a stranger, you are seeing him or her through the negative ego's, eyes. The truth is, whether you believe it or not, that he is the Christ. If you don't see him that way, you are removing the possibility of finding God for yourself.

You are not just doing that person a service by seeing him in his true form, you are doing yourself the greatest service, for the world is a mirror of your own state of consciousness. By seeing your brothers as strangers you have lost contact with God in yourself.

The Lord Maitreya has called this having right human relations. Jesus Christ said the whole law could be summed up in this statement: "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and mind and might, and love thy neighbor as thyself." I would go so far as to say your neighbor is yourself. For God has only one son, and everyone is part of that one sonship. All share the same "I." How you see your brothers and sisters is literally how you are treating God and yourself.

Imagine that you are walking down the street and suddenly, there before you, is your favorite spiritual master. It could be Jesus Christ, Sai Baba, Djwhal Khul, the Lord Maitreya, Saint Germain, Kuthumi, El Morya, the Virgin Mary, Moses, the Buddha, Quan Yin, whoever. Now consider how you would treat that master as you approach him on the street, walking toward him. Well, if you treat every person you meet in your life, be they beggars, grocery clerks, gas station attendants, mothers-in-law, husbands or wives, any differently, you are missing the mark. There is absolutely no difference between these masters and so-called ordinary people.

Jesus made this point when he said, "Everything I can do, you can do, and more." Our identity is exactly the same. The only difference is that the masters are doing a little better than you are at demonstrating it. But you must never give up, for as the great Paramahansa Yogananda said, "A saint is a sinner that never gave up." The ascended masters had to battle through exactly the same lessons you are struggling with now. A Course in Miracles calls this type of perception "innocent perception."

The Outcome is Inevitable

It is inevitable that all of God's sons and daughters will eventually return home. Can God and the Christ lose against illusion and maya? If ever you get discouraged, ask yourself this: Can God and the Christ lose this battle? It is impossible!

You must never forget that the ego doesn't really even exist. It is ridiculous to get angry at it, for in reality it is not even there. It is nothing more than a bad dream, from which you can awaken at any time you choose to do so. "Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God."

The outcome for all souls in this journey is to return back to the Godhead. It is just a matter of time. Even Hitler will eventually return home. He will have to balance his karma first, but he will return home also. The purpose of A Course in Miracles and the purpose of my book is to shorten the time needed.

You are living in a period of history in which what formerly took fourteen years can be done in fourteen months. Never in the history of this planet has there been a greater opportunity for spiritual growth. The key is to commit yourself to your spiritual path 100%, with all your personal power and concentration. The transformation that will take place will be amazing. Why delay until a future incarnation that which you can do now? Soul Psychology.

Sins versus Mistakes

There are no such things as sins, only mistakes. The true definition of sin is "missing the mark." You should understand that mistakes are positive, not negative. You shouldn't go out of your way to make them, but when they happen, you learn from them. When you make a mistake, you can stop and gain the golden nugget of wisdom, learn the lesson, forgive yourself and go forward. On the spiritual path you can move three steps down for every four steps you go up; that is the normal way to grow.

Some religions look at sin as a stain on your character, or they attribute to you some kind of original sin. This is ludicrous. You have no sin, for each of you is the Christ, the Eternal Self.

All mistakes are forgiven. A Course in Miracles states that "Forgiveness is the key to happiness." God has already forgiven everything. You need to learn to forgive yourself and your brothers and sisters. It is important remember that no one has ever done anything to you; you have allowed it all to be done to you, and if it happened, you attracted it for soul growth.

Unconditional Love versus Conditional Love

God would have you always practice unconditional love. The rationale for this is that each person, in reality, is the Christ even if his thoughts, feelings, and behavior are not demonstrating that. Jesus said, in the New Testament, "Love your enemies." This is one of the true tests and initiations of the spiritual path. It is your lesson to learn to be bigger than others, to practice innocent perception, and to practice forgiveness, for what you give is what you get back. If you want God, you must give God, otherwise you will not realize Him.

Everyone is God; however, everyone is not realizing God in his or her thoughts, feelings, and actions. Earth is a school to practice realizing God in daily life. Much of the spiritual path consists of the small things such as how you treat your neighbors. Conditional love places some condition on those people that they must meet to deserve your love. Ego tells you that you are hurting them and helping yourself by doing this. In reality, you are hurting both the others and yourself.

One of the basic principles of A Course in Miracles is the giving up of attack thoughts. You are either loving or attacking; there are no neutral thoughts. When you are demonstrating conditional love, you are unconsciously attacking, and the other person, on an energetic level, is experiencing that attack. It is like an arrow that is piercing his aura. If he is weak or acting like a victim, it can affect him quite adversely, for you must remember that all minds are joined. Your thoughts are not contained in your physical body as though behind a fence. In reality, it is quite the opposite. The second you think about another person, whether in a positive or negative way, that thought or feeling hits his energy field.

Conditional love also separates you from God. You are not separated in reality. You are separated only within your own state of consciousness. In every situation of life there is an appropriate response and an inappropriate response. How you respond determines whether you will realize God or not realize God in that moment. If you make a mistake, you can stop, gain the golden nugget of wisdom, learn the lesson, forgive, and choose once again.

By staying vigilant and focused, over time you will begin to develop a habit of being unconditionally loving. In every situation of life you can ask yourself, "Do I want God or my ego in this situation?" If you sincerely ask yourself this, you will find it impossible to choose the ego. Practice makes perfect!

Top Dog/Underdog versus Equality

The ego will tell you that you are superior to everyone else or that you are inferior to everyone else or both. This is truly a hellish state of mind to exist in and it is amazing how many people are unconsciously trapped in the ego's game. Spirit says that you are all equals because you all are the Christ, in truth. People may be at different levels of demonstrating this truth; however, the "I" in you is the same as the "I" in me.

Whenever you find yourself comparing yourself with any other person, the ego is gripping you. You need never compare yourself with other people; you need only compare yourself with yourself. If you look at the progress you have made within yourself only, it is easy to feel good about yourself.

Whenever the top dog or underdog dynamic comes up, you can do what Fritz Perls, who coined these terms, said to do: "Laugh it off the stage." The Course calls this owning your grandeur, but not your grandiosity.

The Meaning of the Crucifixion

In the text of A Course in Miracles Jesus gives a fascinating account of the true meaning of the crucifixion. What he says is that the crucifixion was nothing more than an extreme lesson of love and forgiveness. He was not dying for your sins because you do not have any sins.

What he was demonstrating was that even in the most extreme lessons, in which a person is being whipped, beaten, tortured, and crucified, it is possible to remain loving and forgiving. "Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do," he said. He went through this most extreme challenge to prove to humanity that forgiveness is possible even under the most extreme circumstances. If Jesus, the Christ, could do it under those circumstances, then certainly you can forgive a mother-in-law, boss, parent, friend, or business partner.

Love-Finder or Fault-Finder

Spirit would have you see the positive, the good, and the innocent in people. Ego as guide and teacher has you seek and see the negative. The ego does this to put other persons down in order to make itself feel good.

Spirit's philosophy is a win/win philosophy, not a win/lose philosophy. Why can't everyone win? Isn't that a better way to live?

You will see what you look for; you will see what you put your attention upon. When you see fault and judgment, you are, in reality, faulting and judging yourself, for what you see in another is just a mirror of your own state of mind. When you see God and love and blessings, that is what you give to yourself. Whether you see it or not, that is what is there, for that is what God created.

Faulty perception doesn't create-truth; it just creates the reality you will live in. You can see the glory of what God would have you see. If you see fault, then you are creating separation from yourself, God, and your brothers and sisters. Spirit would guide you to remain in a state of oneness at all times, for all is God.

In the New Testament Jesus said, "Judge not, that ye be not judged"; "He that hath no sin, cast the first stone"; "Don't try to take the speck out of your brother's eye when you have a log in your own eye." The log that Jesus speaks of is the log of ego and the lower self.

Perception versus Knowledge

All forms of perception, according to A Course in Miracles, are a type of dream. God would guide us, however, to live and experience the happy dream of the Christ consciousness which is a perfect mirror of that state which Jesus calls knowledge. By living the Christ dream or perception, Jesus says, there is a translation into pure knowledge that will inevitably take place.

Atonement

Atonement, or atonement, is the process of undoing the ego's grip and returning to the atonement of spirit. The Holy Spirit and/or soul serves as your guide, along with the ascended masters.

Teachings and Lessons versus Bummers and Problems

It is important to realize that everything that happens in life is a teaching, lesson, challenge, and opportunity to grow. Edgar Cayce referred to this when he said that everything that happens is a stepping stone for soul growth.

Paul Solomon, who channels the Universal Mind, has said that the proper attitude toward everything that happens in life is "Not my will, but thine. Thank you for the lesson." Everything that happens in life is a gift. It wouldn't be coming to you if you didn't have something to learn. Everything that comes to you is your own personal karma and is something that you have set in motion either in this lifetime or in a past lifetime. Your lesson is to welcome it, own your personal power, and deal with it appropriately.

Personal Power versus Powerlessness

A spiritual master and God-realized being remains in a state of personal power all the time. Maybe you own your power only in an emergency or when you have to go to work. If you don't own your power, it becomes projected. You give it to other people or to your subconscious mind.

In my opinion there are two keys to psychological health. One is to own your personal power and the second is to have self-love. If you don't own your power you can be run by almost anything in the universe. This includes discarnate spirits, other people, weather, biorhythms, the Dark Brotherhood, your ego, thoughts, feelings, desires, impulses, the physical body, past-life karma, and mass consciousness.

It is clear that there is danger in not owning your personal power. Edgar Cayce has said that your will or power is the strongest force in this universe. You have heard the saying, "An idle mind is the devil's workshop." Most people have consciousness but don't have personal power. The extended use of personal power is self-discipline which a lot of people don't have, either. You will never progress on the spiritual path without personal power and self-discipline.

Power is an attitude or state of mind that you need to cultivate every morning to start the day. Part of owning your power is being decisive in whatever you do, even if you make the wrong decision. At least then you are not stuck in indecision. As the old saying goes, "Fish or cut bait."

Cayce occasionally referred to personal power as positive anger. Anger is ego; however, there is enormous power in anger which can be channeled into positive anger, or positive personal power. Earth is a difficult school, and it is necessary to be very tough in life or you can easily become overwhelmed. You must be a spiritual warrior. The best attitude to have in life is one of tough love.

In the Bhagavad-Cita, which is the story of Krishna (the Lord Maitreya), Aduna, Krishna's disciple, is on the battlefield about to fight the evil enemy's army when he completely loses his balance psychologically and falls into his ego. Aduna is the head of the righteous army and they are all depending on him.

Krishna, Arjuna's charioteer and spiritual master, begins to lecture Arjuna on the folly of his ways in giving into his ego, thereby losing his power and control over his energies. Krishna is guiding Arjuna into the spiritual mysteries, much as I am attempting to do in this book, when he says, after his long speech to Arjuna, "Get up now, and give up your unmanliness. Get up and fight. This self-pity and self-indulgence are unbecoming of the great soul that you are." This is my favorite statement in the Bhagavad-Gita.

Arjuna is awakened by Krishna's spiritual discourse, including this statement, and he reclaims his personal power, leading his men to victory in the battle. Krishna's statement applies to each and every one of you in your daily life.

To Have All, Give All to All

To have all, give all to all, is a message of A Course in Miracles, for what you have is, in reality, what you give. What you are holding back from your brothers is what you are holding back from God and from yourself. To have all you must give all, for, in reality, you already have and already are everything. You always have and always will. It is only your belief in the ego as your guide and teacher that has made you believe otherwise.

There Are Only Two Emotions

The Course teaches that there are only two emotions - love and fear. All other emotions return to this basic core. Fear is of the ego, and love is of the spirit. When you indulge in attack thoughts it causes you, by the law of karma operating within your own mind, to live in fear. If you attack, you will be fearful because you will expect other people to attack you, which will cause you to be afraid. If you live in love, then by the law of karma you will expect love in return.

The Course teaches that an attack is a call for love. You need to see beyond or through the attack to the fact that the person who is attacking is really living in fear. Fear is an indicator of lack of love, lack of self-love, lack of allowing in the experience God's love. As the Bible says, "Perfect love casteth out fear."

The Past and Future versus the Eternal Now

One of the profound realizations I had when studying A Course in Miracles was understanding what the past and the future really are. Think about the past. What is it? It is a memory. What is a memory? A memory is an image in the mind. What is an image? An image is a thought. So what this means is that the past is totally under your control, for it is nothing more than images, or thoughts, in your mind.

The same applies to the future. The future is nothing more than thoughts and images in your mind. They are of a positive or negative nature, which determines whether you are worried or excited about the future. This means that your future is totally under your control.

All that really exists is the now. You do not have to be victimized by the past or by a worrisome future because it is all within your own mind. The proper attitude toward the past is to take the golden nuggets of wisdom from the mistakes and from what you have done well and then bring forth the positive memories you choose to keep and release the rest.

In terms of the future, the proper perspective is to plan for the future in a creative way that serves you and then leave the rest to God. Edgar Cayce said, "Why worry when you can pray?" I would add to this by saying, "Why worry when you can pray, own your personal power, and do affirmations and visualizations to attract everything you need?"

In this holy instant, I am the Christ, and you are the Christ. We are one with each other and we are one with God. The fall never really happened, you just thought it did. You have and are everything, for you are God. The prodigal son and daughter have returned home, for God never took anything away. You are and always have been as God created you - a perfect Christ. He has just been waiting for you to reclaim your inheritance, which has always been yours.

The Two Most Important Relationships

The two most important relationships in your life are your relationship to self and your relationship to God. In actuality, your relationship to self is even more important than your relationship to God, for if you are wrong" with yourself and allow yourself to be run by your ego, then you will project this wrong relationship to self onto everything in your life, including your relationship to God.

This is the cause of the angry Old Testament God. It is also the cause of concepts like original sin, the idea that you are a lowly, sinful worm, and the judgmental nature and self-righteousness of the fundamentalist religions.

This projection has also occurred in the Islamic religions to a certain extent. It is what happens when the ego is allowed to interpret scripture. It is like the game of telephone, played for two thousand years. The masters like Jesus, Mohammed, and Moses said one thing and the disciples, who were not at their level, completely distorted what they had actually said. There is no judgment in this, it is just a simple statement of fact.

Attachment versus Preference

The ego is drawn to attachment but, as Buddha said, "All suffering comes from our attachments." What he is saying is that if you give up all your attachments, you no longer have to experience suffering at all. It isn't the outside thing that causes the suffering, it is your attachment and addiction to outside things that causes your suffering.

Spirit guides you to have preferences rather than attachments. An attachment is an attitude that causes you to get depressed or angry or upset if your expectations aren't met. A preference is an attitude that lets you be happy either way. You might prefer to go to the movies but if that doesn't work out, you can still be happy at home. This is a profound concept. If you were to release all your attachments, you would find instantaneous peace of mind.

Some spiritual people believe that they are not allowed even to have preferences. I would say that this is a faulty belief on their part. It is very important in life to have your preferences and to go after them with all your heart and soul and mind and might. However, if they don't come about, it is important to be prepared to be happy anyway. That way, happiness becomes a state of mind rather than a condition outside of self.

The happiness that so many of you are seeking lies in a certain perspective toward life. You are born with it but the negative ego's programming blocks the awareness of your natural state, which is joy.

The Transcendence of Duality

One of the basic teachings of all Eastern religions is the transcendence of duality. Duality could be another word for ego. The ideal is to learn to be even-minded and in a state of equanimity all the time, regardless of the ups and downs of life.

The ideal is to maintain this even-mindedness regardless of profit or loss, pleasure or pain, sickness or health, victory or defeat, praise or criticism, good weather or had weather. It is okay to have a preference, but if it doesn't happen your baseline can be joy and inner peace.

The Job Initiation

The Job initiation is a test all seekers go through at some point in their spiritual journeys. It is really the ultimate test of your spiritual faith and righteousness in God.

Job was a righteous man of God who had a family and children, a big ranch, and material wealth. One day Satan came to God and said, "Sure, Job is a righteous man. You have given him everything. Take away his wealth and let's see if he remains so righteous." God said, "I have confidence in Job. Take away his wealth." Satan did so and to Satan's consternation, Job remained righteous.

Then Satan sheepishly came back to God and said, "I am impressed! However let's take away his wife and children and see if he remains so righteous." God said, "So be it." Job's wife left him, took the kids, and got a divorce. Amazingly enough, Job remained righteous. Satan was really shocked now. He returned to God and said, "Let me try one more test, and if he passes this, I give up, and I will declare you were right all along."

Satan said, "For this final test let me take away his physical health." God said, "Okay, you can take away his physical health, but you can't kill him." Satan agreed and Job's health was taken away. He had terrible boils and was tired. He didn't feel well at all. This was the straw that broke the camel's back. Job completely lost his righteousness. He became angry and bitter and depressed. His friends tried to cheer him up but he would have nothing of it. Job's attitude was that he was a righteous man of God and a good person, and look at the trials and tribulations he was going through. This state of affairs lasted for a number of years.

Finally one day, in a quiet moment, a whirlwind of Light came to Job and entered his crown chakra. God spoke to Job. God shared with Job that this had all been a test of character, virtue and righteousness in God. He explained that anyone can believe and worship God when things are going well, but how about when things are not going well and all outer supports have been stripped away?

Job heard the truth of what God was saying, just as Arjuna had been awakened by Krishna. Job made one of the most moving statements in the entire Bible then:

Naked I came from my mother's womb,
Naked shall I leave.
The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord!

Job had regained his righteousness. His health returned. His wife and children returned. His wealth returned by one-hundredfold. Job went on to say, "Even if I should die, I will remain righteous in the Lord."

I think the meaning of this story is obvious. I would venture to guess that a good many people reading this book have gone through some form of the Job initiation. Never forget that what happens to you in life is a spiritual test of your character and your righteousness in the Lord.

Look at what Jesus went through. No matter what your situation, you can challenge yourself to keep your faith and righteousness, whether those challenges be in terms of health, finances, death, relationships, or mental or emotional problems. You can hold on to your personal power and your ideals and your faith, for did not Jesus say, "Be ye faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life."

Optimism versus Pessimism

The spiritual attitude toward life is to remain optimistic at all times. If you have a good attitude you can be put in the worst situation and you might be bummed out for a little while, but you are going to become happy again. On the other side of the coin, if you have a had attitude, you can be put in the best situation possible and you will be happy for a little while, but then you will feel bummed out again.

Part of the purpose of life is to spread joy and happiness. Sickness can be contagious if you feel like a victim and have low resistance. Since so many people live in a victim consciousness, why not lift them into joy and happiness? The purpose of life is to spread this joy, happiness, love, goodwill, and blessings everywhere you go, so that when you leave this place the world will be better for your having been here.

The Ego's Purpose versus the Spirit's Purpose

The ego's purpose in life is basically hedonistic - pleasure-seeking, gratification of carnal desires, power in a top-dog sense, material wealth, and control over others rather than control over self. The spirit's answer is this Biblical statement. "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" (Mt 16.26)

The spiritual purpose of life is to achieve liberation from the wheel of rebirth, to realize God, to become an ascended master, to be of service to humankind. Did not Jesus say, "The greatest among you is the servant of all." The spiritual purpose in life is also to be happy and to enjoy yourself, in a way that is balanced with spiritual growth.

A Course in Miracles states that true pleasure is serving God. I know that this is true for me. As long as I am serving God, I am happy. To me, everything is serving God, as long as whatever I do is done with that intent.

Poverty Consciousness versus Prosperity Consciousness

The ego's interpretation of life is that of lack, that there is never enough. The ego teaches that money is the root of all evil or that it is the answer to all problems. The ego is quite hateful by nature, and it sends a message of total lack of self-worth, guilt, and undeservingness of prosperity. The spirit sees the universe as abundant, with plenty for everybody and no need for negative competition.

The spirit's attitude is that you can be the richest person in the world and lead a most spiritual life simultaneously. Money, in and of itself, is divine. It is how you use it that determines whether it is good or had. The spirit guides you to love money and to make as much as possible so that it can be used to make physical changes in the Earthly world for spiritual purposes.

The more money you have, the more you can give to charities, or use to start spiritual centers and institutions. If you have prosperity consciousness you know you can make money, get a job, manifest a business, or create opportunities whenever they are needed. There are many people in this world who are millionaires but have a total poverty consciousness, and they will probably eventually lose the prosperity they have because of it.

Who is more prosperous, a woman living in the ghetto with seven children who has total faith in God to provide her with everything she truly needs or a multimillionaire who is stingy and worries about money, constantly backstabbing clients and competitors? Millionaires who have prosperity consciousness might talk about losing all their wealth but without worrying, because they know that they can earn it all back again.

You are prosperous when you truly know that God, your personal power, and the power of your subconscious mind are your true stocks and bonds and financial security. You can find a job or make money even during a recession when God, the creator of the infinite universe, is helping you and when you, with your full personal power and the power of your subconscious mind, are helping yourself.

Can God and the Christ, who you are, not win every battle? As the Bible says, "If God be for you, who [or what] can be against you?"; "I can do all things with God and Christ who strengthen me." With this power and faith you can manifest whatever it is you need. You are prosperous because your power is in God and in the application of God's laws for your own benefit.

Death versus Eternal Life

The ego believes in death because the ego believes you are your physical body rather than the soul which is inhabiting the physical body. The ego is right about one thing, and that is that the physical body will die. The only problem is, you are not that physical body. You are the Christ and the Eternal Self living in the physical body.

The physical body is your temple and the instrument through which you communicate on this Earthly plane. When you are finished with it, you will immediately translate into another dimension of reality. What dimension you translate to will be determined by how much soul growth you have achieved in this lifetime. Death is an illusion, as everything the ego says is an illusion.

Anger and Depression versus Peace of Mind

The feeling of anger stems from the ego's interpretation of life and is usually caused by one of four attitudes. The first faulty attitude that causes anger and depression is attachment and addiction. When your attachments aren't met, it causes upset and anger. Secondly, anger and depression are caused by not seeing that what is happening is a lesson, a gift, a spiritual test. Thirdly, if you don't have your bubble of protection up, you are allowing yourself to be victimized by another person's negative energy. The fourth cause of anger and depression is based on a definition of anger I learned from Paul Solomon. He defined anger as a loss of control and an attempt to retain it. Whenever you lose your personal power, mastery, and control over yourself and fall into what I call an underdog, or victimized, state of consciousness because of listening to the voice of your ego, then the ego will flip from playing the underdog back into playing the top dog (or anger) to get back in control. This kind of anger is really a loss of control that lets you feel as though you are getting back in control.

There is a lot of power in anger and ideally this angry energy, instead of being blocked, is channeled into personal power and beneficial activities. When this is done properly, it is called positive anger.

Depression is the state of consciousness of just giving up. Whenever you give up in life you get depressed. Of all the negative attitudes of the ego, giving up is probably the worst and most dangerous. If you give in to this evil game of the ego, all the defenses of the conscious mind against the ego are laid down and the ego is able to gain total control.

The most important thing in life is never to give up. As the I Ching constantly says, "Perseverance furthers success." You must have spiritual tenacity and what Cayce called "long-suffering," if need be.

There is no need to suffer in life; however, if you do find that you are suffering, you can just keep praying and affirming and visualizing what you want. Keep powering it out and seeking an answer. For doesn't the Bible say, "Seek and ye shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened." God helps those who help themselves. God will do His part, but you must do your part. Together, God, your personal power, and the power of the subconscious mind are an unbeatable team.

Gratitude versus Taking Life for Granted

The ego's attitude is one of taking people and life for granted. The spiritual attitude is one of constant gratefulness and thanksgiving, humbleness and humility. It can be summed up in the Biblical statement, "By the grace of God go I."

The Bible also says, "After pride cometh the fall." There is so much to be grateful for every day. All you have to do is watch the news to see all the terrible things that are going on around the world and to feel how incredibly blessed you are.

If you have handicaps and limitations for the moment, the best spiritual attitude is to focus on what you can do instead of what you can't do. I have always been moved by Saint Francis who was the ascended master Kuthumi in a past life. He apparently faced terrible health problems he had to live with his whole life, and yet he became one of the most revered Christian saints.

Mother Teresa has terrible heart problems and yet she spends her life in service, helping others. Everyone on the planet has a weak spot. For some it is physical, for some emotional, for some mental, spiritual, environmental, or financial. You are here to try valiantly to overcome those dragons and be grateful for the grace God has bestowed upon you. Remember, even the bad things that happen are really gifts and spiritual tests, blessings in disguise.

God never gives you more than you can handle. You can change your attitude and welcome your lessons and challenges with a smile and with strength. When a challenge comes, you can make yourself bigger than it is instead of allowing yourself to be overwhelmed by it. Thank God for the lesson and pray for His help in learning it.

Feeling Rejected versus Acceptance

The ego would have you interpret the end of a friendship or relationship as one person winning and one person losing; hence, there is a rejecter and a rejectee. This is not the spiritual interpretation. There are no winners and losers, only winners. If a relationship ends, the spiritual attitude is that it is just not meant to be any longer; then you can both leave as winners. I'm okay and you're okay, in forgiveness and unconditional love.

Guilt versus Innocence

The ego tries to make you feel guilty for your mistakes, or sins, as it tries to call them. The spiritual attitude is that you are instantly forgiven. There is no need to hold the past against yourself in punishment. There is no need to punish yourself. The idea is to recognize that you have made a mistake and to learn from it. The spiritual attitude states that you are always innocent. The Course suggests that when you make a mistake of some consequence, you should pray to the Holy Spirit and/or your soul or God to undo the consequences and results of that mistake. The Holy Spirit will be happy to do this for you, and then you don't have to worry about it.

Personal Surrender versus Personal Power and Surrender Simultaneously

The ego's attitude is either to own the power and control and never surrender to God, or to surrender to God totally, avoiding all responsibility and owning of power. The spiritual attitude is to own your power and to surrender simultaneously. It is imperative to own your power, otherwise you will be overwhelmed by the subconscious mind. It is also essential to surrender to God and the soul, or monad, as your teacher.

In doing both simultaneously, the three minds begin to function as one mind in perfect integration, balance, and harmony.

Ego Sensitivity versus a Centered Spiritual Attitude

Ego sensitivity is that tendency to feel hurt, rejected, put down, or inferior at times when there is no discernible reason to be feeling that way. It occurs because of a lack of personal power and self-love, the absence of a bubble of protection, or not having right relationship with self and right relationship with God.

When you are run by your ego, there is a tendency to project onto others motives that are not, in reality, there. A good example of this can be seen in the life of Jesus Christ. All he did was love and heal people, yet many wanted to crucify him. Their egos interpreted Jesus as attacking them when, in reality, that was not the case, as he was the embodiment of love. Because they interpreted attack, their victim consciousness caused them to feel put down or defensive and they attacked back.

You know people like this who get defensive or hurt even when you have not attacked them. Such a person needs to be treated with extra love and tact until his self-concept can be rebuilt into a sturdier form.

It is important to realize that when you are centered you can't be hurt because you let any attack slide off your bubble. You respond instead of reacting. You are more detached. You don't let other people cause your emotions. You don't take mental or emotional poison into your system just as you don't take physical poison into your body.

You still might communicate your feelings but you do it as an observation and as a preference rather than feeling victimized and lashing back in attack. You don't want to let other people be the computer programmers of your emotions; you want to program your own emotions.

No one can make you think, feel, or behave in any way you choose not to. You are not an effect, you are a cause. You are not a victim, you are a master and a cocreator with God. You can simply decide to feel good, and since your thoughts create your feelings, you immediately feel good.

Since it is your thoughts that create your reality, why would you want to create anything but joy, happiness, unconditional love, and inner peace? When you think with your Christ mind rather than your ego mind, that is exactly what happens.

Security versus Insecurity

The ego creates insecurity because it teaches you to find your security outside of self in people, possessions, houses, money, family, and so on, whereas the only true security, the only security that cannot be taken away from you, is security that is grounded in your personal power, God, the power of your subconscious mind, and God's laws.

Loneliness versus Being Alone

The ego causes you to feel loneliness because it has you seek your wholeness in another person instead of finding it first within yourself and in your relationship to God. You are never really lonely when you are in your spiritual attitude because you are whole within self and one with God.

This is also when you are in proper relationship to your inner child. Under these circumstances the inner child is given the proper ratio of firmness and love. The inner child, hence, feels loved and protected. Loneliness is a sign you have fallen into the underdog, or inferior, state of consciousness and are seeking to fill this space with another person instead of with self and God, which is what is really needed.

The same thing is true of the feeling of abandonment. If you are whole within self and one with God, and the inner child has been taken care of before you have bonded with another person, then the feeling of abandonment won't occur when the person leaves.

Jealousy occurs when you bond out of a feeling of lack of wholeness and right relationship to self and God, and then compete with a known or unknown competitor. The spiritual attitude is to state your preferences in your relationships and surrender them to God. If the relationship is meant to be, it will happen; if it does not happen, it was not meant to be.

Additionally, when you bond with another person from the state of consciousness of being right with self and right with God, issues of cheating, infidelity, and commitment cannot arise in the same way because of the integrity of the individuals involved. If they do arise, and if one partner is not experiencing the sanctity of the bond, it probably means you are not meant to be together.

A Course in Miracles

A Course in Miracles is made up of a workbook, a teacher's manual, and a textbook. The workbook has one lesson a day every day for an entire year. The idea is to do only one lesson a day. You can go slower but not faster with these lessons. The beginning lessons are designed to break down the old negative ego belief system, and the later lessons are designed to build in the Christ pattern of consciousness. I recommend starting the lessons and reading the teacher's manual, which is very easy to read, whereas the textbook is rather difficult. Most people, I find, don't have the patience or fortitude to get through it. However, it is well worth reading. If you do get bogged down you can just focus on the lessons and they will provide a very good theoretical base. Reading the lessons first will actually make reading the text a lot easier.

Other Suggestions

There is more to be learned about egotistical versus spiritual thinking. I have several suggestions. The first is to read Gerald Jampolsky's books. He has written some easy-to-understand books about the teachings of A Course in Miracles: Love is Letting Go of Fear, Teach Only Love, and Say Good-bye to Guilt.

Also, Marianne Williamson has written two books and made many very good tapes about A Course in Miracles and I recommend them.

I do not consider myself an orthodox "Course in Miracles person" because I am involved with so many practices. Also, I attempt to bring it into more of a psychological context than a spiritual one. There are many people who are now involved with A Course in Miracles, and each teacher organizes and presents the material in a different way. In some areas I try to integrate the Course rather than identify with it. A Course in Miracles is like the light at the end of the tunnel, but 98% of the people on the planet are not yet at the end of the tunnel in their evolution, so I feel a little bridging help is needed, and that is what I have attempted to do in this chapter.

On the following page is a chart I have created called the Psychological Centering Model. In the center of the chart is what I call the centered spiritual self. Radiating out from the spiritual self, like the rays of the sun, are the Christ or spiritual or Buddhic qualities. Above the centered spiritual self are the top-dog, superiority qualities of the ego. Below the spiritual self are the underdog, inferiority, egotistical qualities. This is a helpful model to meditate upon and refer to in daily life.

On the subsequent pages is an in-depth list of spiritual attitudes and qualities counterposed to negative egotistical attitudes and qualities. This list is also useful to refer to when your ego has been triggered.