Choosing Peace

In A Course In Miracles, Jeshua gives us a simple, but profound and far-reaching insight into Truth:

I can choose peace instead of this.

Then, in the Way of the Heart - during a live Question and Answer - He gives us a succinct and priceless elucidation of this Truth.

This elucidation is the fundamental dynamic of what I have come to call Radical Inquiry, the laser-like process of 'turning mind back upon itself', integrated with two essential steps that bring rapid breakthrough, insight, and the miraculous shifts which are quite palpable. These shifts are not merely a mental shift to a new idea, since ideas are always 'ideas about', but ideas, as Jeshua lets us know in both ACIM and in the Way of Mastery, are .. "once removed" from Reality.

What does that mean?

Ideas (no matter how lofty, scintillating, or revelatory, or inspiring) are really symbols that speak to the intellectual aspect of us (an aspect we are almost exclusively identified with, rarely suspecting that the limits of intellect are also imprisoning us in a dream-like world we can only think is real). And the words we use to point them out, to bring them to light, are twice removed from the Reality He calls us to.

It should be obvious to any student of either of these texts, that using the mind to merely repeat Ideas found within them is not the same as the quality of genuine healing, waking, enlightenment that both sets of texts are aimed to point us toward. For that takes something that, shall we say, 'cuts a little deeper.'

Such is the way of Radical Inquiry. Radical mean 'most fundamental'; arriving at the root source of perception/belief that imprisons us in Ego/Separation. Inquiry means to turn the mind back upon itself, and integrate Whole-Being transformation, since only whole-being transformation is, well, really transformation! Less than that leaves us with a 'new idea' to grab hold of, but isn’t the goal of Jeshua.

His one goal is Christ Mind; a return and evolved, integrated, lived, expressed Wholeness that is supra-Ego. Being the real Truth of our Being, Christ Mind can operate in any dimension of experience; the world of the body, of space-time, is not a limit to it.

Radical Inquiry, when learned, applied, and mastered, literally cuts to the core of ego even as it is arising, and opens us to a direct experience of what can best be called 'Spaciousness', since it transcends the final levels of Separation: words (twice removed) and Ideas (once removed.) Another word for this Spaciousness is Presence, and it is in Presence alone that Love is finally freed to operate without the encumbrances of Ego. Indeed, often, using the mind in life situations to quickly grasp a favourite sentence (a collection of words!) from ACIM or Way of Mastery, is really just more Ego 'trip', just wrapped in prettier ribbons. It MAY not be the true flow of Love, at all! And often, the ego simply uses the new Ideas it hears to buffer itself from real Presence in which real transformation (healing and waking) and even transfiguration (the establishment of an entirely new level of Consciousness as Soul itself) can occur.

So, what are those 'two essential steps' I mentioned above? Let's take a closer look at Jeshua's answer to this student. They will leap out at us! (Hint: these two steps are also what is most ardently resisted by Ego, which preserves itself by operating at the level of Ideas, and their symbols, words, while if we are to know the Reality, or 'Real World' Jeshua points us toward, we will need to - quite literally and transfiguratively - get out of our minds! When we do, finally, we begin to touch Presence, the end of Separation, real Oneness, and true Peace.)

Here is what Jeshua shares. I'll offer it in italics, and then comment in regular typeface:

Your experience is always of and in the present, for what arises is not past, but now.

How can we tell what is arising from Ego? (Hint: this can occur and often does even when we are grasping at Divine Ideas, such as those that fill the texts of ACIM and WOM).

If there is a sense of constriction, resistance, judgment of self or other, rest assured that what has arisen to temporarily dominate your attention is an egoic pattern, since the ego is 'by definition' the constriction away from Love. Loss of peace is the result.

A key word here, is the word 'sense'. Yes, you and I 'sense' things! (Even those who love to parrot the ACIM thought, 'the body is not real' - not yet understanding what it means from the reality of Presence - are fully sensing and experiencing, even as they race to the mind and its collection of Ideas, and words about those Ideas!) Clearly, sensing, for Jeshua, is a deeper realm of knowing than mere thinking (the realm where perception and belief-selection occurs).

And just here is the fundamental block that keeps Separation in place. We do not realize how defended we are, how fearful we are, how much in recoil we are, to our own creation: to our experience in, and as, 'embodied beingness'. We are unaware of how deep and long-standing our habit is of racing into the mind to generate perception/belief in the hope of finding safe haven from the pain and horror of Primal Separation itself. This habit is so embedded that we are unaware of it. Indeed, one can spend years reading the Ideas of ACIM or WOM, returning to them over and over, without ever even noticing that to do so is to remain 'fused' or identified with mind itself, precisely where the Dream is occurring, in a theatre within you!

This can - and will - improve our dream, even immensely! But please listen now, a better dream is still a dream! But Jeshua's ultimate goal for us is not merely to have a better dream. In His succinct and priceless offering to us, entitled the Way of the Servant, He puts it this way:

The goal of real spirituality is to "awaken from the Dream of the Dreamer itself."

And here we come to Radical Inquiry. Here we come to the furtherance of teachings that begin to show up in the Way of Mastery. For here, after laying such a brilliant foundation, and guiding the willing student via A Course In Miracles, and the foundation of the Way of the Heart (itself the first of three substantive and progressively deeper texts that are themselves an introduction to the processes required to end the 'dream of the dreamer'), He begins to introduce us to the 2 essential steps, and begins to develop the way of Radical Inquiry. But again, most students will 'read right over' these steps, let alone dive into them, because to do so is a huge threat to the dream of the dreamer, and what it wants is comforting Ideas to protect it, save it, and keep its dream alive. And what is its dream?

It is the very belief that there is a separate self!!! Something that has its own plan, its own desires, its own truth, and harbours its 'special'; hurts, justifies its 'special' fears, and above all, is devoted to the continuance of its own existence!

The existence of Ego, or separate self, is really a knot of contraction emanating from the deepest levels of Soul as it emerges from Pure Spirit, reverberating downward through the soul, astral, mental, emotional, and - ultimately outpicturing as - the physical body, with its brain-mind, that thing we so commonly address as 'me, myself, and I.' And it isn't!!!!!!

If these last few paragraphs seem to confuse you, make the head hurt, or lose you, it's simply because you have not yet truly (or, fully) begun to emerge beyond the realm of Ideas (remember, even radiant, supernal Ideas such as those that fill A Course in Miracles and Way Of Mastery.) That is, you do not yet have a direct and immediate sense of Being in pure Presence. And, until that happens, the Real World cannot emerge for you; God remains 'hidden', just beyond the veil of our most treasured "Ideas".

The solution? There is only one:

To dare desire the dissolution of the dream of the Dreamer, itself.

When this desire truly takes root, you will know it. A level of fierce yet quiet devotion to waking kicks in. You will go anywhere, do anything at any cost, to follow the guidance of the deep Heart, the whisper of Holy Spirit. You will be unrelenting in rooting out every last trace of sensed incompletion, of sensed limit, within your very soul. You will find yourself becoming frustrated by Ideas, and words, and be moved by a longing for 'something more'.

And just here is where those two essential steps kick in. Here, Jeshua continues, showing us the way.

Look well, then, and simply recognize:

What is arising in the moment? Am I willing to look upon it, to feel it, to embrace it? Am I willing to breathe?

I have underlined the two essential steps that are not elucidated in ACIM, but are introduced and developed - judiciously and carefully - throughout the three texts of the Way Of series, and then deepened and revealed profoundly as Jeshua brings back to our world His actual practices of transfiguration found in the Aramaic Lord's Prayer and especially the Aramaic Beatitudes. But notice, they are further steps - and part of a process - with which A Course In Miracles and Way Of Mastery students (as well as mainstream systems of personal well-being/psychology) will be familiar with:

• Observation
• Taking ownership (what is arising under one's own skin is one's own)
• Recognizing that peace is absent, and peace is what we really want

He continues:

Feel, then, what you are truly feeling. (Precisely what the egoic mind does NOT want to do!). Observe what is truly present within the mind (here, mind is images, thoughts, and the actual experience of fear, contraction, resistance, judgment, mind-chatter, etc.).

In this way, you take your hands and cup them around whatever it is. And - when you have done that - THEN recognize this great Truth:

I can choose again. I can choose Peace instead of this.

I've underlined the above because it's such a key: when we are uncomfortable, our ego pattern is to want to get out of pain as fast as possible! Thus, we will often race in the mind to this (or similar) thoughts, repeating them until we successfully repress, or split off from what is really arising to disturb us, missing the real opportunity to be healed by Love!

And if there is anything important to know about Love, it is this:

Love allows all things, trusts all things, embraces all things.

Love does not explain things away by parroting Ideas from A Course in Miracles or Way Of Mastery (or any ideas, period). Such examples are:

• You are not a body, so your feelings aren't real
• The world doesn't exist anyway
• Only Love is Real(therefore, what you don't see as Love, isn't there... duality)
• Etc,. Etc,. Etc.

Can you begin to see that even these very 'true Ideas' are still Ideas, and are - according to Jeshua - still 'once removed' from Reality/God/Love/Real World, and are still part of the Dream, itself?

The lofty, radiant Ideas found in ACIM and WOM are vastly superior and take us a huge step toward the reduction of our suffering, but they are still a limitation that keeps the soul dreaming, albeit a better level of dreaming. But Dreaming simply is not the same as Awakening, period.

In awakening, that 'knot' I referred to earlier, simply dissolves, unwinds, disappears, and with it all sense of this thing that has been doing all the studying, reading, and seeking; all the contracting, resisting, and more: the illusion of the separate self, altogether: 'Me, Myself, and I' vanishes..... it vanishes into..... Reality! And where is that?

Here, there are no better words and Ideas (hint, hint!) than those Jeshua gives us in ACIM:

Heaven is here; there is no other place. Heaven is now, there is no other time.

Right here, right now! And rain falls on the temple roof. A dog barks in the distance. All 'things' arising in radiance, revealing the final Insight: God IS.

And the Self God made awakens at Home. Right here, right now, yet free of contraction, free of the dream of the dreamer itself.

Just this is the one and only goal of Radical Inquiry.

Again, Jeshua continues:

Now, the 'this' is not so much the picture of what you might call a memory or a feeling or something that is coming up. The 'this' speaks to your judgement, your perception of what is arising. You can choose peace instead of the perception that steals your peace. And THAT is the place of infinite and perfect power to literally transform your life!

Now, he continues, and what He shares here is precious for us all. AND, he shares something from His own direct, human experience:

Beloved Friend, the past does not exist at any moment. If the mind is causing, bringing forth a picture or thought... it is arising in the present moment, which is the only place creation and experience occur. The past can exist for you only if you re-create it now.

We are speaking here of the experience you created when that SAME picture appeared in a different time frame. Your experience is NEVER CAUSED by what arises in your field of awareness. Your experience - listen well - your experience is how you have chosen to REACT in the emotional and mental fields to a NEUTRAL EVENT that has arisen. All events are neutral. The reaction to them is what generates experience.

When nails were driven through my hands..it was a neutral experience for me.

Therefore, understand beloved friend, that whatever neutral events have EVER UNFOLDED in the realm of your experience, each and every one was perfectly neutral UNTIL you responded with the reaction that you were choosing in order to create an experience in the emotional body; in order to create a learning experience about the potentials of your own consciousness.

Here, He is letting us know something important! It's all okay! It's all always been okay!!! What matters is this: what did I want to learn via my experience? There has NEVER BEEN A MISTAKE, AND YOU HAVE NEVER 'SINNED'! This is actually a key step in advanced Radical Inquiry: to discover with great innocence and honesty what the desire in the soul was TRULY about, for nothing arises by accident, nor can come into our awareness unless we have called it.

(How ego HATES to hear this!)

And, now, He shares this:

Forgiveness, healing, peace, and awakening are potentials within your own mind.... Greater than ANYTHING you have experienced before. Nothing has been caused by anything outside yourself. What arises is ALWAYS present experience.

Then, He summarizes the essential steps to this very radical transfiguration beyond the dream of the dreamer, beyond the realms of Ideas altogether:

Embrace it, look upon it, claim it, own it, feel it, breathe through it, and THEN, recognize that you are free to choose again. Herein lies the straight and narrow path that leads to LIFE! Be you, therefore, that which you are! And LIVE from the POWER given unto you, from the FREEDOM in which you abide always, as the LOVE that you are!

End.

Real Waking transcends the realm of Ideas altogether. Throughout ACIM and WOM - and on through the deeply experiential ways of the PathWay, founded in Love'sBreath and Radical Inquiry, Jeshua has provided the most complete 'roadmap' ever given to humanity. The key is to realize that our journey begins with new and higher Ideas, but does not end there, unless that realm of better dreaming is what we are still willing to settle for.

But something awaits us. Always. There. Beyond the edge of that scintillating realm of Ideas, from the highest to the painfully lowest. There, Being arising in Pure Presence. Where nothing obstructs Reality any longer, and Reality Itself is unveiled.

The Soul reclines from its futile, and even its fruitful, search. The doer of countless dreams is undone, and the knot of Separation dissolves at the place within that is the closest 'me' to me possible, and the ego, the I, disappears like mist into rising sunlight.

Everything becomes so, so immediate and intimate. The Real World shimmers, here, and always Here, for 'there' disappears with the Dreamer! Past and future vanish into Now. All restlessness simply ceases. No questions arise. Doubt has passed away with a past that was itself part of the dream.

And yet. And yet, Life bursts forth, right here, right now, in such magnificence! Oh, yes, the 'universe disappears'; the one we made in our dream, but it instantly reappears so obvious and radiant, and everywhere one looks, Only Love is Real. Everywhere one looks, GOD IS.

And that One moves you. And finally, you are free. Free in, and as, Creation itself. And you will know the great truth found in these simple words of St Augustine:

Love, and do as you will.

For when there is no snivelling, quivering, seeking, avoiding, separate self, just WHO is doing the doing? WHO is willing you to move?

Why, the One you have been seeking, yet fearing, all along! And the dew drop has slipped into the shining sea.

Jayem