Questions

Question:
What I want to know is this: if everything I think I perceive is really in my mind, can I then control what I see or control what I want or don't want in this so-called life? Wouldn't I prefer to be a millionaire and have beautiful things around me? Couldn't I just think it so? I know this may sound silly, but I have "made" things happen, by thinking it so. And then I wonder if this is what Jesus in ACIM refers to as "magic." All that matters is to awaken. But in the meantime, I feel like I would like some of the so-called good things in life, while I am waking up, don't ya know the feeling?

Also, what about idols? My two daughters and loved ones, say, are they just idols? Are they not real? Or are their bodies not real and they have a spirit that is real, and we are all one mind or one spirit? I will say I am a miracle, because the Holy Spirit through ACIM saved me from a life of hell. I was a so-called "agoraphobic," and now I am unlimited in what I can do. I so want the Truth, I really do. Thanks.

Answer:
Thanks for taking the opportunity to write. The script is written and the perceived world is the past, so it is impossible to change what is already gone. The dreamer of the dream (in complete forgiveness) is an Observer or Witness, looking calmly on the past from a Point of Clarity. In Awakening there is the realization that one can control the direction of one's thinking (aligning with Spirit instead of ego) and that the "lens" with which the world is viewed and the way one feels is a direct result of this choice. In short, the mind always chooses its state of mind and its perception and there are no exceptions. As you sow so shall you reap means that giving and receiving are the same, and the mind always gets what it wants. Prayers are always answered and there are no exceptions to how the mind operates. Prayer is also continuous. Inevitably it becomes apparent that only a single desire or a single, unified prayer for peace will offer a peaceful perception of the world. When desire seems splintered the mind has chosen to be unaware of the peace that is ever present.

I will address your questions one by one. You wrote: "...if everything I think I perceive is really in my mind, can I then control what I see or control what I want or don't want in this life. Wouldn't I prefer to be a millionaire? And have beautiful things around me?" Since you still believe in the ego, Awakening seems to you to be a process. In this context one has the seeming choice or control to perceive with the Holy Spirit or with the ego. Therefore what you see is determined by which lens you have chosen to look through, just as your state of mind is also determined by which lens you have chosen to look through. Here is the key point: truly everything you seem to believe, think, feel, and perceive is determined by what you want or desire. What you desire or want or value is on the altar or at the core of everything you ponder and every question you ask. Each moment you decide if you would forgive and accept your Self as the Christ, or ask for something else to prefer instead, to find salvation in a world of form. It is really this simple, though the ego would attempt to hide this simple choice for Atonement with layers and layers of seeming complexity. To value Awakening is to desire that Thine Eye be Single (the Holy Spirit's Perspective of the world) and to release the desires that "thine eye be splintered" (the ego's distorted perspective of the world).

In knowing our Self as the Christ, a million dollars is the same as a penny and everything we perceive carries the beauty of the Holy Spirit's Perspective. There is a Point beyond the judgments of beautiful or ugly, like or dislike, pleasure or pain, comfort and discomfort. There is a Perspective that sees all illusions as one illusion: the insane wish for death. As the healed Perspective dawns in awareness, the ego's attraction for guilt, pain, and death are exposed as meaningless pursuits after nothing of true value. What can money buy for a Still Mind and Tranquil Heart? And what are beautiful things if an opposite to beauty can soon arise again in awareness to take their place? Peace and non-judgment go together. What are preferences but judgments by the ego as to what reality must be? Reality is in the Mind of God and rests in a Stillness forever beyond the possibility of duality or judgment.

You wrote: "Couldn't I just think it so? I know this may sound silly, but I have "made" things happen, by thinking it so. And then I wonder if this is what Jesus in the CIM refers to as 'magic.'" Consciousness is the domain or field of the ego. Consciousness (split mind) seemed to come into existence with the belief in separation from God, from Oneness. Arranging the contents of consciousness is indeed magic, for what could it truly mean to arrange or rearrange illusions? The sleeping mind may believe that it can or cannot make things happen with the power of thinking, yet all these thoughts of past and future and form are the same: unreal. God knows not form. God creates the eternal, and Christ is an eternal Idea in the Mind of God. Christ creates the eternal as well. Creation is eternal extension. Thought-forms arranged and sequenced in a linear way are not our real thoughts, which are the thoughts aligned with God. The ego is the belief in separation from Creation, from Oneness. The ego makes and projects as an apparent substitution for creation and extension. Yet since the ego is nothing, its projected thought forms are nothing. This is why "A Course in Miracles" can be summed up so simply in the saying: "Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God."

You wrote: "All that matters is to awaken. But in the meantime, I feel like I would like some of the so called good things in life, while I am waking up, don't ya know the feeling?" I have never felt so happy as I feel in this moment. Through miracles the Holy Spirit reveals the Perspective of inner Glee and Joy that goes on and on and on and on! The past was the pursuit of the so-called "good things in life,” yet this past pursuit never yielded a lasting happiness. Everything that seemed to be acquired or possessed or even experienced in a sensual way was temporary and fleeting. Thought forms seemed to come and go, arrange and rearrange, alter and change, and persist as separate things until I became aware of their unreality. In seeing the unreality of the make-believe ego identity, I realize everything I am and have comes from God. I experience the peaceful present moment—easy, joyful, natural, and ever new. Being everything, I have everything. Wanting nothing, there is literally "no thing" to want. This might be called a State of desirelessness or a State of single desire. In fulfillment there is no lack, and what is Enlightenment but completion in God?

You wrote: "Also what about idols? My two daughters and loved ones, are they just idols? Are they not real? Or are their bodies not real and they have a spirit that is real and we are all one mind or one spirit?" It is the Spirit or One Divine Mind beyond the veil of time-space which is everlasting. And what is an idol but anything that could be "lost?" Love is forever. The things of time and space will pass away in the Eternal Present. Before time was or seemed to be, I Am. Whole perception is the Perspective of the Holy Spirit, Which includes the whole tapestry of the cosmos. Nothing is excluded or taken away in the Perspective the Holy Spirit offers. Nothing is ever lost. When you see loved ones and everyone and everything as IN mind and nothing apart FROM mind, you are the dreamer of the dream. The dreamer is never at the mercy of what is being dreamed, therefore, because the lucid or waking dream is nonjudgmental dreaming. Dream softly of a sinless world, for without judgment the world is a reflection of Divine Innocence. Everything and everyone is welcomed in our Gaze, for our Gaze shares the Purpose of the Holy Spirit and Jesus.

You are indeed a Living Miracle because of our Source. God creates only Perfection, and You are That. You have always BEEN Perfect. It is impossible to improve upon Perfection. Happiness is God's Will for Christ. Christ could never be content with idols, little things which seem to offer more of something but offer nothing real and true. The belief in lack seeks idols to ease the pain of littleness, yet wholeness recognizes that completion rests in God Alone, in God All-One. The ego uses the false goal of "more" as bait to spin the illusory wheel of time. Salvation is immediate and God Wills Present Happiness. It will never take time to recognize and remember Who I already Am. The past is gone. The future but imagined. These concerns are ego defenses against the Eternal Present. The gap of time believed to exist between now and the future is to be forgiven or released, for it is not true. What time but now can Truth be known? God asks no sacrifice, yet to believe that Enlightenment is in the future is the attempt to deny the Power and Glory of Now. The "future" IS the belief in sacrifice, for sacrifice would attempt to teach that you are not yet what You already are. Yet the ego and time are literally lessons that can never be learned, for illusions are not true. Why attempt to learn something that can never BE learned? It is much easier to unlearn the false and forgive than it is to attempt the impossible. The Holy Spirit offers forgiveness freely, and accepting Atonement (or Correction) is the easiest experience that relates to this world. Nothing else matters, for there literally IS nothing else.

I Love You forever and ever!
David