Day 360

Today's Lesson:

Peace be to me, the holy Son of God.
Peace to my brother, who is one with me.
Let all the world be blessed with peace through us.

Father, it is Your peace that I would give, receiving it of You. I am Your Son, forever just as You created me, for the Great Rays remain forever still and undisturbed within me. I would reach to them in silence and in certainty, for nowhere else can certainty be found. Peace be to me, and peace to all the world. In holiness were we created, and in holiness do we remain. your Son is like to You in perfect sinlessness. And with this thought we gladly say "Amen."

Miracles I'm noticing:

I notice more all the time how peace has become the theme of this Course in its final days and how I really want to be intentional about making peace a big part of my daily practice in 2008. I know that the way I will go from working on the Course to actually transferring my working to actual living is through peace and meditation.

Today's lesson talks about the Great Rays which remain forever still and undisturbed within me. According to the Glossary of Terms from A Course in Miracles, the Great Rays are "the Rays of light and holiness that shine out from the Christ within each person. These are lit by a spark that God placed in each individual at creations. We begin the journey by seeing our brothers as bodies. Then we at some point begin to see the little spark in them. Then we will see the Great Rays shining out from that spark. We 'see the Great Rays shining from them [our brothers], so unlimited that they [the Rays] reach to God' (T-15.IX.1:1). The body will then fade from our sight and we will give up special relationships for relationships without limit. The body will then disappear and we will again know the light of the Rays in direct knowledge. Note: The Rays are revealed through vision; they are not composed of visible light nor seen through the body's eyes."

If you have access to the text, you can read more about the Great Rays in Chapter 10, Section IV.8 and Chapter 15, Section VI. 4, 6.

The way I interpret the Great Rays in people is more about their energy or their spark. As the definition above says, this is not something you can see visually, but more what you can sense and just Know. It says that these Great Rays are there in everyone and at some point we will be able to "see" them in everyone.

Today's text is called "Recognizing the Spirit," and it says that we either see the flesh or recognize the spirit. "There is no compromise between the two. If one is real the other must be false, for what is real denies its opposite.... Choose the spirit, and all Heaven bends to touch your eyes and bless your holy sight, that you may see the world of flesh no more except to heal and comfort and to bless." That is seeing the Holy Rays.

Today's text also goes into some of what I use in my speeches and training which I learned from my Bob Proctor training and The Secret. Henry Ford actually said this back in the early 1900s when he said "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, either way you are right." Today's text says, as it is speaking of choosing the body or the spirit:

"Only in arrogance could you conceive that you must make the way to Heaven plain. Thee means are given you by which to see the world that will replace the one you made. your will be done! In Heaven as on earth this is forever true. It matters not where you believe you are, nor what you think the truth about yourself must really be. It makes no difference what you look upon, nor what you choose to feel or think or wish. For God Himself has said, 'Your will be done.' And it is done to you accordingly.'"

It also reminds me of something my spiritual teacher has said, and also something I read in Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations With God. All that matters is who I say I am. And every day I am telling people by my actions and my being who I am. I am created in the image and likeness of God, and as I live my life by that Knowledge, I allow others to be who they are as well. For me, the distinction in that statement is Knowing who I am. If I think I am a physical being, I will see the world through those eyes - I will recognize the flesh. But if I think I am a spiritual being having a human experience, then I will recognize the spirit. That is what I choose.

Today's text goes on to say that if we believe we can choose to see the Son of God as we would have him be, we forget that no concept of ourselves will stand against the truth of what we are. We cannot undo truth. But we can change concepts. The truth is that we are created in the image and likeness of God. One vision, clearly seen, that does not fit the picture as it was perceived before will change the world for eyes that learn to see, because the concept of the self has changed.

We will see the world as we see ourselves. And we will always be right about that. If we think the world is evil, we will see that manifest. If we forgive, we will see the world as forgiving. If we see ourselves as bodies, we will perceived the world as treacherous, and out to kill. If we are spirit, deathless, and without the promise of corruption and the stain of sin upon us, then the world will be seen as stable, fully worthy of our trust; a happy place to rest a while, where nothing need be feared, but only loved.

Yesterday I had a minor altercation with my mother (I know I promised I was through with issues with my mother, but apparently I was being tested and I flunked). She was telling me yet again about how I need to be careful so my purse doesn't get stolen. I asked her why she was always so fearful about everything from the weather to burglars. I asked he what had happened in her past that kept her in such fear. I wish I had just sent her a silent blessing and just listened, but I knew that she wouldn't be bringing this up yet again if I didn't have something to heal in myself. Where do I not see her - and myself - as spirit because if that were the case, I would see the world as fully worthy of trust, and so would she. That is an area where I'm still in need of lessons, I guess.

The awareness of that conversation which will lead me to new choices is my miracle for today. Stay tuned for the last week of this Course, which will conclude next Monday, December 31!