I. The Invitation to the Holy Spirit
- Healing is a thought by which two minds perceive their oneness and become glad. This gladness calls to every part of the Sonship to rejoice with them, and lets God go out into them and through them. Only the healed mind can experience revelation with lasting effect because revelation is an experience of pure joy. If you do not choose to be wholly joyous, your mind cannot have what it does not choose to be. Remember that spirit knows no difference between having and being. The higher mind thinks according to the laws spirit obeys, and therefore honors only the laws of God. To spirit getting is meaningless and giving is all. Having everything, spirit holds everything by giving it, and thus creates as the Father created. While this kind of thinking is totally alien to having things, even to the lower mind it is quite comprehensible in connection with ideas. If you share a physical possession, you do divide its ownership. If you share an idea, however, you do not lessen it. All of it is still yours although all of it has been given away. Further, if the one to whom you give it accepts it as his, he reinforces it in your mind and thus increases it. If you can accept the concept that the world is one of ideas, the whole belief in the false association the ego makes between giving and losing is gone.
- Let us start our process of reawakening with just a few simple concepts: —Thoughts increase by being given away. -The more who believe in them the stronger they become. –Everything is an idea. –How, then, can giving and losing be associated?
- This is the invitation to the Holy Spirit. I have already said that I can reach up and bring the Holy Spirit down to you, but I can bring Him to you only at your own invitation. The Holy Spirit is in your right mind, even as He was in mine. The Bible says, May the mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus,” and uses this as a blessing. It is the blessing of miracle-mindedness. It asks that you may think as I thought, joining with me in Christ thinking.
- The Holy Spirit is the only part of the Holy Trinity that has a symbolic function. He is referred to as the Healer, the Comforter, and the Guide. He is also described as something “separate,” apart from the Father and from the Son. I myself said, “If I go, I will send you another Comforter and He will abide with you.” His symbolic function makes the Holy Spirit difficult to understand, because symbolism is open to different interpretations. As a man and also one of God’s creations, my right thinking, which came from the Holy Spirit or the Universal Inspiration, taught me first and foremost that this Inspiration is for all. I could not have it myself without knowing this. The word “know” is proper in this context because the Holy Spirit is so close to knowledge that He calls it forth; or better, allows it to come. I have spoken before of the higher or “true” perception, which is so near to truth that God Himself can flow across the little gap. Knowledge is always ready to flow everywhere, but it cannot oppose. Therefore, you can obstruct it, although you can never lose it.
- The Holy Spirit is the Christ Mind which is aware of the knowledge that lies beyond perception. He came into being with the separation as a protection, inspiring the Atonement principle at the same time. Before that there was no need for healing, for no one was comfortless. The Voice of the Holy Spirit is the Call to Atonement, or the restoration of the integrity of the mind. When the Atonement is complete and the whole Sonship is healed there will be no call to return. But what God creates is eternal. The Holy Spirit will remain with the Sons of God, to bless their creations and keep them in the light of joy.
- God honored even the miscreations of his children because they had made them. But He also blessed His children with a way of thinking that could raise their perceptions so high they could reach almost back to Him. The Holy Spirit is the mind of the Atonement. He represents a state of mind close enough to One-mindedness that transfer to it is at last possible. Perception is not knowledge, but it can be transferred to knowledge, or cross over into it. It might even be more helpful here to use the literal meaning of transferred or “carried over,” since the last step is taken by God.
- The Holy Spirit, the shared Inspiration of all the Sonship, induces a kind of perception in which many elements are like those in the Kingdom of Heaven itself:
First, its universality is perfectly clear, and no one who attains it could believe for an instant that sharing it involves anything but gain.
Second, it is incapable of attack and is therefore truly open. This means that although it does not engender knowledge, it does not obstruct it in any way. Finally, it points the way beyond the healing that it brings and leads the mind beyond its own integration toward the paths of creation. It is at this point that sufficient quantitative change occurs to produce a real qualitative shift. [1]
As we come to our devotional practice, we ask the Lord to illuminate our text and welcome the Holy Spirit to teach, guide, and remind us to ask to practice whole-hearted Joy. Healing comes to us not through the laying on of hands, not through magical intonations, rituals, or potions, not by technological defenses or attacks against disease. Healing is the joy of uniting minds; it is the recognition of our interconnectedness with one another and with God.
When we practice whole-hearted joy we are healed because God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit inhabits the laughter-filled channels that promote unity, gladness, and wholeness. Spirit can only know joy because it is joy. God reveals Himself to the wholly joyous. God cannot reveal Himself to a sad sack, to a whipping post, to someone who loves suffering, sacrifice, and shame.
The high mind where the Holy Spirit resides honors only the laws of God. It is in a state of giving with no thought of return because in Being, we serve as a channel of the Joy of God. In Being we know that the only way to keep joy is to share joy.
Jesus explains to us that this is a foreign concept to the ego and impossible in the physical realm. When we give someone our cookie in the physical realm, we have lost the cookie and someone else gets to eat it. When we share a cookie with our friends, we only get a partial cookie. However, when I share my idea for chutney cookies with you, I still get to keep my idea but now you can make your own chutney cookies and share that idea with others, adding your own little touches to it, and inspiring me. The more people you and I share the idea for chutney cookies with, the more people will come on board with us in our love for chutney cookies and the idea will spread. Others will have their own ideas about what kind of chutney makes the best cookies, adding their own sense of flair and style, and before we know it, the idea for chutney cookies has spread around the world and everywhere we go, bakeries tout a multitude of different-flavored chutney cookies. I have not lost by sharing my idea because now whether I feel like baking them or not, I can get them wherever I go.
Learning and practicing the channels of Being brings us total freedom and liberty. Unlike the ego which encases us in flesh and bone, and holds us captive by fear and suspicion, Being is free to explore, to interact, to be one with all of Creation. In God we are perfectly trusted because we are trustworthy. In God we are truly helpful, for there is no harm in us. We do not barge in where we are not wanted. We do not invade privacy, force ourselves into situations where we are not wanted, or teach a terroristic gospel. We only channel God’s Joy to those who choose joy. We give joy to keep joy. And this joy is where healing resides.
When we practice the simple concepts of using our thoughts to heal, to restore, to make joyous, we learn that thoughts only increase when we give them away. No matter how long it takes, learning these simple concepts is critical to miracle mindedness, to healing, to having the mind of Christ. We invite Holy Spirit when we devote ourselves to learning and practicing these concepts. Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit is simply our right minds! Do not be afraid of Holy Spirit. I grew up in a home where Holy Spirit was treated like a Holy Ghost which would descend upon people and possess them to do all kinds of ridiculous things – shake, scream, blubber, make false claims, and terroristic threats. For years I did not want anything to do with such nonsense, and neither should you. Holy Spirit is calm, quiet, and sane. Holy Spirit comes only when asked and accepted. It brings us, at our own pace, to an understanding of the laws of God, the joyousness of Being, the freedom and liberty of Spirit.
Do not get too caught up in trying to understand Holy Spirit for Jesus tells us that it has a symbolic function. It is universal and not withheld from anyone. We do not “get” the Holy Spirit by pleading for it. We have Holy Spirit within us, always. However, we obstruct our knowing Holy Spirit when we choose to think with our lower minds instead of our higher minds where Holy Spirit resides. Holy Spirit descends upon and transforms our lower minds only when we begin to seek truth and want to know God.
In paragraph six, Jesus tells us that God honors our efforts in the world even though they are not eternal and have no lasting value. We have all been blessed with teachers, with relationships, with inventions and technology that our Course refers to as miscreations because of their lack of eternal worth. While God does honor the circumstances, events, and relationships that we make in the world, God gives each of us the Holy Spirit to reside in our higher minds to remind us of our true identity.
Perception is not knowledge of God, but the high-minded perception of Holy Spirit is so close to knowledge that God literally carries us over to Being, as our minds are opened to the One-mindedness of Christ. This is something that our egos will resist, but this is where we belong! The purpose of Holy Spirit, which is the mind of Atonement, helps us to see things clearly. As Holy Spirit prepares our mind for the Kingdom of Heaven we will notice:
Our minds moving away from the petty, the trivial, the small-mindedness of the ego. Our minds will know beyond doubt, through practice and experience that sharing is gaining; that selfishness is loss. Our minds will become incapable of attack; our minds will be open to all knowledge, we will have no time for terror, fear, or conflict of any kind. Our minds will move beyond healing and unification towards the paths of creation itself.
When I asked the Lord to illuminate this for me, I was shown that time is for healing and reparation of the separation. When we are healed, when our relationships are healed, when we are as one in our hearts and minds with everyone and everything, when we begin to demonstrate Being rather than ego, our minds will naturally seek to create for we were created to create with God and for God. This is when we will be transformed into Being. This does not mean that we die in the flesh; nor does it mean that our death in the flesh will naturally transform us into Being. It simply means that when we have genuinely committed to egolessness, we will be transformed into Being. And this is when the adventure truly begins – for until we remember who and what we are, until we are wholly convinced of the worthlessness of opposites and opposition, until we see no more value in humanity, will we recognize and want our divinity enough to cross over without fear, without hesitation, without the backward glance. For up until then we will content ourselves with creations which do not last, with diversions, with hobbies, with playthings. This will not satisfy our Beings which create with God and for God that which lasts forever.
Today let our text reading rest upon your mind and meditate upon its precepts. Invite Holy Spirit, the inspiration of the Sonship of God, to lift your mind from the dense, uncouth, and fearful thoughts of ego-mind to the Higher Mind which aspires to return to God. We welcome Holy Spirit by beginning to practice that which goes against our selfish, unholy, conflict-based thoughts. Use your mind today to think thoughts of forgiveness, mercy, and love. Share joy. Instead of joining with the crowd of complainers, agitators, and finger-pointers, ask Holy Spirit to perceive that which is kind, lovely, and nice about others. Generate thoughts that honor God’s Creations and share that. When we begin this journey, our practice may feel awkward, unnatural, and even hypocritical, because our egos have kept us in a poor state of mind that blinds us to the higher mind of Holy Spirit. Training our minds to think thoughts of healing, well-being, and gratitude, welcomes Holy Spirit, giving us a powerful Friend, Teacher, and Guide, Who will lead us to eternal Life, undying Love, and everlasting Joy.
[1] A Course in Miracles. Chapter 5 Healing and wholeness. I The invitation to the holy spirit. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).
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