Relationships and Your Spiritual Journey

So before I read A Course in Miracles, I had read and studied a lot of spiritual and religious
material. Now, there's only one Truth with a capital T and it's spoken in many different ways.

A Course in Miracles doesn't have any kind of monopoly on truth, it doesn't claim anything like
that, nor is it a religion. There's no doctrine, there's no dogma. But I'm going to use the language
of A Course in Miracles because even though this language is no different than languages in
other systems, whether it's Buddhism or Judaism or Christianity or Mystic Christianity or
Kabbala or Islam or Hinduism, you'll see the same themes repeated over and over. But I'm
going to talk in terms of the principles of a particular set of books i.e. A Course in Miracles, so
that it is integrated within one thought system. You can apply, you can translate it however is
right for you.

So I've read a lot of spiritual books, but there was something I didn't really get until I read the
course. Now, that's not to say it wasn't written elsewhere, let's just say I hadn't really gotten it.
And that has to do with the role of relationships in our journey to God. It was almost as though I
felt like I was trying so hard to find the peace of God.

I likened it to a flight of stairs that was in front of a gigantic cathedral. And I walked up those
stairs and sometimes my knees were bloody, my elbows were bloody, I wanted so much to open
that door. But over and over and over again, I got up the flight of stairs and the door was locked.
And I would try so hard, I couldn't unlock the door.

Now what I realized reading the A Course in Miracles was that the door is the person in front of
me. That I couldn't unlock the door until I realized that the door was the person in front of me or
the person I was thinking about. So what I learned from the course is that there is no way to
separate your journey to God, your spiritual journey from your relationship to other people
because God is love, and God is love extended. And the purpose of our lives is to learn to love
as God loves.

Now, as I already said, the thinking of the world is 180 degrees away from the thinking of God.
So the thinking of God is a pure extension of love. That there's love coming into our minds at
every moment and at every moment we make a choice. Sometimes we make a conscious
choice, and sometimes we make an unconscious choice but we are always making a choice
and the choice we make is the level of cause and then for every cause there is an effect. Cause
and effect, action reaction. Every moment in every relationship your heart is open or your heart
is closed.

The Course in Miracles says there are only two forms, two kinds of emotions. There is love and
there is fear. Now that right there, think about what discipline it takes, what musculature. Once
again, not that that's so difficult, but it's very different to say in every moment, it's really very
simple. Am I open in this generous space of affirmation, possibility, generosity, kindness to the
person right in front of me because that, that's part of it. There in a universe that totally knows
what it's doing, it's not an accident who's in front of you and it's not an accident who you're
thinking about because the mind of God, being the mind of infinite love, is always on the move
and it's always on the move in the direction of promoting the actualization, the spiritual
self-actualization of all things and all beings.

Think of the mind of God like a giant computer and it's infinitely powerful and infinitely perfect.
So this computer is always at work matching people, matching circumstances in such a way that
all aspects, which means all people are given in every moment a maximal growth opportunity,
the maximal soul growth opportunity. The universe is literally invested in your enlightenment. To
say the universe is invested in your enlightenment is the same thing as saying the universe is
invested in your self-actualization.

Light means understanding, so to say that the universe is invested in your enlightenment means
it's invested in your total understanding of who you are. Who you are is an idea in the mind of
God. The mind of God is love, therefore you are literally a thought of love. And being on this
planet is moment by moment an opportunity and often a challenge to remember who we are to
express on Earth as it is in heaven. You are the thought of love in the mind of God. What God
creates is changeless and unalterable, so that truth about you never changes.

The issue in life is not whether or not you're a perfect loving creation of God. That said, the
issue is whether or not that's what you're going to express in the world. So think of the truth of
who you are like a file in a computer, and it is an undeletable file that's who you are and that's
who everyone is. The issue is that we've been so confused living in this world and we've been
trained to think that we are who we aren't and to think that we aren't who we are that often
instead of being conscious, instead of consciously choosing to express our love, we move into a
tightened place, we move into a constricted place, and move into judgment, we move into
attack, and move into defensiveness. That is because living on this earth we were taught that
we are bodies rather than spirits.

We have a problem with self-identification. And the Course in Miracle says that enlightenment is
a shift from body identification to spirit identification. Now, we're talking about the relationship
with yourself here. Because when you get cool and when you get clear about your relationship
to God and your relationship to yourself, which is very, very intimately connected, then and only
then, are you ready to have relationships with people that are unfractured because to the extent
to which our relationship with God is fractured, to that extent, our relationship with ourself is
fractured. To the extent that my relationship with myself is fractured. My relationship with you will
be fractured. That's why we are talking about God before we are talking about your husband or
your wife or your lover, your friend, your employer, your employee.

We are talking about base camp. God is base camp and when we are grounded in that
knowledge, and that recognition, re-cognition, and that's the same thing I was talking about
before about yoga, get into the right position. When we get into the right position in terms of how
we see ourselves in relationship to God, and our own self, we're ready to face the world and our
relationships with other people.
Connection with Your True Self

Now with what we were just talking about, stop right now and go right into application. We take
everything that is an idea, and we want to talk about how we apply it. Your morning is extremely
important. If you wake up in the morning and go directly for the newspaper, go directly for the
phone, go directly for the computer, you're downloading the thought system based on fear that
dominates this world. If instead in the morning you make sure that you spend even five minutes
grounding yourself in the deeper truth, make your connection with God, make your connection
with your true self, yourself with a capital S, then you are ready to face the day.

So this is the idea. God is love, and not only is God love, but love is all there is. What is all
encompassing can have no opposite. So when you are thinking with love, you are literally being
yourself. When you are in any way forgetting who you are because the thinking of the world has
taught you you're in danger when you're not, has taught you you're separate when you're not,
has taught you you have some other function other than to love even though you don't, you get
confused, you get thrown out of the kingdom. That's really when we say in the Lord's prayer,
thine is the power and thine is the kingdom, and thine is the glory. Love is the power. Love is the
kingdom, and love is the glory. But boy, living on this earth, we think “Oh no no no no, this isn't
about love, this isn't about forgiveness, this is about something else.” That's the temptation of
the false world. And it'll knock you out of your center, it will knock you out of your wisdom, and
you're going to blow it in relationships every single time.

Only love is real. What is all encompassing can have no opposite, so that means that when we
are thinking without love, we're actually not thinking, we're hallucinating. And that's what the ego
is. The ego is a false belief about who we are, and a false belief about who other people are.
When you realize who you really are, you also realize who other people are. All you are is love
inside the mind of God, and that's all who other people are as well.

So you've heard the line, there's only one begotten son. From an esoteric metaphysical
perspective, to say there is only one begotten son means we're all it. So the Course in Miracles
says you're like waves in the ocean thinking you're separate from other waves, you're like
sunbeams to the sun, thinking you're separate from other sunbeams. But really, there is no
place where one wave stops and another starts, there really is no place where one sunbeam
stops and another starts. But think about the psychological and emotional difference produced
by those two different ways of looking at the world.

If I think of myself as one wave, and there's an ocean, and I'm surrounded by all these other
waves from which I am disconnected, how can I not feel terrified of those other waves? How
can I not be afraid that in any given moment, my being will be obliterated, my being will be
annihilated because of the power of the ocean that's going to come over me? But if on the other
hand, I think, I'm connected with every other wave, there's just one of us here, I'm connected
with every other wave. I'm part of the ocean, then I feel at home in this universe. This is
extremely important.
When I think of myself as one with everyone, I can feel at home here. When I think of myself as
separate from other people, I cannot feel at home, and then I really am tempted to mess up
relationships because I'm trying to get other people to either like me or other people to act a
certain way so I can feel at home, but my even wanting them to do that is based on the idea that
I don't realize I am home. That's where those five minutes come in.

How to Have Miraculous Relationships

In the Course in Miracles, which uses Christ-centered language, although it's not the Christian
religion, the idea of God, Christ, the Holy Spirit is this, God is love. Christ is a word that
describes the essence of who we are, which is love.

Millions of years ago in time as we know it, although, in reality it never happened at all because
only love is real so any loveless thought was actually hallucination. Humanity, I don't know, was
one person? I don't know how that works, it doesn't explain. Had a thought that was separate
from love, why? Because we can. Because free will means you can think whatever you want to
think. You can think with love, but you don't have to think with love. So in that moment that I
thought a thought that was separate from love, the thought is so powerful that that literally
created the world, you know? It really matches up with the whole Big Bang Theory.

The moment we had a thought that we were separate from God, in that moment, the Course in
Miracles says materialization was made. And all of a sudden I have a body that makes it appear
as though I'm separate from you, but the truth of the matter is I can't be separate from you
because what God created is changeless and unalterable. Now in that moment you had it's as
though the psychic split occurred between two universes. One's ultimately real, one's a
hallucination, but they both feel real.

The world of hallucination, or the illusion feels very real while we're in it. That feels even more
real because it's the world of the body, and it is fortified, that illusion is fortified by our bodily
senses. That's where suffering begins, when we are disconnected from the truth of who we are
because if I'm disconnected from the truth of who I am, I'm definitely inevitably going to be
disconnected from the truth of who you are.

Now, what happened in that moment millions of years ago in time as we all know it all, though in
reality it never happened at all? What happened in that moment when the son of God separated
itself? It's referred to in the moment in the Course of Miracles as the separation, and one of the
ways it's described is the moment when the son of God forgot to laugh. We took what the
course calls a detour into fear. So what was God or total love going to do in that instant? Well,
what would love do? Would love force us back to loving thought? No, because love doesn't
force, but the Course in Miracles says that in that moment, God created within our
consciousness a link. It is an eternal link. The link between God and his separated sons. So
what does that mean? That means that there is within my mind if at any moment I separate
myself from love, and then because all thought creates form on some level. Remember, every
cause has an effect. So I have a loveless thought guess what's going to happen? Marianne is
going to have a loveless experience.
The path of spirituality and enlightenment is to say, “I'm not at peace, I must be crazy right now.
I must be having an illusion right now. I must be having a hallucination right now, but I am willing
to see this differently. I am judging my brother. I am attacking my brother. I'm defending. I got
some stuff going on about another person that is not loving. As a consequence I'm behaving in
a way that is not loving, so I thought that they were doing something that I was judging, and I
thought they were deserving of my attack, or they were deserving of my defense whatever it is.
Now I feel awful. I'm in anxiety. I'm in tension. I'm in depression. I'm in anger. I'm in whatever.” I
am willing to see this differently, and that's where the Holy Spirit comes in.

The Holy Spirit which is the connecting link, the eternal connection between you and God, is not
going to force you back to love. That would be a violation of your freewill, but if we ask for it, we
can be taken back. I'll give you an example.

It was many, many years ago, and I know how many years ago it was because at the time I was
having porcelain fingernails put on, which I think means the 1980s. And I was having this done
at the home of a woman who went to my lectures on A Course in Miracles. There was a woman
in the room who was her friend, and the friend of another couple people who were there. I didn't
know these people they were friends of hers, and they were talking. And one of the women had
a way of talking that made me wildly judgmental. There was a grandiosity to it. There was an
oddness to it, and it just felt to me like fingernails on a blackboard. And I was just wildly
judgmental about this woman. Now I'm not saying anything, but the irony isn't lost on me that
this woman who is holding my hands at the moment working on my fingernails thinks of me as
this Course in Miracles teacher. She's thinking, or assuming, that I try to practice what I preach.

Well, in that moment I'm in wild judgment, so I'm trying to practice what I preach, and I say
within myself what the Course in Miracles says we're always supposed to say, and that is, “I am
willing to see this differently” because the Course in Miracles says if you're not at peace, you
chose a non-loving thought, and you can choose again. So I said a little prayer, and I said "I'm
willing to see this differently." Definitely, within five minutes, the conversation among these other
people began to change, and this woman who was speaking in such odd speech patterns, and
in a way that felt so grandiose to me, I heard one of the other women say to her, “Hey, I heard
they let your father out of jail.” And I'm listening to them.

Now remember, I'm just listening. I'm over here with my fingernails, and I don't know these
people. I'm just listening. And what I hear is the story, and the story was like one of the worst
types of things you might have seen on television on a crime show, or Oprah or something
about terrible things that have happened. And this was one of the terrible ones where this
woman and I think it was her little brother were kept basically in a dungeon for many years, like
in the basement of their house or something by their father, no contact with anyone, and she
literally when they were rescued after years did not know how to talk. Now she's out and she's
trying to learn to talk, and how people are supposed to talk.

Now as soon as I hear that story, I'm listening to her, and everything about the way she talks five
minutes before had made me just like who is she? Why does she talk like that? My heart is now
flooded with admiration, compassion, her bravery, the way she's obviously trying to do it right.
And that was the miracle. The miracle wasn't she changed. The miracle was that I changed. I
based all this judgment in my head based on what my ego senses, my ears, what I saw in her
face, what I heard with my ears, and I made all these judgments. So the Course in Miracles
says projection creates perception, and not the other way around. I perceived what I decided
beforehand to see, as soon as I said I'm willing to see it differently.

Now this is another amazing thing about that giant computer that we were talking about a
couple minutes ago. From A Course in Miracles perspective, the moment I said that, the
moment I said "I am willing to see this differently," it was like the universe went “blurp” and made
sure that that story was then revealed to me because that is what I needed to hear to help me
change my mind, and that's how life works. That's how relationships work. We see what we
choose to see, so we go out into the world and we say, “Well, I wonder how people are going to
be today.” Power in relationships comes from spending at least five minutes every morning
putting your love before you. Before you go into a meeting, before you go onto a date, before
you see your lover, friend, spouse, employer, employee, wherever you're going, blast the room
with love before you get there, and that instructs the mind.

You know I was reading an article one day about how the physical eye works. There are so
many places where my eye could land, and that's how every situation is. There are so many
things we could focus on. And sometimes people get it right, and sometimes people get it
wrong, but the attitudinal musculature that gives you miraculous relationships is where you
instruct your subconscious mind before you even go into a room. I want to focus on love. I want
to focus on what people do right. I want to focus on what people can do that I can appreciate
them for. I want to focus on what my job is. My job isn't to sit back and figure out how other
people behave and whether they do it right. My job is to go into the space wherever it is
declaring with my own internal being that this encounter shall be a holy encounter because
that's always possible, and the ego will always be trying to lure me away from that. Who are
you, and why are you here, and are you doing it right, and do you matter? No, no, no, no, no.
Power, spiritual power and relationships that you honor.

Remember, there's only one of us here, so all of the perfection that's in you is within them.
There's nobody better or worse than anyone else. The A Course in Miracles says, “All of the
children of God are special, and none of the children of God are special.” The issue in
relationships is for every encounter to be a holy encounter, what it means for any encounter to
be a holy encounter means a kind of namaste consciousness that we develop, that we take with
us into a situation. We don't sit back and audition people, and wait to see how they perform. We
go into a situation requesting that we be an instrument of love, and that's why you want to spend
five minutes in the morning, whether it's the workbook of A Course in Miracles, or any other path
of meditation and prayerfulness that you have that you bless like you think in the morning. Who
do I know that I'm going to see today, and you send them your love. Who do I not even know I'm
going to meet today. Send them your love.

You know how when you go into a room, and you can just feel the bad energy. People
subconsciously know everything. You want to walk into a room, and have people feel the good
energy because they know on some subconscious level that they're blessed by you. On some
subconscious level they feel loved by you. It may or may not have anything to do with what you
actually say, but even if it has to do with what you say it will have to do with the consciousness
with which you say it. Everything you do is infused with the consciousness with which you do it.

The Course in Miracles says everyone we meet will be our crucifier, or our savior, depending on
what we choose to be to them. So because there's only one of us here, A Course in Miracles
says when you're about to attack a person, think of yourself as holding a sword over their head,
and that sword's going to drop on them because, actually, however, since there's only one of us
here it's not going to fall on their head, it's going to fall on yours. So if I judge you, I will feel
judged. If I attack you, I will feel attacked. On the other hand, if I bless you, and there's genuine
love coming from me towards you, then I will feel more loving. That's why A Course in Miracles
says we become generous out of self-interest. Innocent, none of us are expressing ourselves
perfectly all the time, but we want to be people whose energy is a space where people feel
invited to be their best.

The Course in Miracles says people hear you on the level that you speak from. So if we have
practiced, it's all about practice. It's all about a very practical way of being that not only did you
spend five minutes in the morning because A Course in Miracles says five minutes spent with
the Holy Spirit in the morning is enough to guarantee he will be in charge of your thought forms
throughout the day. Because if you just walk out into the day, especially if you've read the
newspaper, or turned on the TV, radio, phone, whatever, you will have downloaded the
consciousness of fear that dominates the world, and you will have left your mind open. Now you
don't go out into the day without taking a shower or a bath, or brushing your teeth because you
want yesterday's impurities off your body, so we want to get yesterday's impurities, the stress
and all the craziness out of our minds, and then you face the world, and then you bless
everybody that you're going to see that day, but you keep it up constantly, before you even walk
into a room, before you walk into a meeting. This has nothing to do with what you say verbally.
The work of the miracle worker is all in here. That's where your greatest power lies.

Your greatest power does not lie particularly in relationships, and any of your external tools. It
lies in the power of your mind. That is what a miracle is. It is a shift from fear to love, and the
only way you can have miraculous relationships is if you think miraculously.

We all have situations where we fall off the spiritual wagon, where something happened it wasn't
cool, and any given moment, no, I can choose again. A Course in Miracles says you're not
asked to have no impure thoughts. You're only asked to have no impure thoughts that you would
keep. We all go into craziness. We all go into judgment. We all go into neediness. We all go into
criticism. We all go into control. We all go into anger. We all go into attack. We all go into
judgment. We all go into defense. We're human, but we heal spiritually just like we heal in a
physical detox. The stuff has got to come out in order to be released. So you say, “Wow, that
was just a real judgmental thought I had,” or “That was a really angry moment I just had.” And
you surrender it to the Holy Spirit. You ask that it be taken from you. That's what it means to
atone for your error, and the universe is going to come around again in some amazing way, and
give you the opportunity to even be better now.
We're talking about these universal principles. Universal in the sense that they are to be applied
to every relationship because when these form the basis of our relationship, problem-solving
repertoire as A Course in Miracles says, then we are so much further ahead. Then when we talk
about romance, or we talk about work, or we talk about any specific area of relationship, we've
got so much power going on because we have the basic foundation of what it means to be in
our own minds, be at one with God, which is the key to being at one with other people.

Overcoming the Ego Mind

Okay, so this is where it starts to get gnarly. It starts to get gnarly because this stuff is a lot
easier said than done. Why is that? It's easy enough to say, "Okay, here's the universe of love,
here's the universe of fear. The universe of love is real, the universe of fear is unreal.” The world
that's fearful, though, feels more real because it's the illusion we live under. But all we have to
do is go from the world of fear to the world of love and then have a miracle and voila. Yeah, and
then there's real life as we live it.

This is the deal. Your mental power is so great that whatever choice you make, it literally has
huge force behind it. So the ego mind, A Course in Miracles, is not just the choice to perceive
without love. It is the vigilant temptation and lure and proactive messing with your mind that
would lead you to perceive without love. The Course in Miracles says that the ego is like a
scavenger dog. And it is always looking for any scratch of evidence of your brother's guilt.
Remember earlier I talked about how in any given situation there's so many places where my
eyes could light. Well, in any situation there are so many ways that you could judge a brother.
So many ways you could say, "Mm, that's not quite good enough" or, "That's not really what I
asked for." Or whatever. And the vision of one world, the Course of Miracles says, costs you the
vision of the other.

So, if I'm concentrating on your guilt I can't see your innocence. But if I'm concentrating on your
innocence, your error won't be that big a deal to me. So in every moment, not only are we
making a choice, but it's like we're being pushed from behind. Choose this or choose that. The
Holy Spirit is always offering you the opportunity, not forcing you though, because love doesn't
force. So remember, the ego is that scavenger dog looking for any, any shred of evidence of
your brother's guilt. It is your own mind turned against you. It is your own self-hatred
masquerading as self-love.

The ego mind is your voice, just like the Holy Spirit is your voice. So the ego mind, I know, when
I think of the biggest mistakes I've made in my life in relationships, and A Course in Miracles
says that everything is a relationship. I didn't wake up that morning and go, "Ha, I'm going to be
a jerk today. That's my intention to be a jerk today. It is my intention to say the one thing that'll
make him so pissed off. It is my intention to undermine this circumstance and undermine that
relationship and undercut that professional opportunity because of the way I behave or the
things that I say." Of course I didn't. But that's the importance of that five minutes. Because if
you didn't fill your house with love, you know, the fear is going to set in.
If you don't proactively dedicate your thinking to the purposes of love, the same mental power
will be used for the purposes of your neurosis. And your neurosis is your separation from self,
the things you say, and the things you do that began with the things you thought that were
insane that were not the truth about who you are and who other people are in relation to you.
So, if you do not ground yourself in the morning in those correct positions, once again, yoga.

If you don't align yourself with that correct position attitudinally, you're going to be off to the
races running. And this is particularly important today because, man, we are living in some
mean-spirited times. And social media has exacerbated all this. And there's so much that has all
of us just attacking people because they didn't say it the way we thought they should say it.
They did, you know, these days it's not even that somebody doesn't agree with you. They have
to not only agree with you but say it the way you would have said it. And it's just like everybody's
like this. Oh, we all have to return to love here. Give general amnesty, emotional amnesty
towards everybody.

You know, one of the important issues in relationships is other people really do not owe it to you
to see it the way you see it. And other people do not owe it to you to act the way you think that
they should act. The person whose life you're here to monitor is your own. The person whose
mind you need to be monitoring is your own. Remember, only what you are not giving can be
lacking in any situation.

So, just the word disciple and the word discipline come from the same root. We discipline our
minds. We discipline our attitudinal muscle just like you'd go to the gym. And it's the same, it's
the same principle. Once you get to a certain age, if you're not working to hold these muscles up
they're headed down. And so you have to do accumulated repetitions of holding up, right?
Because otherwise gravity will pull you down. Well, there's attitudinal gravity. There's spiritual
gravity. There's emotional gravity. There's psychological gravity. Gravity pulls you into the anger.
Gravity pulls you into the defensiveness. Gravity turns you into the selfishness. Gravity pulls you
into the critical thought. Gravity pulls you into all those negative thoughts and feelings which
then sabotage your relationships. So we practice because it goes against.

We are trained in this world of fear, the course says, to the point where at a very young age
natural or loving thinking actually feels unnatural to us. And unnatural or not, you know, real
thinking actually feels more natural. In fact, and that's why sometimes people say, "Well, I was
just expressing my real feelings, and I was being my authentic self." When I'm experiencing or
expressing my anger, and then I say, "Well, that was just my authentic self." No, it actually
wasn't your authentic self. Your authentic self is that undeletable file in the computer which is
your love. But we all get triggered. We all had childhoods. We all have those places where in
any given moment we don't know how to express our love and get our needs met. But that's
what working a spiritual path is because we're responsible for those places. You know, these
days it's so big.

I know a woman and she's in a relationship with a guy. And everything, everything, everything
he does, the excuse, it's something he went through in his childhood. We've got to stop with
that. It doesn't really matter where you got it. It's yours now. So I could say, "Well, I'm needy
because of something with my father or my mother." That might be true. But once you're a
grownup, once you're a mature adult it's like, “Dear God, take my neediness from me.” It's not
enough to say, "I am needy because this happened when I was five and now I will analyze it."
You can't analyze away the darkness. You only get rid of the darkness by turning on the light.

So, in order to have good relationships we have to realize that our loveless patterns, could be
your anger, your neediness, your controllingness, your whining. Whatever it is you do, we all
have the stuff we do. It's not about what form our obstruction in the walls before our hearts take.
The issue is to identify them and realize that that's all they are. There's a quote from A Course in
Miracles, and I know you've probably seen on the Internet attributed to Rumi, but it's not a Rumi
quote, it's a Course in Miracles quote. And that is, "Your job is not to seek for love, your job is to
seek all the barriers you hold against its coming." You are already perfect love. The issue is that
we've built up these walls in front of it. And the walls take the form of these character defects or
these mental and emotional habit patterns that lead to behavior that keep love at bay. Which is
just another way of saying make people not like you. Make people not want to be with you. Not
want to hire you. Not want to work for you. Not want to marry you. Not want to love you. Not
want to be your friend. I mean, it's like a big deal. That's all that relationships are about. And
we're responsible for paving the way of easy access to the flow.

Easy, so we have to declutter it because God created us in such a way that you are me and I
am you. I don't have to create intimacy. I just have to put my mind in the place where what could
be more intimate than that we are, each other? So, when I'm in my natural state, not only do I
naturally feel my love for you, but you know what? It feels good to you too. Time and space are
part of the illusion. They're part of the three-dimensional miasma. Buddha called it an illusion. A
Course in Miracles calls it an illusion. Einstein said that time and space are part of the illusion,
albeit a persistent one.

So, once again, we are in this world, but the truth, the ultimate truth of who we are lies beyond
this world. This world is like a veil in front of the world we want. One of the exercises in the
course is beyond this world there is a world I want. And that does go back to what is actually a
quote from Rumi where he says, "Beyond all ideas of good and bad and right and wrong there is
a field. I'll meet you there." So, the veil, the walls that keep us separate from each other are the
thoughts of judgment. You're wrong, you're right, good, bad. So, on the other side of that is the
truth where we are one. And actually, there is no time or space, so it's not like you're even over
there. With my body's eyes you appear to be over there and I'm over here. But in ultimate reality
there is no space anymore than there's time.

So the idea is that kind of like if you imagine the spokes of a wheel, and usually when we
identify each other we think, "Where is your position on the rim of the wheel?" But actually, if you
take each spoke to its central starting point there's only one point from which every spoke
emanates. You know, the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung said, "If you go deep enough into your
mind and deep enough into my mind, there are mental images or archetypes that we all share."
But the idea of the Christ-mind is one step lower. Go deeper. Which is if you go deep enough
into your mind, and deep enough into my mind, we are the same mind. That's the meaning of
there's only one begotten Son. So how much more intimate could we be than that we are each
other?

You don't have to create intimacy. You have to re-cog-nize, recognize the world in which we are
one. Once again, not your job to seek for love, but to seek all the barriers you hold against its
coming. And those barriers are in the form of our own judgements, our own thoughts. That's
where the problem is, and that's where the solution lies.

Relationships Are Opportunities for Growth

Remember what I said earlier that it's all one big computer where everybody is brought together
for the purposes of actualization, for the purposes of enlightenment? So people are brought
together, A Course of Miracle says, who present in each other's lives maximal opportunities for
sole growth.

A Course of Miracle says that there are three levels of teaching: level one, level two, level three.
And in teaching, the word is teaching because A Course of Miracle says teaching is
demonstration. And every moment, we're demonstrating to other people their value and our
value. If I show value to you, I am teaching myself that I'm valuable. If I think that you're not
valuable and that's the way my thoughts about you or my feelings about you, my behavior about
you expresses itself, then I'm just teaching myself, I'm not very valuable.

The issue is first level of teaching: casual encounter. You meet somebody in an elevator, trial to
lose their ball in your way, but even there, you have an opportunity. Are you going to treat the
other person like they're just nothing, or are you going to something in your energy or your
behavior? Be gracious, extend love.

Second level of teaching is where people are brought into our lives for a particular period of
time, much like Ram Dass says when he says, "People are brought into our lives for a reason, a
season, or a lifetime." So sometimes, people are brought in for a particular season. We might be
together for a few weeks, we might be together for a few years, and then the bodies appear to
separate. The second level of teaching is where we are brought in to somebody else's life or a
particular period of time, but A Course of Miracle says that relationships are of the mind. So
even if and when bodies separate, A Course of Miracle says we just appear to separate. We've
all had and probably have relationships with people that we haven't seen in a very long time, but
the relationship is still going on inside our heads.

And then the third level of teaching is a lifetime assignment, but don't get too excited 'cause that
doesn't necessarily mean we like each other, it just means that there is a lifetime of lessons to
be learned. Now, remember, with every person that you know, every person that you have ever
known, and this is as true of whether somebody's just in your head as whether they're on
physical form, there are two parts of your mind. What did we say heaven is? A Course of
Miracle says, "Heaven is an awareness of our oneness.” The Holy Spirit is the link to God that
would always guide us to loving perception, and the consequence of loving perception is
heaven or inner peace." But there is that scavenger dawn, that's what the ego is, and it is
always tempting us to perceive without love.

Everyone you were supposed to meet, A Course of Miracle says you do meet. Anyone you met,
you were supposed to meet. So this isn't theoretical. This is about the people in your life right
now. So you might want to write this down. What I'd like you to do is write down the names of
some people. Boy, we have more, usually it's like, I didn't realize I had that many people in my
life. Mother, or father, this is as true. If their past, as if they're here, step-parents, grandparents,
brothers, sisters, friends, lovers, ex-lovers, spouses, ex-spouses, teachers, the people you think
did you wrong, the people that you have loved, the people that maybe you didn't love so well,
co-workers, employer, employee, just write it down, and then, just look at it, just very gently look
at it and ask yourself, on a scale of one to 10, how am I doing? Not how are they doing,
because that's what the ego is about. And so much modern therapy is very ego-oriented. Is this
person giving you everything you need? When really, what a therapist from a spiritual bent will
say is, are you giving everything that you are and everything that you have?

Some people, the ego will screech at that. Ah, but so codependent! No, it's not. Because if I
really am aligned with truth and love, that also means that I'm free to own my “yes” and own my
“no,” and that means that if I don't belong here, I'm free to leave as well. So I'd like you to look at
all those names on your piece of paper and ask yourself on a scale of one to 10, how you
doing? Do you think that that person, so often, you're in therapy talking about how you chose
the wrong person or something, they're on the other side of town with their therapist wondering
what in them attracted you.

The work is always on ourselves. Look at all of those people. Was I and am I an instrument of
love? Was I and am I someone who's only there to extend love, only there to represent God's
love, only there to be a space of love and possibility for the other person so that in my presence,
they feel good about themselves and more capable of rising to what they're capable of being, or
was I this needy ball of wants and demands and whining, it's because you're not giving me this,
or I should get that, and I'm grasping for this. We all have both inside us. Those are the angels
and those are the demons. They're all inside us. And it's okay. We have to take an honest look.
And if you do, sometimes, we don't want to look at our own mistakes. And the ego doesn't want
us to.

The ego always just wants us to look at other people's mistakes. The ego is always auditioning
other people for whether they're doing it right. The ego doesn't want us to look at ourselves
because at any moment that we really accept ourselves in full love, there is no ego. So the ego
doesn't want us to look deeper at who we are, and the ego doesn't want us to see the love in
other people either because those are ego-less moments, so that's the death of the ego.

Sometimes, we don't want to take a look at our barriers to love. Where you're not in your love is
not where you're a bad person, it's where you're wounded, those places where we got triggered
and in that place, I don't know how to express my love and get my needs met. It's always
because of some confusion, and it might be confusion that came from childhood, it might be
confusion that came from adulthood. Like I said before though, it doesn't really matter where it
came from, it's yours to own, to recognize, to detox, to surrender to God. And when you do that,
it's just as simple as asking, look at that piece of paper where you wrote down all those names,
ask yourself, when they think of you, what do you think they say? How do you think they think
about you? How do you think they did experience or do experience you? See how different this
is than the ego's religion?

The ego is like, you need to manifest people who do what you want them to do. That's not the
spiritual mountain top. The spiritual way is am I or am I not in the lives of other people, an
instrument of love? So I'd like you to go through all those names where you attend. Where can
you say, “Yeah, I think my energy with that person was good. I think my energy and my
behavior. Yeah, I think I was free to love.” It's always pretty easy with people who are being
really nice to us. With others, sometimes, it's tempting. But remember, that's where we met them
as well.

We rub up against other people, just like when you have an amethyst or ruffed crystal, and they
rub up against each other to become smooth. That's what relationships are. Somebody else's
unhealed place rubs up against your unhealed place. And the issue is are you going to stay in
the unhealed place or see it as an opportunity to see your unhealed place, often because they
pointed out to you, and surrender it, and to say, I was harsh, I get that I'm harsh. Dear God,
make me gentle, where I was needy, I don't want to be that. I don't want to lay that trip down on
other people where I'm critical, where I'm whatever, dear God, make me different.

Like I said, you can't just analyze these things away but you can surrender them, and God will
take them from you. That's the function of the Holy Spirit. So if you go through this list of people,
and in the places where you feel healthy shame, remorse. Only a sociopath has no remorse
where you say, “Wow, I bet that didn't feel good when I said that to them,” or, “Wow, I can see
that I really didn't show up for that relationship.”

A Course in Miracle says every circumstance of relationships, it could be work, could be a

marriage, it doesn't matter the form. And you realize that that was the value of the experience. It
showed you the gap between how you behaved and who you really are, and that's where
something called the atonement comes in. You realize that I atone, I chose less than who I am. I
chose to be and to express myself less than who I am, but I made that decision, and I can
choose again, and I choose again now. And I've seen the most amazing things in my life. It's
like, the spirit brings into my life people who demonstrate being in that area what I wasn't able to
reach for.

Everybody was wounded in our lives in different ways. So I might have it together in a way that
you don't but you have it together in a way that I don't, because we had different childhoods, et
cetera. But when you say, “I'm willing, I don't know how to act that way, I don't know how to be
the correct citizen, employer, employee, lover, friend, spouse,” it's amazing, once you're open
and you say, “I get that I'm not, I own that I'm not, I'm willing to admit and acknowledge my own
character defects,” then the universe opens up and people arrive. And books arrive, and
teachings arrive, and experiences arrive, and movies arrive, and TV shows arrive, and lyrics
arrive that just cause these amazing ahas. And we change, and we grow, and it's this great
mystery there because it's like the story of the prodigal son, that the father was more excited to
see the son who had left and come home than to see the son who never left, or the way a bone
that's been broken, sometimes, when it comes back together, it's stronger than it was before.

There is something about your personality that you developed in the places where you used to
get it wrong and you had to work to get it right, it's really profound. Going forward, you will be
different than you were before. And so this, we say, “Well, I blew it in this relationship, or I blew it
in that relationship.” A Course of Miracles, first of all, says, "All who meet will someday meet
again until their relationship becomes holy." So even that person, this lifetime or another, I don't
know. But also, whether it's the same circumstance brought around or it's another form of the
circumstance and another town with other people, other circumstances, what will come back
around again is your opportunity to get it right where you used to get it wrong. The universe will
compensate for your error.

A Course of Miracles says that in any situation, and in every situation, a miracle is possible
because love works miracles. Where there is love, there are miracles. So where you put your
armor up and didn't allow love to flow forth, you deflected a miracle. But A Course of Miracles
says that that miracle is held in trust for you until you're ready to receive it. And when you have
developed and honed your attitude, and your musculature and your personality in such a way
that you're letting love through in a way that you used to block it, that miracle will come back.
That gift will be given back to you. It's an extraordinary thing. But the universe is invested in your
enlightenment.

A Course of Miracle says, "Heaven is entered two-by-two." You can't get to any of this except
through love of the person in front of you or the person you're thinking of. And that's why, even
judgmental thoughts, it's not about being a goody goody, it's about knowing, if I'm thinking this
thought of judgment or attack or blame, I'm blocking the miracle into laying the time it will take to
have real peace and to have peace with that person.

When we come back, we're going to talk about forgiveness. We're going to talk about special
and holy relationships. And we're going to get down about some of the ways that this stuff plays
out in very, very practical ways and very, very practical issues in our relationships. Miracles do
happen.

Forgiveness Is Our Function

So you'll notice that everything we've talked about so far in relation to relationships has been
principles that apply no matter what. So the ego mind categorizes relationships, but one of the
things A Course in Miracle says, is that there is no love but God's. Because remember, who a
person is lies beyond the body. That's really the whole point here. That who we actually are is
spirit, not body.

On the level of spirit, we're all perfect. On the level of the body, we all make mistakes.

Now, the ego mind wants to always focus on the body and the Holy Spirit wants to focus on the
truth of who we are. So, forgiveness is a very interesting concept, because real forgiveness
goes beyond and is very different than the traditional notion of forgiveness. Because the
traditional notion of forgiveness is that you are your guilt, you are your mistakes, but somehow,
I'm so spiritual that I will be willing to forgive you. The esoteric miraculous mind, the miracle
minded perception of forgiveness is very different than that. It is the realization that you are not
the level of yourself that makes mistakes. There's the self with the little s and the self with the
big s. If I relate to you on the level of your mistakes, then I'm going to judge you and I will be
lead to attack you. And I will be led to defend, which the Course in Miracles says is an attack.

Forgiveness is when we are willing to extend our perception beyond what the physical eyes see,
beyond what the physical ears hear, to what the heart knows to be true. Now, the ego says if
somehow, if I tell you how wrong you are, this will somehow correct you, this is not how it works.
And so often we make this mistake in relationships, and we think, “Well, I just told them what I
really think or whatever it is was our authentic sharing.” But if people don't feel a basic
affirmation from us that they're good and that we appreciate them, they're not going to hear us.
And that's why the Course in Miracles says, your job is to tell your brother he is right. Even
when he's wrong. And that doesn't mean to tell him that verbally, of course, if he did something
foolish, but it means that we communicate non-verbally to someone. That we affirm them, and
we appreciate them.

So, our job is to be responsible and take responsibility for the heart space between us and
another person. Commune is inside the word communication. So sometimes we go, “Well, I
really communicated but if we communicated our anger, or our judgment, or our attack, no
matter what we said, people are going to be like this.” That's not the way to have a relationship.
The way to have a relationship is to always make sure, and once again, it takes discipline, and it
takes practice the Course in Miracle says, the primary responsibility of the miracle worker is to
accept the atonement for himself. The atonement means the correction of our own perception.

So, before I go telling you where you need to be different or judging you, or attacking you, dear
God, please show me the innocence in this person. Please show me the innocence in this
person, and remind me that the only reason I am here is to be an instrument of love and
blessing in their lives. Their life. Within that, you might have something to share, but it will come
across as sharing and not a criticism. It will come across as a sharing and a gift, rather than an
attack. You know, this is the principle of non-violent communication, because we're all so fragile.
And sometimes, we're so clear how sensitive we are that we tend to forget how sensitive other
people are as well. And that includes men as well as women, by the way.

We're all just very fragile beings. And so, so much of relationship conversations today have to
do with who we attract and what we want in other people. But the spiritual conversation around
relationships is who am I? If you're standing in the space of your true being, you automatically
attract into your life relationships that vibrate along the frequency of the space you're choosing
to inhabit. That's why the main work is always on ourselves. That's why in the Course in
Miracles it says, “You think you have many different problems but you really only have one.” And
that is your separation from God.
When we are with God, that's the same thing as saying we are in a state of love. That we are in
a place where we automatically invite happiness, happiness then becomes our function, which
is the same thing as saying forgiveness is our function. Our function in any situation is to see
the truth in other people and to affirm that truth in other people so that they have an easier time
seeing it for themselves. That's that namaste consciousness. And this is true whether you're
talking about your child, or you're talking about your spouse, or you're talking about your
employer, or your employees, or your lover, or your friend, or anyone else.

Forgiveness is our function here. And it might seem to you like a love affair or a marriage, “Oh,
you know, that's not about spirituality.” Yes it is. Yes it is.

The Miracle Mindset of Forgiveness

The ego is very offended by forgiveness. And let's remember why the ego is offended by
forgiveness. Forgiveness is a moment where you see beyond perception into the truth, the
world that lies beyond the veil. "Beyond this world there is a world I want," says A Course in
Miracles. In that moment, there is so much light there cannot be darkness. In that moment,
there's so much love, there's no fear. There's no ego. That's what the ego is. So the ego is
saying, "No, don't go there. You won't be safe." But really what it's saying is, "Don't go there, I
won't be safe." And that's right. The ego will not be safe.

The ego likes to point out what's wrong with other people and then make sure that they hear it
from you, and then the ego says, "No, that was just honest communication." Well, and then you
realize, he's gone or she's gone cause I'm wrong. Where did that get me? So I want to read you
something from A Course in Miracles, which I think speaks perfectly to this issue. "Errors are of
the ego and correction of errors lies in the relinquishment of the ego." So in other words, if
somebody made a mistake, by definition they were in their ego. But if you then start saying, "Oh,
you were wrong," then you're in your ego.

I love it sometimes people say to me, "Mary, and you're in your ego." Well, you have to be in
your ego to point out my ego. If you're judging me for what you think of as my ego, you're in your
ego. This is how crazy it is. Errors are of the ego and correction of errors lies in the
relinquishment of the ego. When you correct a brother, you were telling him that he is wrong. He
may be making no sense at the time, and it is certain that if he is speaking from the ego, he will
not be making sense. But your task is still to tell him he is right. You do not tell him this verbally,
if he is speaking foolishly, he needs correction at another level because his error is at another
level. He is still right because he is a son of God.

Now, this issue of another level is extremely important. God's time is eternity and linear time is
of the illusion. So the ego mind always wants us thinking about the past always wants us
thinking about the future. In relationship, the ego is always about what you did or what you said.
Notice it's always past tense or well, what's going to happen? Where are we going to be? What
are we going to do? Because the ego mind doesn't want you to experience this moment. The
miracle happens in this moment because God's time or eternity only intersects linear time in one
moment. And that is in the present. And that's why relationships must be always tended to in the
present.

When we get into our head in a relationship and get out of the heart, out of spirit is where we're
talking to them about what happened before or what we want to have happen in the future,
rather than allowing the miracle to happen in the present. The universe knows how to correct
itself. The universe is both self-organizing and self-correcting. So when we, you know,
sometimes we go into a relationship and we're just, we go into a moment, we're going to meet
and I'm going to to tell you, you know, sometimes it's like, okay, we're going to meet tonight and
this is going to be an important meeting. And it's like we go with suitcases filled with grievances.
"I didn't like it when you did this and I didn't like it when you did that." We enter in with these,
"I'm going to attack you for this. I'm going to judge you for this." And then sometimes the ego is
so insane, it's saying, "I'm just doing this because I want to have a relationship." I've heard
myself say that. And I've had people say this, "I'm just judging you and attacking you because I
want us to have a relationship. I want you to show up for the relationship."

At that moment, we're not showing up for the relationship. So how do you do it from a
miracle-minded way? What's the miracle? Well, A Course in Miracles it's very Eastern in feel. It's
not about going into any situation filled with the things you want to say and do. It's about
emptying our minds. In Zen Buddhism, this is called the beginner's mind. And so you pray,
"Dear God, my mind is filled with so many grievances." And A Course in Miracles says you can
have a grievance or you can have a miracle. You cannot have both.

If I'm going to go in like, “You did this and you said that and I think you should and blah, blah,
blah,” then no miracle can happen. So before you go into a situation, before you go into a
meeting, you say, "Dear God, I am filled with anger. I'm filled with resentment. I'm filled with
judgments. I am filled with thoughts about how the other person should be." Instead you're
about to go into the room and you say, "Dear God, take these thoughts from me. Take my
negativity from me." And remember, before you go into any room, before you go into any
situation, bless it with love.

Any situation, any relationship, anything you put on the altar is altered because the altar is
inside your mind. Place the relationship on the altar. That's to say, "Dear God, you take this
relationship." Remember, God is not outside you. God is inside you. So when you say, "Dear
God, I surrender this relationship to you." What you were asking is that your thoughts about the
other person be lifted up. That's why architecture, sacred architecture, it's always pointing up to
the higher reasons of the mind. So when you say, "Dear God, please take this relationship. May
it be all that it can be. May it be lifted to the level of divine right order." You're not even saying, "I
don't know if we're supposed to be together physically or not. I just want to be a blessing in the
life of this person and I want this person to be a blessing in my life. I want to see the innocence
in this person and I want this person when he or is in my presence to feel their innocence in
their goodness." That's what it means to surrender our relationship to God. May this relationship
be lifted above and beyond the walls that would divide us. Because their stuff's going to come
up and hide my beauty from them, my stuff's going to come up to hide his or her beauty from
me.

A miraculous relationship is where we stand naked but unembarrassed, seeing only the love in
each other and the love in ourselves. That is the experience of God. There was a lyric in Les
Miserables, which says, "To love another person is to see the face of God." That unlocks the
door. That unlocks the cathedral door. You can't get to heaven without taking another person
with you. But when we are willing to see the innocence in each other, that lies beyond the
mistakes, beyond the errors, everything changes.

You know, sometimes we say, "Well, I don't believe in sin," but you actually do if your whole
thing is about attacking other people and judging other people. Sin would mean if somebody did
something so bad they deserve punishment. Error, A Course in Miracles says, "God doesn't see
you as a sinner, he sees you as somebody who has made mistakes that he doesn't want to
punish you for.” He wants to heal you. He wants to correct you and with love. And our task on
this earth is to love as God loves. I love it when sometimes people say, "Well, I don't mean to be
judgmental, but..." And then they judge you. Maybe you don't mean to be judgmental, don't be
judgmental. And love does correct.

You know, I know when people hold a space for me to be better, I become better. And when
people are just standing there trying to trip me up or waiting for me to fall, I tend to do that. How
does that help them and how does it help me? The issue in relationships is to seek to be a
representative of God. And you know there's a part in A Course in Miracles, it says, "I'm only
here to be truly helpful. I'm here to represent him who sent me. I don't have to know what to say
or what to do for he who sent me shall guide me."

There's a real innocence that comes about when we haven't planned what we're going to say or
do necessarily. We just pray, "Dear God, make me an instrument of love." We've all heard that,
you know. The prayer of St. Francis, "Make me an instrument of your peace. Make me an
instrument." But sometimes at a certain point, we need to do it already. And when it comes to
many of our relationships in life, our romantic relationships, our work relationships, we go, "Oh
no, this isn't about that. This is about my marriage, or, “This is about, you know, romance or this
is about work.” That other stuff is very nice, but that's spiritual or that's theoretical. Spirituality
isn't some other category of life over here while relationships are over here. Spirituality is the
underpinning for anything and everything is a relationship.

The Innocence in Everyone

The thing about forgiveness is that it's not always easy, but it's a decision that we make. A
Course in Miracles calls forgiveness a selective remembering. You know, especially if you've
known a person for a while, you know, the ego always wants to build a case. So the issue,
particularly the longer we've known a person, is I remember when you did this wrong and I
remember when you did that wrong. And it's a training of those attitudinal muscles.
Once again, forgiveness is an attitudinal muscle. It's that correct position. It's the asana of
consciousness. It's like, “I choose to focus on what this person did right.” Now somebody might
say, "Oh, that's denial." Well A Course in Miracles talks about the difference between negative
denial and positive denial. Positive denial is when, no I see it, I'm not stupid. Love and
forgiveness don't destroy your brain cells. But you decide what you wish to focus on. And I
already said, that doesn't mean that you're going to be vulnerable in relationships, except in the
best way. If you're supposed to leave, if you're supposed to walk to the other side of the street or
get out of the relationship, you'll know to do that.

Love will never lead you into psychologically unsound or unwise or unsafe behavior. Because
love isn't about behavior. Love is about consciousness. So forgiveness means may I only see
the innocence in my brother that I might only see the innocence in myself. That is what
relationship is. When we're attacking someone, we're actually abandoning the relationship.
When we're judging someone, in that moment we're actually abandoning the relationship. So
forgiveness is where, we use that term willing. Willing, this is a big sentence in A Course in
Miracles. I am willing to see this differently. The ego is always building a case, what that person
did wrong. I am willing to see the innocence in this person.

I was once traveling with my mother. I was a young woman and I was not getting along with my
mother and I started thinking about the course or I picked it up, I started reading it, I'm not sure
which, and it was about that part about think what you're thinking about a brother that God
would not be thinking. And think what God is thinking that you're not thinking. And if God loves
everyone equally and unconditionally, the thoughts I was having about my mother were not the
thoughts that God would be having. And in that moment, I simply recognized this, I love that
word recognize, rethink, repent. I get that I'm not thinking about my mother. You know, I wanted,
she wanted a more traditional daughter and I wanted a more hip mother. Well she didn't owe it
to me to be a different kind of person and I didn't owe it to her to be a different kind of person.
But we were both stuck in our why aren't you different place and I saw that, but I didn't know
how to get myself out of it. And that's why the holy spirit is so important.

A Course in Miracles says there would be no Savior if there were no need for one. The Savior is
that place of consciousness that saves us from that negative thinking when we can't get out of it.
We can ask for help. Once again, it would be a violation of our free will if spirit just changed our
thinking without our request. But if we do request it, we cannot not be answered. So I remember
that trip and I remember just thinking I'm willing to see my mother differently. And I had this like
daydream, waking this vision of her as a little girl, as a little tow-headed innocent little child like
maybe five years old. And in that moment, it just broke the spell of my negativity, just broke the
spell of my judgment. And I learned from that. And I learned from that that it's always my
responsibility. It's not the other person's responsibility to be what you think they should be. And if
there is any way in which there's something you could share with them that would help them to
move into a better place, it's not going to come about because they're receiving from you a
scolding finger.

You know, everybody's pointing at the fingers at everybody these days. You're the problem,
you're the problem, you're the problem, the problem is that pointed finger. It's just, we need to
give everyone a just general emotional amnesty. And not so much ask how are they doing, but
how am I doing. And if we ask for that, because it's not always easy, it's not always easy and we
will be tempted, and not everybody's nice, you know. It's easy enough to practice this stuff when
everybody's being really nice to you, but everybody might not be nice to you. The issue is
there's a line in A Course in Miracles where it says, "The Christ in you cannot be crucified."

A Course in Miracles says everyone you meet will either be a crucifier or your Savior, depending
on what you choose to be to them. If I choose to be a crucifer, you did this wrong, you did that
wrong, that's how I'm going to feel. And I choose to save you from your feelings of guilt by
affirming your innocence, even if it's not what I say, but just the way I think about you, the space
I hold in your presence, that's what I will feel. And the Christ in me cannot be crucified means
when you're in that place, other people can say stuff about you, do stuff to you, but you identify
with the part of you that isn't affected. And that's the benefit that we get from being more
forgiving towards others. The benefit we get from being more forgiving towards others isn't
necessarily that other people are going to be more forgiving towards us, although that is more
probable, but the even greater benefit is even when people aren't, we won't take it in. Because if
I refuse to attach myself to the belief in your guilt, it will be very hard to attach myself to the
belief in my guilt.

You know, sometimes it's like I made a mistake. And you become adjusted to having some
mercy on yourself, the same way you've become better at having mercy on other people. Some
of those people made a mistake. I was, a couple of things, situations in my own life where I was
in a situation with someone and my best friend was there and saw my interaction with someone
and I got very upset about what this man had done. And he left and my best friend said to me,
"Marianne, he made a mistake. Like, people make mistakes."

People make mistakes. A mistake is an error, it's not a sin. It doesn't mean somebody deserves
damnation. When you encounter a person who is behaving in a way that is loveless towards
you, A Course in Miracles says, "In that moment, "they fell asleep to who they are." The
question is whether you are going to remain awake. Because if I'm judging you and perceiving
you according to your loveless behavior, the only way I can do that is if I'm falling asleep to the
truth myself. If someone is behaving towards me in a way that is loveless, that means that in
that moment, they forgot who they are. In that moment, they fell asleep to who they are. The
issue is not what they did to me, the issue is what space am I going to hold now that they have?

Now if I choose to perceive that person on the level of their guilt, on the level of their error, that
means I'm falling asleep to who I am. I myself am forgetting truth. But if I choose to remain
awake even when they have fallen asleep to who they are, then number one, what they did
cannot affect me because only if I think what they did is real can I and my experience be really
affected by it. The Christ in you cannot be crucified means “Well, I know you did that, but you
did it on a level that is not what truly affects the real me.”

So if you choose to remain awake even when they're falling asleep, not only does it mean you
will not be affected, but it also means that they will awaken to who they are. And that's the story
of Pollyanna. So Pollyanna goes into a situation and everybody's mean and in a bad mood, but
she just doesn't see that. She just loves people anyway. And then what happens is that
everybody awakens to their love. Everyone, make of yourself, and it's your decision, it's our
choice, an instrument of love. Person you're thinking about, person you're dealing with, a lot of
times it's not what you would say out loud, but so much of working miracles is non verbal.

Your greatest power is your mind. Your greatest power is your thinking. Think with love and as A
Course in Miracles says, "Moving mountains is small compared to what you can do." Go move a
few, all my love.

Special and Holy Relationships

In A Course of Miracles, there's a concept that is very significant called the difference between a
relationship that is a special relationship and a holy relationship.

So let's go back to that sort of cosmic beginning of things. So we were one with God, that's the
state of inner peace, that's the state of bliss, that's the state of heaven, that's when we are at
home being loved. We are at home within the space of a larger love, everything's perfect. In a
particular moment we split from that thought of love, which is the same thing as saying we
separated from God. A Course of Miracles says there's nothing in our human experience that
can possibly describe the level of hysteria that then set in. It's like we are right now going
around this planet so fast that we can't even feel we're going this fast. We are right now similarly
experiencing so much panic and so much hysteria at being separate from the source of our
being that we don't even know that we're in panic or hysteria. Although, we actually do think
we're in panic or hysteria but we have no idea that that's why it is. So this is what happened.

The ego mind, which is the thought that we are separate, when we were registering the panic
we feel because we separated from God, doesn't want to tell us, “Well you just have to accept
God's love in every moment,” because then that would be the death of the ego and the ego is
seeking to preserve itself. So the ego comes up with this idea that you will feel better, you will
feel complete.

Now, the truth of the matter is we only feel complete when we accept the love that is the totality
of who we are and extend it into all other living beings. The ego says “No, you'll feel complete
when you find that one special person and that special love and it is so glamorized and glorified
in popular culture if only we find that one person.” I remember many years ago it was a song
that was sung by a singer named Helen Reddy and she used to sing the song, I think this was
before I even did A Course in Miracles, “You and me against the world.” And I remember
thinking, “You and me against the world? Honey I don't care who ya are those are such bad
odds.” You and me against the world, like this was some romantic vision that it would be you
and me against the world. That's what the ego wants, this exclusive love.

Now let's walk through what this would mean. First of all, isn't that a lot of pressure on the other
person? You complete me. It's like in that movie Jerry McGuire when Tom Cruise says to Renee
Zellwegger, "You complete me." Well, we all get the level in which it's so romantic, but there's
another level on which there's a hidden treachery there because first of all no person completes
another person, we are already complete. But if I first of all think you complete me, number one
I think I'm incomplete and number two my God if you complete me what will I do if you say
something or do something that isn't what I think I need you to say or do in order to complete
me?

So there's a line in A Course in Miracles where it says that the dictates of the ego when it comes
to love is seek but do not find. So there are all these ideas and all these attitudes and all these
thought forms that seem like we're seeking love, but actually they are set up making sure that
we won't really find it. So the idea of the holy relationship is the old special relationship
transformed.

A special relationship is not what it sounds like because God loves all of us equally. So the
special relationship seems like it's very glamorous and glorious, but it actually is very
treacherous because look at psychologically how it sets us up. I think you complete me, this is “I
found the one.” So I have two very strong urges, that's number one to make sure that you keep
liking me and number two to make sure that you keep doing whatever it is that I need you to do
to make me feel complete. Number one, I want you to keep liking me because I think you
complete me; therefore, I am tempted to not be real with you, to not be authentic with you, to not
show you the truth of who I am because whatever I've been doing that you like, I'm going to
make sure that it continues so that you will continue to like me. So I'm always like falling over
myself to posture to be what it is I think that you would want, that's number one. Number two, it
actually tempts me to be more judgmental of you because I've seen you be like this perfect
person and now “Oh my God,” you might be real and have real issues and stuff like that. I don't
know if I really want to see real issues because I thought you were this perfect person who
completed me. So you can see how a special relationship is just a mask dancing with another
mask and it becomes a dance of death on a psychological and emotional level.

A holy relationship, the Course of Miracles says is the old special relationship transformed and
you enter into it from a completely different place. You enter into it from a knowledge and an
understanding that we are here to heal, that's why souls are brought together. Souls are brought
together for the purpose of enlightenment and that is as true of a romantic relationship as much
as any other. So by definition your stuff's going to come up and my stuff's going to come up,
why? Because we heal through a kind of detox. Your rough edges going to rub up against my
rough edges. It's going to take a while, not the first couple weeks or the first couple months,
sometimes not even the first couple of years because there has to be enough glue to keep us
together and then the stuff will happen, meaning you will be tempted into your issues, I will be
tempted into my issues. I'm going to trigger your mommy issues, you're going to trigger my
daddy issues and the ego either in me or in you or in both of us is going to say “Ah, I want out of
here.” Sometimes I've actually been in situations where I thought this was so terrible but I felt
like the voice of God was saying, “Oh this is good. This is it because your issues are up, they're
clear.”

Now the other person is telling you, “I don't like it when you did that,” so you have a choice and
one choice is I'm being told that that's a place where I'm not so cool. Is that other person going
to be compassionate about what he or she sees in me and am I going to own it because that's
how things heal. When there is compassion, there is non-judgment and there is nonviolent
radical truth telling.

The holy relationship is where we get that's why we're here. Of course your stuff is going to
come up and of course my stuff is going to come up. A holy relationship is like a hospital for the
soul. A Course of Miracles says that relationships are laboratories of the Holy Spirit and a holy
relationship means this is it, that your worst was going to come up, my worst was going to come
up, let us hold this as a holy experience and that is how we then move through it. You know, we
always prefer when both people agree. Either both people feel like the maximal soul growth
opportunity has been served here and it's time to move on in physical form or both people agree
we're going to stay in here and work through this. And what's sad of course is when one person
wants to head away and one person wants to stay in and that can be a heartbreaking situation
and all of us have been there, not everybody's been there but enough of us have been there
that we can certainly relate.

The issues to remember from A Course of Miracles perspective is that relationships are content
and not formed. So even when two bodies separate that doesn't mean the relationship is over.
Relationships are forever. All the love, A Course of Miracles says, that anyone has ever given
you is eternal, all the love that you have ever given anyone is eternal, it lives on in the ether. It
cannot be uncreated and everything else was just a hallucination.

A Course of Miracles talks about the difference between a special relationship and a holy
relationship in terms of a picture in a picture frame. It says that a special relationship is like a
picture of a person and it's in this frame and it's a very baroque frame. And it's got rubies and it's
got diamonds in this very grand frame and it says but those rubies are your blood and those
diamonds are your tears. But a holy relationship is where the picture is what matters, the person
is what matters not the frame, and so with a very light frame, because what you're looking at is
the picture. You cannot look at a person and really see that person if you're judging them
according to what they did before this moment, you know? The Course of Miracles says we're
always bringing shadow figures from the past and it might be the shadow figure of somebody
that you knew before or it might be a shadow figure of how that person behaved yesterday.

Miracles happen in the present, in what the Course of Miracles calls the holy instant.
Forgiveness can only be in the present because forgiveness is where I choose to see who you
really are. I'm extending my perception beyond what my physical sense is perceived to what my
heart knows to be true. So I can either think about what you did that I think was right or wrong
yesterday, or I can be in the space of complete openness and availability to who you are right
now. And you don't have to worry that that will make you vulnerable and then somebody could
take advantage of you, it's quite the opposite because when we are aligned with God, that's
when we're in our wisdom.

If I'm truly in a place of unconditional love for you, I'm more capable of knowing when as much
as I love you, I don't belong here anymore. It's when we're judging people that we think we're
being so smart that often we're refracted. We don't see them clearly. You know if you have like
this stomping of your feet, you will not treat me this way, then even if I stomp out of the house
you will not treat me this way I am bound to attract the next person who will. But if I'm in a place
of complete love, the Course of Miracles says in my defenselessness my safety lies.

You know you never see a picture or a statue of Jesus or Buddha going like this, but you see
pictures and statues of them going like this all the time. Come unto me and I am defenseless.
That is the point of power in a relationship in any given moment. The ego says, “Ooh you're not
safe there,” when in fact that's the only place where we are safe. In fact, the Course in Miracles
says and you can see it in your life if I defend myself I am attacked. I create what I defend
against. If you go into any situation defending against this happening or that happening, you will
inevitable subconsciously create exactly what you're defending against.

So when Adam and Eve were naked but unembarrassed in the Garden of Eden, the issue
wasn't just that they were physically naked, because being physically naked and
unembarrassed isn't that hard if you're ya know tending on your body, but being emotionally
naked, psychologically naked, spiritually naked. But unembarrassed that takes work. That I
stand before you willing to be who I really am, which I can only feel free to be if I create the
space through my willingness to see you as you truly are knowing that you're not perfect, you've
made mistakes. I'm not perfect I've made mistakes, but in this moment we can be in that holy
sacred instant where all is perfect because in this moment we see only the love in each other.
We only express the love in each other and in that moment where there is all that love there
cannot be fear. Where there is so much truth there cannot be ego. That's the enlightened
moment and life is about getting to the point where we have more of those moments rather than
fewer of those moments and they become the rule rather than the exception.

What we don't want to do is fall for this, “Well, I'm just waiting for the person to have that ya
know.” I'm just waiting to have that holy relationship with the right person once they get here,
which by definition means we're not in the right space. The right space is to know that whoever
is in front of me, whoever I'm thinking about to pray that they be loved. That’s as a matter of
fact, the most powerful thing you can do in any relationship that causes you pain, pray for their
happiness. May he be happy. May he be blessed. May he be loved.

I had a painful relationship once and I just kept saying like a mantra, may he be happy, may he
be blessed, may he be loved. May he be happy, may he be blessed, may he be loved. May he
be happy, may he be blessed, may he be loved. It wasn't just for him, it was for me because
what you're thinking about the other person is what you're going to experience, and the love that
you withhold from another person you're withholding from yourself. So praying for another
person's happiness is the most powerful thing you can do.

You know I sometimes have said to audiences, “So for those of you who are with a spouse or a
lover, somebody you slept with last night, have you prayed for their happiness yet today? When
somebody left your space this morning, your environment did you remember to tell them how
fabulous they are?”

I remember once many years ago I was breaking up with a boyfriend, and he was off with
another woman. I can't believe I said this but I did, we were in therapy and I think I told the story
in Return to Love but I acted like it was another person but really it was me. I said to him, “You
only like her because she tells you how fabulous you are all the time.” And he looked at me and
he was silent for a moment and then he said, “I think that has something to do with it.” Yeah, like
hello, why wouldn't he want to be with someone who told him he was wonderful all the time
when what he got from me was a lot of what felt like criticism and judgment and blame all the
time? Brick to forehead, duh, learning moment.

We have a society that almost glorifies making people wrong, but we do it these days with very
sophisticated jargon because you really have it all figured out, narcissism, et cetera and
sometimes that's correct but so what? It still doesn't get to the ultimate point, which is that might
be a description, but if you were turning that description into a judgment or into a blame then
there's a name for you too, and it's not enlightened.

The Seasons of a Relationship

A lot of our pain in relationships comes when relationships are over, but remember a
relationship is never really over because a relationship is of the mind. A relationship is of the
spirit, and in the realm of spirit there is no time and there is no place. So remember that all the
love that he ever gave you or she ever gave you is real and is with you always. All the love that
you ever gave is real and is with you always.

When bodies separate, that just means that the relationship has changed in its form, but not its
content, and that also includes when people die. The relationship still exists. The Course in
Miracles says that there is no death, and for that reason the body drops away but the spirit lasts
forever.

Sometimes, it's particularly difficult because it feels like when the relationship is quote, unquote
over it's almost like we feel like we fall in love more than before, but that really does make sense
because sometimes you need to love them that much to be able to let them go. Letting go of
someone who doesn't want to be with you or doesn't want to be with you anymore is one of the
most painful things in life, but once again, pray for their happiness. May he be loved. May he be
happy. May he be blessed. Always make it about what you were giving and always remember
what the Course in Miracles says, “Only what I am not giving can be lacking in any situation.”

Sometimes the so-called end of a relationship is heartbreaking. The end of the form. It could be
a divorce. It could be a break-up. It could be death of a loved one, and these days I think we try
to move through that too quickly. Too often people are like you need to let it go. You need to let it
go. Well, actually, no you don't. There is grief. There are seasons in life. There are seasons in
nature and there are seasons of the heart. There was a time when I led grief support groups
and sometimes I used to have to say to people, “Hey guys, this is a grief support group, not a
grief denial group.” Sometimes people are so utilitarian these days, it's like, “Your mother died
two months ago, aren't you over it yet?” No I'm not over it. It's going to take some time, and
grieving a relationship is healthy.
Grieving a relationship, even being sad, and sometimes relationships can bring us such joy but
relationships can bring us such sorrow, and an enlightened life is not one where every day is
necessarily happy and in an enlightened relationship, as long as we're still on the path to
enlightenment, not every moment in a relationship is one where we're necessarily happy. As a
matter of fact, I think too many couples break up because I'm not happy. You know, the fact that
you're not happy may or may not mean that you're not in exactly where you need to be. You're
just crashed up against the wall and it's not necessarily a wall that has anything to do with the
other person. It's a wall that has to do with your own incapacity to love at this point.

So in relationships, as well as in every other area of life, and once again, everything is a
relationship, the course says we need to allow ourselves to move more deeply into the spacious
waters where life really exists. Real life is not on the top and the movement and going' here and
going there and all the adrenaline and all the stuff going on with which we distract ourselves.
This is why so often, you know, the TV in the bedroom, the computers in the bedroom, we don't
make enough time for love right now. We don't create enough temple space for our
relationships. We need to create that space where we are committed to having a deep
conversation. This has to do with our relationships in our families, too.

You know, too many computers at the dinner table, too many phones on at the dinner table, to
many tablets at the dinner table, and it's a way of avoiding relationship. I was at a restaurant
once and there were a few adults and there was a little baby in a high chair, really a little baby,
and the little baby was sitting there with his or her screen. Little baby screen. I was thinking
something's really wrong about this because that was the age where a baby's brain, you know,
that baby should be looking around the table picking up clues subconsciously, the little brain
developing, that says that other people matter and how other people relate to each other. We're
training our own children to avoid human contact, to avoid relationship.

I'll see people at a movie and two people, like on a date and they're waiting for the movie to start
and they're both on their phones. I see this in my life because I travel on airplanes a lot, and I
used to always say most of what I learn I learn on airplanes because it's so interesting talking to
people who you wouldn't have known in any other circumstance necessarily, and they don't
know you and you don't know them and I've had such rich conversations on airplanes because
everybody's a little more real you know, because you know, you're more aware of possibilities.
So I used to find such rich conversation on airplanes.

Now, you sit down, everybody's already got their earbuds in. They're already looking' at their
tablet. What are we doing? This is avoidance of relationship, so, so much has gone wrong in our
society today that is like a fabric that has been ripped and we have to put it together one stitch
at a time. Attacking each other, judging each other. It's like a sword and it's tearing everything
apart, but love and reaching out, it's like a sewing needle.

The Course in Miracles says there's no such thing as a neutral thought, so just not being there
at all. You might say “Well, I don't wish that person any harm,” but we need to do more than not
wish other people harm. We need to reach out and that's why even casual relationships can be
as significant as what we think of as these big, grand relationships.
And one of the things I've noticed in my life is if I'm not practicing the truth and the core of
relationships with just the people that I see as I go through the day, I don't know where I get that
later that night, right, I'm going to be like you know, the great love person that I want to be when
I haven't been sort of practicing all day. I've been withholding from myself the real richness of
human contact. This is something we have to practice. This is something new in the history of
the world that there is so much to distract us from being there for each other and so relationship
and being good at relationship is something that we have to make a conscious decision to
actually practice. And we practice it by realizing every time a person is in front of you, that's
someone to love.

The Intimacy of the Mind and Heart

I want to talk to you for a moment about your relationship to your body.

Remember, the ego bases its perceptions on the body, and the body is actually a fence around
the true self. So the message of enlightenment is that you are not your body. The message of
enlightenment is a shift in self-perception from body identification to spirit identification. So the
body is this precious headquarters of sorts. It is this precious, immeasurably precious suit of
clothes. The body is itself separation, so if we are basing our thought and behavior within a
relationship on the level of the body's senses, then we never have a real relationship. And that's
why our views of sex are often skewed, because we are so desperate to join with another
person, and the ego would have us believe that if I have sex with you there is that joining.

Well, when sex is a deepening of our communion with another person, then it's a holy thing. But
in the ego's hands, it's what we do instead of deep communion. It's a substitute for deep
communion. And when sex is just a substitute, it's a grasping for a communion that isn't
otherwise happening. Then it will ultimately, even if there's a short-term feeling of oneness, it's
going to be a long-term emotional car crash. So the oneness and the intimacy that we seek has
to be first of the mind and of the heart. And then sex follows. Not the other way around.

Joining sexually does not necessarily mean you're going to join on the level of the heart and the
mind, although if you join on the level of the heart and the mind and then sex follows from that,
it's a sacred experience. So everything, everything we do, including the body, is either an
instrument of love or an instrument of fear. Everything we say, everything we do, an instrument
of love or an instrument of fear. All of the attachment that we have, where we base everything
on the body, actually creates stress. You can't be really at home in the body when you think you
are your body. It's very counterintuitive. The way to have peace and power on this planet is to
know that you're not of this realm, and then you relax into it, and the body can actually behave
in a more productive way.

The Course in Miracles says over-attachment to the body creates a burden on the body, a
stress on the body that the body was not meant to carry, and that that is what creates sickness.
So when we see our body, the Course in Miracles says the key to power, miraculous power in
any relationship or situation is to redefine its purpose. Its purpose is to express love. That's the
only reason you have a body, so that your hands can bring love, and your feet can guide you to
greater love, and your tongue can speak words of love, and your brain can think thoughts of
love. That's the purpose of the body.

You know, every cell in the body is led through natural intelligence to collaborate with every
other cell to serve the healthy functioning of the organ and the organism of which they are a
part. Every once in a while, a cell disconnects from it's natural intelligence. It, like, it goes
insane, and it goes off to build its own kingdom. That's a malignancy. But that's not just a
malignancy on the body. That's also a malignancy in the mind. And that's the problem with the
world, a malignancy of consciousness, a malignant thought. And the malignant thought is I'm
separate from you. And the healed and healing thought is I'm here to collaborate with you
because I'm one with you, to do this beautiful dance of life, and that's why we're here together in
any given moment.

When the body is being used for purposes of separation rather than unity, that literally knocks
the cells out of their knowing. And so one of the best things that you can do to create a healthier
body is to ask every single day that your body be used for God's purposes, and see the spirit of
God come over you and over those that you love, and ask that every cell of our bodies, every
cell of the body be used for purposes of love. Now that doesn't mean, be really careful here
because that doesn't mean that somebody who got sick by definition was using their body for
unloving purposes. That doesn't mean that at all, because there are so many unloving purposes
when you think of carcinogens, and toxins, and all of that, which do emanate from our lack of
love for the planet, our lack of love for each other that we let such things be. But even there, the
universe is always ready to heal itself. And we will heal our bodies, and we will heal our planet,
and we will heal our society, and we will heal every aspect of life when we turn our attention
away from something that just has to do with me getting mine, or me doing mine, back to love.

That's the only reason we're here, whether it has to do with our personal behavior or whether it
has to do with our environmental policies. It's all the same. Am I doing this for love? Because if
I'm doing it for anything else, it's a diseased thought. It's diseased behavior, and our bodies will
suffer.

You Have the Power to Think with Love

I'd like to talk to you for a moment about your relationship to your own creations. Every time you
have an idea, every time you have a project, every time you write something, do something, go
to school, start a company, teach a class, this is your extension, this is your ministry. This is your
giving of love, this is your creation. And the way to bring it to the highest place is to know it's not
about you. That's always the most powerful thought, it's not about me.

I am here to offer all that I am, all that I have, all that I do, to be there for love. Those are the
thoughts that are healed and healing and powerful. So you say, "Dear God, I have this idea, use
it for your purposes. I have this project, use it for your purposes." And there's a prayer in the
Course in Miracles that says, “You're to wake up everyday and say, ‘Where would you have me
go? What would you have me do? What would you have me say, and to whom?’" That puts you
in right relationship with the voice for God.

Remember, every cell of the body, every healthy cell of the body is following a natural
intelligence. We have a natural intelligence, too, but we don't always follow it, because we're
living in a world where we're always being told the opposite of love's guidance. So we practice,
we practice being still, so that we can hear the vibratory influence of the voice for love that is
within us. And then you have a relationship to your own creations, that is confident, because
you're not looking for results, you're in the experience because that is where the spirit of love led
you.

There's a line that I heard, I don't know who first said it, but I think it's really great one, it says,
"To be fully invested in an effort, and yet unattached to the results." There's a part in the Course
in Miracles where it says, "The presence of fear is a sure sign you're trusting in your own
strength." That's the thing, to sit in your relationship with your body and your relationship with
yourself in a way that you're not trying to push. Your right relationship to the universe is where
it's like angels are pushing you from behind. And he says in the Course in Miracles, "Do not be
concerned about your own readiness, just be constantly aware of mine." So the way to have
power on this planet is to know that this realm is not your home.

The Course in Miracles says everybody has what you feel like is a guilty secret, that you're a bit
of an alien here, and that, A Course in Miracles says, is because you are. This realm is not our
home. Our right relationship to this realm is to appreciate it for what it is, but it is not, of itself, the
greater life. When you make the purpose of your relationships, the purpose of your career, the
purpose of your body, the purpose of your money, whether it's relationship to money, it's
relationship to work, it's relationship to people, it's relationship to anything, the purpose of love,
may love's purposes be served here, then it lifts all things up. It lifts up your relationship to
money. It lifts up your relationship to business. It lifts up your relationship to other people. It lifts
up your relationship to the body. It lifts up your relationship to your society. It lifts up your
relationship to past and to future. And what does it mean to be lifted up? It means to be lifted
above the emotional and psychological turbulence of anxiety and tension and depression.

The Course in Miracles says that when we are not within the circle of love that is our only
purpose on this earth, we will be depressed. It is a spiritual, a spiritual malaise that has gotten
hold of us. We have become a society that has forgotten why we're here. You know, we always
ask people, "What do you want, what do you want?" So we're asked, and "I don't know, "what
do I want, what do I want?" The higher question is "What is your purpose here?" You were sent
by God. You weren't sent by God any more than anyone else was, but you weren't sent by God
any less than anyone else was. Many are called, but few are chosen.

The Course in Miracles means, actually, everyone is called but few care to listen. When you're
clear about that, that you are simply here to represent love that sent you, and you are here in
every moment to the best of your ability to make any encounter with any human being a holy
encounter, a namaste, that you blast the room with love before you even go there, you ask,
about anything you're doing, that it be used for the purposes of love, then you're in right
relationship with the universe. If you're in right relationship with the universe, you're going to find
yourself in right relationship with other people. You can't get into right relationship with the
universe if you're not in right relationship with other people.

Remember, Heaven is entered two by two. Heaven isn't a condition or a place, it's an
awareness of our oneness, and that is where inner peace comes from. You know that you're in
the zone when you're at peace. And you know you're not in the zone when you're not at peace.
So what do we do, we ask, "Who am I not forgiving?" We've all made mistakes, and most of us
have these things that just, when we think about them, it just makes us cringe. It might have
been something that we did 10 minutes ago, it might have been something we did 10 years ago,
or 20 years ago, but the atonement is like a cosmic reset button.

There's always action/reaction, action/reaction, but you know what's interesting, Buddha was
alive about 500 years before Jesus, and Buddha said for every action there's a reaction, and the
message of Jesus was “Yes, but in a moment of grace, all karma is burned.” So a moment of
grace is a moment of atonement, where you say, "Yes, I think about that moment, I made that
mistake, I go back to that moment, but I know that in that moment I did not let the Spirit move
through me, I made that decision, but I can choose again, and I choose to let the Holy Spirit
choose for me." And then my favorite part of that prayer is where it says, "I will not feel guilty, for
the Holy Spirit will undo all the consequences of my wrong decision if I will let Him." Because
every miracle that you might have had, but you deflected because you didn't make the loving
choice, the Course in Miracles says that miracle is held in trust for you until you're ready to
receive it.

So all the mistakes that you made, you forgive yourself by knowing, "I can be better now." You
earn your own respect, your own self-respect, because you know, "Well, I'm trying to be better
now." And you know that the Holy Spirit is holding, holding in trust for you, the miracle you could
have had, until you are ready to receive it. And to say we are ready to receive it means we are
ready to allow our hearts to be open and not closed. It takes work, it does, to be open-hearted in
a world that has become so closed-hearted.

Love is a radical proposition in today's world, and the ego will minimize it and marginalize it in
every possible way. The ego will call it weak, and the ego will call it soft-brained. It's the greatest
force in the world.

The Course in Miracles says the meek shall inherit the earth, because someday their strength
will take the world over. So you go out there, and you remember that everyone you think about
today, everyone you meet today, is a holy encounter. Send your love. When you find yourself
having a judgmental thought, remember all thought creates form on some level. So at a certain
level, your thinking is as important as your behavior. Everyone, make of yourself, and it's your
decision, it's our choice, an instrument of love. Person you're thinking about, person you're
dealing with, a lot of times it's not what you would say out loud, but so much of working miracles
is nonverbal.
Your greatest power is your mind. Your greatest power is your thinking. Think with love, and that
really is the point of relationships, that you have the power. We are trained by the ego mind to
think it's all about how other people act, and how we feel based on what other people did. And
to know that we're responsible, we're responsible for how we respond, we're responsible for
what we take in, and once again, this doesn't mean we're in denial, except in the most positive
sense. We deny the power of certain things to affect us. And if it means a certain behavioral
pattern is such that we shouldn't remain there, we will know not to remain there. But staying
within the space of our love only makes us more powerful.