An incredibly successful and busy person once told me, “Find something you love to do and then just do it and you’ll never have to ‘work’ a day in your life.” He was obviously living in a state of joy and there was no doubt about his ability to be helpful to others in his chosen walk of life.
A couple of months ago, I gave a class on levels and degrees. We believe in levels and degrees because we believe that it is possible that we could SEPARATE ourselves from the Infinite - from God.
The course tells us that our only real need is to overcome that basic error. That we need to learn how to identify that falsehood as it comes up in our deciding process in all its multiple and pernicious disguises.
And one of the most painful guises of our collective belief in our separation from God is our resulting belief in our personal smallness. We are in truth cosmic beings - extensions of the One Universal Life - playing at being finite. Limited. Inadequate. Helpless in the face of a world that is far more powerful in its will for us than we are.
This world as we perceive it through our five physical senses (the ultimate premise for what the course calls our “body identification”) and our individual lives, as we have shaped them, are nothing more - or less - than our acting out of that ludicrous and erroneous belief.
You cannot be excluded from the All-That-Is. That would make All-That-Is less than Itself by subtracting what It extended AS YOU! (That’s downright silly.) So no one can deprive you of anything. That is, no one but yourself.
We must first put our faith in the limited before believing we are small – OR THAT BEING SMALL WAS EVEN POSSIBLE!
That erroneous belief in separateness - in being limited by the body in what we are capable of doing - is the entire foundation of our world. That’s why it is an illusion. But it’s an illusion we have each accepted or we couldn’t be limited by the “powers” of the world in the first place.
This belief in the collective conscience of humanity is exemplified in the extreme by a TV program called “The Apprentice” in which seemingly very intelligent people are willing to do ANYTHING AT ALL in order to secure the mentorship of one of the world’s most prominent “successes”. Many people would be willing to figuratively (sometimes, literally) kill to win that kind of prized “opportunity”. How sad and yet how logical. It’s just a matter of degrees of excess of what we each do in order to just survive in the world as we see it.
If we only limit ourselves to our physical senses in our perception of our strengths and resources, then we will readily give up our fondest wishes, our ideals - even our God-given hopes and aspirations – slowly and agonizingly losing touch with our very essence. And growing ever-more despondent in the process.
We have traded our potential for a very limited sense of security, indeed, when in reality, we have the means for direct access to the Source of the universe if we are just open to that as a possibility.
The source of life created you in order to extend Its own creation, not as a “lab rat” to be tested in order to prove your value. It already KNOWS your value! It created you beyond measure. It is YOU that made the “ruler” by which you set a value on yourself. “Infinity minus x” is how you identify yourself. And that is an insult to the Infinity that created you.
Just consider what if:
- WHAT IF God is ONLY love? And love without ANY limits?
- WHAT IF He created you just as loving and as limitless as He is?
- WHAT IF nothing is beyond your ability to do IN PARTNERSHIP with Him?
- WHAT IF God had the thought to do something wonderful for His creation and YOU (in your present form and abilities) came into existence as a result?
- WHAT IF THAT DREAM YOU GAVE UP ON and locked away in the deepest recesses of your heart is precisely YOUR REASON FOR BEING?
WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO BE OPEN TO REVIVING YOUR DREAMS AND ASPIRATIONS THEN? Would you be willing to TEST what ACIM tells us and just be open to the possibility that God can open the doors YOU closed - and open new doors for you as well? Would you be willing to watch your thoughts for any reflection of the belief in limitation? Could you be vigilant for the kingdom of God? Not just for your sake alone but for the joy and blessing of all you touch!
THEN the universe of infinite possibilities can open up for you. But it needs your invitation and unceasing welcome (even when it gets a little scary) for the Mind that heard your request and answered has not left you alone to deal with the changes that He’s wrought. You are only asked to TRUST, when you’re tempted to doubt the love of the Infinite and then limitations will just fall away, like the “scales” from the eyes of the blind.
Your faith given to One’s vision instead of to your perception of appearances is the “little part” that is asked of you. So small a part, in fact, that you are likely to be insulted by it.
Be open to being You and one idea, one connection, one person, one “closed door” opening will change your life for the better in one instant. But the FIRST door you need to open is in your mind: the door you closed on the Infinite.
These are ACIM’s promises to you. Be willing to accept them - for your sake and mine.
Blessings,
Carmen Cameron
Louisville, Kentucky
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