I just wanted to say Thank God, truly, that there are still people like you willing to give and work on behalf of all of us. I'm still in ACIM infancy stage (who knows if I'll ever leave it?) and I can't tell you how reassuring it is to see you, up ahead on the path, holding a lantern and beckoning us forward.
I do think one of the clearest lessons for me in ACIM has been the gentle undoing of "you have to do this yourself." That was a big part of my life for a long time - be strong, be focused, don't follow crowds, et cetera. And I appreciate being coached to do my best, but the truth is, we are collaborators. We LOVE to cooperate.
And so part of my course practice has been trying to do that, even when it's hard and confusing. How do I connect with you (where you is anybody other than me)? How do I do this in a way that honors you and doesn't try to make it about me?
It seems to me that we have forgotten something fundamental about being relationship - which is easy, natural, flow-y and fun - and the work is to remember it, together.
So thank you for letting me know my little light is working, and please know I can only lift it because of those who are further along lifting theirs. Together we will undo the darkness and when and as we do we will realize we were never lost and there never was any darkness in the first place 🙏🙏
Thank you for this beautiful and meaningful reflection. I have been wrestling with so many questions that lead to the one question... and then wondering if the question is even relevant! I intuit that we are simply all pieces of one whole in some way or the other. That gives me enough of a starting point to know that we need to love ourselves and others as unconditionally as possible in every circumstance. Haven't gotten much past that. And I like the being patient and still. I think that's hard for most of us but it is sage advice indeed. The way out comes if we just stop and listen. So simple and so difficult for those of us dealing with daily drama, trying to find solutions "out there" and not searching within. Have a wonderful week!
So long as there is a nagging sense of dissatisfaction - some shred of fear, guilty, loneliness - then I think we have to go into it. I wrestle, too. I love this sentence that you wrote: "I intuit that we are simply all pieces of one whole in some way or the other," especially the "one way or another" which reminds me of Nancy's comment earlier, having to do with being okay with not knowing precisely.
There seems to be an important lesson in my life lately around uncertainty - specifically, learning to be okay with it, with not knowing and then becoming skillful, or fluent I guess, with the creative potential inherent in not-knowing.
Or something like that :) Anyway, thank you again for being here and doing the work. I'm very grateful.
Just wanted to let you know how much I “needed” these words this morning as I wrest with the illusion of control in an unfolding situation. Thank you. I hope you and your family are well.
Thanks for letting me know it resonated, Cheryl. I appreciate your presence very much. All is well on our end - kids are growing up and moving on in good ways, and spring is springing all around. Thanks again for being here 🙏🙏
There's a beautiful song 'my missing peace ',and one of the lyrics is I'm searching for answers but all I really need is peace , is so true ,I recommend a listen ,thankyou for your gifts of wisdom
This post really hit me today. The past week has been stressful with a move and I really related to: "The first rule of lost is, don't panic. The second is, be still." Yes, indeed. Thank you, Sean. Your posts are great reminders to me on my path with the Course.
Thank you for sharing, Margaret. I'm glad it's helpful.
And I'm glad the move went well and you are mostly settled. How did the cat do? I know sometimes those transitions can be especially challenging for our four-legged brothers and sisters.
Yes - giving attention to the manifestations of fear without judging their form is so important. Body tells are important for me as well. They often feel like the Holy Spirit gently but firmly clapping its hands to bring me to attention, so that we can do the inner therapy.
Thank you again for reading and sharing and bearing witness to the progress. I'm very grateful 🙏🙏
Sweety did really well. She's the odd cat who likes to hang out in her carrying case, so when I opened it up and pointed, she went right in and slept the entire 4-hour journey, including through the worst storm I've ever driven in. Bless her furry soul.
I don't know what I am, and I'm okay with that, at least for now. Impatience will probably return periodically. Mostly, these days,I feel as if I'm in a lucid dream, albeit not the way it's usually defined. One of the benefits of lucid dreams, supposedly, is control. I've read that in a lucid dream I can do anything I want to do, control everything. That's supposed to be a good thing, but how is that different from ego living? In the nighttime dreaming state, I've had only one lucid dream in my life, but the hilarious result was that I woke up to know I was dreaming and then couldn't think of a single thing to do!! Now I realize I'm fine with living in a lucid dream, but the last thing I want is control over anything beyond remembering to say, "Whatever you want me to do or say today, I will do and say. Whatever you don't want me to do or say, I won't do or say." In other words, Thy Will Be Done. And then I get to be aware of whatever that that turns out to be today. This, apparently, for starters. : )
What a beautiful piece of writing and thought, Sean. Thank you so much..
Not knowing and being okay with not knowing feels about as close to the holy grail of spiritual practice as I can imagine. A lot of my own experience over the decades has been not knowing and being in denial about it, or not knowing and frantically studying in order to learn what I am.
Just relaxing into it - this is how it is - is immensely relieving and, as you point out, is actually a very creative space with a lot of potential.
How does the "being okay with not knowing" come about? We are such a vigorous species when it comes to fixing that which we perceive to be a problem. And "not knowing" is historically defined as a problem.
Your thoughts about lucid dreaming put me in the mind of Chuang Tzu's butterfly dream - which I have loved since I was a child, and which I have lately been reflecting on again. Do you know it? He falls asleep in a field of flowers and dreams he is a butterfly floating from blossom to blossom. When he wakes up he cannot decide if he is a man who dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterly dreaming he is a man.
I agree completely with you: so long as ego remains, so long as we cling to the right to choose/decide (which requires judgment which IS ego), then nothing has really changed.
I worried in this post I wasn't foregrounding this question enough: when we realize we don't know, how do we KNOW we don't know?
It feels to me - it is my experience, at this juncture of my study and practice anyway - that there is no such thing as lost or found. We are asleep at home and are waking up at home and, once we realize this and realize that we WANT to wake up, then there are some obvious things to "do" in the dream, most of which effectively arise out of "being okay with not knowing."
It turns out that love - I know you know you this - does not require us to know much at all. It is inherent. It's everything else that's cumbersome, complex, confusing and incoherent.
Anyway, thank you for sharing and for being here. I'm alway grateful when you share.
Sean there’s little I can say that hasn’t already been said in this post. You have shared your experience strength and hope but you lostness is love recently i was lying awake and i wasn’t struggling anymore,i saw clearly all my struggles were pointless yet nescessary to to bring me to see. This truly is a dream and there isn’t any thing only love. I. See the wisdom in the little poem broken toys the last line been. God says my child i couldn’t help you never did let go. Thanks again Sean
You're welcome, Sean. I appreciate that you are here and your kind words. A friend of mine says that it takes what it takes for us to reach the state of willingness to learn that we are free and that God is Love. That seems true to me, at least in my experience. Maybe I would say, it takes what it takes to reach the willingness to let go - let go and let God - that allows the peace that we are in truth to be remembered. Thanks for sharing, Sean. I hope all is well on your end.
It feels like believing I'm seperate and problems arise together, like two words for the same thing... it feels like problems are the activity of separation ... when I'm seperate I feel godless.
Thank you for sharing, Amanda. Yes - I agree the sense of problems and separation are concurrent arisings. I like very much how you framed it - "problems are the activity of separation."
"Godless" is a word I don't use a lot, but it feels like you are very clear. The experience of separation IS Godless. But also, separation is an illusion, so godlessness is as well.
The clarity is what's helpful. In my experience, that clarity is always healing, as it seems to open pathways for truth/reality/god/love to be revealed.
Thanks again, Amanda. I appreciate these insights.
What am I? Well I am nothing, or at least nothing other than Love. The Course says we have no problems, that all our problems have been solved. Without problems what am I ? I can ever be only Love, Love is all there is.
We can play in the play but the important thing is to know the Truth, that it is only ever a play, and the only true reality is Love. I am Love, you are Love all the rest is simply the ego at play. When you stop playing for even a moment, then you are with Love, with God, in the stillness of Truth.
So yes sit in stillness and remember yourself, remember the Truth of Love and know you are never apart from what you really are, simply Love.
A very thought provoking post today Sean, Thank You as Always, Suzy xxx
wow Sean - masterful! You have a gift! Thank you for taking the time to share your insights - for me what you said about complete emptying and having no a priori assumptions about what the answers to anything is is perfect. Can I really trust? Can I become a little child and look at the world with innocence and release my wounded scared lost view of the world? Absolutely I cannot without friends and mentors and guides - thank you for being that!
You're welcome, Tom, and thank you. It is a shared trail that we only discover AS we share it.
Thank you, too, for evoking the image of the child - the Innocent One Whose trust is total, and Who therefore never knows abandonment. In some ways, ACIM is a form of relearning the simplicity of innocence, and adopting its perspective.
I still find this hard to do - in part because the image evokes not only the innocence but also the vulnerability of the child, which I feel called to defend and protect. Which of course leads to the very Christian model of nonviolence, even unto death on a cross.
It is such a fruitful model for spiritual work.
Hope all is well, Tom - thank you again for being here 🙏🙏
Hello Sean;
I just wanted to say Thank God, truly, that there are still people like you willing to give and work on behalf of all of us. I'm still in ACIM infancy stage (who knows if I'll ever leave it?) and I can't tell you how reassuring it is to see you, up ahead on the path, holding a lantern and beckoning us forward.
Heartfelt Blessings to you & yours;
Sharon
Thank you for the kind words, Sharon.
I do think one of the clearest lessons for me in ACIM has been the gentle undoing of "you have to do this yourself." That was a big part of my life for a long time - be strong, be focused, don't follow crowds, et cetera. And I appreciate being coached to do my best, but the truth is, we are collaborators. We LOVE to cooperate.
And so part of my course practice has been trying to do that, even when it's hard and confusing. How do I connect with you (where you is anybody other than me)? How do I do this in a way that honors you and doesn't try to make it about me?
It seems to me that we have forgotten something fundamental about being relationship - which is easy, natural, flow-y and fun - and the work is to remember it, together.
So thank you for letting me know my little light is working, and please know I can only lift it because of those who are further along lifting theirs. Together we will undo the darkness and when and as we do we will realize we were never lost and there never was any darkness in the first place 🙏🙏
Thank you for being here and for sharing.
~ Sean
Thank you for this beautiful and meaningful reflection. I have been wrestling with so many questions that lead to the one question... and then wondering if the question is even relevant! I intuit that we are simply all pieces of one whole in some way or the other. That gives me enough of a starting point to know that we need to love ourselves and others as unconditionally as possible in every circumstance. Haven't gotten much past that. And I like the being patient and still. I think that's hard for most of us but it is sage advice indeed. The way out comes if we just stop and listen. So simple and so difficult for those of us dealing with daily drama, trying to find solutions "out there" and not searching within. Have a wonderful week!
Thank you, Heidi, for being here and for sharing.
So long as there is a nagging sense of dissatisfaction - some shred of fear, guilty, loneliness - then I think we have to go into it. I wrestle, too. I love this sentence that you wrote: "I intuit that we are simply all pieces of one whole in some way or the other," especially the "one way or another" which reminds me of Nancy's comment earlier, having to do with being okay with not knowing precisely.
There seems to be an important lesson in my life lately around uncertainty - specifically, learning to be okay with it, with not knowing and then becoming skillful, or fluent I guess, with the creative potential inherent in not-knowing.
Or something like that :) Anyway, thank you again for being here and doing the work. I'm very grateful.
~ Sean
Good morning Sean,
Just wanted to let you know how much I “needed” these words this morning as I wrest with the illusion of control in an unfolding situation. Thank you. I hope you and your family are well.
Love,
Cheryl
Thanks for letting me know it resonated, Cheryl. I appreciate your presence very much. All is well on our end - kids are growing up and moving on in good ways, and spring is springing all around. Thanks again for being here 🙏🙏
~ Sean
There's a beautiful song 'my missing peace ',and one of the lyrics is I'm searching for answers but all I really need is peace , is so true ,I recommend a listen ,thankyou for your gifts of wisdom
Thank you for sharing Gail - that's a beautiful song. And thank you for being here and reading. I'm very grateful 🙏🙏
~ Sean
This post really hit me today. The past week has been stressful with a move and I really related to: "The first rule of lost is, don't panic. The second is, be still." Yes, indeed. Thank you, Sean. Your posts are great reminders to me on my path with the Course.
Thank you for sharing, Margaret. I'm glad it's helpful.
And I'm glad the move went well and you are mostly settled. How did the cat do? I know sometimes those transitions can be especially challenging for our four-legged brothers and sisters.
I enjoyed your post as well:
https://margaretreyesdempsey.substack.com/p/fear-then-and-now
Yes - giving attention to the manifestations of fear without judging their form is so important. Body tells are important for me as well. They often feel like the Holy Spirit gently but firmly clapping its hands to bring me to attention, so that we can do the inner therapy.
Thank you again for reading and sharing and bearing witness to the progress. I'm very grateful 🙏🙏
~ Sean
Sweety did really well. She's the odd cat who likes to hang out in her carrying case, so when I opened it up and pointed, she went right in and slept the entire 4-hour journey, including through the worst storm I've ever driven in. Bless her furry soul.
Glad you enjoyed the post. Thank you!
I don't know what I am, and I'm okay with that, at least for now. Impatience will probably return periodically. Mostly, these days,I feel as if I'm in a lucid dream, albeit not the way it's usually defined. One of the benefits of lucid dreams, supposedly, is control. I've read that in a lucid dream I can do anything I want to do, control everything. That's supposed to be a good thing, but how is that different from ego living? In the nighttime dreaming state, I've had only one lucid dream in my life, but the hilarious result was that I woke up to know I was dreaming and then couldn't think of a single thing to do!! Now I realize I'm fine with living in a lucid dream, but the last thing I want is control over anything beyond remembering to say, "Whatever you want me to do or say today, I will do and say. Whatever you don't want me to do or say, I won't do or say." In other words, Thy Will Be Done. And then I get to be aware of whatever that that turns out to be today. This, apparently, for starters. : )
What a beautiful piece of writing and thought, Sean. Thank you so much..
Thank you, Nancy. I hope you are well.
Not knowing and being okay with not knowing feels about as close to the holy grail of spiritual practice as I can imagine. A lot of my own experience over the decades has been not knowing and being in denial about it, or not knowing and frantically studying in order to learn what I am.
Just relaxing into it - this is how it is - is immensely relieving and, as you point out, is actually a very creative space with a lot of potential.
How does the "being okay with not knowing" come about? We are such a vigorous species when it comes to fixing that which we perceive to be a problem. And "not knowing" is historically defined as a problem.
Your thoughts about lucid dreaming put me in the mind of Chuang Tzu's butterfly dream - which I have loved since I was a child, and which I have lately been reflecting on again. Do you know it? He falls asleep in a field of flowers and dreams he is a butterfly floating from blossom to blossom. When he wakes up he cannot decide if he is a man who dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterly dreaming he is a man.
I agree completely with you: so long as ego remains, so long as we cling to the right to choose/decide (which requires judgment which IS ego), then nothing has really changed.
I worried in this post I wasn't foregrounding this question enough: when we realize we don't know, how do we KNOW we don't know?
It feels to me - it is my experience, at this juncture of my study and practice anyway - that there is no such thing as lost or found. We are asleep at home and are waking up at home and, once we realize this and realize that we WANT to wake up, then there are some obvious things to "do" in the dream, most of which effectively arise out of "being okay with not knowing."
It turns out that love - I know you know you this - does not require us to know much at all. It is inherent. It's everything else that's cumbersome, complex, confusing and incoherent.
Anyway, thank you for sharing and for being here. I'm alway grateful when you share.
Love,
Sean
Sean there’s little I can say that hasn’t already been said in this post. You have shared your experience strength and hope but you lostness is love recently i was lying awake and i wasn’t struggling anymore,i saw clearly all my struggles were pointless yet nescessary to to bring me to see. This truly is a dream and there isn’t any thing only love. I. See the wisdom in the little poem broken toys the last line been. God says my child i couldn’t help you never did let go. Thanks again Sean
You're welcome, Sean. I appreciate that you are here and your kind words. A friend of mine says that it takes what it takes for us to reach the state of willingness to learn that we are free and that God is Love. That seems true to me, at least in my experience. Maybe I would say, it takes what it takes to reach the willingness to let go - let go and let God - that allows the peace that we are in truth to be remembered. Thanks for sharing, Sean. I hope all is well on your end.
~ Sean
❤️
It feels like believing I'm seperate and problems arise together, like two words for the same thing... it feels like problems are the activity of separation ... when I'm seperate I feel godless.
I really liked your post, and the exercises.
Amanda
Thank you for sharing, Amanda. Yes - I agree the sense of problems and separation are concurrent arisings. I like very much how you framed it - "problems are the activity of separation."
"Godless" is a word I don't use a lot, but it feels like you are very clear. The experience of separation IS Godless. But also, separation is an illusion, so godlessness is as well.
The clarity is what's helpful. In my experience, that clarity is always healing, as it seems to open pathways for truth/reality/god/love to be revealed.
Thanks again, Amanda. I appreciate these insights.
~ Sean
What am I? Well I am nothing, or at least nothing other than Love. The Course says we have no problems, that all our problems have been solved. Without problems what am I ? I can ever be only Love, Love is all there is.
We can play in the play but the important thing is to know the Truth, that it is only ever a play, and the only true reality is Love. I am Love, you are Love all the rest is simply the ego at play. When you stop playing for even a moment, then you are with Love, with God, in the stillness of Truth.
So yes sit in stillness and remember yourself, remember the Truth of Love and know you are never apart from what you really are, simply Love.
A very thought provoking post today Sean, Thank You as Always, Suzy xxx
You're welcome, Suzy. Thank you for being here 🙏🙏
~ Sean
"Ultimately, the goal of the Course is understanding that you are not here."
DR KENNETH WAPNICK 1942-2013
So, while I continue to play in the play thank You Sean, your wisdom is a true gift to us.💖🙏
wow Sean - masterful! You have a gift! Thank you for taking the time to share your insights - for me what you said about complete emptying and having no a priori assumptions about what the answers to anything is is perfect. Can I really trust? Can I become a little child and look at the world with innocence and release my wounded scared lost view of the world? Absolutely I cannot without friends and mentors and guides - thank you for being that!
Tom
You're welcome, Tom, and thank you. It is a shared trail that we only discover AS we share it.
Thank you, too, for evoking the image of the child - the Innocent One Whose trust is total, and Who therefore never knows abandonment. In some ways, ACIM is a form of relearning the simplicity of innocence, and adopting its perspective.
I still find this hard to do - in part because the image evokes not only the innocence but also the vulnerability of the child, which I feel called to defend and protect. Which of course leads to the very Christian model of nonviolence, even unto death on a cross.
It is such a fruitful model for spiritual work.
Hope all is well, Tom - thank you again for being here 🙏🙏
~ Sean
Absolutely brilliant, and just what I needed to hear this morning. So clear, and helpful. Thank you as always for sharing your gift Sean ! 🙏
You're welcome, Glenda. Thank you for being here, reading and sharing. I'm very grateful 🙏🙏
~ Sean