Carrie
2011-01-12 14:26:46 UTC
Journey Beyond Words
by Brent Haskell, PhD.D.O. 1994
INTRODUCTION
Greetings. I am Jeshua. I have come to discuss with you
A Course in Miracles.
Even as you begin,
Be aware that it is possible
For you to be misled by its name
In your world,
When you hear the word "course," you think of learning.
But you are not here to learn.
You are here to experience.
And you will find, with great joy,
That there is a dramatic difference between the two.
Learning is nothing more
Than a process undertaken by your brain.
But experience goes beyond the "learning" of your brain.
It goes beyond your thinking, beyond your analyzing,
To the very core of your being,
Wherein lies the true nature of what you are,
Which is the Son of God.
Hear me well.
If you undertake this Course
As an exercise in academic learning,
As the study of ideas to be mastered,
You will fail.
And in your failing, you will miss this Course,
And its miracles,
Entirely.
Your entry into this Course is your choice
To experience,
To live,
And to become.
,
The purpose of this Course is absolute peace.
Within peace there is the total absence of conflict.
Within peace there is never doubt, only total certainty.
Within peace there is never questioning.
Because there is never questioning, there is never fear.
And because there is never fear,
There is only room for love.
Love is freedom. Nothing more.
To the extent that you allow freedom to your brother,
You shall receive, in the exact same measure, freedom,
Which is love.
If you, in your thinking, would restrict your brother,
Thus to deny him freedom, thus to deny him love,
Then you must deny yourself that selfsame freedom and love.
In the absence of your freedom,
In the absence of love,
You will experience conflict, .
And you will not be at peace.
Again, I tell you,
This Course is nothing more than a pathway
Which shall lead you to the experience of total peace.
Such peace is not something you can think about,
Nor something you can debate.
Indeed, if you ever find yourself wondering
Whether you are at peace,
I promise you,
You are not.
As you approach the daily lessons,
The first two-thirds, as I have told you,
Are for the purpose of breaking down, if you will,
The ghosts you bring with you.
These ghosts, beloved masters of your lives,
Are the thinking, the concepts, the thoughts,
The patterns of behavior,
Generated from within your mind,
Which imprison you in this world of illusion,
And keep you from the peace of which I speak.
So bear in mind,
We are not trying to take anything away from you,
Rather to help you dissolve barriers,
Barriers to the state of peace.
As we help you to break down these walls,
You will realize, first in thoughts,
But then, and this is the essence,
You shall EXPERIENCE the truth we bring.
You will experience it with knowing and certainty
At the deepest level of your being, :
\Far beyond the thoughts themselves.
In the knowing, in the certainty, in the experiencing,
barriers will truly dissolve. ,
And you shall be free.
You are here to learn to live,
Not to learn to think.
Indeed, you will discover with great rejoicing
That your thinking, in great measure,
Is what keeps you from being truly alive.
Ponder for a moment your idea of anything.
That idea, that thought, is but an interpretation.
It is a choice you make,
A choice which defines for you
That which you seem to be experiencing.
I have come to tell you, and hear this well,
That what you perceive, what you interpret,
Which is based upon your thoughts,
Has nothing whatsoever to do with reality.
This is a description of the major barrier
Which separates you from your peace.
In order for you to have a thought about something,
It is absolutely essential
That the thought be preceded by an experience.
Without the experience itself, the thought could not be born.
So it is that your thoughts are always interpretations,
Based not upon this moment,
But upon experiences you have had in what you call the past.
Love is freedom.
Recall those words.
Say them over and over and over again,
Until the day comes
When you shall experience them as your reality.
Every thought, every opinion,
Every interpretation which enters your mind
Is based upon what you perceive as the past.
Therefore, when you perceive anything,
What you are doing is saying,
"I am choosing to demand, insofar as I am able,
That this entity, this aspect of Creation,
Which by its nature exists in a state of freedom
I am choosing to demand that this being
NOT BE FREE."
For when you, in your thinking,
Choose to interpret, based upon the past,
What another being IS,
And then believe that interpretation to be reality,
You have made yourself the enemy of that being's freedom.
For you are saying,
"I choose to demand, for my purposes,
That you be as you WERE,
Indeed, not even as you were, but as I PERCEIVED you were.
And now, this moment, you do not exist.
For you are, I tell you, what you WERE."
Do you see that this is the absence of love,
And the absence of freedom?
And if you wanted to be vicious,
You could even call it hatred.
Hear me well.
When you form an opinion of any aspect of Creation,
INCLUDING YOURSELF,
It is but your wish to rob the universe, and yourself,
Of freedom, and therefore, of love.
Thus A Course in Miracles says, "I see only the past." (L 7)
And, "I am never upset for the reason I think." (L 5)
Deep within you there is total peace.
There is the absence of conflict.
There is a wellspring of complete freedom, which is love,
And which must be synonymous with vibrant joy.
That is your right, that is your inheritance,
As the Son of God.
And nothing can take it away from you.
In your thinking,
You can choose to imagine that you do not have it.
Which is exactly what you have done.
Thus the purpose of all the initial lessons
Is to help you to experience the realization
That the absence of peace,
The presence of conflict,
The absence of love,
The absence of freedom,
All stem only from your imagination,
And ultimately, from your thinking,
Which must be of the past,
And which is your desire to deny freedom
To the entire universe, and to yourself.
You have come into this world, onto this earth,
To imagine what it would be like to live in a state of separation.
But deep within you is the knowing
That you are not separate from any aspect of Creation,
And can never be.
So at the deepest level of your truth,
You realize that your goal must be to overcome
That which you have come here to experience.
And that you SHALL do.
The doing shall require of you
That you be willing to challenge every value,
Every thought, every notion which you hold.
Do not fear. Rather rejoice.
For your willingness shall be the doorway
That opens unto love, and joy, and freedom.
I tell you, as you open your being to this Course in Miracles,
The barriers will dissolve,
And the world will take on new meaning.
Your life will blossom, and grow,
And expand into an eternity of immense joy,
Into a world of light,
And into an unfathomable beauty of which I cannot speak.
For truly, your minds cannot comprehend
The measure of that which is your right,
And your inheritance,
As the Son of God.
Blessings upon you all. That is all.
by Brent Haskell, PhD.D.O. 1994
INTRODUCTION
Greetings. I am Jeshua. I have come to discuss with you
A Course in Miracles.
Even as you begin,
Be aware that it is possible
For you to be misled by its name
In your world,
When you hear the word "course," you think of learning.
But you are not here to learn.
You are here to experience.
And you will find, with great joy,
That there is a dramatic difference between the two.
Learning is nothing more
Than a process undertaken by your brain.
But experience goes beyond the "learning" of your brain.
It goes beyond your thinking, beyond your analyzing,
To the very core of your being,
Wherein lies the true nature of what you are,
Which is the Son of God.
Hear me well.
If you undertake this Course
As an exercise in academic learning,
As the study of ideas to be mastered,
You will fail.
And in your failing, you will miss this Course,
And its miracles,
Entirely.
Your entry into this Course is your choice
To experience,
To live,
And to become.
,
The purpose of this Course is absolute peace.
Within peace there is the total absence of conflict.
Within peace there is never doubt, only total certainty.
Within peace there is never questioning.
Because there is never questioning, there is never fear.
And because there is never fear,
There is only room for love.
Love is freedom. Nothing more.
To the extent that you allow freedom to your brother,
You shall receive, in the exact same measure, freedom,
Which is love.
If you, in your thinking, would restrict your brother,
Thus to deny him freedom, thus to deny him love,
Then you must deny yourself that selfsame freedom and love.
In the absence of your freedom,
In the absence of love,
You will experience conflict, .
And you will not be at peace.
Again, I tell you,
This Course is nothing more than a pathway
Which shall lead you to the experience of total peace.
Such peace is not something you can think about,
Nor something you can debate.
Indeed, if you ever find yourself wondering
Whether you are at peace,
I promise you,
You are not.
As you approach the daily lessons,
The first two-thirds, as I have told you,
Are for the purpose of breaking down, if you will,
The ghosts you bring with you.
These ghosts, beloved masters of your lives,
Are the thinking, the concepts, the thoughts,
The patterns of behavior,
Generated from within your mind,
Which imprison you in this world of illusion,
And keep you from the peace of which I speak.
So bear in mind,
We are not trying to take anything away from you,
Rather to help you dissolve barriers,
Barriers to the state of peace.
As we help you to break down these walls,
You will realize, first in thoughts,
But then, and this is the essence,
You shall EXPERIENCE the truth we bring.
You will experience it with knowing and certainty
At the deepest level of your being, :
\Far beyond the thoughts themselves.
In the knowing, in the certainty, in the experiencing,
barriers will truly dissolve. ,
And you shall be free.
You are here to learn to live,
Not to learn to think.
Indeed, you will discover with great rejoicing
That your thinking, in great measure,
Is what keeps you from being truly alive.
Ponder for a moment your idea of anything.
That idea, that thought, is but an interpretation.
It is a choice you make,
A choice which defines for you
That which you seem to be experiencing.
I have come to tell you, and hear this well,
That what you perceive, what you interpret,
Which is based upon your thoughts,
Has nothing whatsoever to do with reality.
This is a description of the major barrier
Which separates you from your peace.
In order for you to have a thought about something,
It is absolutely essential
That the thought be preceded by an experience.
Without the experience itself, the thought could not be born.
So it is that your thoughts are always interpretations,
Based not upon this moment,
But upon experiences you have had in what you call the past.
Love is freedom.
Recall those words.
Say them over and over and over again,
Until the day comes
When you shall experience them as your reality.
Every thought, every opinion,
Every interpretation which enters your mind
Is based upon what you perceive as the past.
Therefore, when you perceive anything,
What you are doing is saying,
"I am choosing to demand, insofar as I am able,
That this entity, this aspect of Creation,
Which by its nature exists in a state of freedom
I am choosing to demand that this being
NOT BE FREE."
For when you, in your thinking,
Choose to interpret, based upon the past,
What another being IS,
And then believe that interpretation to be reality,
You have made yourself the enemy of that being's freedom.
For you are saying,
"I choose to demand, for my purposes,
That you be as you WERE,
Indeed, not even as you were, but as I PERCEIVED you were.
And now, this moment, you do not exist.
For you are, I tell you, what you WERE."
Do you see that this is the absence of love,
And the absence of freedom?
And if you wanted to be vicious,
You could even call it hatred.
Hear me well.
When you form an opinion of any aspect of Creation,
INCLUDING YOURSELF,
It is but your wish to rob the universe, and yourself,
Of freedom, and therefore, of love.
Thus A Course in Miracles says, "I see only the past." (L 7)
And, "I am never upset for the reason I think." (L 5)
Deep within you there is total peace.
There is the absence of conflict.
There is a wellspring of complete freedom, which is love,
And which must be synonymous with vibrant joy.
That is your right, that is your inheritance,
As the Son of God.
And nothing can take it away from you.
In your thinking,
You can choose to imagine that you do not have it.
Which is exactly what you have done.
Thus the purpose of all the initial lessons
Is to help you to experience the realization
That the absence of peace,
The presence of conflict,
The absence of love,
The absence of freedom,
All stem only from your imagination,
And ultimately, from your thinking,
Which must be of the past,
And which is your desire to deny freedom
To the entire universe, and to yourself.
You have come into this world, onto this earth,
To imagine what it would be like to live in a state of separation.
But deep within you is the knowing
That you are not separate from any aspect of Creation,
And can never be.
So at the deepest level of your truth,
You realize that your goal must be to overcome
That which you have come here to experience.
And that you SHALL do.
The doing shall require of you
That you be willing to challenge every value,
Every thought, every notion which you hold.
Do not fear. Rather rejoice.
For your willingness shall be the doorway
That opens unto love, and joy, and freedom.
I tell you, as you open your being to this Course in Miracles,
The barriers will dissolve,
And the world will take on new meaning.
Your life will blossom, and grow,
And expand into an eternity of immense joy,
Into a world of light,
And into an unfathomable beauty of which I cannot speak.
For truly, your minds cannot comprehend
The measure of that which is your right,
And your inheritance,
As the Son of God.
Blessings upon you all. That is all.