We all have the choice to put our thoughts and energy wherever we want. This is a freedom that can never be taken away no matter the circumstances. It's an inside job. With each thought, I create a certain vibration and I attract certain experiences. Becoming aware of these thoughts and how I use them or misuse them has been the greatest lesson of my study of A Course in Miracles. My thoughts create my reality and my life. In the process of watching them and learning from them, I discover how powerful a creator I really am.
Viktor Frankl, a survivor of the concentration camps in WWII, was able to overcome the harshness of the situation by guarding his thoughts. What was happening to his body throughout the experience was not as powerful as what was happening in his mind. He is quoted as saying "Everything can be taken from a man, but one thing, the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." It really is our thoughts and attitude about a situation which create the personal experience.
There is nothing that can interfere with this power of decision within me, unless I am unaware that I have the choice. So awareness is the key. Otherwise, my thought creations are susceptible to manipulation and conditioning from outside forces.
A Course in Miracles says "The Course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence." Mind wandering or sloppy thinking are the main source of blockage.
In other words, love is an experience beyond the thinking mind and our thoughts are actually interfering with the grasp of its reality. We often allow many thoughts to interfere with understanding love's truth. Understanding what love is requires us to set aside the conditioned assumptions and open our hearts and minds to something vastly different. It requires a passionate determination to experience love's full potential. It requires a commitment. A commitment to really look at all the obstacles I create (yes, only I create) with my thoughts that keep me separate from love's expression.
Clearly, I am experiencing something very different from love when I am in fear, worry, lack or confusion. All those things actually remind me that I'm way off track. They really should serve as my wake up call because the Course says my true inheritance is only love, peace, safety and joy.
So I believe that beyond those blocks and obstacles, love waits. Patiently. It doesn't judge me to be slow or misguided, it just waits. It is. It will wait eternally until I remember. It can't be described in language or words, it's a personal journey and discovery of the heart. It is understood in the silence. Its Real presence is the only Truth, everything else is the temporary illusion. Crazy. Do I really want to stay in this illusion?
"That is why the question 'What do you want'? must be answered. You are answering it every minute and every second and each moment of decision is anything but ineffectual." ACIM T-5.V.6:1-3
In my consciousness now, there seems to be nothing more important than Upping My Love Game. The trivial pursuits of my past are not as alluring. For over five decades, my thoughts and energy have gone toward materialism, competition, judgement, production, fear, worry, sickness, and many other false idols. I make a conscious choice to change my trajectory. I ask Spirit to hold my hand and gently assist me in uncovering my false ego thoughts and beliefs- the obstacles to the awareness of love's presence.
Love this quote. "Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen" by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Isn't that exciting? You are in the driver's seat and all you have to do is press the gas pedal. The universe will be right there with you in the passenger seat supporting your internal compass.
A Course of Love (another of my current studies along with Love and A Map to the Unaltered Soul) says "All your vast wanderings will be seen for what they are. All that you desired will be revealed as only two desires, the desire to love and the desire to be loved." Ch. 9, p. 78.
Sometimes I think I understand what love is but instead I realize I am just people pleasing, or worse, sacrificing my own happiness. I get caught up in the conditioning of our society. I have been enlightened and humbled through my studies to admit that I really know very little about this subject. And that is OK, loving myself means I accept exactly where I am right now. I trust all will be revealed in time. But I believe the process can be accelerated if I put my attention on it. I may even save myself decades of confusion.
Loving myself means that I embrace the adventure of the revealing. As I continue to experience new things about love's meaning and expression, it sometimes feels joyously earth shaking. At times it feels scary and my whole sense of balance is shaken. And sometimes...just sometimes, it gently washes over me and gets absorbed and my perception is forever expanded. What a gift it is to discover love instead of hate and separation. The more I learn, the more I want, and the more I want, the more it is given.
We all have many choices in this lifetime. How do we spend our time? How do we treat others? How do we serve the world? Who do we share our lives with? How do we care for our body? And the list goes on and on, but the decision to commit to knowing what love truly is, in my humble opinion, must be the most important. Can you imagine if we all started spending our time and energy on the pursuit of this education instead of the temporary Earthly games? And if love is eternal and is the only Truth (love always wins so they say), isn't it best to go ahead and make its understanding my priority?
Will you join me in Upping the Love Game?
Peace and Blessings,
Kristin