We are not leaving the Self to explore, because the Self is the source and cause of exploration as well as the source and cause of discovery. And yet the Self is far more than you have experienced as yourself in the past.
The Dialogues, 14.2
Sunday is my day of rest. I come to my window at some point each Sunday and write about something that’s happened in my week. I like doing this. I get my bit of time to just . . . create whatever I create. I like photography, so I find that choosing a photo to go along with my post is also pleasurable. Besides posting here, I also post occasionally on a Facebook page. This, I will admit, I have not liked as much. I complain that I am too old for Facebook. I complain that I don’t get it. People don’t really connect on the darn thing, I’ve been known to say. Yet a few connections have been made, and so my publisher suggested that I would perhaps enjoy a Facebook Group. It would, he said, provide a place for deeper connections.
Before long, some basics went up to get the group going. It took me a while longer to relate with the way I would like to do a group. But then, when I got to that place—that place of feeling excited about what could happen, I was ready to make it “my own.” I did this a few days ago.
What making it “my own” means to me is doing it in a way in which I can truly be engaged with it. I don’t know about you, but with me, this has grown to be essential. I see it as part of the call of this Course to be who we are. It’s like doing what you’re doing from your heart—rather than because it “seems like a good idea.” Finding a way to do something “in our own way” means we’re listening to ourselves.
What got me to that place is the audio tapes I’m preparing of A Course of Love. I’ve written about them more than a few times in my posts. The experience of reading and listening to, or “receiving” them again, has thoroughly surprised me. I’ve also been sharing them with a few friends and we’ve been exchanging responses. What we each have discovered is that “listening” to the chapters (much more so than reading them) effortlessly turns off our thinking minds. As we spoke spontaneously of our experiences, we could see how our “reception” of the words began to connect and join our inner and outer lives. We began to explore our experience. It was the thought of that exploration that made a group appeal to me.
All the inner, spiritual, loving, or divine voices we hear are part of unity consciousness, which means they are not “out there” somewhere, but in us, in our hearts, which are our connection to all that is—love. The other voice we hear, the voice that denies the sound and tenor of love, is of the pattern or habit of the ego or of learning—of the way in which we were taught to learn. That voice is much more “out there” in the sense that it is part of the physical world. It is attached to form. It is linked to our thinking. Our thinking is conditioned, taught to us as we learned to speak. In order to hear the voice of love, whether it comes to us as our own, or in the form of a guide, is a matter of traveling back to love (as Jesus says in ACOL Chapter 19), unlearning as we go, all that we took on as we grew into separate, thinking beings that could listen only to the voice of our thoughts, or the thoughts of others. This is about discovering and exploring a new way of knowing that is at the heart of this Course and the reason for its coming.
I like the idea of sharing the audio tapes, and have been granted the permission and explored the technology that will allow it. I can link them to the group, one chapter at a time, and the group can then share the experiences they elicit. I’ll post more on this as it gets going.
A favorite passage of mine from The Treatises is one that says “a response is not an interpretation.” A response is about what is felt. We all need practice in expressing our feelings and responses. We can do that together. So . . . join if you’re interested. Share a bit about yourself as we get ready to start on this new exploration. And I’ll proceed toward setting up the audio, which will only be available here (until the audio book is ready for production).
From A Treatise on the Art of Thought:
The truth is the truth and not dependent upon your definition of it. A response is not an interpretation. A response is an expression of who you are rather than of what you believe something else to be.
… Interpretation but gives you opinions about those things that you experience. Response reveals the truth to you because it reveals the truth of you.
… The joy you have thought has come to you from an interpretation that is uniquely your own is as nothing compared to the joy that will come to you from a response that is uniquely you. T1:4.18-20
