Illusions by thomas Blog entry

Blog: Journey of Light
by thomas

Illusions

We are the creators of illusions that keep us disconnected from the truth

Date: 7/20/2005 2:04:01 AM ( 19 y ) ... viewed 3478 times

I decided that for this particular entry I was going to ask for some divine inspiration. I had a couple of thoughts running through my head and instead of picking one of those I decided to ask God to lead me to the most important message I could share with others right at this time. I then had the feeling to open up the book, A Course of Miracles. I opened it up and read the passage. Unfortunately, the message did not immediately strike a chord within me. It gave me a few ideas to think about, but not one particular one that really inspired me. Due to that lack of inspiration, I decided to set it down and come back to it later. Well, several hours passed and I finally sat down and looked at the book. To my amazement, it was now open to a different page. So I read the passage and was inspired to write this message. To me that was a miracle.

So let me start by quoting A Course of Miracles. The passage the book was opened to was titled; Let not my mind deny the Thought of God. It begins with, “What makes the world seem real except your own denial of the truth that lies beyond? What but your thoughts of misery and death obscure the perfect happiness and the eternal life your father wills for you? And what could hide what cannot be concealed except illusion? What could keep from you what you already have except your choice to see it not, denying it is there?” It then ends with the following, “We count on God, and not upon ourselves, to give us certainty. And in His Name we practice as His Word directs we do. His sureness lies beyond our every doubt. His love remains beyond our every fear. The Thought of Him is still beyond all dreams and in our minds, according to His Will.”

There is just so much to think about in these words. The beginning part is filled with some really great questions that we all should begin to ask ourselves. In my view these questions are all centered on the issue of illusions. These illusions are the lies, misconceptions and judgments that we make and have made throughout our lives that prevent us from experiencing true joy and happiness. Unfortunately, we all have resisted and hidden the truth. And so you may ask, what is the truth? One of the great truths of the universe in my view anyway is the following: God is perfection. We are made in the image of God. Therefore we are perfection. There are probable a million other ways to put it, but this happens to be one way that resonates with me. I like the simplicity and logic of it. So the truth is that we are all perfect, every single one of us. Just the way we are. The beauty of perfection is that there is no need to improve upon it. There is nothing that we need that we don’t already have for perfection is also completeness. We are all complete. Just think for one moment how freeing that is. Yell it out. Heck we all should be screaming that from the rooftops. I am perfect. I am complete.

One of the great illusions that we all share is that we don’t have enough. That we are somehow incomplete. This feeling forces many of us to spend most of our lives searching and searching for that which will make us complete. Many times we don’t even have an inkling as to what will do the trick. Will more money, love, fame, recognition, respect or power do it? It is a tough lesson, but I think many of us have finally realized that these things can only make us feel better for a short time. They invariable lead us to needing more and more. Need is a vicious cycle that forces us to give our power and energy to that which is the subject of our need. It reminds me of the image of a person addicted to drugs whose appetite is so insatiable that they literally become a slave to it. There is never enough to fill the void that we have created within ourselves. That’s because this void was simple a creation of our illusions. We have hidden the truth of our own perfection. Need cannot exist in a state of perfection. So we must all breathe in the truth of our perfection and banish the illusion of need. This isn’t to say that we cannot chose to add more money, love, fame, recognition, respect or power to our lives. By choosing something, we are retaining our power. If we choose one of these things, we are making an empowered choice to add to our perfection. Not because we have to, but because we choose to. These things unto themselves are not harmful, instead it is the judgments and illusions we create about them that become harmful.

I would suggest banishing the word need from your vocabulary. This is something I have done in my own life. Instead, I use the words, choose or intend. I am sure there are others that are similar to these that will also work well. Use whichever one feels appropriate to you. Try to monitor the things you say. If you find yourself slipping and using the word need, immediately stop yourself and rephrase the sentence using one of these other words which I would call the power words. However, you may want to ask yourself why you slipped and used the “need” word. Begin to think in the opposite and train yourself to see how you already possess that which you think you need. This is not just an exercise in words alone for words are a reflection of how we think. The thinking is the core and that is the part we choose to work on. As an example I may have said in the past something like, “Wow I really need more money in my life.” Now I would say, “I choose to allow greater abundance in the form of money into my life.” The first sentence disempowers you and the second empowers you.

Another one of the great illusions or judgments that most of us share is that we are not good enough. Again this stands directly in contradiction to the truth of our perfection. Throughout most of our lives we all have allowed the thoughts, words and deeds of others tell us that we aren’t good enough. This state of not being good enough can take on so many different forms as well. It may present itself as not being smart enough, not pretty or handsome enough, not strong enough, not healthy enough, not thin enough, not big enough or not small enough. I think we all get the picture. What must be realized is that these are all judgments that we made a choice to believe. A person’s saying it didn’t make it so, it was our belief that it was so that made it true. So first, we must take responsibility for how we see ourselves. If we have negative self images, that is because we have created them. No one created them for us. Going through the motions of claiming responsibility has an added benefit. It allows us to take back our power. Armed with this power, we can begin to wipe away all the negative self talk and replace it with positive self talk. Through a positive discourse we can once again begin to feel the love that each of us has for ourselves. For who else can love you the way you can and who can truly love another who does not first love themself?

So these are just two examples of the illusions we have concerning ourselves, but there is a whole other part of the equation that we cannot overlook. How about all those illusions and judgments we have about God. I believe that many of these are born from our experiences with religion and the dogma they preach, although difficult life experiences can create them as well. I know from my own experience that many of my illusions and judgments about God were created by my faith in religion. These illusions hid the truth of God’s perfection. Just as I do not need anything, God does not need anything. God has unconditional love for all of us. That is a freeing notion as well. This is another element that can be added to our mantra. God is perfect. God is complete. It’s hard for so many of us to think that God can love us unconditionally. We are taught from such a young age that God needs for us to do such and such things or to be such and such a way. The amazing thing is that all of that is an illusion. Since we are perfect, how can God ask us to be something more than that? There exists no such state. You can’t be more than perfect.

Another illusion concerning God is the belief that God withholds or takes away. How many of us have an inner dialog that sounds like any one of these or numerous others: why hasn’t God healed me yet, why hasn’t God sent me my soul mate, why did God let my house burn, why did God take my job from me? We have created these inner dialogs because we do not see the truth of God’s perfection. If we believed, than God would be a giving not a withholding or taking power. So the question becomes, if God is perfect and is always giving to me than why does my life seem to be as miserable as it is? The answer lies once again within us. Our illusions and judgments prevent us from receiving God. They create resistance and there is no way to receive that which you resist no matter how much you need, want or even choose to have for that matter.

In order to free ourselves from these illusions, we must take back the responsibility for everything that has been created in our lives. Each one of us is a creator in the same manner as God. Everything in our lives is of our own creation. Having accepted this fact, the question of why we are creating certain things must be asked. We could rewrite the above questions as follows: why haven’t I accepted God’s healing, why haven’t I allowed my soul mate into my life, why did I create the experience of a house fire, why did I create the experience of losing my job? Usually the answer to these questions is found within one of those nasty illusions or judgments we hold about ourselves. Some of which were detailed above. The important point in this is to recognize that responsibility lays with us not God. Just as before, with responsibility comes power. This power enables us to receive God’s love and assistance and allows us to create experiences in our lives that bring us greater joy and happiness. And who wouldn’t choose to add more happiness and joy into their life?

I choose to end this message be reiterating the overall themes. I can put them into two categories: the illusions and the truth.

Illusion – God needs. God is not good enough. We need. We are not good enough.
Truth – God is perfect. We are perfect.

Isn’t it funny how the truth is always simpler?