One who sees herself as a person subject to the world and to her experience in the world reacts to thought, emotion and perception as if it is real, which is  judgment and continues the manifestation of illusory energies.

One who sees herself as the creative process chooses her way of being  (discernment) by remembering that her way of being is  creative spirit.

Today’s reading recommends that we remember we are the creative process by choosing our way of being. It says:

Awakening comes from the Heart, so let the Heart lead in all things. The mind is the great receiver. But with the Heart, sort through that which is received. Let the Heart and mind together give to spirit, so that the deliverer receives, always, through the Heart.

What does the previous excerpt mean when it says, “Let the Heart and mind together give to spirit”?

When NTI Ephesians refers to “mind” and “spirit,” spirit is synonymous with consciousness and mind is synonymous with manifestation, which includes thought, emotion, and perception. When NTI Ephesians refers to Heart, it refers to spiritual intuition. So, when NTI Ephesians asks us to let the “Heart and mind together give to spirit,” it asks us to practice discernment regarding every thought, emotion and perception.

As we learned on Day 36, discernment is determining the difference between:

• personal thought and self-will, which is ego
• thought and will that arise from beyond the personal self

Both options are mind, or manifestations. A Course in Miracles  differentiates between them by calling them “wrong mind” and “right mind.” The Code differentiates between them by calling them “lower vibration” and “higher vibration,” yet they are both code.

Spiritual intuition (Heart) is the part of us that knows the difference between wrong-minded lower vibrations and right-minded higher vibrations. When we look at the thoughts, emotions and perceptions that are received from consciousness with spiritual intuition, we discern the higher vibrational options so we can make those choices. If we do not look at the options received from consciousness with spiritual intuition, we are likely to choose the lower vibrational options because they appeal to the personal self.

Again:

One who sees himself as a person who is subject to the world and his experience reacts  to thought, emotion and perception as if it is real.

One who sees himself as the creative process chooses his way of being  (discernment) by remembering that his way of being is creative spirit.

It’s beneficial to drop the idea that you are a person, adopt the idea that you are the creative process, and then use discernment to live from the right-minded higher vibrations. If you forget, and you react to conditions as if you are a person, simply return to the higher vibrational choices as soon as you remember. Don’t judge yourself for forgetting, because judgment is just another low vibrational choice.

As today’s reading says:

If you are not joyous because of what you see, ask of God (consciousness) differently by remembering who you are and how you ask.

You ‘ask’ with your believing attention. In other words, whatever you accept as true  is the experience you ask for from the creative principle, and the creative principle always gives you what you ask for.

Note: When NTI says, “You may decide what you want, ask for what you want, and you will receive in kind,” it means you will receive truth (or an experience that points toward truth) or illusion.

Remember what we learned on Day 170. From consciousness’ point of view, there are only two things you can want: truth or illusion. Therefore, in every moment you are asking for one or the other, and “you will receive in kind.”

Today’s reading makes two primary points:

1. Past choices appear in the present, which provides the opportunity to choose differently now.
2. Through love, you shall know only love.

On Day 198, I provided a link to a message and audio called, “Is Attack Real?” When I received that message, I posted it to an online discussion group where I posted regularly at the time. A spiritual teacher had started the group, although he rarely posted there himself. The group was moderated, and every post was approved before others saw it. That day, the moderators approved my post. However, after the post was approved, the spiritual teacher who owned the group wrote a strongly worded email to the moderators and Cc’d me. He told them not to allow any more of my posts in the group. He called me a fake who made up everything I wrote because I wanted to be a famous spiritual teacher.

When I first saw his email, I felt attacked. I saw his face in my mind’s eye. It was red and all scrunched up with anger. And then I remembered the definition of love that came from the very message I had posted that day:

Love is giving through spirit to spirit that which spirit requests.

I realized that this situation appeared before me now because of past thoughts I had believed. I realized I had believed in attack in the past, so it made perfect sense that I should appear attacked now. I realized that I was simply witnessing the creative principle in process, and it was working in exactly the way it works.

What I think, I see.
What I see, I experience.

As I looked at the situation with this clarity, the image in my mind’s eye changed. Instead of seeing this spiritual teacher with an angry red face, his face softened into a smile. He stood before me in a waiter’s tuxedo holding a silver tray. He offered me a gift on a silver platter!

This teacher, through his current apparent attack, offered me the opportunity to see the creative process in motion. I had believed attack in the past, and so now attack came back to me through the creative process. Since the creative process is love, that means that I looked upon love appearing as  attack.

As I chose to see love through my understanding of the creative process, I realized this teacher offered me the opportunity to let go of the belief in attack. I chose to accept his gift. When I did, my heart filled with joy!

Through choosing to see the creative process and all of its effects  as love, I injected love into the process instead of the belief in attack, and love is what I experienced.

What I think, I see. [Attack]

What I see, I experience. [Attack]

Discernment : Take out attack; replace it with love.

Free redo : What I see, I experience. [Love]

Note: The spiritual teacher didn’t offer me this opportunity on purpose. He actually felt threatened by my post, believed his thoughts and issued an order to block all of my future posts. However, all of his thoughts came from the creative process, which included my prior belief in attack. The creative process delivered what I had asked for through my prior believing attention.

The choice to see love instead of appearance is always available to us. All we have to do is remember that any and every appearance is created through a perfectly allowing creative process, and perfect allowance is  love. Therefore, every appearance appears through love, which means it is love.

Note: If you are interested in the full story about Is Attack Possible?, listen to parts 1, 2 & 3, which are archived on this page starting at 2/28/10. You may want to listen over the next few days, since each part is 1 hour and 15 minutes long.

Jesus once said:

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. ~ Matthew 7:12

Today’s reading explains the deeper meaning of that teaching. It says:

Therefore, give as you would receive. Give to the mind that which you would receive of spirit, for they are one. That which you give you must receive, because the mind is the spirit. The mind is the great receiver and spirit, the great deliverer. But spirit receives as mind receives, and mind delivers as does spirit.

“Spirit” is synonymous with consciousness. The “mind” is synonymous with manifestation, which includes thought, emotion, and perception.

The reading says, “mind is the great receiver.” That means that manifestation is an effect. The thoughts that come into the mind are the effect of a cause. The emotions that you feel are the effect of a cause. Everything that is perceived through the senses is the effect of a cause.

Spirit is “the great deliverer.” That means that spirit (consciousness) is the cause. To fully understand this, it’s helpful to look at yourself and your experience.

When you are worried about something, annoyed by something, frustrated by something, etcetera, what are you actually doing?

If you look very carefully, you will notice that whenever you are upset, you are giving believing attention to a thought, emotion, or perception.

What is attention?

Attention is made of consciousness. That means attention is  consciousness. Therefore, it is spirit.

When you give believing attention to a thought, emotion or perception, you enliven it with consciousness. In that way, you deliver that particular energy through the creative principle to consciousness as manifestation. The energy is reprocessed and manifests as thought, emotion, and/or perception.

Believing attention is declaration. It is  judgment. It is the mechanism that creates experience.

Believing attention comes through the combination of mind (believing) and spirit (attention), which means the two are equally part of the process and cannot actually be divided. Any apparent division in the explanation is for simplification purposes only.

One who sees himself as a person who is subject to the world and his experience reacts to thought, emotion and perception as if it is real, which is  judgment and continues the manifestation of illusory energies.

One who sees himself as the creative process chooses his way of being  (discernment) by remembering that his way of being is creative spirit.

On Day 183, we learned:

To give is to allow truth into the creative principle by not clogging the creative principle with untruth.

The purpose of consciousness now is awakening to itself as consciousness. That is the current evolutionary motion. (Reference Day 195.) One who realizes this and also realizes that he is the creative principle will be at peace in all circumstances—be empty awareness or be with a rested mind—so that the fog of illusory experience can clear, and consciousness can see itself as itself.

When one is at peace or actively resting away from believing (rest-accept-trust), one isn’t clogging the creative principle with illusory energies. That reduces distraction, which helps that one and the whole to receive insight, guidance, and to see with true perception. True perception is realizing consciousness as consciousness instead of thinking it is the many things that are perceived through the senses.