Money is one of the devices that the ego has come up with. It uses it to evalute the "value and worth" of everything. It puts a "price" on everything that happens based on a hierarchy of illusions. It then assigns that if you have more money you generally have more freedom or access. If you have been deemed not valuable enough, then you have reduced access.
This then sets up a whole bartering/bargaining/trade/profit system in which some things are exchanged for other things. This is entirely based on the notion that giving and receiving are separate, and therefore if you give the money you have lost the money. And now in order for the exchange to be 'fair', an equal perceived 'value' has to be returned. Despite the fact that generally speaking everything is sold at a fake profit ie an inflated value more than it's worth, further compounding the lies.
The end result is a civilization that for the most part (yes there are exceptions) most people are required to live within the money system and operate under its laws. This leads to all manner of horrendous "physical" inequalities, such as people not being able to afford food while other people are able to buy mansions.
If a person is born with certain traits and abilities that are 'valuable' then they can "make more money" easier than others. And that means people are not considered of equal value. Worth is reduced to a measure of how many numbers have been assigned to you. If you don't have the numbers, you're not going to be able to enjoy that fancy house and car. If you have the numbers, you can make penis-shaped space rockets.
Not to buy into the ILLUSION that suffering is real or that injustices are true injustices, or that there are real victims, or that anyone is truly better or worse off. But on the physical level for sure there are tremendous inequalities, life becomes a constant competition, business is all about exploiting and competing, and either you've got the moolah or you're stuck.
It's not the rich people's fault or the poor people's fault. It's the ego and its use of this device to hem people in and designate special favors. The valuing of people and what they do by a numbering system as to how valuable or worthwhile it is. Teaching everyone since an early age that if they want money they have to work harder and smarter. And if they can't, they're screwed in some dead-end job. If all the money of the world was evenly distributed amongst everyone, 99% of people would have a 'better life'.
That said, it would require everyone to stop evaluating worth based on its monetary value or "what it can get", stop doing stuff on the basis of whether "you'll get paid", and give up the notion of tying freedom and access in to whether you have enough coins or not. It's a kind of prison system in which some people are allowed to roam free while others stay locked up. It won't ever be fair. Only the equal treatment of all God's children is fair and specialness is not of God.
Either way, it's not having the money or not having the money that makes you happy. It's transcending the entire sytem.
"Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all the strange and twisted laws which you have set up to save you. You really think that you would starve unless you have stacks of green paper strips and piles of metal discs."
"The dreaming of the world takes many forms, because the body seeks in many ways to PROVE it is autonomous and real. It puts things on itself that it has bought with little metal discs or paper strips the world proclaims as valuable and good. It works to get them, doing senseless things, and tosses them away for senseless things it does not NEED, and does not even WANT. It hires OTHER bodies, that they may protect it, and collect more senseless things that it can call its own. It looks about for special bodies which can SHARE its dream. Sometimes it dreams it is a conqueror of bodies weaker than itself. But in some phases of the dream, it is the slave of bodies which would hurt and torture it."
Have you ever noticed that the physical form or shape of objects, is touted as making something "unique", but really they're all the same thing?
In the company I work for I have to add thousands of products to a website, and so I see all these variations on a theme.
Then I find myself asking myself, why would anyone want to have 3000 different types of this item? One with a little but of a more rounded look, one with more fancy bits, one in a different color, one with shiny metal on it. And companies are churning out these products by the thousands as if they are all important and worth having. We have become quite obsessed with possession of such crap.
After a while I become completely disillusioned, which is a good thing.
The human race has become really good at manipulating forms, designing objects, and creating appearances of differences. The explosion of "creating" (making stuff) is on a roll.
Since the industrial revolution especially we've really gone wild exploring every conceivable "version" of the same thing, every way to take advantage of material properties and differences, and all the different forms we can come up with.
Amazon now sells almost half a billion products, and most of them are just variations on a theme. There are now 60,000 t-shirts for sale. Do you really think the differences between these t-shirt is SO VAST that they are all completely unique? How many ways are there to cover up the upper torso?
This is something of a madness which humanity has pursued and doesn't really know how to stop pursuing. This notion that if the form is different, it is a unique thing. some forms or shapes are more desirable, and finding the "best ones" is some kind of salvation. This is mental illness.
Unique tools are needed to solve unique problems. The ego loves this. It loves to create new appearances of unique situations which call for a custom solution which is nothing like any other solution, does not extend to solve any other problem, and keeps the solution isolated and limited to this one need.
This belief that all forms are unique and different and worth existing, is the ego's insanity. Exactly why do we need 60,000 t-shirts, or 100,000 different kinds of trousers, or a million songs?
You might say well, this is human nature, to create and express and explore. No, it's not. It's UNNATURAL.
Personally I have grown significantly disillusioned with physical objects. To want to have certain special objects or toys or whatever, to try to receive their specialness or to think that I am somehow better off by choosing exactly the right items.
I used to buy into the illusion of differences of form much more and wanted to have this item or that item or be very careful about choosing. Now I care much less. Much more laid back in terms of how I think these things are going to save me or how I need to have the best this or that.
Sure it can be fun to shop, no harm done. But perceptually and psychologically, "civilized humanity" has become lost in its obsession with forms - particularly the illusion of form, its appearances and its special isolated different properties. This is a huge world filled with junk.
It's funny when Jesus talks about this and how we think that we're doing important things, earning little bits of paper and metal discs, spending them on ridiculous things we don't need or really want, to decorate and adorn our fake bodies and our fake homes, all as substitutes and distractions away from God. lol
"This world holds nothing that I want".
"Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all the strange and twisted laws you have set up to save you. You really think that you would starve unless you have stacks of green paper strips and piles of metal discs. You really think a small round pellet or some fluid pushed into your veins through a sharpened needle will ward off disease and death. You really think you are alone unless another body is with you.
It is insanity that thinks these things. You call them laws, and put them under different names in a long catalogue of rituals that have no use and serve no purpose. You think you must obey the "laws" of medicine, of economics and of health. Protect the body, and you will be saved.
These are not laws, but madness. "
ngel: Would you like to come and be with God now?
Person: No, I've got to get the dishes washed.
Angel: He's ready for you.
Person: After I've done the dishes I've got to go fold some paper and put it inside some other paper and put it in a hole in the wall.
Angel: That seems very important.
Person: That's just the start. I have to write on some paper and put it inside some other paper with some shiny metal discs and send it to a lady down the street.
Angel: God will see you now.
Person: But the yard is a mess, I have to plant some bushes.
Angel: God loves you, you know.
Person: Yah but my tv broke and now I have to get the radiator fixed.
Angel: God's still waiting for you.
Person: Well I can't come now, I've got to mow the lawn.
Angel: He's very happy to see you.
Person: I'm busy.
Angel: *taps on the shoulder* yoo-hoo
Person: Darn it, I'm out of milk, I have to go to the store.
Angel: You don't need that, God loves you.
Person: I've got to have milk, it goes with cereal.
Angel: God loves you more than cereal you know.
Person: Where's my keys, I lost my keys.
Angel: Sounds like a good way to not be with God right now
Person: Quit bugging me, I've got things to do.
Angel: *smiles* Is there somewhere to be that's more important than God?
Person: Ummmm ?????
Although there are some parts of this world which seem appealing, welcoming, pleasant, enjoyable etc.... we need to always contrast.... do I want this, OR do I want God? Because God did not create this world and the home that He created for you is not the world that seems visible here. The visibility of this world was made to conceal the real world and to make you fixated on what is not real.
There are small, little, stupid things in this world which we seem to get upset about which is as if to say, this little tiny thing is more important to me than being with God. So if I'm pissed about someone moving my cheese or someone failing to send me the proper email or someone posted something offensive on facebook or someone stepped on my flower bed, I better be clear that the value I'm giving to these things is in opposition to the value of God. I want these things more than I want God. I think they are more important than being with God.
And when you look at that in that perspective - you're trading this huge amount of love from God for a tiny little speck of illusory rubbish that isn't even important, that really shows you how ridiculous our little world is.
So then next time I have a shit fit about an item being in the wrong place or someone went into the bathroom before me when I needed to pee or a bird crapped on my car window or someone stole my pen, I need to remember... do I want this more than God? Do I want to be right about this more than I want to be happy with God? Is this tiny little insignificant illusory object more important to me than God's love?
What are you worth? The tiny gifts that we give, purchased with "pieces of paper and metal discs" DEVALUE you and say, you are only worth this. And yet these gifts are given as though they raise your worth and establish the ceiling of your worth. You are worth far more than any gifts the world could ever give. You are worth more than any amount of money could ever afford. You are more important to God than these silly little toys and ego offerings that are made to be all sparkly and appealing as if you deserve such things. "You're worth it" marketing slogan is absolute bullshit. It really reads "you're not worth anything more that this chunk of metal with a few sparkly rocks in it".
You are worthy of GOOOOOOOOOOD. You are worthy of immense profound love and happiness. Nothing in this world can offer you even anything remotely close to that. And nothing in this world can reflect your VALUE. Modern society attempts to place tremendous value on objects and things and 'stuff' and to get people to believe that they need this stuff in order to be worthy, when in fact the entire system is training people to devalue themselves and equate themselves with a bunch of junk. You are so worthy to God, you will probably be shocked when you start to allow His value of you to be truly felt and to register.
The ego thought system is a system within the mind. It is not physical. The ego has used its distortion of the law of PROJECTION in order to try to place this content OUTSIDE the mind, which has resulted in what we call the physical world. The purpose of doing this is to deny that the insanity is in the mind, hide it from the mind, block awareness of it being in the mind, dissociate from it, and therefore "believe" that it is no longer inside but outside. This "projects" the insanity and this takes the form of the physical universe/world. An inner belief in sin becomes "the world of bodies is the world of sin".
This physical world then is APPEARS to stand alone, as the only reality. And then we look WITHIN it to try to learn what is causing things to happen. We look at horizontal or linear cause and effect. We look at the properties of materials. We look at the seeming needs of one thing, such as food, supplied by another thing. And we look to medicines and magic to supply health when there seems to be a sickness caused by this very same world.
But all of these "laws" are utterly bullshit and made up, attempting to explain why things in the physical world exist, why and how they function, and how to "live with it". The truth however is that this world is not an end in itself, it does not CONTAIN the very cause that PUTS the world there in the first place, and it is in fact only a SYMBOL OF something removed from it, which preceded it.
The "laws" which project onto the world are the egoic laws or beliefs that projected the world in the first place. It is the MIND that is governing the world, causing what happens, deciding whether sickness and death occur, and choosing what events may arise. And the whole world was made to hide this fact. The cause of all the worlds problems is in the mind that made it.
"You maintain the world IN YOUR MIND, WITH YOUR THOUGHTS." We are not therefore really bound by any of the "within the system" laws that we think run the world. Not one single law of physics is true. Nor of biology or chemistry. Not one aspect of quantum physics or anything to do with matter or energy or space or time. None of these things are what runs the world. None of these things are the laws by which it is governed.
These are just effects in a world projected by an ego mind, disguised to make it seem like the world runs itself. As if the world is a closed system. As if the world is first-hand reality. And to look to this projected world for the cause of anything is insane, given that the entire thing is being caused by the mind. We can set ourselves free from all of these meaningless "laws" - laws of health and diet and abundance and safety and preservation and gravity and medicine and whatever.
We are to therefore first of all purge our mind of all the contents of the ego thought system, all the guilty baggage and fear, and all the level confusion which says the physical world causes anything. So that we stop projecting hallucinations of external causation onto what is, effectively, an inert effect. And then we can project "the real world", recognizing that we are under NO LAWS but God's. Eventually this recognition that ONLY God's laws of mind are real laws, will allow us to go beyond the real world to our natural environment in heaven.
"Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all the strange and twisted laws which you have set up to save you. You really think that you would starve unless you have stacks of green paper strips and piles of metal discs. You really think a small round pellet or some fluid pushed into your veins through a sharpened needle will ward off death. You really think you are alone unless another body is with you.
It is insanity that thinks these things. You call them laws, and put them under different names in a long catalogue of rituals that have no use and serve no purpose. You think you must obey the "laws" of medicine, of economics, and of health. Protect the body and you will be saved. These are not laws, but madness."
We have observed before how many senseless things have seemed to you to be salvation. Each has imprisoned you with laws as senseless as itself. You are not bound by them. Yet to understand that this is so, you must first realize salvation lies not there. While you would seek for it in things that have no meaning, you bind yourself to laws that make no sense.
Thus do you seek to prove salvation is where it is not. Today we will be glad you cannot prove it. For if you could, you would forever seek where it is not and never find it. The idea for today tells you once again how simple is salvation. Look for it where it waits for you, and there it will be found. Look nowhere else, for it is nowhere else.
Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all the strange and twisted laws which you have set up to save you. You really think that you would starve unless you have stacks of green paper strips and piles of metal discs. You really think a small round pellet or some fluid pushed into your veins through a sharpened needle will ward off death. You really think you are alone unless another body is with you.
It is insanity that thinks these things. You call them laws, and put them under different names in a long catalogue of rituals that have no use and serve no purpose. You think you must obey the "laws" of medicine, of economics, and of health. Protect the body and you will be saved. These are not laws, but madness.
The body is endangered by the mind that hurts itself. The body suffers that the mind will fail to see it is the victim of itself. The body's suffering is a mask the mind holds up to hide what really suffers. It would not understand it is its own enemy; that it attacks itself and wants to die. It is from this your "laws" would save the body. It is for this you think you are a body.
There are no laws except the laws of God. This needs repeating, - over and over until you realize that it applies to everything that you have made in opposition to His Will. Your magic has no meaning. What it is meant to save does not exist. Only what it is meant to hide will save you.
The laws of God can never be replaced. We will devote today to rejoicing that this is so. It is no longer a truth which we would hide. We realize instead it is a truth which keeps us free forever. Magic imprisons, but the laws of God set free. The light has come because there are no laws but His.
We will begin the longer practice periods today with a short review of the different kinds of "laws" we have believed we must obey. These would include, for example, the laws of nutrition, of immunization, of medication, and of the body's protection in innumerable ways. Think further; you believe in laws of friendship, of "good" relationships and reciprocity.
Perhaps you even think that there are laws which set forth what is God's and what is yours. Many "religions" have been based on this. They would not save, but damn in Heaven's name. Yet they are no more strange than other "laws" you hold must be obeyed to make you safe.
There are no laws but God's. Dismiss all foolish magical beliefs today, and hold your mind in silent readiness to hear the Voice that speaks the truth to you. You will be listening to One Who says there is no loss under the laws of God. Payment is neither given nor received. Exchange cannot be made, there are no substitutes, and nothing is replaced by something else. God's laws forever give and never take.
Hear Him Who tells you this, and realize how foolish are the laws you thought upheld the world you thought you saw. Then listen further. He will tell you more. About the love your Father has for you. About the endless joy He offers you. About His yearning for His only Son, created as His channel for creation; denied to Him by his belief in hell.
Let us today open God's channels to Him, and let His Will extend through us to Him. Thus is creation endlessly increased. His Voice will speak of this to us, as well as of the joys of Heaven which His laws keep limitless forever. We will now repeat today's idea until we have listened and understood there are no laws but God's. Then we will tell ourselves, as a dedication with which the practice period concludes:
"I am under no laws but God's."
We will repeat this dedication as often as possible today; at least four or five times an hour, as well as in response to any temptation to experience ourselves as subject to other laws throughout the day. It is our statement of freedom from all danger and all tyranny. It is our acknowledgment that God is our Father, and that His Son is saved.
The body is the central figure in the dreaming of the world. There IS no dream without it, nor does it exist without the dream, in which it acts as if it were a person, to be seen and be believed. It takes the central place in every dream, which tells the story of how it was made by OTHER bodies, born into the world OUTSIDE the body, lives a little while, and dies, to be united in the dust with other bodies, dying like itself. In the brief time allotted it to live, it seeks for other bodies as its friends and enemies. Its safety is its main concern. Its comfort is its guiding rule. It tries to look for pleasure, and avoid the things that would be hurtful. Above all, it tries to teach itself its pains and joys are different, and CAN be told apart.
The dreaming of the world takes many forms, because the body seeks in many ways to PROVE it is autonomous and real. It puts things on itself that it has bought with little metal discs or paper strips the world proclaims as valuable and good. It works to get them, doing senseless things, and tosses them away for senseless things it does not NEED, and does not even WANT. It hires OTHER bodies, that they may protect it, and collect more senseless things that it can call its own. It looks about for special bodies which can SHARE its dream. Sometimes it dreams it is a conqueror of bodies weaker than itself. But in some phases of the dream, it is the slave of bodies which would hurt and torture it.
The body's serial adventures, from the time of birth to dying is the theme of every dream the world has ever had. The "hero" of this dream will never change, nor will its purpose. Though the dream itself takes many forms, and SEEMS to show a great variety of places and events wherein its "hero" finds itself, the dream has but ONE purpose, taught in many ways. This single lesson does it try to teach again, and still again, and yet once more; - that it is CAUSE and NOT effect. And YOU are ITS effect, and CANNOT be its cause. Thus are you NOT the dreamer, but the DREAM. And so you wander idly in and out of places and events that IT contrives.
That this is all the BODY does, is true. For it IS but a figure in a dream. But who REACTS to figures in a dream, UNLESS he sees them as if they were real?
The INSTANT that he sees them as they ARE, they HAVE no more effects on him BECAUSE he understands he GAVE them their effects BY CAUSING THEM, and MAKING them seem real. How willing are you to ESCAPE effects of all the dreams the world has ever had? Is it your wish to let NO dream appear to be the cause of what it is YOU do? Then let us merely look upon the dream's beginning, for the part you see is but the SECOND part, whose CAUSE lies in the first.
No-one asleep and dreaming in the world remembers his attack upon himself. No-one believes there really was a time when he knew nothing of a body, and could never have conceived this world as real. He would have seen at once that these ideas are one illusion, too ridiculous for anything but to be laughed away. How serious they now appear to be! And no-one can remember when they would have met with laughter and with disbelief. We CAN remember this, if we but look directly at their CAUSE. And we will see the grounds for laughter, NOT a cause for fear. Let us return the dream he gave away unto the dreamer, who perceives the dream as SEPARATE from himself, and done to him.
Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects. Together, we can laugh them BOTH away, and understand that time can NOT intrude upon eternity. It IS a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity, which MEANS there is no time. A timelessness in which is time made real; a Part of God Which can attack Itself; a separate brother as an enemy; a mind WITHIN a body; all are forms of circularity, whose ending starts at its beginning, ending at its cause.
The world you see depicts EXACTLY what you thought YOU did. Except that NOW you think that what you did is being done to YOU. The guilt for what YOU thought is being placed OUTSIDE yourself, and on a guilty world which dreams your dreams, and thinks your thoughts INSTEAD of you. It brings ITS vengeance, not your own. IT keeps you narrowly confined within a body, which it punishes because of all the sinful things the body does within ITS dream. You have NO power to make the body stop its evil deeds, because you did NOT make it, and can NOT control its actions, or its purpose, or its fate.
The world but demonstrates an ancient truth; - you WILL believe that others do to you EXACTLY what you think you did to them. But, once deluded into blaming THEM, you will not see the CAUSE of what they do BECAUSE you want the guilt to rest on them. How childish is this petulant device to keep your innocence by pushing guilt OUTSIDE yourself, but NEVER letting go! It is not easy to perceive the jest, when all around you do your eyes behold its heavy consequences, but WITHOUT their trifling cause. Without the cause do its effects seem serious and sad indeed. Yet they but follow. And it is their CAUSE which follows nothing, and is but a jest.
In gentle laughter does the Holy Spirit perceive the cause, and looks NOT to effects. How else could He correct YOUR error, who have OVERLOOKED the cause entirely? He bids you bring each terrible effect to Him, that you may look TOGETHER on its foolish cause, and laugh with Him a while. YOU judge effects, but HE has judged their CAUSE. And by His judgment are effects removed. Perhaps you come in tears, but hear Him say, "My brother, Holy Son of God, behold your idle dream, in which this could occur," and you will leave the holy instant with your laughter and your brother's JOINED with His.
The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF. No matter what the form of the attack, this STILL is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, STILL is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is STILL true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they COULD have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream. This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes.
The Holy Spirit will repeat this ONE inclusive lesson of deliverance, until it has been learned, REGARDLESS of the form of suffering that brings you pain. Whatever hurt you bring to Him, He will make answer with this very simple truth. For this one answer TAKES AWAY the cause of every form of sorrow and of pain. The form affects His answer not at all, for He would teach you but the SINGLE cause of all of them, no matter WHAT their form. And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo."
Bring, then, all forms of suffering to Him Who knows that every one is like the rest. He sees NO differences where none exist, and He will teach you how each one is CAUSED. None has a DIFFERENT cause from all the rest, and ALL of them are easily undone by but a SINGLE lesson truly learned. Salvation is a secret you have kept but from yourself. The universe proclaims it so. But, to its witnesses, you pay no heed at all. For they attest the thing you do not WANT to know. They seem to keep it secret FROM you. Yet you need but learn you choose but NOT to listen, NOT to see.
How differently will you perceive the world, when this is recognized! When you forgive the world YOUR guilt, YOU will be free of it. Its innocence does NOT demand your guilt, nor does YOUR guiltlessness rest on ITS sins. This is the obvious, a secret kept from no-one but yourself. And it is this that has maintained you SEPARATE from the world, and kept your brother SEPARATE from you. Now need you but to learn that BOTH of you are innocent OR guilty. The one thing that is impossible is that you be UNLIKE each other; that they BOTH be true. This is the only secret yet to learn. And it will be NO secret you are healed.