Courage! Who Needs Courage?

The gap since my last blog post has been filled with preparing for and traveling to Egypt, and then catching up on everything that got behind while I engaged in the amazing array of travel experiences.  I definitely underestimated the catch-up phase so here I am letting you know why there was an “interruption in service.”

The topic of “courage” actually came up quite some time ago. It was originally focused on the courage one needs to “do the right thing” … to stand out from the crowd, perhaps to be visibly vocal.  Those initially points were:

What does courage look and feel like? … and

How can we determine what the “right thing” is?

There was a third, even more important aspect of that discussion:

What makes it possible for each of us have such courage?

Before I left for Egypt, several people asked, “Why Egypt?”  I was filled with answers that ranged from the simple, “because I haven’t gone there yet,” to my curiosity and fascination with how people of supposedly primitive times could build structures that have survived all these years and how they passed along construction methods that are more durable than much of what has been built since.  Most of the ones that didn’t survive were those damaged by people, not the elements.

The more recent, more pressing, questions about “courage” have come since I returned from my trip.  Perhaps they have been prompted by the news media.  A number of people have told me how courageous I was to travel to Egypt.  I have been asked, “Weren’t you scared?”  Some have expressed how crazy and/or bold they thought I was for going.  Truth is, it never crossed my mind.  Not sure if maybe I just declared to the world that I am oblivious to the world as others see it, or, if as I prefer to look at it, I am totally grounded in what I believe to be Truth:  I am an expression of the Divine as are all the beautiful people I encountered on my travels.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  And …

I realized that the answer to what may have initially seemed like the largest of my original three questions is the same answer to the questions posed by all my concerned friends:  When I remember what I am – and expression, actual incarnation of the Divine –I have all the courage and powers of discernment needed for life.  It is so simple. Whether I am responding to the various people that questioned my sanity in traveling across a broad section of Egypt or just dealing with day to day decision making or identifying the “right thing” and being willing to be a stand for it, the answer is the same: when I remember to rely on the Truth within me, I have clarity and calm confidence. It is only my humanity (sometimes associated with ego) that gets tangled up in circumstances and becomes fearful, comparative, defensive and even combative.  This internal hysteria, which sometimes shows up as how I treat those around me and at other times is turned inwardly, self-destructively on myself, is only truly, lastingly healed when I remember, when I release my dependency on appearances, and fully embrace what I really am.

This isn’t just my Truth, it’s our Truth.  It’s the Truth of all creation.  We are each an activity of God. God is whole, perfect and complete … and so are we.  We experience wholeness, perfection and completeness to the extent that we remember our relationship with the source of our existence.  It is always alive and well in us and as us.  In those moments of amnesia when we forget this essential truth, the Divine doesn’t leave us.  The Truth is the Truth:  It is Constant.  What leaves us, is the depth of our memory – our access to that Truth.  We simply forget the Truth and how to embody and use it.

As Dr. Ernest Holmes stated in A Holmes Reader on Practical Wisdom, “The Spirit of God is an undivided and indivisible Wholeness. It fills all time with Its presence and all space with the activity of Its thought. Everyone is an incarnation of God, and a unique incarnation. All are rooted in the One Life. Your endeavor, then, is not so much to find God as it is to realize God’s Presence and to understand that this Presence is always with you. Nothing can be nearer to you than that which is the very essence of your being. Your outward search culminates in the greatest of all possible discoveries — finding God at the center of your own being. Life flows up from within you.”

Really grasping this concept totally alters how we relate to our world.  When we “get it,” it is the most empowering, yet humbling, awareness imaginable. We are imbued with the power of discernment.  It is given to us to use moment by moment for our own benefit and the good of all.  That awareness is the logical response to Dr. Holmes’ assertion in The Magic of the Mind, “The great and only awakening that can ever come to man is when he becomes aware of the fact that that which enables him to think, to be conscious, to be creative, is the Mind of God active within him.”

Please contemplate the following quote and affirm it with me.  I promise you, if you spend time with it, it will facilitate shifting your perception of your world.

“I am a center in the Divine Mind, a point of God-conscious life, truth and action.  My affairs are divinely guided and guarded into right action, into correct results.  Everything I do, say or think, is stimulated by the Truth.  There is power in this word I speak, because it is of the Truth and it is the Truth.  There is perfect and continuous right action in my life and my affairs.  All belief in wrong action is dispelled …  Right action alone has power and right action is power, and Power is God . . . the Living Spirit Almighty.  This Spirit animates everything that I do, say or think.  Ideas come to me daily and these ideas are divine ideas.  They direct me and sustain me without effort.  I am continuously directed.  I am compelled to do the right thing at the right time, to say the right word at the right time, to follow the right course at all time.”  [Science of Mind]

So how do we know what the “right thing” is?  Can we be sure?  If so, how?  And for that matter, is knowing enough?  Simply knowing something often makes no difference whatsoever.  Once we identify what is right, what are we to do with it or about it?  The simple answer to all of these questions is right in front of us!  It is all around us, and most importantly, it is already inside of each of us!

Knowing, sensing, embracing what is “right” cannot be dependent on the opinions of others.  It must arise from within.  It must emanate from our own consciousness. If what is “right” depends on anything external to us, we would be adrift if that external source was out of reach.  Dr Holmes once shared some insights as to how to determine the rightness of our actions: “Does the thing I wish to do express more life, more happiness, more peace for myself, and at the same time harm no one?  If it does, it is right.  It is not selfish.  But if it is done at the expense of anyone, then in such degree, we are making a wrong use of the Law.”

I contend that when we remember what we are, when we enter into conscious communion with our life force, Spirit within, we awaken to and discern Divine Guidance.  As incarnations of the Divine, we can tap into Wisdom and release the allure of logic.

Great teachers throughout the ages have told us that until we are willing to embrace the Truth of our being, confront our egoically-based fears of rejection and separation and be what we truly are, we will not be fulfilled.  Jesus is quoted in the Gospel of Thomas as having put it even more bluntly: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

This entry was posted in Latest News, Ministers Musings on June 21, 2017 by CSL Metro.