"What do I really, really, really, really, really, really, really want?"
This is the question you must ask yourself in order to get in touch with your spiritual commitment. But it's a question which cannot be intellectually answered. Activating your intellect would automatically close down your spiritual experience, and the experience you really want is so far beyond any experience your intellect could ever provide or grasp that it's like unto the difference between the ecstasy of reaching a high mountain ridge and the horror of gasping for a few hopeful breaths in the seeming burial chamber of a flooded mine shaft.
When you finally do nothing with your mind, your whole being breaks free into an unbelievably exhilarating radiance. Having learned to not engage your intellect and imagination, a radiant experience expands which is so far beyond any earthly experience that it leaves you speechless. Then when you do come back down to earth the only word that can sometimes be formed is: "WOW!"
Then you know your answer. You can no longer ignore what you really, really, really, really, really, really, really want. Your commitment has come to light by what you have seen, so to speak. Now you know you never could have stopped moving forward.
Oh sure, you can attempt to stop and look back. For a moment budding Teachers of God sometimes think they would be doing good by stopping, looking back and trying to reach back to pull others up to the experience they now cherish and want for everyone. But this temptation lasts only a moment because the knowledge quickly arises that this is not the way it works after all, that stopping, looking back, and reaching back is actually detrimental to the process, not helpful.
Understanding arises that you help others only by keeping your focus on what you really, really, really, really, really, really, really want. You help others by keeping your focus in the heavens, so to speak, and continuing to move upward always asking for more and more expansion, more and more of the heavenly experience.
As you progress "up the mountain" and into the heavens, it's as if you create a vacuum and the entire earth gets sucked up into the vacuum. As you live in heaven, letting forms fall apart, the entire earth becomes less dense and brighter because the entire earth is in your mind. So everyone becomes brighter. If you prefer everyday street language, you can say: "We're all in this together. Where I go, everybody goes."
One of the brothers here at the Miracles Healing Center in Salt Lake City once called herself a "light junkie." All she wants to do is stay in light, experiencing heaven as constantly as she possibly can, radiating unbelievable love and joy without ceasing. Far from being the least helpful teacher among us because she doesn't open any book and verbalize any teachings she is surely among the most helpful teachers, since it is not words that teach but the spirit we are which teaches.
"How many teachers of God are needed to save the world? The answer to this question is: one. One wholly perfect teacher whose learning is complete suffices. This one ... who was always wholly spirit now no longer sees himself (herself) as a body, or even as in a body." (Manual for Teachers)
An intellectually inclined student might ask, "If the way it works is for only me to surrender into an expanded experience so far out into light that my world, and therefore everyone in my world, automatically becomes light without any doing on my part, and if reducing that experience down into concepts doesn't really make the world light at all, then why do highly enlightened teachers give talks? Why did the Biblical Jesus give talks? Why did Jesus give us A Course in Miracles?"
The answer of course is the illusion. Even the most enlightened spiritual teacher in earth is holding himself or herself in earth by choosing to see at least some illusion. You might say the illusion governs the means in the sense that if you decide to see any illusion, then the Holy Spirit will give you assignments, so to speak, according to the degree to which you are holding yourself in awareness of forms. Yes, an observer might think you are into doing something, but what's really going on is the Holy Spirit is undoing you.
"The name of Jesus is the name of one who was a man but saw the face of Christ in all his brothers and remembered God. So he became identified with Christ, a man no longer, but at one with God." (Manual for Teachers)
When Jesus in A Course in Miracles says he was once a man just like us, this is his way of saying, "I held myself in earth for a while, therefore I appeared to do earthly things for a while." When Jesus decided to hold himself in earth no longer, which is to say his commitment to a more advanced spiritual realm became total, then he disappeared from earthly vision and he gave no more talks in earth.
The illusion governs the means. The Holy Spirit gives the assignments.
"But even in some invisible realm Jesus is still around and still bringing it down into concepts when he gives us devices we call helpful such as A Course in Miracles," the intellectually inclined student might argue. "Isn't the reduction into concepts justified since Jesus does it?"
Who is it that thinks justification is needed? The Holy Spirit needs no justification. Neither do you. It's all so simple! You simply listen inside and allow your holy spirit to move you as it will move you. In fact, speaking of your commitment, you could say that your commitment to listening inside and doing only as told by your inner spiritual voice is the only totally honest commitment.
Does it make any sense to talk about the commitment of others?
Let's look at a scenario:
Jesus:
Pharisee:
Jesus (laughing):
A more advanced student of A Course in Miracles would say we certainly cannot help others by judging or attempting to judge their commitment. If we are to be honest, we can only look inside and ask inside: "How am I faring when it comes to staying in touch with this spiritual experience? How committed am I to doing nothing except as this holy spirit of mine guides?" If we are honest, our focus is only and always on, "Who am I?"
Someone might argue: "But the commitment of seeming outsiders is my commitment, because there is only one! So if I can influence them to commit, my own commitment is stronger."
This would be the equivalent of the pudding maker saying to the pudding, "You must decide to be delicious so I can say I make delicious puddings!" That's not how it works. It is the pudding maker who must make the commitment to deliciousness, not the pudding. If "those people out there" do not appear to be committed, it is your mind that has to change, not theirs; it is you who have to see the light, not them.
Finally, just as your commitment is about no other space than whatever space you experience as right here, so also your commitment is about no other time than the time you experience as right now. It's not about the future, is it?
"How committed am I to experiencing what I really, really, really, really, really, really, really want right now this moment?"
As serendipity would have it, there is an exercise that will show you your commitment better than any other exercise. And it's fun. So we'll finalize with this exercise.
It's a very easy asking exercise although you might have to ask many times in order to finally reach the thorough asking of full endeavor:
"I've walked the earth more than once in more than one place. One time I walked Galilee and gave talks to those who were called to be with me. Another time I walked among people in another land and never said a word."
"Jesus, one of those times you were committed. The other time you were uncommitted."
"You know not of what you speak."
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MIRACLES HEALING CENTER