“Thoughts can represent lower-order or higher-order reality. This is the basic distinction between intellectualizing and thinking. One makes the physical and the other creates the spiritual, and we believe in what we make or create.”   …A Course in Miracles

I once heard Abraham (A Collective of Spirit Beings who speak through Ester Hicks) say something that answered more questions for me than any other quote, phrase, book or speech I’ve ever read or heard. It was like a Revelation that opened the door to my mind and allowed pieces of a puzzle to tumble through until  the whole picture, not just the frame, began to take shape – it was an absolute awakening for me.

I’m quoting them from memory, so it may not be exactly as they said it, but it’s close enough. They said: Every thought you think becomes an entity with the ability to think. Wow! Can your mind even begin to grasp the consequences of such a  proclamation if it’s true? When I first heard it I nearly rejected it, for it just seemed to be such a preposterous statement. At the time I thought, come on Abraham; do you expect me to believe something as silly as that? 

As we bump and skid – or sometimes, skip and jump – along this road we so fondly, and incorrectly, refer to as life we keep looking for those sign posts that we think may point the direction out to us. But most of us have become so captivated by our daily existence we pass them by without noticing. They don’t always attract our attention because we really don’t know where we’re trying to go. And then as if it’s meant to be, we come to one that we just can’t pass. It seems to take us gently by the shirt front and demand our attention. And after it has that it begins to pour Light onto the compass, and then there’s no looking back, for at last, we know exactly where we’re trying to go.

That’s what this was for me – a Light that lighted the way to making sense of this life.  Finally, after many years – or lifetimes; who knows? – things began to become clear. Where there was fog and confusion before, now there was this bright Light of understanding and clarity. It took a few years to let it all spread out before me, but it kept spreading until there was no horizon just a well-lit road that leads to infinity.

Along the way it led me to this quote from A Course in Miracles: The Thought God holds of you is like a star, unchangeable in an eternal sky. So high in Heaven is it set that those outside of Heaven know not it is there. Yet still and white and lovely will it shine through all eternity. There was no time it was not there; no instant when its light grew dimmer or less perfect ever was. 

An IDEA! That’s what I am! That’s what you are! An Idea expressed from Thoughts of God! An Idea expressed, with the ability to think. What could be more clear; what could make more sense? My advice to any of you who may be interested, is, read that quote again, again and yet again; read it until it’s committed deep into the vaults of your memory banks. And then use your God-given ability to think – and spend some time thinking about what its message means for you.

You and I represent not just the higher-order reality, but the highest-order reality there can be. Thoughts express ideas, and we were created as Ideas, expressed through Thought in the Mind of God, the Highest order of Reality there is – there never was, nor will there ever be, a higher one. The Course tells us that “Ideas leave not their source.” Therefore, neither you nor I have ever left our Source; we are still in the Mind of God, even though we believe we have separated from Him – which is impossible.

Every Thought Represents One of Two Sources

The French philosopher, Rene Descartes is supposed to have given the world this famous saying; “I think, therefore I am.” He did so after conducting a search for a statement that could not be doubted. The only truth he could find during his search was: He possessed the ability to doubt (think) and because he was the one doing the doubtful thinking then there was no doubt that he himself existed.

A Course in Miracles contains the following statement; “If I did not think, I would not exist, because life is thought.” The Course was published in 1976, and Rene Descartes lived around the beginning of the seventeenth century, but his discovery and subsequent statement seems pretty similar to this one from the Course. It seems that it matters not when It’s discovered – Truth is Truth. There’s no doubting the Truth that without the God-given ability to think we would not exist. And now the question arises; which source are we allowing to influence our thinking?

Lower-order thoughts

My opening quote informs us that thoughts can represent lower-order reality. I think that this is the same as saying that the source of these thoughts is the ego. The ego is the voice that speaks for all of the lower-order. And its thoughts are always negative, and filled with fear. Oh it sometimes speaks of love, and seemingly good things, but it really does not know what Love and Goodness are. It knows absolutely nothing about these Godly Attributes.

Whenever the ego speaks of love it’s speaking of a false love, for the love it speaks of can be full of passion and excitement one moment, and filled with hate and depression the next. The Course reinforces this with the following truth: “There is no love but God’s. Love‘s meaning is obscure to anyone who thinks that love can change. He does not see that changing love must be impossible. And thus he thinks that he can love at times and hate at other times.” 

Outside of an attempt to convince us that it’s possible for it to love, the ego’s thoughts are mostly about lack, poverty, sickness, depression, disease, aging, hatred, death and all other negative and depressing things that make up this physical world – which is the so-called lower-reality. In other words, ego thoughts make the physical, which has no reality in Truth. All physical things are made, they are not created. Therefore they are temporary, not permanent, and anything that’s temporary is not real – it’s an illusion.

Higher-order thoughts

My opening quote also makes it plain that Thoughts create the spiritual, or higher-order reality – and this is the only reality. This is the same as saying that the Source of these Thoughts is The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Voice for God, and His Thoughts are always positive and filled with Love – which is God’s Love – the only Love there is. His Thoughts speak of health, not sickness & disease. They speak of abundance, not lack & poverty; of Joy, not depression; of Love & Life, not hatred & death.

“The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of this world.” …ACIM. Those who believe that they’re physical beings have lost all their God-given Power except this one.  We are all free to exercise the power of decision, and now the decision is yours at to which source you’re going to listen to.

I’m going to close with this little gem from Eleanor Roosevelt:  “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”