“A smile has come to lighten up your sleeping face. The sleep is peaceful now, for these are happy dreams.”   …ACIM

Where could happy dreams originate except in Love? And where can Love be experienced except in the present moment? No one can experience Love in the past, and no one can experience It in the future. It’s experienced in the here and now or not at all. And in the experience of Love you’ll find nothing but joy, happiness, peace and bliss.

God is Love and Love is God, and He cannot be known in the past, nor in the future. He can be known now, and only now. And what else could the result of knowing Him be other than those attributes mentioned above?

Do you have any problems in your life? That may seem like a redundant question for the simple reason nearly all humans think they do. But even though it may seem like an unnecessary question it still needs to be asked. It does so in order to reach those who may be ready to allow this world to become, as my last post pointed out: A treasure house as rich and limitless as Heaven itself.

“If you’re depressed you’re living in the past.”   …Lao Tzu

Lao Tzu is the reputed author of that great Chinese classic known as the Tao Te Ching. Dr. Wayne W. Dyer based an entire book (pictured on the left) Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life, on this work. The following quote is taken from Dr. Dyer’s description of the Tao as he saw it:

“Five hundred years before the birth of Jesus, a God-realized being named Lao-tzu in ancient China dictated 81 verses, which are regarded by many as the ultimate commentary on the nature of our existence. The classic text of these 81 verses, called the Tao Te Ching or the Great Way, offers advice and guidance that is balanced, moral, spiritual, and always concerned with working for the good.” 

I’ve included Dr. Dyer’s commentary here  because it provides insight into the credibility we should place on the words of Lao Tzu. He tells us that if we’re depressed we’re living in the past. The question is; how can that be; how can anyone live in the past?

The answer is, they can’t. But as the Course informs us, the ego reacts to the present as if it were the past. Therefore, those who listen to its teachings will believe the past is the present and because of this they’ll think they live in it. It’s another one of those impossible illusions the ego convinces us we’ve performed.

“If you’re anxious, you’re living in the future.”   … Lao Tzu

Dr. Dyer titled his book about the Tao, Change your Thoughts – Change Your Life. No one can live in the future anymore than he can live in the past, even though we think we can. Everything is in your thoughts. It matters not how you perceive it, everything is thought. If you’re depressed you’re focusing your thoughts in the past. If you suffer from anxiety you’re focusing them in the future.

“If you’re in peace, you’re living in the present moment.”   …Lao Tzu

The present moment is the only time there is, and all good and wonderful things are contained in it. But that being said, there’s hardly any humans who find it. Most all of us are focused and dwelling in the past, or we’re focused and attempting to dwell in the future.

We think we can recall the past, and remember what it was like, even though it’s an illusion which doesn’t exist. And so in our delusional remembering we dwell upon all the episodes and occurrences we wish hadn’t happened. We say things like, “If I could only go back and do it again knowing what I know now.” It’s an empty wish, for we know it’s impossible to do so.  Therefore, by focusing our thoughts on it with feelings of helplessness pressing down upon us we place ourselves into a state of depression.

And then we take the recalled past, which doesn’t exist, and project it into the future hoping that it will change and somehow be better. We wait with anticipation upon another illusion, wishing for a different outcome. This waiting and hoping that future illusions will treat us better than past ones fills us with anxiety.

“I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo”   …ACIM

There’s a lesson that will be repeated over and over, and over again until it’s learned. And that lesson is this: Whatever may seem to affect you, whether it be sickness or health,  loss or gain, despair or contentment, suffering or comfort, loneliness or companionship; it matters not what it is, it has no source outside your own mind.  As the Buddha once said: “The mind is everything. What you think, you become”

Once this is learned and accepted as truth, then the end of time is drawing near for whomever the learner may be. How could it be otherwise, for he has learned the most important lesson of all? He has learned that he is the director of his own life; the dreamer of his own dream; the maker of his own experiences. And as the above ACIM quote implies, he has done it to himself, and therefore, if it’s not what he wants he can undo it. It seems that Dr. Dyer agreed with this when he titled his book, Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life.

“All good things are mine because God intended them for me.”   …ACIM

Let me ask you; if God intends good things for you, what power could stop them from reaching you? There’s just one power in the entire universe that can thwart God’s Intentions, and that is your own mind. If we refuse God’s Gifts to us He has no intention of forcing them upon us. His Gifts must be accepted graciously, gladly, freely and with gratitude.

As the above quote signifies, ALL good things are intended for us by God. His Gifts include everything and anything that will contribute to our happiness. For as the Course tells us: “God’s Will for you is perfect happiness.”

“Fear not the Will of God.”   …ACIM 

Many people are taught they should fear God. It’s the same as teaching we should fear Love, and again, many people do. We’re taught that God is vengeful and punishing; the exact opposite of what He really is. As Albert Einstein once observed: “A God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty.“

The Course tell us that God’s Will for us is, as mentioned above, perfect happiness. Most of us believe that His Will and ours are separate and completely different from each other. Let me ask you; what will for yourself would you have other than perfect happiness? There’s not one human on this earth who does not desire perfect happiness. No one does anything except somewhere in his or her mind there resides hope that somehow or in some way it will contribute to a sense of feeling better.

I’m going to close this post with a quote from the American writer, lecturer and self-improvement guru, Dale Carnegie: “It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.”

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LOVE IS ALL THERE IS, ALL THERE EVER WAS, AND ALL THERE EVER WILL BE

 2018 Walter Theriault. All rights reserved