Set It Free

A sweet angel of a girl I know, Laura, is a bird lover. She has such a beautiful relationship with birds. She speaks to them and they respond to her as if she is speaking their language. We were exchanging emails about a local exotic bird business for sale that I felt would be of interest to her, and she told me that she didn’t feel that is was a lucrative enterprise for her to invest in presently. My response to her was,  “passion is always lucrative.”

She said, “How true! I once sold birds from my home, a species of lovebird that is known to be almost impossible to tame. I just loved the little creatures and felt sad every time one was sold. Many people have expectations of birds that the birds just can’t fulfill because it is not in their nature. As a result their owners grow tired of them. I wanted my babies to be as special to their owner as they were to me.”

After reading her reply I got a vision of a caged bird set free and I thought ideas are like birds caged in our very own minds. Unless they are set free they cannot bring us what it is we want them to bring. Worry, doubt and fear actually keep our ideas caged in internal conflict. This is not a healthy breeding ground for our creative expression. As I pondered this idea I liked the metaphor more and more. Ideas that are repressed are liked caged birds. They have potential or in the case of birds, they are wings to fly with. But what good are wings in a cage?

Thoughts are things. Thoughts caged in fear do nothing but fester within the mind of the thinker and eventually die. Laura’s birds are free. She lets them fly free as they were meant to. She gives them the freedom to be.

There is an old saying that, “when you love something, set it free and if it is meant to be with you it will return. If not the love you sent with it will bless another.”

Imagine if just for a moment, what kind of life we could live if we would allow our dreams the freedom to become what they were meant to be?

Imagine what would happen if we sent out our ideas – our dreams, in love without fear, doubt or worry…just sent them out freely to be what they were meant to be. What kind of a world it would be? Can you see it?

Do you have a dream that you have been keeping in your mind for fear that it will not come true? Set it free. Give it wings to fly and we know it with fly home to you fulfilled.

Set it free…

Heaven is Now

You have likely heard the famous quote by 19th century philosopher Henry David Thoreau:

“Most men [people] live lives of quiet desperation…”

A Course in Miracles refers to this state of mind as mildly miserable, a condition encouraged by the ego, a condition that casually accepts life as always seeking and never finding, always wanting but never satisfied? The world generally agrees that life has its ups and downs and for most people a state of existence where the good outweighs the bad is the best they expect. People who have attained the so-called good life are not exempt. Doubt and fear that what they have may be taken away from them subtly colors many of their thoughts and actions.

Added to this, most everyone casually accepts physical ailments as normal. The medical profession fosters this attitude by keeping scrupulous statistics of our chances of contracting any one of hundreds of hideous diseases. The concept of a perfect life is not considered realistic – not really a possibility.

Yet the Bible says: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” – Matthew 5:48. Perfect is not a condition of excellence or one of being greater than most, it is far more than this. It is a state of living a life without flaws of any kind – a condition of spotlessness. In this state of being the world itself must also be perfect since what we are within is what we experience projected on the screen of life. We call this perfect state of being Heaven.

Yet for the majority of people who accept that Heaven really exists, dying is a prerequisite. This belief can actually increase the suffering of living in this world and prevent those same people from allowing Heaven to become a reality during their life on earth. We are told in Mark 1:14-15: “…the kingdom is at hand [now]…” A Course in Miracles states it succinctly: “Heaven is now.” M.24.6.6.

So why is it that we are not experiencing Heaven if it truly is here now?

If Heaven is here now our experience of life should be free of every condition that is not heavenly. Yet we look into our world and see chaos and suffering at every turn. How can Heaven be now?

The answer lies in the Biblical injunction: “seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” -Matthew 6:33.

How do we do this?

A Course in Miracles puts it this way: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven, because that is where the Laws of God operate truly…”T.7.IV.7.1. The Course goes on to say: “When you heal, you are remembering the laws of God and forgetting the laws of the ego.” T/7.IV.2.5.

Wholeness is the Law of God. The opposite is the law of the ego, which is the state of mind in which the majority of our world now lives. Keeping us mildly miserable is the ego’s way of directing our attention away from our true inheritance – Heaven now. The Law of Attraction says that what we think about expands. If we accept a world of imperfection, that acceptance is our acquiescence that we are giving attention to imperfection and thereby perpetuating it.

One definition of healing is atonement. The Course says that atonement is a plan for the return of God’s sons to the state of mind in which they [the unified Sonship] was created. It is a state of oneness where all is perfect. It is the consciousness of Heaven.

In order to live in a state of heaven consciousness we must break free of our complacency and accept nothing less than a world that is perfect. But how do we accomplish what seems to be such a formidable task? This begins with a change of perception; we must cease judging appearances and place our attention on the inherent perfection that already lies beneath the surface.

In the introduction to A Course in Miracles we read, “Nothing real can be threatened.” What in our world can be threatened? We think you’ll agree here, in the material world, everything can be threatened. You may be thinking what cannot be threatened? Consider this, things that cannot be threatened are not tangible, meaning you can’t experience them with your five senses.

Virtues for example such as: Patience, compassion, kindness, gentleness, these are heavenly expressions. These expressions may flow into our mind through the five senses but they are experienced through our spirit. Whenever we express these virtues we are, in that moment, living in the consciousness of Heaven. “…the kingdom of heaven [that is always] at hand.” Matthew 3:2, if we seek it.

Focusing our attention on heavenly expressions transports us immediately into a heavenly consciousness. The errors of the world that we have known, although still there, disappear from our perspective.

This is the meaning of “being in the world but not of it.” By making heavenly thoughts a habit we gradually train our mind to be heaven conscious. This leads eventually to a state of mind inspired completely by a Higher Authority, an authority that exists within all of us. When we allow thoughts of imperfection to exist in our mind as if they were normal this Higher Authority remains asleep, subjugated by the lower authority of the ego.

The world we now accept of deprivation, limitation and suffering is only a dream, a dream from which we can and will all one day awaken. We can reclaim our true inheritance, our heavenly consciousness by constantly directing our thoughts toward heavenly thoughts and feelings. Inevitably, our words and deeds will express a heavenly world that cannot be threatened.

Heaven is now.