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No meetings are accidental. “Those who are to meet will meet, because together they have the potential for a holy relationship.”
The third level of teaching is a relationship which, once formed, lasts all our lives. At this level, “each person is given a chosen learning partner who presents him with unlimited opportunities for learning.”
We are in each other’s lives in order to help us see where we most need healing, and in order to help us heal.
In the special relationship, we are always trying to hide our weaknesses. In the holy relationship, it’s understood that we all have unhealed places, and that healing is the purpose of our being with another person.
The holy relationship is, above all else, a friendship between two brothers. We are not put here to audition one another, put someone on trial, or use other people to gratify our own ego needs. We are not here to fix, change or belittle another person. We are here to support, forgive and heal one another.
if the train doesn’t stop at your station, it’s not your train.
In the holy relationship, we don’t seek to change someone, but rather to see how beautiful they already are.
it is ‘not our job to seek for love, but to seek for all the barriers we hold against its coming.’
Spiritual means to me, above all else, authentic.
Anger is often a result of a series of uncommunicated feelings building up inside of us and ultimately exploding.
In a holy relationship, we consider it part of our commitment to stay current in the honest expression of our feelings, and to support our partner in doing the same.
Life doesn’t actually get worse; it’s just that we feel our own transgressions more because we’re no longer anesthetized by unconsciousness.
‘We think that if we, or anyone else God forbid, were to see the real truth about us, we would all recoil in horror.’ The truth, rather, is that if we, or anyone else, were to see the real truth about us, we would all be dazzled by the light.
“Only what you have not given can be lacking in any situation.”
“I continue to choose people who can’t commit” is not a miracle-minded perception. A more enlightened question might be, “How committable am I, really? How prepared am I in the deepest recesses of my being to give and receive love in an intimate, committed way?” Or, “How can I forgive those who could not go past a certain wall of fear when dealing with me? How can I forgive myself for the ways in which I contributed to or participated in their fear?”
We suspected this was a drug. The problem was, we wanted it. We saw exactly what the game was with this person, usually within the first fifteen minutes, yet we were so attracted to the high, we were willing to pretend we didn’t see it, for just a night, or a week, or however long it lasted.
“The problem is not that you met him—the problem is that you gave him your number.”
I had often thought about the idea in the Course that we think we are angry at what our brother did to us, but that really we are angry because of what we’ve done to him.
“The fundamental change will occur with the change of mind in the thinker.”
If you don’t already believe it yourself, another person cannot convince you you’re okay.
“You know, Marianne, you can work on this stuff with your therapist, A Course in Miracles, your editor, the relationships lecturer, and all of your girlfriends, but none of them provide you with the opportunity that you have by working it out with me.”
“Forgiveness is the only sane response.”
Accepting people as they are has the miraculous effect of helping them improve. Acceptance doesn’t prohibit growth; rather, it fosters it.
Success means we go to sleep at night knowing that our talents and abilities were used in a way that served others.
You’re in business to spread love. Your screenplay should spread love. Your hair salon should spread love. Your agency should spread love. Your life should spread love.
‘avoid self-initiated plans, and to instead surrender our plans to God.’
“Dear God, please give my life some sense of purpose. Use me as an instrument of your peace. Use my talents and abilities to spread love. I surrender my job to you. Help me to remember that my real job is to love the world back to health. Thank you very much. Amen.”
“Where would you have me go? What would you have me do? What would you have me say, and to whom?”
Don’t ask God to send you a brilliant career, but rather ask Him to show you the brilliance within you.
‘our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.’ We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as
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A miracle worker is an artist of the soul. There’s no higher art than living a good life.
“Joy has no cost.”
Do what you love. Do what makes your heart sing. And never do it for the money.
I once had a small bookstore. A man came in one day and told me that he was going to teach me how to make money. “Every person that walks in that door,” he said, “is a potential sale. And that’s what you should silently say to yourself whenever a customer walks into the store: Potential sale, potential sale.” His advice sounded exploitative to me. He was advising me to view other people as pawns in my own scheme. I prayed and received these words: “Your store is a church.” Church, esoterically, means the gathering of souls. It’s not an outer plane but rather an inner plane phenomenon. People
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When our goal is making money, creativity becomes distorted. If I saw money as the ultimate goal of my teaching career, then I would have to think more about what people wanted to hear and less about what I feel it’s important to say. My energy would become tainted with efforts to get people to come back, to sell them on my lectures, to get them to bring their friends. But if the purpose of my career is to channel God’s love, then I’m only there to open my heart, open my brain and open my mouth.
Dear God, “I surrender to you all my thoughts about money, I surrender to you my debts, I surrender to you my wealth. Open my mind to receive abundantly. Channel your abundance through me in a way that serves the world. Amen.”
As ministers of God, we let our careers be an expression of our own depth, of what really matters to us.
