Being the perfectionist, I am, I was once told by a former manager, “there is the real and the ideal.” I, of course, always strove for the ideal only to have to lower my standards a notch to the real. The real meant what was realistic to achieve.

As we study A Course in Miracles, we are told that the real is the ideal and that what we think is real is a false representation of the truth. Yet as we live our daily lives, it is anything but ideal.

Right now, we are living with a pandemic and our emotions run all over the place from fear to sadness to a sense of acceptance and hopefully moments of piece in our new normal.

As we learn more about the mind and how it operates and makes decisions, we see that when we listen to the Holy Spirit, trusting in the Right Mind, we will experience more of the happy dream closer to that place beyond illusion and touching the peaceful place in our hearts.

When we listen to our wrong mind, the Ego, we will experience the pain of the world in front of us that often seems hopeless and uncertain.

That is why we come together in our groups and our private study to reinforce a more ideal existence that tells us everything is really ok.

We have been looking at all of our feelings and emotions that come up in life. We recognize that we can’t do this life alone and that we need a source of help and guidance. We all need an inner guru. That inner guru helps us to be in touch with an absolute reality, one that is closest to a spiritual truth that offers solace and peace and that helps us in the process of forgiveness and healing. But while we attempt to stay on board with this absolute reality, there is a relative existence happening where our bodies and our individual persons and identities also exist and that existence is relative. So, we have the absolute truth and relative experience that clouds a perfect peace. The inner guru can help us with both, but sometimes we need outside help in the form of therapy, coaching or the benefit of a really good listener.

I have been reflecting lots on listening. Listening is an art. It is a skill and it is very difficult to listen when we listen with the wrong mind. When you tap into the Holy Spirit, you become the best kind of listener. The Holy Spirit can guide you when you are by yourself and also when you are in relationship with another who needs your help. Remember,  you are most helpful when you listen with the Right Mind.

We have been reading and finally finished The Function of Reason (Ch. 21, Section V.) In this section we learn that reason is the Holy Spirit’s correction for madness and error. Reason is sanity. The opposite of reason is insanity. This section also deals with the topic of absolute reality, which needs no cooperation from you to be itself. But your awareness of it needs your help, because it is your choice. It is so important to remember that you are the decision maker, the one who chooses how you want to see the world. We do have preferences and attachments and so our faith and trust in an absolute reality can waver. The Holy Spirit is always there for you. Within you Is the absolute truth. You don’t need to know, you just need to ask.

This section ends with Faith and belief, upheld by reason, cannot fail to lead to changed perception. And in this change is room made way for vision. Vision extends beyond itself, as does the purpose that it serves, and all the means for its accomplishment.

 You are perfectly sane and your perceptions reflect that when you can see beyond the uncertainty to a trust and belief in the Holy Spirit-your inner guru’s guidance.

Listen………