I love me some Treatises1.
Mmmm-mm!
I love me some Jesus breakin’ it down,
makin’ that holy road clear.
I love me some Truth expo-zishuns!
I love me some brotherly tutelage,
some way pointin’,
some little bing-bang dose of reality checkin’.
I do, I do, I do–
I do love me some Treat-sies…
* * * * *
1In the second book of A Course of Love there are four Treatises, the first of which is entitled “A Treatise on the Art of Thought.” The first time I read these particular offerings I bored through them like a hydraulic-powered, diamond-tipped drill rig cutting through frozen tundra. This is what you do, after all, when just hours before, in a far more desperate version of yourself that was flying over a particular swath of unexplored terrain in a sputtering helicopter equipped with state of the art, second-hand geological x-ray devices, necromancing paraphernalia, and other treasure-hunting apparatuses, you discovered to your considerable surprise a big huge X marks the spot engraved into a a few hundred square acres of real estate, along with a note on a stone tablet laying on the ground right at the vertex– a note signed by your own heart, oddly enough– that says Drill here, Mac. When you encounter revelations of this order of magnitude, certain safety procedures, long-tested customs of geotechnical investigation, and rules of personal decorum are indiscreetly nullified.
Two years later, now that I have finally gotten the drilling fluid, sprayed dirt and bulletized caribou dung off of my safety glasses and nearly completely rehabilitated my trigger finger, I realize I may have– may have— not availed myself of all the life-affirming, eternity-beckoning, suffering-and-delusion-conquering content that was deposited there. Lucky for us, when you read with such reckless abandon, you don’t actually rip the words right off the page, so you can, in point of fact, glean enough of the idea to get yourself going, and then go back and review them once again in light of all that has occurred in your life since that first tumultuous encounter.
So, relatively recently I had the exquisitely good fortune of reading A Treatise on the Art of Thought for what was likely the fourth or fifth (hundred) time. I kind of knew it hadn’t fully computed the first time I had read it, but over time had become pretty convinced it had in fact rubbed off on me quite substantially. Then, after six or eight weeks of professional gang-bustering with an intensity and a magnitude that had narrowed my cardio-cognitive wherewithal down to a single pixel, I read it again and walked out of the room feeling like a human who had just hatched from an egg.
You know the difference between the moment when you encounter a beautiful idea, and it rings your heart like a bell, and the moment when you realize you had the whole thing backwards, and it is your own nature that was sounding the idea in the first place? And pretty soon you realize it’s a breath of insight, flowing in and out of your like the tides? If not, you will. If so, thank you for standing by me during all those presumptuous eons.
The Art of Thought is both parts simultaneously– allowing oneself to be rung by every single experience in a beautiful way, and simultaneously recognizing that you are a bell uniquely suited and desiring to ring beautifully into every single experience. We get our bells rung (by grace). We ring back, for we are bells (of grace). And then of course, as we all start allowing ourselves to ring, in the lovely tapestry of sound that emerges, we clue in: oh(!), this entire tapestry of sound, all of that is who I Am. And then you starting ringing right along, naturally and without forethought, with all sorts of delightful tones and harmonics tailored specifically to the instant in which you find yourself.
Now, maybe you can see: you can’t ring like that by thinking about how you should be ringing all the time. You can’t ring like that by constructing ring models out of your past experience and worldly knowledge so that you can predict how best to ring to impact the experience in ways that you also thought long and hard about being the best and highest good ways of impacting it. It’s already too late by then, and you’ll botch it anyway. And you can’t ring like that by having pre-tested rules about what types of rings to offer in certain situations. All of that… is how we used to roll…
The Art of Thought begins with hatching from an egg and discovering you don’t need to upgrade your bell to a newer model, or fix any of its cracks, or hold it differently when the time comes. The Art of Thought begins by appreciating the fact that you were created by the same Bell Maker who created the sunset that rang you last night, and that as such you are equally a majestic and endless gift given to all beings. I daresay we may feel differently and respond differently, were we to enter the room knowing we are each the warmth and mystery of a sunset turned loose upon the world.
How do you tell a sunset it’s not doing it right? How do you even think that? How or why then, would we ever apply such logic to ourselves? Well, you wouldn’t, after you realize and accept the nature of your Self and the nature of the sunset are the same. This appreciation is the Art of Thought. Jesus acknowledges that we are thinking beings, but that does not mean we have to come up with all the thoughts– or even could if we wanted to. The really, really good thoughts are given, the way water is given to a river, the way a rung bell reminds us we are all bells ringing. Through the Art of Thought, we can come to realize and experience this.
(Mmmm-mm! I do love me some Treatises…)
Embracing Forever 
Fun word play and good reminders to allow our bells to ring naturally. I was just watching the latest video from Matt Kahn with a similar message to embrace, accept and zestfullly celebrate every expression as the divine at play. His messages are simple, fun and help me get of my mind.
Let the mind blowing, logic-defying bell ringing and symphony begin!
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Sounds great, Brad. I’m not familiar with Matt Kahn, but will look him up. Yes, it’s all about going with the transcendent flow! I’m still reeling from the Evelyn Glennie story on your latest version of Awesome Stories. I think she’s got a thing or two to teach us about bell-ringers… 🙂
Michael
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Funny, I just left you a comment about music and bell ringing! I guess the symphony has begun. 🙂 I really like Matt’s ideas and energy. I’ve posted about him a few times and may soon again about this latest video.
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Brad, I watched the video available on Matt’s site right now. Really, really enjoyed it… Thanks for the referral… 🙂
Michael
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i am glad you love yourself some treatises because that is a mighty fine treatise you have going on there…
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Ha! Thank you, GF. (I had a good teacher…)
Michael
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It seems to me that in a way, everything’s a disquisition Michael. Just as one could hold a book and read it devoid of its deeper meaning, so too all experience is like that. I don’t mean to say that all experience has meaning, as if to glean it requires interpretation by thought; rather though, all experience can be seen at varying depths. Everything is a disquisition awaiting our understanding, and the very process of my sitting here typing these words is itself an elaborate essay of a kind; there’s the idea about it, and there’s the exquisitely complex fact of the experience. I ignore the latter, because I think I already know about it; I think I know all that can be known about it. And yet it is here, a vast verb-like tractacus on life capable of revealing to me an infinity in any given moment.
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It has taken a few reads, Hariod, but I feel I can see what you are saying, and if I am understanding correctly than I would wholeheartedly agree. Everything looked at with depth can reveal to us an infinity, and seen as such becomes meaningful, and engenders a natural response from us as well. The act of your sitting and typing your words, viewed deeply, speaks to me about relationship and communication, about kindredness, about the desire to be and to share. It speaks to the very heart of who we are and what this is… This is it, in a nutshell… When we miss that deeper presence within our encounters and situations, we offer fractured or defensive responses, rather than responses that further Creation.
While I acknowledge the particular words hear may trouble you, here is a passage that summarizes this nicely:
“To experience what is and to acknowledge what is, one must be present, present as a human being. To experience what is and to acknowledge what is as being a gift of God is to be present as a divine being having a human experience. No part of being is negated. All senses and feelings of the human being are called into awareness and yet there is also acknowledgement of the Creator behind the created.
“To acknowledge the relationship and the nature of the gift is to realize unity. To realize the call for a response is to
hear the call to create like unto the Creator. This creating like unto the Creator may be used as a definition for the art of
thought.”
Michael
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Actually, I think the quote is rather beautiful Michael. I’ve always felt a little resistance to using theistic references myself as you point out, because to many it suggests a division that perhaps isn’t altogether helpful. Doing so possibly points to the sort teleological thinking that we’ve discussed in the past; though of course, that comes about through culturally mediated notions of God and religious cosmologies more generally. I think I’ve mentioned to you before that to me, ‘God’ seems a useful catch-all term that can mean almost whatever we want it to. I reject ideas of divine creator beings myself, as they are not within my sphere of experience, yet I love the way say, Spinoza and Hindu culture use the term. It always needs qualifying though, as it doesn’t have a single meaning in common currency. For that reason, it seems best to leave it to one side. Doing so isn’t an arrogant rejection of possibility, rather simply not adding to what are for most of us complex enough struggles with ontology and phenomenology. Of course, one person’s experience of their God may be of the same category as something regarded differently in another’s altogether drier terms.
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I’m glad you felt a beautiful quality in the quotation, Hariod. I do as well. Let us rest together there…
Michael
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While reading your ” Rice krispies Marshmallow” treatises, the image of a windshield came to me. Imagine driving with a glaze of ice on the shield with a small clear path in front of you above the dashboard. You can navigate somewhat and focus on the clear path. Later on more of the ice melts and you say, wow now I can really move around quickly and safely. But then when all the ice melts you realize there is so much more in front of you.
Then what happens when you can drive without a car?
I have been operating mostly with a small clear space on a mostly icy windshield, all excited about the small clearing. thank you for being you and expressing yourself as you see fit in all your unified and unique glory.
peace,
litebeing
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My pleasure, litebeing. The beauty of your windshield analogy is that, perhaps through the Art of Thought, each stage of visibility is in its own way perfect, and a fullness in its own right. Who is to say that we will ever comprehend the entirety of the view!? When we see the view we have right now as a gift, we respond to it differently than if we see it as a stepping stone to somewhere else– a means and not an end. And I’m liking the idea of travel without machinery… 🙂
Your analogy also reminds me that the limited view may at times feel stifling, but that is only because we remember a time when the view was free and unobstructed, no? Jesus talks about this, too, in this Treatise, about the fact that the Art of Thought is remembering that time when the view was free and unobstructed, and recreating it Now in our present moment experience. That is part of the Art. Bringing our memory of freedom into the present. We are given the miracle of being able to recognize the limited view, the icy windshield, the car on that winding road, on this plant, near that star, in this galaxy, as an encounter with grace, with light, with everything…
Blessings,
Michael
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Thank you for this beautiful morning meditation. I feel myself ringing and being rung. Big heart smile.
Hugs and love
Alison
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Thank you, Alison. This was my morning meditation, too, just on the other side of the planet! I should have spoken about sunrises instead of sunsets! A big heart smile in return, and a few chimes of well-wishing to you and Don on this fine day.
Michael
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There is something to be said for repetition Michael, yes?
It’s a good thing when we can allow for it, otherwise life would only be measured by it instead of ever deepening the beauty and feel that every moment offers.
Oh happy day!
xxx
Debra
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Hi Debra,
This type of repetition does feel more like a deepening spiral than a flat circle. All is revealed in the appropriate time, which as you say, keeps the beauty of each moment fresh and alive.
Blessings to you this lovely day!
Michael
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Thank you Michael for taking another pass through The Art of thought and sharing your discoveries with us. I loved the drilling analogy from the first paragraphs and found myself slowing down to take in your beautiful treatise about it all. Blessings and love, Alia
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Hi Alia,
My pleasure! Thank you for wading into the 5D tundra there with me! Whatever is happening, it does seem to involve a deepening awareness and an increasingly stable peace at the center… 🙂
Blessings to you as well,
Michael
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Michael,
“The really, really good thoughts are given, the way water is given to a river, the way a rung bell reminds us we are all bells ringing.”
That’s some good flow. 🙂
Let’s hear it for grace!
Cheers 🙂
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Thank you, Ka! Hope the studies are treating you well… Thanks for returning here and flowing along in this river of grace with me…
Michael
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Yes, my studies are infinitely un-ending. Thank you for your kind reply, and support 🙂 & certainly, you are welcome 🙂
KA
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I am so glad I took the time to get my comfy, portable chair, my treats :), and my warm beverage in the insulated mug in time to watch your sunset from the only hill for miles with the bell choir assembled here. Good show, this!
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Me, too. Funny, I’m watching the same thing from my vantage point… There’s sun’s setting everywhere!
Wishing you a glimpse of peace that gets caught in your timeline and begins expanding indefinitely.
Michael
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Thanks for sharing this, Michael. I can relate to that reading fast at first and not catching much. There are several books which I have read three times, and each time I get more out of them.
I haven’t read ACOL yet, but this is the third time that it shows up for me. I have already put it on my reading list.
I am very fond of Jesus channelings.I was surprised to find out that there are many of them. And some were much easier to digest for me than ACIM.
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Thanks for your note, Karin. I am realizing a hectic week last week, a snow storm or two, and some unexpected events have put me way behind schedule on responding to comments here…
I was surprised to find so many as well. In fact, that is exactly how I found A Course of Love. I had read A Course in Miracles. Somehow had found A Way of Mastery, and then thought, what the heck, there must be more where that came from! And somehow, a web search or something… voila! All we need is always so close, just one clear call away… 🙂
Michael
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Yes, Way of Mastery is one of my favorites. I’m reading Way of Knowing for the third time now, amazed how many new things I discover each time.
I immersed myself for about one year into the awesome Raj material (by Paul Tuttle).
I also love Pam Kribbe’s channelings, and those by Judith Coates (especially where Jeshua gives an update on his resume, channeled March – Sept 2014). That blew me away.
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Thanks for those, Karin. I am not familiar with any of those other references. When I have a moment, I look forward to checking them out! I looked up Judith Coates’ site and found one of the sessions you reference, and will definitely return…
Much Love
Michael
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