by Ben Gilberti, H.W.,M.M.
 
Chapter 2  ~  Practicing the Presence of God
 
You practice the presence of God by intending to see God everywhere you look, and by intending to be God in action in everything that you do, and by intending to be absolutely open to omniscience, wisdom, grace, love and inspiration beyond anything that your finite perspective could even imagine.
 
What do you do about the lingering habitual actions that do not originate from God? They have no power, no reality. They are nothing and you treat them as nothing. You give them no attention whatever. Instead all of your attention is poised to receive divine inspiration. So you live life and enjoy it, but every moment you are aware of one thing and one thing only -- only God is present here. That is practicing the Presence of God, and it's your job here.
 
How do you live in-between meditations? Well, between meditations consist of nothing but a continuous present moment. In this present moment, the present moment that is always present no matter whether you are talking to someone, writing, eating, cooking or meditating, in this continuously present present moment, you are present as one thing and one thing alone, you are present as awareness. You are not present as worries, fears, irritations or doubts. No, the only reason you can be aware of those kinds of things is that you are present as something altogether different -- awareness, that which says, "I".
 
What is it really that constitutes this miracle of awareness? How is it that you are aware? Did you manufacture this ability of yours to be aware? No. But somehow it's always been there. All the while this awareness of yours didn't seem to be anything greatly wondrous because up to now you have mostly been aware of all manner of suffering. But now, you are aware of something quite different than all that. Now you are aware of a principle -- something that is self-evidently true at all times and in all places -- an absolute truth -- (That God is all there is, because Truth is all there is, because anything other than Truth, in order for it to be something other than Truth, would of necessity have to be Not Truth, and in being not Truth, it necessarily would have to be not so, and hence Truth has to be all there is besides which there cannot possibly be anything else, thereby making Truth, in being all there is, consequently entire, total, complete, whole, one, harmonious, perfect, absolute, infinite and eternal, which is probably the best definition of God that words can provide) -- all this you are now aware of.
 
You can't see it, touch it, taste it, handle it, or measure it, and yet you are clearly aware of its claim to be the only thing that is real and the only thing that can be real. And it is YOUR awareness that is aware of this. And the principle clearly is that there cannot BE anything other than God. And YOUR awareness of necessity MUST BE in order for it to be aware of this principle. And so there you are, awareness, clearly aware of a principle that says it is absolutely impossible that you exist as anything other than God. It's your awareness that's aware of this, not anything else about yourself, not your fears, doubts, limitations, desires or confusions, but simply your awareness. And what is it now that the principle says it possible for awareness to be aware of? The only thing that can exist -- God. So there you are aware of all that.
 
But at the same time, when you come out of your meditation, you find your awareness keenly aware of an identity you have assumed as a human being who is among a community of similar identities all working hard at maintaining the comfortable survival of that identity. So what do you do?
 
Well, what would God do if He were to find Himself in your predicament? What would God do if it were God Himself, absolute, infinite, perfect consciousness, who just now realized that He had been asleep in a dream for 40 years and was now sitting in this chair after having just realized who He was in a meditation and was now faced with the necessity of DOING something IN THE DREAM. Yes, of course, God wouldn't even be in the dream, BUT YOU ARE and now you have to get up from your meditation in your dream body and DO SOMETHING. So what would GOD DO if He were in your shoes?
 
This is a world of action. What action would God take? Would God shout out to others that God is all there is? Is that what God would do if He got up in your body after a meditation? Would He confuse everyone by disappearing mysteriously or flaring out in a ball of light? Would he call up his boss at work and say, "Listen, I realize I'm God now so I won't be needing to work for the likes of you anymore."
 
One thing that He would do is quietly heal everyone who asked for healing. And He would really listen to people. Really listen to them. You'll be surprised how often people are asking you for healing. By healing we mean investing your time and attention to realizing the nothingness of every claim of distress in the light of the oneness and allness of God. This is something you DO. More than that it is something you GIVE. You can give people many things which they will enjoy receiving, like a wonderful meal, or a sympathetic ear, or warmth and affection, or loyal friendship, but the greatest gift you can give anyone, and one they will enjoy inestimably more than any other, is the gift of always seeing them as they truly are -- God in manifestation. Now it doesn't really matter what else you are doing as long as you are doing that.
 
What else would God do? If God were with someone else, would God sit there staring into space inwardly knowing that this person sitting next to him is God too? God certainly would know that the only thing worth doing is to help this person awaken to the fact that he is God too. But would God grab the guy by the scruff of the neck and say, "Listen, you really need to snap out of this, you're not a limited human, you're God!"
The real question is, what would God do if he fell asleep to the fact he was God and was just beginning to wake up, still finding himself in a half-asleep stupor of habitual desires to do all kinds of things. What would God do if He found himself in that precise situation?
 
When you ask yourself that question, you will get an answer, always, because you are asking the right question of the right source. The only source of the answer can be God. And it is the right question because it is the exact question that your entire life is an answer to. Everything you ever do is your answer to the question at that time. It just depends on how asleep you are at the time. If you're sound asleep you don't hear the question at all. As you begin to awaken, the question at first almost feels like an unwelcome intrusion into otherwise comfortable areas of your life. And indeed at first you awaken a little only to fall back asleep again. But as you awaken more and more, this question becomes evermore present throughout your day. What would God do if He found himself in this precise situation I am in right here and now? Would God condemn for whatever was done in the past? Would God smother the person next to Him with a lot of "human love?" Would God be silent and ominously aloof? Would God frighten people with Wizardry?
 
Keep in mind that we are talking about what God would do if He were EXACTLY in your predicament. If he, inotherwords, found himself just as you do with an entire brain full of erroneous beliefs and a severe habit of supporting his conviction in those beliefs on the basis of appearances that grow out of the beliefs. If he found himself just as you do in a world of billions of himself that were, except for a rare few, completely asleep to the truth about who and what they are. If he found himself in a world just as you do where waking up from the dream is extremely rare, and where those who have done so are revered as unattainably lofty Ascended Masters.
The more you contemplate the question, the more you realize that this is precisely what you are right now. You are God having fallen asleep and just now beginning to wake up, and so you are the exactly perfect being to ask this question of. So when you ask yourself this question, you are asking the right source. You are God and you have been so sound asleep to that fact that you are God that even as you are now beginning to wake up the whole idea seems difficult to grasp, and almost everyone you know is continually trying to get you to go back to sleep. And at first you do turn back into the slumber. But each time you do, the good/evil paradigm of the dream eventually hits you with its evil side, and when you roll up your sleeves to "nothingize" the distress, you remind yourself again about who and what you are, and you begin to wake up again.
 
Eventually you become very interested in paying close attention to what goes on in your awareness as your days unfold moment by moment. And eventually you realize that at any moment, you are either waking up by knowing that God is the only presence in that moment, or you are going back to sleep by "forgetting" that God is present. Eventually, you are always aware of the fact that anything you think, say, do, or feel is your answer to the question, "What would God do if He were in your shoes?"
 
On thing is certain -- God would fill His life with giving the greatest gift that can be given -- the recognition of everyone's absolute Godliness, and everything else he did, like making coffee in the morning, would be in honor of that. The Course in Miracles puts it well, "Teach only love, for that is what you are." The way you make coffee in the morning is teaching something, to yourself and to others. The way you do anything is teaching yourself and others something. What is it teaching? What you do about having done something that taught something other than love will again be teaching something. What you do about having done something that taught something other than love CAN teach you, and others, love. You eventually come to the place where you always forgive everyone, including yourself, for absolutely everything. You finally realize that unloving behavior is nothing, and when you do you find that you have no desire for nothing. You don't condemn yourself for desiring anything other than God, you realize instead that all you ever really DID desire WAS God.
 
The most important part of all this is to realize that God is. Feel what it feels like for God to be all there is in absolute fullness everywhere now. Feel what it feels like for you to be right now absolutely all that God is. That which isn't, isn't either good or bad, it simply isn't. And that which is, isn't divided up into good and bad but is in it's entirety God. Feel what it feels like that right now, right this very instant, God is absolutely and completely all there is everywhere. Why pay any attention at all to appearances to the contrary when you know full well that there cannot be anything contrary. Give up feeling what it feels like for the appearances to be real. Now you know they're not. So instead of giving any attention whatsoever to any appearances of reality being even the slightest bit less than God, simply feel what it feels like for God to be all there is right now.

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