My prayer right now is to look at, “Where don’t I want to go?” I want to see what is hidden in the mind. So hopefully that’s what we’re going to be able to do together. The theme that seems to be arising is sacrifice. I don’t think I’ve met anyone who hasn’t felt that the spiritual journey is a sacrifice in some way. It seems like much is being taken away- and it is. Everything is being taken away. That’s the point.

So today I’m hoping that we’re gonna undo sacrifice. Jesus talks about this in many places in the Course in Miracles and in the manual for teachers. He puts it very bluntly. 

If you cling to anything of this world, if you desire anything in this world, then it will feel like a sacrifice.

We have to let every belief go. So the reason why this question came about is a friend asked me does it really have to feel like a sacrifice? Or can we do it in joy? Basically, the question was, “Is there a way that we don’t have to face the sacrifice?” It’s easy to say there is no sacrifice. Jesus says ultimately in reality there is no sacrifice. But until you’re in that state of mind, the real change has happened & every belief has been overcome, what do we do?

Because when we take this journey seriously, the dismantling starts to happen and it doesn’t look in the way that we wanted it to be. I was just looking at my own life and I thought, wow this doesn’t look anything like how I imagined my life to be. I didn’t realize how much this is going to take to undo the ego. Just this morning, I was up at 5:30 with my friend Greg and we’re driving an hour and 40 minutes to go and get some wood. I had a beautiful time. But I was laughing to myself and thinking, if this was up to me, do I want to get up at 5 30 a.m. and go for a two-hour drive across America? is that my preference? It’s hilarious. Of course, it’s not my preference. Yeah, it’s foreign and I mean it’s completely hilarious because this was my huge sacrifice seemingly of being in the community. I hated building work. I’d been in the community for a year and a guy called Craig who was over the maintenance, was pulled to the monastery and the community say, “(Ken) you’re going to be over the maintenance and honestly, I was like, “Jesus you’re really punishing me.” The worst thing I could ever imagine and now I am over maintenance.

One day I was sitting with Jesus and I was saying this is a sacrifice and you’re punishing me. He said to me, “you asked for it.” What do you mean I asked? He said to me, “you said that where you don’t want to go that’s where you will go and you said that you want to be happy in everything you’re doing, no matter what. This is it. This is your opportunity.”  I was like, wow I mean this is setting the bar really high you mean to say I could actually find happiness in this and he said “you must.” Because that’s really the only thing that’s going on.

Oh my God the undoing in this has been unbelievable. In this realm of maintenance is complete self-hatred. I felt so unworthy and completely useless. When we talk about complex things I don’t even understand what we’re talking about because the fog unworthiness. It just brings up all of this self-hatred. It’s relentless all of this unworthiness and I’m like, how would I have even seen this without taking on the maintenance? This is what I’m running away from. I mean literally every time we have an expression here, I start to share but then more layers of this unworthiness come in and I’m just crying and crying and crying and something is clearing.  I can feel like all of a sudden there’s like a shift in my mind and this fogginess is clearing.

It brings up the idea of punishment. I’m being punished that’s why I’ve got to do this. I felt guilty because I’m no good and I’m bound to get something wrong.

So I’m living on this edge. Am I going to get away with it and am I going to get it right? Or, uh oh, he’s messed it up again. I was talking with my friend Kirsten around this matter of punishment. She said, “Well that doesn’t sound like no way to live.” And I said, “Well I’d honestly rather accept the punishment and then ask for help.” She asked why. I said, “Because I freeze” and this is how I started to see it. My whole being completely shuts down. I’m completely foggy. I don’t know how to ask for help. I don’t even know whether I have a question. But I know I’m not clear.  But I don’t know the way through. But instead of trying to look at that because I go numb, then I just think well I’ll just take the punishment when it comes I can handle that. You know “you’ve cost us money, okay I’ll pay for it” “you’re an idiot.” Well I know that. tell me something new.

So it seems easier to take the punishment, take the sacrifice than actually undo it. In some respects, it’s like, “oh my God how am I going to undo this?” I’m so unworthy. Jesus was saying to me just communicate a little bit more and it doesn’t matter what you say. Even if you feel shut down or you don’t understand it’s okay. Just share it

It feels very very vulnerable in fact it feels extremely vulnerable. It’s just completely undoing me. Every day I have to be really really humble and say please Jesus keep showing me all these blocks and I also have to stay in my right mind and pray for Joy. Because truly, I would be in hell. So whatever comes it feels like I’ve got to face it so that this joy can come through. As you can see on the surface really if I say no to this, I’m saying no to God. I’m saying no to the relinquishment of me. I’m saying no to my true Self. And yeah to Kenneth this is definitely not the way I want to be going and it continues to come back. It’s like wow when am I going to get this lesson?

Of course that’s one side of it because I’m also experiencing miracles. Incredible things are happening, things I never thought I could do. I’m being more helpful. It feels like more of an expansion and at times we’re getting in such a flow and it’s completely effortless and in that there’s a joy that’s comes through naturally. If I’m looking at it from the sacrifice perspective, I could say yeah I’m sacrificing a lot. So I hear this around me a lot..this isn’t gentle, this feels like a sacrifice, I want this to make me happy. In my mind, I’m like yeah but that doesn’t undo the idea of the sacrifice it’s just wanting a better form outcome or thinking the form is here to make me happy. I can try and change the form as much as I like but I really have to change my mind. So maybe that’s a good place to start Jason.

Jason:  Thank you Ken thank you. it’s like it was really beautiful listening to you. In many ways it’s like asking and answered your own question. Jesus is with you and giving you another state of mind to link up with what you’re really saying is sacrifice is more present than the spirit right now.

Yes it’s showing me that the work is really in the mind and not in the form. The form right now is being used to allow me to see the ideas of sacrifice, punishment, unworthiness and self-hatred and to truly let them go.