Living in Christ Consciousness

What is Christ Consciousness

It is the awareness that there is a life force that causes your heart to beat, puts a sparkle in your eye and expands your heart.  

In the words of Jesus, presented in A Course of Love, Christ consciousness is explained over the course of many chapters, however, one verse that will help now is in the Fourth Treatise, chapter 5, verse 6:

God can thus be seen as the All of everything and life, or the Body of Christ, as all that makes up the seemingly individual parts of the All of everything. Christ-consciousness is your awareness of this.

And this verse is useful too, although it is earlier in the chapter, without the context of the whole course, it seems to make sense to read it after the previous!

The many forms are made one body through Christ-consciousness. The one body is one energy given many expressions in form. The same life-force courses through all that exists in matter in the form of this energy. Awareness of this one Source of energy, and thus this one energy existing in everything, and creating the life in everything, is Christ-consciousness. It is also what we have been referring to as heart, as the center of your being. What would the center of your being be but the Source of your being? (A Course of Love, Fourth Treatise, chapter 5, verse 3)

Said another way, Christ consciousness is the gift to humanity given by the Magdalenes through the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.  It was the gift that, if chosen, would free us from slavery of the ego mind (the human mind), the source of all pain and suffering, and resurrect us to a new life as our true Self as sons and daughters of God.  Christ consciousness is what elevates the our human life into eternal life while we are still living on Earth before the death experience.     

How to attain Christ Consciousness?

Well, it's probably easier to explain how to avoid Christ consciousness! - stay in the ego mind, view life as material, physical experience that starts when we're born and ends when we die.  Fullstop.  Nothing more to it.

Except.....it is a painful way to live.  The other exception, we have this nagging feeling that there is more to it and we search and search until we find our true identity in unity with God through Christ consciousness.  During this interview Anne talks about her search and what hampered her finding....

Well, I suppose I have been searching for God for the greater part of my life, and I would be a searching and not a finding. In my early days, I was looking outside of myself.  Anne Olsson

Anne went within, she asked to know God and then she listened.  She attuned her level of awareness to that of God by quietening her ego mind and thus releasing her self made prison of judgements, fears and beliefs.  She chose Christ consciousness.

Yes. As he says, no one else can do this for you. It really is. It's up to us. We've been taught that somehow we could read this book or study this course or go to this guru. Yet Jeshua is asking us to let all that go. Just let it all go and to go within and trust in our own inner wisdom because it's in our heart that wisdom lies. The power of choice definitely resides within us and nobody can take it from us.  Anne Olsson

There really isn't such a thing as a Christ Consciousness Mind-Set because Christ consciousness is an awareness.  It's not something the mind can become set on because it is received through the heart.  The simple spiritual practices of contemplative meditation, allowance (or non-resistance) and commitment to love are useful tools in holding Christ consciousness.  

Yes. I think it's this knowing that we have to choose love over fear and have the confidence to choose love over fear, to listen to our heart. And to vow to do nothing that will not bring us that sense of peace. This is what Jeshua asks us to do to literally vow to do nothing that does not bring us that sense of peace. It makes life so much simpler.  Anne Olsson

While it may seem overwhelming at first, it's really more of an unlearning process and Anne has helped to make it easier for us by scribing the words of Jeshua and presenting them to us in her book Surrender to the Stillness.  

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00.190] - Helen Reynolds

Welcome back to another episode of The More Love podcast. I'm really delighted today to have Anne Olsson with me sharing the line. Hello, Anne.

[00:00:09.670] - Anne Olsson

Hello. Good morning.

[00:00:11.290] - Helen Reynolds

I'm really excited to share with you her book. It's called Surrender to the Stillness. I have just one chapter left to go in the book, Anne, I'm kind of saving it. It's such a beautiful book, and I've really found it for the listeners. You've heard me talk about A Course of Love in the past, and we've had an episode with Mari Perron and others who are fans of A Course of Love, such as James Willis and Lana Carolan. And, Anne your book feels like a really condensed version of A Course of Love.  That's how it feels to me.

[00:00:45.910] - Anne Olsson

Yes.  I've heard others express the same, have the same opinion

[00:00:50.050] - Helen Reynolds

and it's really direct. You published it in 2019. It's extremely current and it's really beautiful.

[00:00:57.430] - Anne Olsson

Yes. Because for me, the source of it is the beauty comes in the words of Jeshua, which I've been honoured to scribe.

[00:01:07.510] - Helen Reynolds

Many people refer to Jeshua, as Jesus.

[00:01:10.510] - Anne Olsson

I know him as Jeshua because that's what is asked to be to be called. And I really think it's quite irrelevant whether you call him Jesus, or Jeshua or Jeshua ben Joseph. That was his reflects back to his life. He lived on this planet, but I feel he's something much greater than that life. He's a very powerful, gigantic, if you like presence. And he's supported by many others as well. So Jeshua is the name by which he's asked to be called. And I honour that.

[00:01:49.370] - Helen Reynolds

I think that's lovely. And I also really love that you've pointed out. He's supported by many others.

[00:01:55.790] - Anne Olsson

Yes, we are all one, and he doesn't stand alone.

[00:01:59.690] - Helen Reynolds

And nor do we

[00:02:01.670] - Anne Olsson

no, definitely not.  We're all part of it, part of the greatness that we know is the one.  Jeshua speaks of the Christ Council, which is a group that supports them. And really, he doesn't see them as below them or apart from him that they really function. It seems to me as one unit speak the same language, and it's the language of love. There's great wisdom that comes from them all. Even when I receive my personal messages, I never know who will be speaking if it is Jeshua or if it is some other. But the words are always wise and beautiful and carry the resonance of peace.

[00:02:52.950] - Helen Reynolds

In our last podcast episode with Judy Carroll, we talked about being able to tell the difference between the true source of Source, I guess, or Love or Christ consciousness and another, I guess, an untrue source or the lowercase m mind. And it really comes down to feeling that peace and love and expansion, doesn't it?

[00:03:20.670] - Anne Olsson

Yes. Because I went through this process myself of this deep questioning when I began to hear this voice. It had with such profound wisdom, and I really had to question, where is this coming from? And when I shared it with friends, they all doubted this is just my ego talking. But when I began to experience the extraordinary peace that it brought me and the wisdom and teaching me things and presenting me with ways of looking at problems that I've never even conceived, I saw there was something other than ego, something far beyond it and far greater and more beautiful.

[00:04:04.290] - Helen Reynolds

Would you tell us a little more about how you came to share your life with Christ Counsel?

[00:04:10.950] - Anne Olsson

Yes. Well, I suppose I have been searching for God for the greater part of my life, and I would be a searching and not a finding. In my early days, I was looking for outside myself. When I came upon The Course In Miracles. It had an extraordinary influence on me and really changed my whole perspective. And I started to really try to live the precepts that it was teaching. And one of the things that spoke of was the need to hear the voice of God, to make decisions with the voice for God.

[00:04:55.390] - Anne Olsson

And so I started to literally go within. And I read a little book which I've never been able to discover since. But it's called Listening, and it's all about how to listen to the words of God. And with the aid of that little book, I started to literally hear this loving and joyful presence that became the one I knew was Jeshua. It was really life changing for me because I thought, wow, this is speaking in the same language as the course. So it's literally sort of an ah-ha time was really quite overwhelming for me initially, and I started to scribe down things that I was hearing, and literally it's filled exercise books, many stashed away with beautiful messages.

[00:06:01.570] - Anne Olsson

Often whenever I had a personal problem in my life, I would just go to the voice for guidance and always, always did I receive an answer. It may not have been the answer that I sought, but it was always one that brought me a sense of peace and acceptance for which I was very grateful. And this expanded in a way when I was studying A Way of Mastery, because I came to a point where I let go of The Course in Miracles, as the course itself suggests, and in discovering A Way of Mastery, it just strengthened the whole process again and took me deeper.

[00:06:48.970] - Anne Olsson

And ultimately I was told that I needed to write a book. And even though I was very resistant to this initially, I ultimately it began. And the journey took me first to the Surrender of Stillness, and now to the second book which will soon be published.  Which is The Ascendance of Love

[00:07:14.410] - Helen Reynolds

So perfect, just what we need right now.

[00:07:17.710] - Anne Olsson

Yes. I think it's this knowing that we have to choose love over fear and have the confidence to choose love over fear, to listen to our heart. And to vow to do nothing that will not bring us that sense of peace. This is what Jeshua asks us to do to literally vow to do nothing that does not bring us that sense of peace. It makes life so much simpler.

[00:07:42.310] - Helen Reynolds

It absolutely does. The very first chapter of your book is Love, and the very second chapter is Fear straight to the core of the juxtaposition.  Immediately.

[00:08:00.530] - Helen Reynolds

I'd really love to read the first page of the book. Would that be okay?

[00:08:05.930] - Anne Olsson

Yes.

[00:08:07.910] - Helen Reynolds

So this is the first page of the first chapter of Surrender to the Stillness, and the chapter title is Love.  Love is All There is. And because only love is real, only love can nurture and heal. Your gift to the world is love. Your loving presence is the light that shines out constantly upon your world even when you see it not.  Even when you deny it. It continues to shine gloriously from the heart of your being. This is your reality.

The ego does not see the love that is ever present in each and every creation the Father has brought forth. It fears love because it knows it is its undoing. The false cannot withstand the power of the real. The illusory perceptions of the ego would persuade that your problems are real and that error and evil exist. Thus the ego generates suffering and projects its pain out into the world in the form of judgement and blame. It defies the wisdom of the heart and clings to its insane concepts because this is what gives it a deceptive sense of reality.

You can choose to live by the tenants of the ego, or you can choose to live in the power and presence of love.  We continue to stress that you are the one that must make this decision for love. No one else can do it for you. The power of choice resides within you and can never be taken from you. No longer can you delay this decision. Procrastination will not serve you now because the forces of change and evolution are demanding that only those committed to love will travel with the planet into the new paradigm. That's just an incredibly power-packed first page.

[00:10:32.230] - Anne Olsson

A wonderful blessing that we've been offered. I think, to receive these messages and to learn and grow from them.

[00:10:41.710] - Helen Reynolds

It just raises so much that very first page is talking about only we can make the choice.

[00:10:49.870] - Anne Olsson

Yes. As he says, no one else can do this for you. It really is. It's up to us. We've been taught that somehow we could read this book or study this course or go to this guru. Yet Jeshua is asking us to let all that go. Just let it all go and to go within and trust in our own inner wisdom because it's in our heart that wisdom lies. The power of choice definitely resides within us and nobody can take it from us. But ultimately, when we really begin to see the light, if I can use that word, we see, it becomes a choice-less choice.

[00:11:38.470] - Anne Olsson

There really is no decision because only love is real and it's the only choice. Only sane choice to make is to choose to live in love, to live is who we really are because love is what we are.

[00:11:58.450] - Helen Reynolds

The choice-less choice. I love that it's so true. In the previous episode with Judy Caroll, she talked about the more access to consciousness we have, the more the duality or the seeming duality just disappears because it becomes more of that choice-less choice, God's will becomes our will.

[00:12:22.210] - Anne Olsson

I think once we begin to do this, life becomes so much easier and we don't have to continually look,  or question even am I living from love or fear? It just becomes natural. It just becomes easy and simple. And it really is such a joy to acknowledge who we truly are and to live in that - what he calls the power and presence of Love and to give up seeking outside ourselves in looking for wisdom or strength from something beyond ourselves. Keep up trying to understand that's a big one we do try to understand.

[00:13:06.970] - Anne Olsson

We think it's only the ego that really wants to understand because the Spirit trusts and just rests in Love as Love. Now, as Jeshua says on this page, procrastination will not serve you now. And I think that's so true, because there is only this moment in time. We can make that decision. We don't have to look to the future often think, oh, the cry is, I'll wake up sometime in the future, but now is the time to do this now, not tomorrow or next day, but truly to live in Love right now, make that decision for Love now.

[00:13:55.930] - Helen Reynolds

It's absolutely true. We have this idea that it's a future event and we're working towards it. It's an absolute trick of the ego.

[00:14:06.070] - Anne Olsson

Yes. And because the future never comes, it's only the ego that seeks to wake up because in truth, we're already awake and that's what self realisation is . Is to realise our Self with the capital s that we're already awake. We are already there. We're already all we can be. You don't have to be anything else and be right here and now. And I think that's wonderful. We need to give up looking for God outside ourselves now and just literally embrace the truth of who we are right here and right now.

[00:14:48.430] - Helen Reynolds

Even if you're driving, listening to this podcast, you could put your hand on your heart and just feel your heartbeat, bring yourself into the present moment and continue doing what you're doing.

[00:15:02.150] - Anne Olsson

Not even about spending a lot of time in meditation, though I'd highly recommend that Jeshua has I think two chapters in the book where he calls us to rest in the stillness. Remember, we can be at peace in whatever situation we are in. As you say driving a car, doing the washing up, talking to a neighbour across the fence.  We can be at peace simply by letting go of all thought of fear, just resting and being the truth of who we are. The love that we are.

[00:15:42.350] - Anne Olsson

Jeshua tells us that love is through the foundation of the world and that only love is real. I think it's really worthwhile to sit and dwell on that. What does that really mean? Only love is real and only love can nurture and heal and that love is within us at all times. It's such a joy, such a joy to know that to think that we can live that.

[00:16:18.690] - Helen Reynolds

And the very reason I started this podcast!  Would you share with us a little bit about your journey of coming to know this to be so true?

[00:16:29.610] - Anne Olsson

Yes, as you say, it is an unlearning. People think there's something they've got to get, but there's actually nothing to get. It's more about an undoing. It's removing the obstacles, presence of love within us. It's as simple as that. And I think for me in my journey, I think this is what I'm experiencing and continue to experience. It's really about letting go more and more and starting to see the ploys of the ego and the way it tries to manipulate my world and my thinking and not judging the ego, but just letting it go.

[00:17:09.990] - Anne Olsson

But starting to see that love shines in me and in everyone, in everything. At least I've had a lot of mystical experiences, if you like and call them that. There's been many. I could probably write a book about those, but I feel every one has been a gift to me and has purpose and meaning because it's shown me something from a very early age. I think I was only 19 at the time. I experienced my first out of body experience and I remember finding myself suspended above the bed and I could see my body lying down.

[00:17:51.090] - Anne Olsson

It seemed far below me on the bed. It was a revelation to me because I realised I'm not my body. I'm something more than that. And that was the beginning, I think, and starting to see that I'm something far greater. And I had many more experiences like that, sometimes just being in the presence of I remember when my mother was dying and I was in hospital with her and I could literally feel I can only call it the presence of God in the room and it was awesome and it was huge and it really was so big and so great.

[00:18:37.110] - Anne Olsson

I just feel it lost for words to try to describe it because you can't describe a lot of these experiences that we have. We all have at different times. But each one, I think, is leading us slowly to that unravelling of the letting go of removing those barriers to the love that we are seeing the truth of who we are.

[00:18:59.010] - Helen Reynolds

I definitely think words they constrain the fullness of what we're talking about sometimes, or at least it feels like that.

[00:19:07.230] - Anne Olsson

Yes, I entirely agree. Words are inadequate. We use words like love or God or even peace. But it's very difficult to describe it when you really rest in that deep peace that Jeshua calls the peace beyond all understanding. It's exquisite, but you can't describe it. You can't describe love. I remember I used to think I knew what love was. I had an experience once in my work I was treating a client. I had felt such depth of compassion for him in his grief that I was literally had an experience of love like I've never had before or since that taught me that love is something far greater than we think it is.

[00:20:06.790] - Anne Olsson

Really. It's so immense and beautiful. Again, I'm lost for words. I can't describe it no way I could describe what I felt when I was in his presence and the presence of this man who was suffering. These words are very inadequate.

[00:20:28.390] - Helen Reynolds

I guess that's why sometimes it's easier to describe what it's not. It's much easier to describe what conditional love is and how it's false than it is to describe what unconditional love is. And in its entirety

[00:20:43.750] - Anne Olsson

Love shines like a light. It's just beautiful, and it literally lights up the whole world. I had an experience once. I call it my awakening experience for want of a better word. I'd been reading some of Adyashanti's books at the time. I literally had an experience where I was in such a state of bliss and joy that I just laughed and laughed and laughed. I saw it all had to do with my thinking and how restricted my thinking was, and it probably lasted for about half an hour. But I was filled with so much joy and at the simplicity of it all, the simplicity of seeing the right way.

[00:21:37.970] - Anne Olsson

I've seen clearly I've seen the truth of who I am and what the world is for, and I just, I literally laid there and laughed and laughed with pure joy. And unfortunately it slowly faded. But I realised too, it was just another experience showing me what is real, and I had to let go, wanting to repeat it or let go clinging to it that just creates expectations. And, expectations are not helpful.

[00:22:09.950] - Helen Reynolds

You talked about the out of body experience and that awakening experience of laughing. And one of the things for the podcast previous episodes we've discussed near death experiences and other types of spiritual experiences, receiving angelic voices and different range of experiences. But I guess one of the points I was trying to make is that it's different for everyone, and I never made it explicit. But part of that was, as you just said, letting go of the expectation because, well, it just doesn't service, does it?  And, we are all different and we receive and give differently as well. We're all very unique expressions of that one source of Love.

[00:22:59.930] - Anne Olsson

Yes, there's a great beauty in that too, and also reflects the great expansiveness of creation. The wonder of creation.  Jeshua tells us that even though he regards this world as an illusion. And yet within that illusion, we can learn to love. We can learn to appreciate the truth of who we are.  Something I'd like to mention, if I might, is there's a chapter in the book called The Innocence of the Ego? I think it's helpful to just mention that now because a lot of us see the ego as the demon and the ego is almost the enemy, almost - it's perceived as something we've got to fight against or resist or undo.

[00:23:58.770] - Anne Olsson

And Jeshua calls on us to actually see the innocence of the ego. It's just the concept. It has no reality in itself, but just one in which we've come to believe. We've come to believe that's who we really are. And if we judge the ego, we're really judging ourselves. But if we can just see beyond that to see it's actually just all innocent, there's nothing to fight against, nothing to resist. It's the same thing. It comes back to whatever situation the ego might give rise to, whatever emotions that might give rise to.

[00:24:44.550] - Anne Olsson

We can just allow it. There's great power in allowing and then ultimately to surrender, but just allowing things to be just as they are not feeling that we must save ourselves or save the world. We can just be totally in allowance. Except what is it does not mean we might not be guided at some point to act in a certain way, but in the moment, just to allow, not to resist. Fear is born of resistance. And when we want to undo the fear and just rest in love.

[00:25:26.730] - Anne Olsson

But love accepts.  You know, it's Love that causes us to literally be an allowance to allow all things and to trust all things. I know you haven't read the last chapter, but it's one of my favourites. Of course, it's quite short, but it's just something that was brought to mind. As you take these last steps towards the light, do not be concerned if the ego, fearing its own demise, seems to scream at you more loudly than before. In desperation, will it aggressively assert that its world is real and precepts are true, but darkness always retreats before the light and the part of the mind, still hampered by egoic thought, has no option but to yield to reality.

[00:26:26.470] - Anne Olsson

I think this is important because a lot of people in their journey they often come to a point of hopelessness or feeling they're getting nowhere, or things seem to be worse than ever. And I think it's good to remember just to trust and just that the ego does that - when it feels itself threatened, it will start to scream and protest and defend its perception more loudly.

[00:26:59.230] - Helen Reynolds

It's a constant choosing of love. It's not like you do it once and the job is done.

[00:27:07.270] - Anne Olsson

Yes.

[00:27:08.830] - Helen Reynolds

Perhaps I should say it hasn't been that way for me.

[00:27:12.490] - Anne Olsson

For me. Often it comes back to a choice of choosing not to be defensive. Yes, choosing not to see there's something wrong. And if someone comes at me angry and judgmental of me, I can see that as their call for love, and I can have compassion because that's all anything is. That's what Jeshua tells us repeatedly that any act is only an expression of love or call for love. And I think when we can start to see this, that when someone is floundering, when they're going through dark moments, when they're lonely or despairing, when they're lashing out some angry at someone else.

[00:28:03.570] - Anne Olsson

It really is just their call for love, and they don't understand it. They often feel quite justified in their judgement of another.  The thing is just to allow that and love them anyway. That's why for me it's often just that choice in that moment to see that they're calling for love and to choose not to be defensive, because we can't be hurt by anything outside ourselves, literally. But we can choose to allow something to give rise to feelings of hurt within us or anger or sorrow or despair or whatever.

[00:28:53.970] - Anne Olsson

But it still comes back to a choice. We're not a victim of anything or anyone, and that really is a very empowering thing. When you really realise that you can't be a victim, it gives you back your power to make a different choice. But if you wallow in suffering, if you wallow in victimhood, you've got nowhere to go but down into the darkness, the moment you can see, I can't be hurt, that I am truly the child of God, the Holy child of God, and truly the presence of love, it just sets you free.

[00:29:41.710] - Anne Olsson

I think that's the most wonderful thing.

[00:29:45.970] - Helen Reynolds

Yes.  And what we're being called to do, really or to know so that we can experience a whole new way of being - collectively.

[00:29:56.890] - Anne Olsson

Yes. In The Ascendance of Love, the book that is to come. Jeshua talks a lot about the new Earth, what he calls it the new Earth. It is what is predicted for the world, what is coming in the future. If we can even talk in the future, it's about us. We are the ones who are going to create it again. Nobody else can do this for us. We have to do it, and we do it by choosing love in every moment, by relinquishing fear, by relinquishing the need to suffer because we don't realise how attached we are to suffering.

[00:30:47.890] - Anne Olsson

Ego loves to suffer, gives an excuse to blame something outside of itself in its innocence. But we can choose to recognise that suffering, too, is an illusion. The truth of who we are never suffers.  That again, it just sets us free.

[00:31:11.450] - Helen Reynolds

Quite often recently, I don't know which book this line comes from, but it could be yours Anne, or it could be another. The line is humans are the happiest when they can find something to blame. And it's alluding to that sense of - if we can blame something, then we feel like we're in more control somehow it's a complete trick of the lowercase mind or the ego mind. It's definitely not our true state of being that every now, quite often recently, as I read the news or watch what's going on around me in the world, it seems very evident.

[00:32:01.650] - Anne Olsson

There's a chapter in the book on unworthiness, and I think it's particularly pertinent. Yes, because I think unworthiness is epidemic in our society, but we don't realise how this too, is a choice. And when we believe ourselves unworthy, we really cast a shadow over our whole life, and it limits our joy and our laughter. And it definitely limits our ability to love ourselves and recognise who we are. And as Jeshua says, if we can't love ourselves, how can we love another? And I think it really is helpful to start to appreciate the effects of our conditioning in this society and how it shaped our thinking and to rise above it now transcend a lot of that old conditioning that seems so impregnated into our very being.

[00:33:08.370] - Anne Olsson

One thing that Jeshua speaks a lot about in this book and in The Ascendance of Love is our need to let go all beliefs. We don't realise how beliefs hamper us, and this is one thing that's very useful to just observe ourselves and observe where we are literally acting out of a belief that really is no truth in reality that is not at one with the truth of who we are. As the Holy child of God. Beliefs can be very powerful. He asked us to undo all beliefs.

[00:33:55.350] - Anne Olsson

He said, don't believe in the power of Love. Just be the power of Love. It's about being it.  Because all beliefs really comes from the ego. It's part of egoic thinking. The ego clings to beliefs and therefore develops a whole liturgy of shoulds and musts. I can remember a time in my life where a large percentage of my life with literally governed by what I should do or what I must do and it's having to see beyond that. And there's really nothing we should do.

[00:34:42.730] - Anne Olsson

You know, as Jeshua says we don't even have to go on living. We can choose to. There's not something we have to do, he says. We don't even have to love our spouse, but we can choose to love our spouse. But there's literally nothing that we must do or have to do because they actually limit us. They limit us, and we are unlimited beings. So it's time to embrace our unlimitedness not to build narrow little walls around ourselves and restrict ourselves. I think it's wonderful really to conceive of who we really are.

[00:35:30.470] - Anne Olsson

We'll never understand the great mystery that God is. Well, if somebody can, then I'd love them to share it with me!  But it's so great and so awesome and so beyond the capacity of mind that really can experience its beauty with wonder. I had an experience many years ago now when my children were teenagers, and I literally probably for three months of my life, I lived in a state of joy and utter devotion to God. It was the most wonderful thing. And life was so simple and happy.

[00:36:20.610] - Anne Olsson

And what pulled me out of it was actually my son was coming home from on the train from his school, and he failed to turn up at the railway station when I went to meet him. And I immediately went in fear and that fear is so overwhelming, it literally took me out of that beautiful state of mind. But again, I guess it was at that time revealed something to me and I still treasure. I still treasure the memory of that time. But I just felt this utter devotion to God, which was blissful until I allowed fear to rise and just demolish it.

[00:37:09.750] - Helen Reynolds

I think for those who are parents, Lana Carolan said it the best, she said in regards to her daughter, I am the mother I knew best. I was not going to hand her over to God. I had handed myself over years ago, but I was not going to hand her over. And of course, she understood came to understand the truth of the situation.

[00:37:46.290] - Anne Olsson

Yes. Giving up our beliefs, giving up all that restricts us, giving up all those obstacles to love. That's the path before us. I've actually just discovered a little section of the book I'd like to read.

[00:38:05.790] - Helen Reynolds

Yes, please.

[00:38:07.050] - Anne Olsson

It's in the chapter on Surrender. You're asked to give up all your beliefs for all your beliefs are based on the concept of separation. That's something interesting to ponder. All your beliefs are based on the concept of separation. Do you think this statement is too generalised? Do you consider that you can willingly abandon some of your beliefs, but that others are perfectly justified? If you protest that you believe in God, I say to you, do not believe in God, but know God. If you protest that you believe in the power of God, I say to you, do not believe in the power of God, but let it live in you.

[00:38:57.570] - Anne Olsson

What is a belief but a concept of mind that you have clunked to and used to create your experience in this world, you've dreamt up. You believe the change is possible and is occurring about you continually. But what is real is changeless and eternal. You believe you are a body and you live as if you were a body. But you are not a body. You believe you are separate from your brothers and sisters, but you are not separate from anyone or anything. You believe that it is possible to love one brother and hate another.

[00:39:38.310] - Anne Olsson

But love sees no differences and loves all equally. You believe you can experience suffering, but suffering is an egoic illusion. Look about you, the world you see with physical eyes and have believed to be solid and real. And ask yourself this question, am I seeing clearly. Am I seeing with the eyes of Christ? That's a really good question to ponder, isn't it? This is why it says that surrender calls for the death of all you have known, all your creeds and opinions, all your assumptions and interpretation.

[00:40:23.730] - Anne Olsson

So that's what we're asked to do.

[00:40:26.190] - Helen Reynolds

I really enjoyed that part of the book. It made me realise that I still had beliefs about love and truth - whilst they were aligned to the truth, they were still not facilitating me being the truth. I guess it's hard to say.

[00:40:48.330] - Anne Olsson

Until we give up our beliefs, we still feel the world should be a certain way. We think things should be a certain way, what we believe in, and therefore we strive to control it. But trying to control events is really absurd. It gets us nowhere because we can't control events. It becomes not only fruitless but painful.

[00:41:27.050] - Helen Reynolds

The absurdity of the covid situation across the world and particularly in Australia, really exemplifies that, don't you think?

[00:41:36.170] - Anne Olsson

Yes.

[00:41:37.310] - Helen Reynolds

The attempts to control have become excessively absurd.

[00:41:42.350] - Anne Olsson

To me. It's like this giant screenplay, if you will. I can't think of a better word of the very thing that we're talking about. It's like a giant screenplay of how ridiculous it is to live from the ego mind.

[00:42:01.670] - Anne Olsson

All based on fear.

[00:42:02.810] - Helen Reynolds

All based on fear.

[00:42:06.410] - Anne Olsson

All based on fear. We're all just expressing a call for love. Yes.

[00:42:15.890] - Helen Reynolds

Thank you. And we do feel unloved in those fearful moments of our lives. We feel isolated. [00:42:28.990] - Anne OlssonI guess I've come to believe that we're never isolated.

[00:42:33.370] - Helen Reynolds

No, in truth, we're not.

[00:42:36.970] - Anne Olsson

Yes, these feelings arise, and then it's good to question what is feeling isolated. Who is it that's feeling isolated? It is very easy to slip into that pattern, but I think it's just really wise in that time just to question what is it in me that's really an isolated. Is it really the truth of who I am? Because we're literally never alone. I think this is one great blessing that I've received over these years from my communications with Jeshua because I know it just takes a quiet moment for me to connect, and I can feel his presence or the presence of one other.

[00:43:29.050] - Anne Olsson

Of the what I think of is the Christ counsel and will always remind me of the truth. The ego is very powerful. I can see this so often, even those who are, even in myself as well. But in those who are seeking the truth. But it's really helpful to see the way the ego plays a part in our lives and dominates our thinking. The ego isn't real. It's something that we believed in, and it's just another belief that we are this. We can be small or limited, but we are in truth, love.

[00:44:20.170] - Anne Olsson

And this is what I think we have to continually remind ourselves of the truth of who we are, whatever arises in our life. Just remember that we are Love created in Love. Love is not something we have to attain. Relationship even is not something we have to attain. But Love is who we are. It's the essence of our being. And there's nothing we need to do. Nothing we need to perfect. We were indeed created in the image of our father. Isn't that not a wonderful thing?

[00:45:03.770] - Anne Olsson

It's not an extraordinary thing to ponder. We may wander lost in this dream world we've created on this planet. But it's so worthwhile just to stop. Just stop, come home to ourselves and realise that the truth, the truth of who we are. This whole belief in aloneness or being isolated really comes back to that belief that we're a body that we believe in separation. That's where it all begins. And that belief in separation. Only if we believe we are a body functioning within the limitations of time and space.

[00:45:58.070] - Anne Olsson

Could we possibly believe that we could be alone alone from other bodies. But unfortunately, that belief in separation gives rise to so many other things that are undesirable.  It gives rise to a need for safety and security. It gives rise to unconscious guilt, which we then try to project outward onto others. But when we really recognise our own innocence and we're truly one with the Father, that we cannot fail to see it in others.

[00:46:39.830] - Helen Reynolds

I found it to be a really joyful experience, seeing it in others, particularly just walking down the street or at the markets or wherever I am just something insignificant. It might seem at the time that it's that recognition of the Christ within.

[00:47:02.070] - Anne Olsson

Yes.

[00:47:05.470] - Helen Reynolds

And it's joyful, and it's freeing, and it doesn't contain any burden.

[00:47:12.490] - Anne Olsson

The outer world is always mirrors what is within us. Jeshua tells us when we want only love, that's what we'll see. We'll see only love. That's an extraordinary statement. It's when we want only love. We'll see only love. Yesterday I went for a wander along the beach here and went for a little swim, and I was just so happy. Everything was so beautiful. And everyone around me seemed happy. The dogs on the beach that were running free and everybody seemed happy. And I don't think I've ever had such an example of how the outer world mirrors the inner because I was happy because what I saw in the world was happy.

[00:48:11.930] - Anne Olsson

It was something of a revelation because it just really reminded me very powerfully. Yes. What I see out there is just a mirror of what's going on inside of me. That's why when we change our mind about something, we change about mind. You know, there's a line from A Course in Miracles which I always love. And it says the holiest spot on Earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love. There's such beauty. In those words. The holiest spot on Earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love.

[00:48:56.090] - Anne Olsson

That's what Jeshua is calling us to do. It's just to abandon all our personal agendas, give up trying to change the world, to fix the world or manipulate the behaviour of others, and just walk upon this planet free of striving, free of the change in which ego has bound us, and just to love and cherish the world as it is.  You know, that we are literally the presence of love. And that gives us extraordinary power to offer this love to the world, to be the presence of love in every situation.

[00:49:46.830] - Anne Olsson

And when someone is calling out for love, to offer it in whatever form seems appropriate at the time, and we might not even say anything. We might simply smile. We might just see them as the truth of who they are. It doesn't matter, but to be the present Love is a great joy and a great gift we have to offer the world. I think that's wonderful. I think that's something really to treasure when we truly embrace thought that the Father and I are one when we truly accept that.

[00:50:35.790] - Anne Olsson

And we know that the power of love works in us and through us. It's an awesome thing to contemplate, and I feel blessed personally, I feel blessed that we can do this. We can each and every one of us act as the presence of love to be those beacons of light that Jeshua asks us to be beacons of light in a seeming world of darkness. When we look out on the world, it seems a troubled place at the moment, but we can bring our love to it.

[00:51:16.150] - Anne Olsson

The biggest thing is to love ourselves because self love is, in fact the gift we offer the world. If we truly love ourselves Holy and see ourselves as the light that we are, it is truly a gift, a gift to everyone else. Our love becomes like a pebble dropped into a pond and it radiates out. We can never know even what a simple smile can do. We can walk along and smile to another and they can be uplifted and they might in turn smile to another.  It might lift their spirits in some way if they're feeling down. That's our power. That's pretty amazing.

[00:52:05.870] - Helen Reynolds

It feels extra amazing when we allow it. Well, Anne, this feels like a really beautiful spot to stop the podcast. We've been speaking for about an hour and it's just been divine.

[00:52:24.530] - Anne Olsson

Thank you for the honour of sharing this time with you. It's been a joy.

[00:52:31.070] - Helen Reynolds

I think maybe the joy is all mine. Perhaps it shared.

[00:52:39.930] - Anne Olsson

We share the love that we are. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share this book out there with all those who are listening in.

[00:52:54.310] - Helen Reynolds

Oh, let's talk about that. How does someone get this marvelous book that we're talking about?

[00:53:04.370] - Anne Olsson

They can order it directly through me because they always have a batch or they can order it directly through Lulu. All they need to do is type in Lulu. L-U-L-U. Com and type in name of the book, which is Surrender to the Stillness and it will come up fabulous.

[00:53:30.570] - Helen Reynolds

And I'll always have those links in the show notes page that go with this episode, which is at Live True To You. Com that's it for this episode of the More Love Podcast. It's been absolutely divine, a very spacious, expensive episode that if you listen with an open heart, maybe re listen. If you haven't been able to listen with an open heart and it will drop you straight into this magnificent divine energy of love. Thank you, Anne.

[00:54:11.230] - Anne Olsson

Thank you, Helen. It's been a joy to share this time with you.