Text: The Course [ACIM] says, "Dream of your brother's kindness, instead of dwelling in your dreams on his mistakes. Select his thoughtfulness to dream about instead of counting up the hurts he gave." (T543) What am I to do when I can't seem to see the kindness and thoughtfulness? At any moment that you have an awareness that you are unable to see love in any form in someone else, know with a certainty that you are withholding that love from yourself. This is much the same principle that I was speaking to you about earlier as I said, as you allow your awareness to increase and encompass those around you, now you will find how much more aware they have become. Because, you see, nothing has changed in them; it has only been your awareness of yourself which has become open. The same is true for any emotion or feeling that you would seek to derive from a brother. It is simply a matter of allowing yourself to be open to that feeling as you see it coming from yourself. You are looking in all of the wrong places. As you attempt to focus on an answer to a problem you perceive as being your own, and you look for it as you see it expressed through another person, you are confusing the effects with the cause. Nothing is happening for you that is not created directly by the thought patterns that you hold within your own mind. All perceptions pertaining to the world outside of your mind, are created directly by those thought patterns. They are seen through the filters of that perception which you may or may not be consciously aware of. Let me explain it like this: as you have developed a need to be loved, a need to see love being expressed to you, you will focus upon those outside you to bring that confirmation to your attention. You will never find it there. What you will find there is the reflection of the confusion that is in your own mind. You will see some who will apparently reflect to you the love that you seek; you will see others reflect to you less than the love that you seek. This is the confusion that lies within your own mind. You must understand quite clearly that nothing comes to you except what comes through you. What comes through you as a loving feeling is what you will find expressed in the loving feelings reflected around you. Therefore, you must concentrate only on why it is that you do not feel these loving feelings as being a part of you, as being something that comes through you, as being an extension of you. I will remind you of something; you are at this moment nothing less than complete and total Love. You will hear this as simply being a message of words and you must allow it to go deeper. You must allow it to bypass your intellectual understanding. You must stop being afraid of understanding that there is nothng about you that is not constituted solely of Love. I am not offering you encouragement - I am simply stating a fact to you. As the perfect creation of the Father, it is impossible for you to be less than what I have described. For you to be less than that would make Him less than that. Once you have allowed yourself even the beginning of this understanding, you will find the world around you beginning to change dramatically. Feel good about that change, but do not let it be mysterious. Understand that it is changing because you are changing. That is the only way for your world outside, as you see it, to change. The world around you is simply a place that waits for your manifestations to be cast upon it and as you cast fear upon it, cast doubt upon it, then that will be your experience of it. But it will also reflect to you the experience of love as you allow that experience of love to be developed within you. It would be much easier if all you had to do was wait to see the love that came to you. Then it would require nothing on your part. But if this were true, then you would remain forever a prisoner of the world. I will tell you that the physical, outside dimension of the world as you now see it is nothing but a prisoner of your thinking. Do not judge yourself for being less a person because you are unable to see a positive response to you from many of those around you, or that you are unable to see the love that you have been told exists within those people around you. You are simply setting up more excuses to be judgmental about yourself and this will do nothing but perpetuate the pattern that I have spoken to you about. It is now time to change the pattern. And for you, my brother, that pattern can only be changed by giving up the misperception of who you are. I am not asking you to become something that you are not; I am not really asking you to change anything. I am simply asking you to let go of your misperception. As you now find it extremely difficult not to be judgmental about other people, understand that this is so because you cannot avoid judging yourself. I ask you to go within and ask yourself if it is your belief that you are being judged by God. And when you have satisfied yourself that you are not, then ask yourself if God judges me not, then why do I persist in this activity? If God sees me as being His loving Son, then why do I withhold that feeling from myself? Old patterns are hard to discard. Your intellect and your ego will give you many things to do to change these patterns. There will appear to be many books, many wise teachers, all of whom will help you, but in the final analysis it will be only you who will seek out the quiet time to allow this feeling of God's love to totally immerse you, to always be with you. Allow yourself to respond to that love by allowing yourself whatever moments of joy you can each day. You will be surpirsed at the small things that will bring you joy if you but allow yourself to be worthy of accepting them. There will be no apparent reasons that will come to you, no logic that will present itself as saying: this I am entitled to. This is the feeling that must come from within you. This is the basic decision that you must make to simply be happy. I know that it is your dsire to please God, and I would have you know there is not greater way for you to do this than to be joyful. It is totally unimportant what you are joyful about - it is simply the choice of allowing yourself to be in a state of joy. [Dialogue on Awakening, pages 95-98]

See Also:

Source: