Reflections 155 to 168

 

155/ The Way to Freedom

29th September 2022

 

Lesson 155: I will step back and let Him lead the way. (ACIM, W-155)

 

The lesson today contains these five words. The world is an illusion. It is basically telling us that nothing actually exists out there. The title therefore asks that we put our faith in the Holy Spirit. It suggests that this is the way to freedom because our minds are aligning with truth.

 

We are shown that illusions shape the way we exist. They are simply projections of the mind. And so, instead of going from illusion to illusion, the lesson today leads us from illusions to the truth.

 

A Course in Miracles is a way to remember our true nature and our true home. It is about being brave and looking deep within ourselves. ACIM guides us in how to encounter all our fears, allowing us to see those fears with a mind that does not feel scared.

 

No one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them, for not looking is the way they are protected. There is no need to shrink from illusions, for they cannot be dangerous. (ACIM, T-11.V.1:1-2)

 

We are dreaming we are in a world experiencing duality. We are dreaming we have gone from where we have never left. A Course in Miracles tells us that our real conflict is between what the ego wants us to be and what God Wills us to be. ACIM is therefore here to teach us the way to freedom, and only then can we wake up and experience what really exists.

 

Do not be afraid, then, to look upon fear, for it cannot be seen. Clarity undoes confusion by definition, and to look upon darkness through light must dispel it. (ACIM, T-11.V.2:8-9)

 

Sandy Briggs talks about her experience of enjoying the freedom that lies beyond this illusory world. Not only did Sandy have a near-death experience when she went back to the Light, but she later had pre-birth memories of being in Heaven. She remembers planning her life, and she remembers doing this with others who are here on earth now. Her talk was recorded at an International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS) conference in 2017 and the video can be seen below.

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156/ What Jesus Tells Us

30th September 2022

 

Lesson 156: I walk with God in perfect holiness. (ACIM, W-156)

 

The lesson today is a lesson from Jesus. It is personal. He wants us to think like he does.

 

Walking with God might not fit with our mindset, and yet this is what Jesus instructs. God is omnipotent, omnipresent and all knowing. We have to walk with God because God is everywhere.

 

Walking in perfect holiness might also feel abstract, and yet Jesus tells us it is simply a state of mind. We are walking in light and not in darkness. The light is love, and love lights our way.

 

Jesus is teaching us to remember what we have forgotten. Light, for example, can never die. Jesus tells us that light and love are our true nature. Perfect holiness therefore has to be what we are.

 

Jesus saw this light everywhere and never saw the ego. He sees it now and tells us it is impossible for the ego to know the light. The ego is simply a separate state and has no power. The ego has nothing to do with God and has nothing to do with what we really are.

 

Jesus tells us the ego upholds our separation and keeps us from questioning it. He says it is only in stillness that we can feel the clarity of the mind. The mind is infinite and thoughts are like cloud cover. It is only the ego that stops the peace being there.

 

Basically, Jesus tells us that our real use of power comes when we give all our questions to the Holy Spirit. It comes when we start accepting our true Identity instead of ignoring it. We can then begin to understand how powerful the light within us really is. Jesus tells us the ego can never, and will never, understand this. This is because the ego can’t function when the light is there.

 

Everything you perceive is a witness to the thought system you want to be true. Every brother has the power to release you, if you choose to be free. You cannot accept false witness of him unless you have evoked false witness against him. If he speaks not of Christ to you, you spoke not of Christ to him. You hear but your own voice, and if Christ speaks through you, you will hear Him. (ACIM, T-11.V.18:3-7)

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157/ Belief Determines Perception

1st October 2022

 

Lesson 157: Into His Presence would I enter now. (ACIM, W-157)

 

Everything happens now. There is no distinction between past and future. Each thought, each breath and every moment only determines whether we are separate or whether we are whole.

 

This is the lesson for today. It implies that each moment is just another chance to rise above suffering or to extend our stay in the prison cell that is the ego.

 

A Course in Miracles is literally this choice. It says that where we put our belief determines how we feel. In other words, we can stay with the ego or we can go with spirit. We can believe that we are victims or we can become our own masters. ACIM is Jesus telling us that we can control our destiny.

 

You will not find peace until you have removed the nails from the hands of God’s Son, and taken the last thorn from his forehead. The Love of God surrounds His Son whom the god of crucifixion condemns. Teach not that I died in vain. Teach rather that I did not die by demonstrating that I live in you. (ACIM, T-11.VI.7:1-4)

 

The crucifixion becomes a demonstration of the ego’s belief in death. Jesus says we should pay no attention to it. The ego is not the Self that we are. The Self that we are is free and can never die.

 

While you perceive the Son of God as crucified, you are asleep. And as long as you believe that you can crucify him, you are only having nightmares. (ACIM, T-11.VI.8:5-6)

 

Belief therefore determines perception. Every thought we think either kills us or sets us free.

 

You have nailed yourself to a cross, and placed a crown of thorns upon your own head. Yet you cannot crucify God’s Son, for the Will of God cannot die. (ACIM, T-11.VI.8:1-2)

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158/ A Recognition of What Is True

2nd October 2022

 

Lesson 158: Today I learn to give as I receive. (ACIM, W-158)

 

The lesson today starts by telling us what we are. It tells us that we are a mind created out of love. No fear exists within this mind which has never left its Source. Each and every living being on this planet is this mind.

 

We think we are a body but the lesson today tells us we are the light beyond the body. We think we are a certain age but the lesson today states that time is just a sleight of hand. We think the world is as we see it but the lesson today tells us we are just mentally reviewing what has gone by. It tells us the script is written. Everything is over, done and dusted. We are God’s Son - the Christ - and nothing else exists. We have no idea we are dreaming up the world we see.

 

In essence, we are what we see. We can see the real world or the false world; we can see endless love or we can see twinges of fear. If we learn the real meaning behind what today’s lesson is teaching us, God’s Love is there for us to receive.

 

A Course in Miracles has only one goal. Its goal is to change the way we think. It continually tells us that we have the choice of two thought systems. A little bit of one and little bit of another will not work. As we go through the Workbook, our minds are steered away from individuation and move toward the collective. We see that we are all one with a mind that is joined.

 

God created only the eternal. This is the thought system of the Holy Spirit and it recognises what is true. It is a thought system based on love because love is eternal. The thought system of the ego is completely the opposite. It allows us to see only the perishable. All it sees just dies, turns to dust and is gone forever. This is the recognition of what is not true.

 

Every loving thought that the Son of God ever had is eternal. The loving thoughts his mind perceives in this world are the world’s only reality. They are still perceptions, because he still believes that he is separate. Yet they are eternal because they are loving. (ACIM, T-11.VII.2:1-4)

 

The ego may see some good, but never only good. That is why its perceptions are so variable. It does not reject goodness entirely, for that you could not accept. But it always adds something that is not real to the real, thus confusing illusion and reality. (ACIM, T-11.VII.3:1-4)

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159/ Ask and We Receive

3rd October 2022

 

Lesson 159:  I give the miracles I have received. (ACIM, W-158)

 

There is the real world and there is the false world. There is the Holy Spirit and there is the ego. There is life and there is death.

 

The lesson today is about learning the difference.

 

The miracle is the recognition of reality. We all have it. No one is denied. We are all just Thoughts of God and not one Thought can be any different from any other.

 

The lesson therefore provides the bridge that transports us to the awareness of our immortality.

 

A Course in Miracles asks us to be like little children. It tells us that when a child doesn’t understand something, it points to it and asks. The child might perceive something as frightening and then will laugh when it is taught what it is. The dragon becomes funny because its absurdity is clearly seen.

 

Jesus teaches that fear lies not in reality but in the minds of children who do not understand reality.

 

You, my child, are afraid of your brothers and of your Father and of yourself. But you are merely deceived in them. Ask what they are of the Teacher of reality, and hearing His answer, you too will laugh at your fears and replace them with peace. (ACIM, T-11.VIII.14:1-3)

 

The lesson today tells us that the miracle arises out of Christ’s vision. This is not blind belief. Christ’s vision does not come from one single man who died for our sins. Christ’s vision arises out of the Self that we are. It is shared by all of us, including Jesus, and is deep within each and every one of us. Every living being on this planet has Christ’s vision resting quietly in their minds.

 

Ask and we receive is a fact. However, we just have to be careful of what we ask for. Jesus tells us we have everything within us. He tells us that what is ours is everything and we share it with everyone. We can share only what God has given us, and this is the miracle that we have received.

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160/ The Hidden Stranger

4th October 2022

 

Lesson 160:  I am at home. Fear is the stranger here. (ACIM, W-160)

 

The lesson today is all about a stranger being in our midst. This stranger has become part of the family. He seems faithful and dependable, and has gained our trust.

 

The stranger is our guest because we invited him in. The irony is that we now house and look after him, forging a lifelong relationship, but we never quite know the reason he is here.

 

A Course in Miracles tells us the stranger is a conman. ACIM gives us all the details of his deceit. We learn his name, address and telephone number. We learn what he does, who he is and how to get rid of him. This means it is our decision whether we want to evict him today.

 

However, there is one important detail we also need to know. The stranger is not real. He is a concept, an idea and merely a thought; he is a phantom, a shadow, a trick of the mind.

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that we made the stranger up. We simply made an error of judgement. Our job, therefore, is to forgive ourselves for something we didn’t really do.

 

If you want to believe in error, you would have to make it real because it is not true. But truth is real in its own right, and to believe in truth you do not have to do anything. Understand that you do not respond to anything directly, but to your interpretation of it. (ACIM, T-12.I.1:2-4)

 

We have to be diligent. We have to keep a constant eye on this stranger, observing what he does and says. However, we have to be wary.  The stranger will do everything he can to force a delay.

 

A Course in Miracles has one single message. We need to evict the hidden stranger. Only then can we discover what he has hidden from us, for these are the words he has hidden away.

 

Every loving thought is true. Everything else is an appeal for healing and help, regardless of the form it takes. (ACIM, T-12.I.3:3-4)

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161/ The Call that We Hear

5th October 2022

 

Lesson 161:  Give me your blessing, holy Son of God. (ACIM, W-161)

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that fear and love are the only two emotions of which we are capable. It states that one is true and one is false.

 

The lesson today states that truth is always the same. One brother is all brothers. One mind contains all minds.

 

Only bodies can attack; minds do not. A body is therefore fear’s symbol. We are seeing our own fear within that body.

 

A Course in Miracles teaches that we do not stand alone in our healing. We heal ourselves through our brothers. A brother therefore acts as a mirror to what we have to do to heal our minds.

 

Only appreciation is an appropriate response to your brother. Gratitude is due him for both his loving thoughts and his appeals for help, for both are capable of bringing love into your awareness if you perceive them truly. (ACIM, T-12.I.6:1-2)

 

Jesus gave out only love while being tortured. His mind knew that only love was real. He is not asking that we be crucified, but merely that we do the same in much less harrowing circumstances.  He tells us to always choose love instead of fear, regardless of the form in which that choice has to be made.

 

Fear is a symptom of your own deep sense of loss. If when you perceive it in others you learn to supply the loss, the basic cause of fear is removed. Thereby you teach that fear does not exist in you. (ACIM, T-12.I.9:1-3)

 

Fear, then, only reflects our separation from Infinite Love. By challenging our fear, we are breaking down the veil to love.

 

Each brother becomes a call to this love. We can ignore it, or it can become the call that we hear.

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162/ Awake and Be Glad

6th October 2022

 

Lesson 162:  I am as God created me. (ACIM, W-162)

 

A Course in Miracles is a celebration. It is just as the lesson states. We are as God created us to be.

 

All that gets in the way of us realizing this is fear. We may not know it, but we see that fear everywhere. Everything that the ego does is as a result of this underlying fear.

 

Its opposite is so different that words cannot describe it. The Love of God is an experience and words simply can’t do it justice. A Course in Miracles is therefore the path towards this experience. In fact, ACIM would tell us that that we have God’s Love within us right now.

 

A Course in Miracles teaches us to quieten our minds and consider its teaching. It states that nothing other than perfect love can ever exist. It tells us the miracle is that nothing can hurt us. And yet we constantly deny the miracle of perfect love can ever exist.

 

Miracles are merely the translation of denial into truth. If to love oneself is to heal oneself, those who are sick do not love themselves. Therefore, they are asking for the love that would heal them, but which they are denying to themselves. (ACIM, T-12.II.1:1-3)

 

A Course in Miracles asks us to awake and be glad. It is saying we should stop denying what we are.

 

The Soul’s Remembrance does exactly this. The Soul’s Remembrance is a book by Roy Mills in which he describes his memories of Heaven. However, there is one difference. Instead of remembering these memories in later life, Roy has had complete recall from birth. He was instructed not to tell anyone until well into his forties. This book, then, is the promise that he made. Below is a narration of the introduction and the first two chapters. Further chapters will follow over the next few weeks.

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163/ Freedom from Poverty

7th October 2022

 

Lesson 163:  There is no death. The Son of God is free. (ACIM, W-163)

 

The lesson today tells us that death is only believable to a split mind. A mind that is whole knows nothing of death. It just does not exist.

 

A Course in Miracles is quite blunt about this. Death does not exist. The world that we see does not exist. Nothing outside the mind exists. It tells us we only put meaning on the images that we see.

 

The world you perceive is a world of separation. Perhaps you are willing to accept even death to deny your Father. Yet he would not have it so, and so it is not so. You still cannot will against Him, and that is why you have no control over the world you made. (ACIM, T-12.III.9:1-4)

 

This means we can either see a false world or we see the real world. A false world is where we label and judge everything we see. The real world is never judged and never labelled. To see the real world requires no effort since the mind is quiet and peaceful. A Course in Miracles tells us that to see a false world requires immense effort. We are literally thinking all the time.

 

To be quiet, therefore, we have to be aware that the ego can never give us what we want.

 

To identify with the ego is to attack yourself and make yourself poor. That is why everyone who identifies with the ego feels deprived. (ACIM, T-12.III.6:1-2)

 

The ego, then, is the sole reason why we feel deprived. The ego is the sole reason why we feel lack. The ego is the sole reason why we feel fear of any kind. The solution comes through stepping back from this. We have to step back from the narrative that the ego is spinning in our minds.

 

A Course in Miracles tells us it all begins and ends in the mind. Here we find poverty and here we find wealth. Freedom from poverty arises through peace, and peace then surrounds all that we see.

 

This is the reason for doing the lessons. It allows us to learn that peace exists within the mind.

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164/ The Search for Love

8th October 2022

 

Lesson 164:  Now we are one with Him Who is our Source. (ACIM, W-164)

 

The message behind the lesson today is that we do not have to search for anything. Everything we need is with us now.

 

Now is not noisy. Now is not stressful. Now does not have to be thought about. Today’s lesson tells us the present moment cannot change. Now has a silence the world can never provide.

 

We do not remember this. We search for this silence everywhere. We search for it in drink and drugs, sex and any form of addiction. We search for it in anything that distracts us from our thinking. And then we feel guilty and withdraw, only to start all over again.

 

A Course in Miracles teaches us that there is now and only now. It teaches us that there is love and only love. It teaches us that there is spirit and only spirit. Everything arises out of God and only God. God is Infinite Love. God is Infinite Spirit. God is Infinite Presence. This is ACIM’s teaching. God is the Source of all that we are.

 

We are searching for all that Is. It is here and all around us, just as love and life are here and all around us. Nothing else is here because nothing else exists.

 

A Course in Miracles states that the ego will never give us what we want; the Holy Spirit always will.

 

A Course in Miracles says that the ego never delivers what it promises; the Holy Spirit always does.

 

The search for love is therefore an undoing, not a doing. It is over because there is only now.

 

You will undertake a journey because you are not at home in this world. And you will search for your home whether you realize where it is or not. If you believe it is outside you the search will be futile, for you will be seeking it where it is not. You do not remember how to look within for you do not believe your home is there. (ACIM, T-12.IV.5:1-4)

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165/ Poor Learners and Poor Teachers

9th October 2022

 

Lesson 165:  Let not my mind deny the Thought of God. (ACIM, W-165)

                                                                                         

The lesson today tells us that, if we knew where it was, we would never deny the Thought of God. It tells us that the Thought of God is not out there. It is somewhere where we never think to look.

 

We obviously come to A Course in Miracles because we want something. We might, for example, be experiencing anxiety or depression, and it just won’t lift. ACIM offers us the solution. It tells us it is in the mind and we can find it, but only by doing what the Workbook says.

 

The goal of A Course in Miracles is to discover what lies beneath the ego. This is the healing of the mind. ACIM teaches us that nothing lies beneath the ego. The ego is just a split in the mind.

 

A Course in Miracles states that only love is strong because love is undivided. It tells us that the ego’s love is completely divided because it wilts when faced with the Love of God. God’s Love, then, dwarfs the ego, but our capacity to know this is undone by denying the Thought of God.

 

You have learning handicaps in a very literal sense. There are areas in your learning skills that are so impaired that you can progress only under constant, clear-cut direction, provided by a Teacher Who can transcend your limited resources. (ACIM, T-12.V.5:1-2)

 

The Holy Spirit is an echo of the Voice for God. It wants to see everything that we have pushed aside. Its only teaching is that nothing is a problem. All we have to do is identify, then give, the Holy Spirit our worries, and what He does with them is only for the Holy Spirit to decide.

 

We therefore have to learn to be aware of our thoughts and what they are teaching us. We have to question anything that doesn’t give us a peaceful state of mind. To do this, we just need to be present and listen. We need to step back from our thoughts as they arise in the mind.

 

We are asked not to be poor learners and poor teachers. A Course in Miracles is explicit in this with everything it says. No words are wasted in this effort. Our job is just to understand what they tell us and follow what they say.

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166/ The Cost of Sleeping

10th October 2022

 

Lesson 166:  I am entrusted with the gifts of God. (ACIM, W-166)

 

We suffer. This is a fact.

 

The lesson today tells us why. Suffering arises either from the belief in two creators or it arises from the belief in a little self alone. Suffering could never arise if we knew there was just the one Creator.

 

The lesson today tells us that God did not create the world we see. It paints a sorry picture of who we think we are. The whole lesson describes how painful it is to be caught up in a world of suffering that is entirely of our own making.

 

A Course in Miracles tells us we cannot sell our own soul, but we can sell our awareness of it.

 

You cannot perceive your soul, but you will not know it while you perceive something else as more valuable. (ACIM, T-12.VI.1:7)

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that what we value is what we treasure.

 

You do not want the world. The only thing of value in it is whatever part of it you look upon with love. (ACIM, T-12.VI.3:1-2)

 

A Course in Miracles is about one thing and one thing only. This is totality. It tells us that to not know totality simply means being asleep to what we are.

 

The cost of sleeping is therefore suffering but A Course in Miracles tells us we can awaken to the gifts of God. The gifts of God are the opposite of suffering. They are limitless love and endless joy.

 

What is one cannot be perceived as separate, and the denial of the separation is the reinstatement of knowledge. (ACIM, T-12.VI.7:1)

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167/ The Right Guidance

11th October 2022

 

Lesson 167:  There is one life, and that I share with God. (ACIM, W-167)

 

A Course in Miracles is complete non-duality. It is absolute Oneness. ACIM teaches that there is no opposite to God. We are all simply an extension of His Love.

 

The lesson today teaches that God created a mind awake. It states that there is no death because there is no opposite to life. God created only life, and the opposite of life is merely sleeping.

 

The lesson today also teaches that ideas do not leave their source. Death is therefore just a thought in the mind. It tells us that any thought about death simply arises in the mind that thinks it, and stays there. Changing our mind about death is therefore essential to the healing of the mind.

 

A Course in Miracles says that learning is indivisible. ACIM is a teaching about what is perfect and what is whole. Its whole foundation is that the mind has no faults or restrictions. Being healed therefore means our minds come know what they have always known.

 

As your function in Heaven is creation, so your function on earth is healing. God shares His function with you in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit shares His with you on earth. As long as you believe you have other functions, so long will you need correction. For this belief is the destruction of peace, a goal in direct opposition to the Holy Spirit’s purpose. (ACIM, T-12.VII.4:7-10)

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that we have lost sight of what we really are, but we can at least accept that we are separate. We have lost sight of being peaceful, but we can at least accept that fear controls our minds.

 

Having an acceptance that we can change is the first step in being peaceful. We can then choose the right Guidance that begins the process of allowing our minds to slowly wake up.

 

Of whose presence would you be convinced? For you will believe in what you manifest, and as you look out so you will see in. Two ways of looking at the world are in your mind, and your perception will reflect the guidance you have chosen. (ACIM, T-12.VII.5:4-6)

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168/ Seeking and Finding

12th October 2022

 

Lesson 168:  Your grace is given me. I claim it now. (ACIM, W-168)

 

The lesson today tells us that God does not hide from us. We hide from God.

 

We need to look within: Remember always that you see what you seek, for what you seek you will find (ACIM, T-12.VII.6:3). Jesus tells us that if we search for two goals we will find them, but recognize neither. A split mind keeps the split, but it makes that split seem like one.

 

Jesus also tells us that whether our minds project or extend is up to us, but we can only do one or the other. We have to look in before we look out. This is a law of the mind.

 

We therefore find what we seek. This means we manifest only what we want. Jesus says that everything that appears to happen to us can only arise in the mind.

 

You are afraid of me because you looked within and are afraid of what you saw. Yet you could not have seen reality, for the reality of your mind is the loveliest of God’s creations. Coming only from God, its power and grandeur could only bring you peace if you really looked upon it. (ACIM, T-12.VII.10:1-3)

 

Healing, then, is the pursuit of one goal, but never two. Our absolute desire has to be for only what brings us peace.

 

We look within and ignore its opposite. Peace has no opposite; however, it just seems that it has.

 

Seeking and finding arises from judging or just being. According to Jesus, judging and being are the only two things that our minds can do.

 

Everything you behold without is a judgement of what you beheld within. If it is your judgement it will be wrong, for judgement is not your function. If it is the judgement of the Holy Spirit it will be right, for judgement is His function. (ACIM, T-12.VII.12:4-6)