Reflections 281 to 294

 

281/ I Am that I Am

2nd February 2023

 

Lesson 281: I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts. (ACIM, W-281)

 

The lesson today teaches us that we are perfect. We have just forgotten that we are.

 

A Course in Miracles informs us that perfection cannot be seen with a mind asleep. We are unconscious to the Self within us. We are dreaming that something other than our Self is real.

 

We think, but what we think is wrong. Our whole thought system is causing us pain. For the most part, we are completely unaware of what we are doing.

 

Jesus, then, brought us A Course in Miracles so that we can wake up to what it is to be happy.

 

Do you not see the opposite of frailty and weakness is sinlessness? Innocence is strength, and nothing else is strong. The sinless cannot fear, for sin of any kind is weakness. (ACIM, T-23.in.1:1-3)

 

Jesus teaches only complete interconnection and oneness. He makes us question all that we see.

 

Nothing around you but is part of you. Look on it lovingly, and see the light of Heaven in it. So will you come to understand all that is given you. (ACIM, T-23.in.6:1-3)

 

Everything, then, comes from God - the I Am That I Am. This is the direct experience of Perfect Love.

 

Below are the next two instalments of the 12-part series from the Love Covered Life Podcast. Part 9 has multiple near-death experiencers expressing their views on the truth of what we are. Part 10 gives us another perspective on Jesus (different from parts 5 and 6 which were much more about their personal experience). In the video below, we learn who Jesus is and what he wants from us.

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282/ The One Truth

3rd February 2023

 

Lesson 282: I will not be afraid of love today. (ACIM, W-282)

 

The lesson today teaches just one thing. We need to accept the way that God created us.

 

To do this, we have to simplify everything.  Love cannot be overcomplicated - God is Love and Love is God. It is as simple as that.

 

A Course in Miracles tells us we have one Identity, one Self and one Persona. We have no boundaries and no divisions. All is one, and one is all.

 

We just need to tap into an inner knowing that everything is complete and as it should be.

 

So the question arises: What do we want?

 

The memory of God comes to the quiet mind. It cannot come where there is conflict, for a mind at war against itself remembers not eternal gentleness. The means of war are not the means of peace, and what the warlike would remember is not love. (ACIM, T-23.I.1:1-3)

 

Jesus teaches peace. He states that there is only peace.  He tells us that the mind is anxious about nothing. Our concerns make no difference to what is whole and complete and total.

 

The ego, then, is an impotent illusion. It has to mask its impotence by making itself powerful. This is basically why we don’t know peace.

 

We have the power within us to do what we want. We can believe in what is real and in what is not real. The truth is that there is just one truth. We are exactly as God created us to be.

 

You who are beloved of Him are no illusion, being as true and holy as Himself. The stillness of your certainty of Him and of yourself is home to Both of You, Who dwell as one and not apart. (ACIM, T-23.I.10:1-2)

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283/ Conflict of Illusions

4th February 2023

 

Lesson 283: My true Identity abides in You. (ACIM, W-283)

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that all illusions bring fear because of the belief that they imply. We have placed our faith in what is not real.

 

This means we are always stepping away from truth to fear. Truth just is and needs no validation.

 

Heaven is therefore an awareness. It is perfection. We have shut this down with our beliefs.

 

The lesson today states that we have made an image of our self that is false. From this, a question then arises - how do find for ourselves what is true?

 

Jesus always states that there is no order of hierarchy in illusions, just as there is no order of difficulty in miracles. There is just the false and the true, and what is true can only be found in the now.

 

There is no life outside of Heaven. Where God created life, there life must be. In any state apart from Heaven life is illusion. At best it seems like life; at worst, like death. Yet both are judgements on what is not life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning. (ACIM, T-23.II.19:1-5)

 

Jesus tells us that no one wants madness. What protects this madness is that we believe it is true. Insanity has therefore taken the place of truth.

 

Peace is our barometer. If we don’t feel peaceful, then something false (insanity) has taken its place.

 

The way to find peace is to go within - to find it in the mind. This, in the language of A Course in Miracles, is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is that peace - the silence and stillness - in our minds.

 

We have a conflict of illusions because we do not know peace. When we do know peace, then all minds become one mind. The mind is free.

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284/ Total Ease

5th February 2023

 

Lesson 284: I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt. (ACIM, W-284)

 

Any form of suffering is just a dream.

 

All attack is murder but nothing ever dies.

 

Pain is impossible from the perspective of Source.

 

The lesson today wants us to change our minds, except there is nothing to change our minds about.

 

There is no dream. Reality has no opposite.

 

We are not the body. We are just the awareness that there is a body.

 

We have never left our natural state. Only peace exists.

 

A Course in Miracles therefore tells us that we have no need to defend what we always have.

 

Would you not want to recognize assault upon your peace in any form, if only thus does it become impossible that you lose sight of it? It can be kept shining before your vision, forever clear and never out of sight, if you defend it not. (ACIM, T-23.III.4:7-8)

 

We cannot mistake what is partial and what is whole.

 

A wholly peaceful mind is our natural state.

 

Until we know the cause of unease, we cannot know what is total ease.

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285/ A Quiet Sphere

6th February 2023

 

Lesson 285: My holiness shines bright and clear today. (ACIM, W-285)

 

The lesson today is a choice between holiness and insanity. This is the same as having a choice between joy and fear.

 

Each morning, the lesson tells us, we set the tone for the day. We choose between being happy and not happy. We are what we think.

 

A Course in Miracles is a practical course. It is a course in how to find happiness without conditions. We can have the miracle or we can have the illusion. Nothing more or less than this is possible.

 

This means we either stay in the battleground or we rise above it; we either live in the prison cell or we walk in the sun; we either have our toe in the ocean or we are the ocean in our toe. All these are useful metaphors to help us understand that we can merge with absolute joy any time we want.

 

Jesus tells us that we don’t have to go anywhere to do this, but we do need to have complete awareness. We have to be very much in the now.

 

So we learn to be less reactive to what our noisy voice telling us. We begin to hear the quiet Voice from where we get our certainty. The fact is, we have the ability to make ourselves happy or make ourselves sad. It all begins and ends with the mind.

 

To attack, then, begins with the ego; to accept ends with the Holy Spirit. One only scars and the other always heals.

 

Only the latter can provide a quiet sphere where all is peace. We can journey away from it or make our way towards it. All that is preventing us from knowing it is the wrong type of thought.

 

Do not remain in conflict, for there is no war without attack. The fear of God is fear of life, and not of death. Yet He remains the only place of safety. In Him is no attack, and no illusion in any form stalks Heaven. Heaven is wholly true. (ACIM, T-23.IV.1:1-5)

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286/ A Change in Belief

7th February 2023

 

Lesson 286: The hush of Heaven holds my heart today. (ACIM, W-286)

 

Stillness does not agitate.

 

Within stillness, we find the secrets that the heart desires.

 

Stillness is peace and peace is stillness.

 

The lesson today states we don’t have to do anything.

 

This is it.

 

Everything is here, with us now.

 

Peace is everywhere.

 

Love is all encompassing.

 

Reality has no end.

 

The ego, however, needs to complicate this. Its survival depends on it.

 

A Course in Miracles is simplicity. It is a change in belief.

 

To learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold. Not one can be kept hidden and obscure but it will jeopardize your learning. No belief is neutral. Every one has the power to dictate each decision you make. (ACIM, T-24.in.2:1-4)

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287/ Perfect as We Are

8th February 2023

 

Lesson 287: You are my goal, my Father. Only You. (ACIM, W-287)

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that we will always oppose the Course because it is teaching us that we are all alike. The ‘I’ is the same in everyone regardless of the ‘you’.

 

This is hardly surprising. We put all our faith into being entirely dependent on the body.

 

The lesson today sets the bar. It tells us that our goal is the Peace of God. It is the knowing of our true Identity. It is the absolute certainty that we are one with God.

 

We still continue to chop wood and carry water (as a body) but we do so with a mind that is whole.

 

Until then - until we stop procrastinating and dedicate ourselves to the teachings - we continue with individual needs and goals. We hope for something better but have no idea of what it is.

 

The goal of A Course in Miracles is simply to change the mind’s perception. It is like changing the software on a computer. The computer still looks the same but it operates differently.

 

The mind, then, just perceives with love. Love has no opposite and love has no limit.

 

Love is extension. To withhold the smallest gift is not to know love’s purpose. Love offers everything forever. Hold back but one belief, one offering, and love is gone, because you asked a substitute to take its place. (ACIM, T-24.I.1:1-4)

 

All our problems are just errors in our thinking. We think we are the body and have simply lost the awareness of what we really are.

 

A Course in Miracles wants us to cross the finishing line. This is what each lesson in the Workbook points to, and what today’s lesson implies. Perfection doesn’t need to change. Perfect Love created us so we are perfect as we are.

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288/ The Language of Love

9th February 2023

 

Lesson 288: Let me forget my brother’s past today. (ACIM, W-288)

 

The lesson today tells us that, to recognize our Source, we have to see it in our brother.

 

This is the same as saying that, to know God, we have to see God in everyone we meet.

 

A Course in Miracles basically tells us we have to learn a new language, and we have to know it fluently. This is the language of love where all is one.

 

It means we need to forget the language we have been speaking all our lives. We have to erase it. It is all or nothing. Jesus is telling us we either speak the language of love or we don’t speak it at all.

 

You can defend your specialness, but never will you hear the Voice for God beside it. They speak a different language and they fall on different ears. To every special one a different message, and one with a different meaning, is the truth. (ACIM, T-24.II.5:1-3)

 

The ego, therefore, communicates in different ways to each person it meets.

 

God communicates with only one language. We hear the Voice for God clearly when the mind is still.

 

The language of love is within each one of us.  It is calm and peaceful and wonderful to hear. As we voice it and find it in our brother, our vocabulary changes and the mind becomes clear.

 

The final two instalments from the Love Covered Life Podcast speak this type of language. Part 11 has multiple near-death experiencers talking about the means by which they try to reconnect to the bliss of their experience. Part 12 is concerned with the ways we can make the most of life.

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289/ Complete Forgiveness

10th February 2023

 

Lesson 289: The past is over. It can touch me not. (ACIM, W-289)

 

A Course in Miracles tells us we cannot partly forgive. We either forgive totally or not at all.

 

The lesson today is a reminder that we can see a real world. The real world is a forgiven world. The past is hiding it, except there is no past. Everything is happening entirely in the now.

 

The means that we need to forgive what never happened. It is all arising in the mind.

 

We see what is not there.

 

We hear what is not true.

 

We feel what is not felt.

 

The mind is simply referring to everything from a past reference point. Even our perception of God is understood by what happened in the past.

 

God asks for your forgiveness. He would have no separation, like an alien will, rise between what He wills for you and what you will. They are the same, for neither One wills specialness. How could They will the death of love itself? (ACIM, T-24.III.5:1-4)

 

The real world is a world devoid of separation. Forgiveness is not needed because all is one.

 

Every worry we have that needs to be forgiven has a deeper concern right behind it. It is secret terror that that God will punish us. This is the underlying fear that keeps us bound.

 

God is Infinite Love and has Infinite Patience. It is complete forgiveness that reveals this as true.

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290/ A Fixed Purpose

11th February 2023

 

Lesson 290: My present happiness is all I see. (ACIM, W-290)

 

The lesson today implies that everything that is not happiness is in the mind. It is a dream the mind is having.

 

Happiness then, by definition, is the absence of illusion. Happiness is all-encompassing. It does not depend on anything.

 

This means we have to look deeply into the mind to find out exactly what is going on.

 

Purpose is of the mind. And minds can change as they desire. What they are, and all their attributes, they cannot change. But what they hold as purpose can be changed, and body states must shift accordingly. Of itself, the body can do nothing. (ACIM, T-24.IV.2:6-10)

 

We learn that it is only ourselves we can hurt.

 

A Course in Miracles states that, since the cause of hurt lies in the mind, it is going to be felt just where it is. The mind is not limited and so any discomfort is always going to hurt the one mind.

 

However, if we change our purpose from hurt to healing, then this is the miracle. Again, by definition, all miracles are going to heal the one mind.

 

Jesus is our guide in how to make the mind receptive to the miracle. We do this not by denial but by acceptance. We accept we can’t know the bigger picture - that is impossible. We simply have to accept that there is a greater power, and this greater power knows everything that is going on.

 

Only we can change our minds. Only we can face our fears. Only we can choose between illusion and the truth.

 

All we need is a fixed purpose. A Course in Miracles is a step-by-step guide to achieving exactly that. 

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291/ Love is Christ

12th February 2023

 

Lesson 291: This is a day of stillness and of peace. (ACIM, W-291)

 

The lesson today relates to a vision of Christ.

 

This is not an image of the historical figure or a crucified body. It is simply a reminder that those who quieten their minds reap the rewards. When all is forgiven, all is received.

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that peace can only arise through forgiveness. We are also reminded that the Christ in us sees nothing that needs forgiving.

 

Christ is purity, honesty and peace. Christ is entirely what God created - the Self we share and the Son that we are. Christ is simply one single Thought of Peace.

 

The Christ in you is very still. He looks on what He loves, and knows it as Himself. And thus does He rejoice at what He sees, because He knows that it is one with Him and with His Father. (ACIM, T-24.V.1:1-3)

 

The Christ is formless but is real. Our choice is simply to see the Christ or to see something illusory. Illusions arise out of the ego, so illusions are basically all the things that that the ego thinks are real.

 

A Course in Miracles states that Christ has no doubt. Christ is clarity and purity. Christ is the certainty from which all peace arises. Christ arises out of the Thought of God.

 

Our error, then, is simple. We have replaced the Christ. We put all our faith in a body and the ego.

 

A Course in Miracles is a way to undo this. It is the simple reinterpretation of all we hold as truth. ACIM tells us that Christ is Love and Love is Christ. What else is there that we need to know?

 

The sight of Christ is all there is to see. The song of Christ is all there is to hear. The hand of Christ is all there is to hold. There is no journey but to walk with Him. (ACIM, T-24.V.7:7-10)

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292/ Poetry or Gobbledygook

13th February 2023

 

Lesson 292: A happy outcome to all things is sure. (ACIM, W-292)

 

The lesson today is of no help if our lives are falling apart. We might already be scanning the next lesson to see if that makes more sense.

 

The voice of doubt is gently knocking at the door. We are going to have to let it in.

 

Hope is not going to help us pay the bills.

 

A Course in Miracles cannot just be read to make the difference. We can’t just read the words and put them down. The principles behind the words have to be actively applied.

 

The teachings have one effect. They dismantle all our preconceptions. They let us see that everything is an image in the mind. Nothing actually means anything. We make it up as we go along.

 

Any one person, then, alive or dead, is always the key: Before your brother’s holiness the world is still, and peace descends on it in gentleness and blessing so complete that not one trace of conflict still remains to haunt you in the darkness of the night. (ACIM, T-24.VI.1:1)

 

Our importance should never be underestimated: Without you there would be a lack in God, a Heaven incomplete, a Son without a Father. There could be no universe and no reality. (ACIM, T-24.VI.2:1-2)

 

And, it’s good to know that our safety is forever guaranteed: Nothing is lost to you in all the universe. Nothing that God created has He failed to lay before you lovingly, as yours forever. And no thought within His Mind is absent from your own. (ACIM, T-24.VI.3:1-3)

 

The above might be poetry or it might be gobbledygook. Either way, the message won’t ever change.

 

We need to do the work to get the results. The end result is the complete absence of fear.

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293/ Our Two Options

14th February 2023

 

Lesson 293: All fear is past and only love is here. (ACIM, W-293)

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that we can be special or we can be holy. One we regard as being natural and the other we regard with great suspicion.

 

Jesus tells us that being special means seeing the body. This brings with it all sorts of judgement - subtle or otherwise - and everything that judgement entails. Being holy means seeing past the body. This requires absolutely no judgement at all.

 

The lesson today reflects a wish to be holy. This means letting go of our specialness and knowing only what is contained in this moment - our holiness. In holiness, all love is found and all fear is past.

 

Jesus tells us that holiness is what we are. Holiness is as simple as breathing, as natural us touching, and as essential as seeing. And yet we are wary of it. We reject it because we misinterpret it.

 

The “sacrifice” of self you understand, nor do you deem this cost too heavy. But a tiny willingness, a nod do God, a greeting to the Christ in you, you find a burden wearisome and tedious, too heavy to be borne. (ACIM, T-24.VI.12:3-4)

 

Jesus reminds us that specialness is something we made up ourselves. We delight in it and demand it. Specialness is the mainstay of our world and the reason why we live. We actually adore it.

 

And yet specialness doesn’t make us happy. It makes us suffer. And this is why Jesus has given us A Course in Miracles. It enables us to change, but only if we choose.

 

Our only two options, then, are quite simple. It is a choice between specialness and holiness - the ego and the Holy Spirit - or a mind at peace and a mind at war. Really, though, the concepts don’t matter. All that matters is that we know what we are.

 

Forget not that the healing of God’s Son is all the world is for. That is the only purpose the Holy Spirit sees in it, and thus the only one it has. (ACIM, T-24.VI.4:1-2)

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294/ Two Sons

15th February 2023

 

Lesson 294: My body is a wholly neutral thing. (ACIM, W-294)

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that perception perceives the truth. We either perceive rightly or we perceive wrongly.

 

The lesson today goes against all our perceived notions of what the body is for. It feels impossible to think of the body as just being neutral. For us, the body is literally more important than the world.

 

Jesus, then, isn’t trying to make us deny the body. He just wants us to see it for what it is.

 

Look at yourself, and you will see a body. Look at this body in a different light and it looks different. And without a light it seems that it is gone. Yet you are reassured that it is there because you can feel it with your hands and hear it move. Here is an image that you want to be yourself. (ACIM, T-24.VII.9:1-5)

 

Jesus is telling us that we have made an image of our self that is false. We always respond to the body as if it is truth and the only truth. However, through A Course in Miracles, we learn that the body is simply an external verification of an inner desire to be what we are not.

 

We have therefore made an image of ourselves that is not what God created.

 

It means that there are now two sons. One we made and one we did not. 

 

What we made is perceived as being outside of ourselves. It is physical and has form. It is touched, pushed around and generally worshipped or abused.

 

What we didn’t make is within each one of us. It is there regardless what is happening externally. It is perfect, all-encompassing and quietly limitless. This Son is not born and never dies.

 

We therefore see one or the other. We have two sons and perceive the one we are taught to see.