Reflections 295 to 308

 

295/ The Goal of the Course Is Peace

16th February 2023

 

Lesson 295: The Holy Spirit looks through me today. (ACIM, W-295)

 

The lesson today is really a request from Christ. Christ is telling us that we need to have peace of mind. Christ is therefore asking for help to heal the dream.

 

Our job, then, is simply to step back and let our minds be healed by the Holy Spirit. This means allowing our minds to be cleared of guilt. Guilt is what keeps us in this dream.

 

The dream is simply a product of our own predicament. However, even though we have no idea that we are dreaming, Jesus continually reminds us that we can always wake up to the vision of Christ.

 

The Christ in you inhabits not a body. Yet He is in you. And thus it must be that you are not within a body. What is within you cannot be outside. And it is certain that you cannot be apart from what is at the very center of your life. (ACIM, T-25.in.1:1-5)

 

The son of man is not the risen Christ. Yet does the Son of God abide exactly where he is, and walks with him within his holiness, as plain to see as is his specialness set forth within his body. (ACIM, T-25.in.2:6-7)

 

The body needs no healing. But the mind that thinks it is a body is sick indeed! And it is here that Christ sets forth the remedy. His purpose folds the body in His light, and fills it with the Holiness that shines from Him. (ACIM, T-25.in.3:1-4)

 

We might understand some of the above intellectually, but it is impossible to experience it directly if the mind is not healed. We are analysing it with a mind that is split, and a split mind only knows fear.

 

Cate Grieves, a teacher of A Course in Miracles, tells us that the goal of the Course is peace. Below, she takes us through the first part of The Healing of the Dream (ACIM, T-27.I). The chapter is covered in ten parts and so, over the next ten weeks, we can truly grasp what is needed to heal our minds.

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296/ Message and Messenger

17th February 2023

 

Lesson 296: The Holy Spirit speaks through me today. (ACIM, W-296)

 

A Course in Miracles states that means and end are never separate.

 

The lesson today reminds us that we teach what we learn.

 

Jesus, then, is telling us that all our thoughts, words and actions make the difference between whether we experience Heaven or hell. Hell is self-made while Heaven is absolutely real.

 

Since you believe that you are separate, Heaven presents itself to you as separate, too. Not that it is in truth, but that the link that has been given you to join the truth may reach to you through what you understand. (ACIM, T-25.I.5:1-2)

 

A Course in Miracles describes our belief in separation as a tiny, mad desire to be different. This is our hell and it results in the ego. To find the solution, we have to go to the Holy Spirit.

 

The ego therefore separates and the Holy Spirit unites; the ego rules the body and the Holy Spirit guides the body; the ego refuses to see Oneness and the Holy Spirit endorses Oneness; the ego is the error and the Holy Spirit is the correction.

 

Everything arises out of the mind. The mind is split or it is not split.

 

The ego therefore makes us feel that hell is justified and we don’t deserve Heaven. The Holy Spirit’s only purpose is to heal the mind so that we know that Heaven is ours by right.

 

The message is always delivered by the messenger. Means and end are one. How we perceive Heaven and hell always begins and ends in the mind.

 

Perception is a choice of what you want yourself to be; the world you want to live in, and the state in which you think your mind will be content and satisfied. (ACIM, T-25.I.3:1)

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297/ Undoing the Mystery

18th February 2023

 

Lesson 297: Forgiveness is the only gift I give. (ACIM, W-297)

 

A Course in Miracles wants us to know the Mind that thought us up. We can’t ever find this Mind through flesh and blood. We can only sense it when we look past the physical to the purely spiritual.

 

We have just the one mind, although it appears as many. The Mind that created us is whole and complete. We arose out of God’s Mind as a Thought - a Son - and this is what we are.

 

Our goal, then, as the Son, is to understand our Creator’s Mind. It is to re-discover what the Mind created us to be. Our goal is to see life instead of death.

 

The lesson today reflects exactly what A Course in Miracles is expecting of us. It is to forgive what never happened. ACIM tells us we have never been alone, isolated, scared and afraid. That was over long ago. ACIM tells us we are exactly as God created us.

 

We are reminded to forgive our past: The only value that the past can hold is that you learn it gave you no rewards which you would want to keep. For only thus will you be willing to relinquish it, and have it gone forever. (ACIM, T-25.II.1:7-8)

 

We are asked to forgive the future: For one thing is sure; the way you see, and long have seen, gives no support to base your future hopes, and no suggestions of success at all. To place your hopes where no hope lies must make you hopeless. (ACIM, T-25.II.2:4-5)

 

We are told to be kind to ourselves: You need no forgiveness, for the wholly pure have never sinned. Give, then, what He has given you, that you may see His Son as one, and thank his Father as He thanks you. (ACIM, T-25.II.10:2-3)

 

Forgiveness, then, is how A Course in Miracles brings us totally into the present.

 

What forgiveness gives us is not of this world, and yet we have it. What we are seeking is all around us, all-encompassing and absolute, yet we can’t see it. We forgive, then, simply to undo the mystery.

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298/ A Light in the Darkness

19th February 2023

 

Lesson 298: I love you, Father, and I love Your Son. (ACIM, W-298)

 

A Course in Miracles tells us there are two fundamental laws. The first law is that love creates only like itself; the second law is that we see what we believe, and our belief is because we want it there.

 

This means we either bow down to one law or the other. The first is sanity; the second is insanity.

 

The lesson today is about perceiving sanely. This is the journey back to what we are. We were created out of love and we go back to love. Love is where it started and love is where it ends.

 

In the meantime, according to A Course in Miracles, we are acting insanely. We are staring through a lens of fear. We believe in what we see and so we need a change of perception.

 

Everyone here has entered darkness, yet no one has entered it alone. Nor need he stay more than an instant. For he has come with Heaven’s Help within him, ready to lead him out of darkness into light at any time. (ACIM, T-25.III.6:1-3)

 

In every moment, then, we make a choice. We either join with darkness or we join with light.

 

The outcome of our choice always has an effect. It either makes us stay as we are, forgetting what we know, or it allows us to be as we are, remembering what we know.

 

A Course in Miracles states that knowledge can never change but perception will always change.

 

When we perceive with the ego, illumination is kept from the mind and the mind is split; we remain in darkness. When we perceive with the Holy Spirit, light illuminates the darkness; the mind then becomes healed and our perception clears.

 

Within the mind, then, we find the cause and the end of suffering. This is the whole purpose of each lesson. It is to achieve clarity. By bringing light to the darkness, we begin to see this light in everyone.

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299/ A Silent Presence

20th February 2023

 

Lesson 299: Eternal holiness abides in me. (ACIM, W-299)

 

The lesson today is about realising we don’t know. It is about understanding that what we don’t know wants us to know.

 

There is something that is so much bigger than what we see. We just can’t put our finger on it.

 

A Course in Miracles wants us to join with our brother. This is through the mind and not the body. ACIM is guiding us to know that everything exists within us.

 

We need to share something inside of us and we don’t quite know what it is, or how to find it.

 

If eternal holiness abides in all of us, as the lesson states, then it is pretty clear that everything that A Course in Miracles teaches is about finding a silent presence.

 

Every word of the Text is truth. This is why we might feel drawn to the words that are written below.

 

In you is all of Heaven. Every leaf that falls is given life in you. Each bird that ever sang will sing again in you. And every flower that ever bloomed has saved its perfume and its loveliness for you. (ACIM, T-25.IV.5:1-4)

 

A Course in Miracles is about finding an inner connection to love and seeing that in others.

 

This is done silently.

 

Silence is where love is found.

 

 If eternal holiness abides in us, it is a silent presence.

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300/ Attack and Sinlessness

21st February 2023

 

Lesson 300: Only an instant does this world endure. (ACIM, W-300)

 

The lesson today is about finding a holy world. The holy world surrounds us, is within us, and can only be avoided.

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that, in everyone we meet, we see a reflection of what we want them to be. We either see perfection (sinlessness) or we see imperfection (sin).

 

We see a holy world or a hateful world. Both exist within each one of us and either one is then projected out. Attack and sinlessness therefore always arise out of the mind.

 

Jesus is therefore training us to know exactly what our minds are doing.

 

The state of sinlessness is merely this: The whole desire to attack is gone, and so there is no reason to perceive the Son of God as other than he is. The need for guilt is gone because it has no purpose, and is meaningless without the goal of sin. (ACIM, T-25.V.1:1-2)

 

Attack makes Christ your enemy, and God along with Him. Must you not be afraid with “enemies” like these? And must you not be fearful of yourself? For you have hurt yourself, and made your Self your “enemy.” (ACIM, T-25.V.2:1-4)

 

Jesus tells us that, to see a holy world, it doesn’t mean that things need to change externally. It does mean, however, that we have to change our internal world.

 

This is why we have the Workbook. It is the purpose of every lesson that we do.

 

We can attack or be can be sinless. Attack can be subtle but sinlessness is the complete absence of attack; attack could be just a single thought or it could be war. A holy world never knows attack.

 

Attack and sinlessness are the mind’s only two options. They therefore shape the world that we see.

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301/ The Gift of Light

22nd February 2023

 

Lesson 301: And God Himself shall wipe away all tears. (ACIM, W-301)

 

The lesson today is a choice between judgment and forgiveness. It is a choice between laughter and tears. It is actually a choice between Heaven and hell.

 

The question then arises. How do we find our Heaven and leave our hell? Or, to put it another way, how can we find happiness without an opposite?

 

As we work our way through A Course in Miracles, it all becomes very apparent. We have to know that God is real.  God is a reality that has no opposite.

 

Then, it is up to us whether we want to make our way back to God.

 

We have to want this more than anything. It has to become an experience. Without determination and a focus, nothing can be achieved because, basically, we prefer to stay as we are.

 

A Course in Miracles tells us we have two ways of seeing. We see with God or we see without God.

 

God only loves. God’s Love is unending and unconditional. For us, caught up in time, love always has an ending and love always has conditions.

 

The whole practice of A Course in Miracles is therefore to give us a state of mind where God can function without resistance. Forgiveness is the process that ACIM says will achieve this.

 

Forgiveness is the only function meaningful in time. It is the means the Holy Spirit uses to translate specialness from sin into salvation. Forgiveness is for all. But when it rests on all it is complete, and every function of this world completed with it. (ACIM, T-25.VI.5:3-6)

 

We have the choice between the acceptance of darkness and the gift of light. The gift of light arises only when we truly want it.

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302/ Quietness and Inner Peace

23rd February 2023

 

Lesson 302: Where darkness was I look upon the light. (ACIM, W-302)

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that what makes no sense is insanity. Madness cannot be the truth.

 

The lesson today implies that the way out of this is simply to remember.  Fear is replaced by love.

 

We are always choosing between the changeless and the changing - between sanity and insanity. Look on one and the other goes.

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that own reality a constant state. It is never ending. How we see our brother constantly mirrors our internal world. We either see the body or we see the light.

 

Belief, then, becomes essential as we work our way from complete identity with the ego (our separate state) to having faith in Spirit (our unified state).

 

Jesus, then, uses A Course in Miracles to literally convey what cannot be conveyed. He is using the language of the world to describe the Language of Heaven.

 

If you could realize nothing is changeless but the Will of God, this course would not be difficult for you. For it is this that you do not believe. Yet there is nothing else you could believe, if you but looked at what it really is. (ACIM, T-25.VII.2:8-10)

 

Our purpose then is to apply the practice of the Workbook to release our attachment to the body. Dependence on form is not the solution. It is our awareness of Spirit that provides the release.

 

Cate Grieves takes us through the second part of The Healing of the Dream (ACIM, T-27.I). She describes the tremendous release that arises from accepting the body for what it is. This has to be experienced. It is only through practice that we get a deep sense of quietness and inner peace.

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303/ No In Between

24th February 2023

 

Lesson 303: The holy Christ is born in me today. (ACIM, W-303)

 

The lesson today is about presence. It is about being right where we are and not minding. It is about having total contentment with everything and all.

 

A Course in Miracles is not about anything external. It is only concerned with having total awareness of what internally is.

 

If the holy Christ is born in us today, as the lesson states, it means we do not need to do another lesson. We have achieved our goal. We simply know our Self as God created this Self to be.

 

We might therefore conclude that there are only two views that we can have. One is of a world with a Christ/Self and the other is of a world without a Christ/Self.

 

It also means we only have two ways of looking. One is with love and the other is without love.

 

Beyond everything we see - beyond the horrors of war, the violence that we see on a daily basis - there is just the truth. The whole purpose of A Course in Miracles is to show us that only this is real.

 

What is dependable except God’s Love? And where does sanity abide except in Him? The One Who speaks for Him can show you this, in the alternative He chose especially for you. It is God’s Will that you remember this, and so emerge from deepest mourning into perfect joy. (ACIM, T-25.VII.10:1-4)

 

A Course in Miracles reminds us that Christ is God’s Son, and God’s Son is what we are.

 

We are immutable love. We are holiness itself. When we function without peace, then we clearly do not know this.

 

A Course in Miracles tells us we either know or we don’t know. The Christ is either born in us today or it is not.  In this, there is no in between.

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304/ A Bond of Trust

25th February 2023

 

Lesson 304: Let not my world obscure the sight of Christ. (ACIM, W-304)

 

The lesson today tells us a very important fact. It tells us that perception is a mirror. It tells us that what we are looking at is our state of mind reflected outward.

 

This means that the whole world is just a reflection of what is going on inside a mind.

 

The mind appears to be separated into billions of different minds, but in fact there is just one. This unified mind appears to be split although this has never happened. The split part simply recycles the same thought in billions of different ways. The source of the split is fear but the solution is love.

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that when we change our state of mind for the better - when it is peaceful, tranquil and undisturbed - everyone gains and no one loses. It tells us that this is salvation. We have remembered that there is no opposite to a peaceful state of mind.

 

A question then arises. How do we even achieve a peaceful state of mind?

 

The world knows nothing of it. This is because the world is just our state of mind reflected outwards.

 

Our thinking knows nothing of it. This is because our thinking is always the source of the problem.

 

The solution is surrender. We surrender to what A Course in Miracles is teaching us to do.

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that salvation is a Promise from God that we can be peaceful. We aren’t asked to bow down to God for this. We are only asked to form a bond of trust with the Holy Spirit.

 

The Holy Spirit can use all that you give Him for your salvation. But He cannot use what you withhold, for He cannot take it from you without your willingness. For if He did, you would believe He wrested it from you against your will. And so you would not learn it is your will to be without it. (ACIM, T-25.VIII.1:1-4)

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305/ Simplicity and Stability

26th February 2023

 

Lesson 305: There is a peace that Christ bestows on us. (ACIM, W-305)

 

We search for certainty and yet can we ever find it?

 

We yearn for peace but do we ever know it?

 

We look for love so how often have we lost it?

 

The lesson today tells us we have all of the above with no opposite. The implication is that certainty, peace and love simply requires a certain state of mind.

 

A Course in Miracles is the path to finding Love, as all spiritual paths are likely to be. ACIM takes us quietly into Love’s presence but to do this requires our full attention. ACIM tells us that, if Love has no opposite, then we need to be fully aware of all the opposites as and when they tend to arise.

 

Certainty, then, is given us as we see how life begins to change.

 

Peace becomes more apparent as we process the lessons of the Workbook.

 

Love feels more real as we slowly begin to understand the truth.

 

A Course in Miracles just returns us back to simplicity and stability. Life flows as the truth unfolds.

 

And Jesus just keeps reminding us of our needless suffering. Our will opposes the choice to be free.

 

You have the right to all the universe; to perfect peace, complete deliverance from all effects of sin, and to the life eternal, joyous and complete in every way, as God appointed for His holy Son. This is the only justice Heaven knows, and all the Holy Spirit brings to earth. (ACIM, T-25.VIII.14:1-2)

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306/ Crossing the Line

27th February 2023

 

Lesson 306: The gift of Christ is all I seek today. (ACIM, W-306)

 

Total commitment allows us to achieve the goal of A Course in Miracles. The goal of ACIM is peace.

 

The lesson today definitely requires total commitment. When we see with the eyes of Christ we don’t see any pain and suffering. We don’t see fear. We simply look to the truth of what we are.

 

We see only reality, not the illusion.

 

The ego has to put blocks in our way. The ego does this because, if it didn’t, we would see past it to the Spirit that is there. The ego then disappears and this is exactly what it can’t afford to do.

 

A Course in Miracles meets us in the mind. If we want the truth then truth is what we get.

 

What can it be but arrogance to think your little errors cannot be undone by Heaven’s justice? And what could this mean except that they are sins and not mistakes, forever uncorrectable, and to be met with vengeance, not with justice? (ACIM, T-25.IX.1:1-2)

 

We are basically being warned of the ego’s control.  For us, alarm bells might go off every time we read about undoing what we are trying to control.

 

The Holy Spirit is the solution. Trust in Spirit basically arises out of these three requirements.

 

We have to find the awareness to go inside. We get this by doing the work and deep inner listening.

 

We have to know that the gift of peace allows no one to lose. There is only gain for all concerned.

 

We have to develop a total commitment for crossing the line. That commitment has to be absolute.

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307/ Our Lives Become One

28th February 2023

 

Lesson 307: Conflicting wishes cannot be my will. (ACIM, W-307)

 

A Course in Miracles is about understanding. It is about acknowledging that giving and receiving are the same, miracles do not discriminate and that no one can lose while everyone benefits.

 

To fully know this, we need to take the lesson today to heart. There is no conflict in the Will of God.

 

Currently, it seems that we have plenty of conflict. There has to be an on-going hostility in our minds or else we wouldn’t consider change. The external world is simply mirroring our internal world.

 

A Course in Miracles is a way to see through this confusion. We learn that any form that attack takes isn’t really there at all. It is just a trick of the mind that makes this conflict a false reality.

 

No one can be unjust to you, unless you have decided first to be unjust. And then must problems rise to block your way, and peace be scattered by the winds of hate. (ACIM, T-25.IX.7:7-8)

 

The ego, then, reminds us that it is always them and us.

 

The Holy Spirit teaches us that there is no ‘them’. There is only just the one of ‘us’.

 

A Course in Miracles is therefore the simple re-structuring of our beliefs. It is the disappearance of the ego and the emergence of the Holy Spirit. It is the total belief in our complete oneness with God.

 

Justice is done when we release the conflict from our minds. We see that miracles depend on justice and that the world arises from injustice. As we connect the two, our lives can then become a one.

 

No one deserves to lose. And what would be unjust to him cannot occur. Healing must be for everyone, because he does not merit an attack of any kind. What order can there be in miracles, unless someone deserves to suffer more and others less? (ACIM, T-25.IX.6:1-4)

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308/ Two Options, One Truth

1st March 2023

 

Lesson 308: This instant is the only time there is. (ACIM, W-308)

 

The lesson today is not about Christ’s past or future. It is about the birth of Christ in the now. It is about any and all of the points that have been summarized below.

 

• Love is ever-present and can never be time-dependent.

 

• We can only feel truly safe if we are in the one and only present moment.

 

• Forgiveness is the way in which we arrive at a timeless point in time.

 

A Course in Miracles knows we are not the body. It tells us we have never been and never will be a body. To think we are the body is such a huge mistake that it can only bring us terrible suffering.

 

We are constantly reminded that we are not a part of this battleground that we call life. We are an eternal aspect of Infinite Love. We are pure undiluted joy that has no opposite.

 

The irony, then, is that we have love all around us. Infinite Love cannot be somewhere else. Infinite Love is far greater and more beautiful than the fleshy form with which we identify.

 

To see a brother in another body, separate from yours, is the expression of a wish to see a little part of him and sacrifice the rest. Look at the world, and you will see nothing attached to anything beyond itself. All seeming entities can come a little nearer, or go a little farther off, but cannot join. (ACIM, T-26.I.1:6-8)

 

The purpose of the Workbook is to bring us closer to Spirit and not to the body. It is to give us the chance of having the cause of our suffering removed. It is to bring our minds back to simplicity.

 

We seem to have two options but there’s just one truth. Truth isn’t hiding. Truth is up to us to find.