Reflections 323 to 336

 323/ Gratitude’s Quiet Answer

16th March 2023

 

Lesson 323: I gladly make the “sacrifice” of fear. (ACIM, W-323)

 

A Course in Miracles is a reminder that the ego always makes a statement. It never asks a question.

 

The statement always revolves around the body. It is related to how we live and die. It is always a statement of fear not fact. We are demanding something - anything - with the artillery at the ready.

 

The lesson today clarifies the above from the Holy Spirit’s point of view. The Holy Spirit teaches us that God gives only what we ask in silence. All we have to do is let it flow.

 

The restoration of this flow then becomes the salvation of the world.

 

Salvation, perfect and complete, asks but a little wish that what is true be true; a little willingness to overlook what is not there; a little sigh that speaks for Heaven as a preference to this world that death and desolation seem to rule. (ACIM, T-26.VII.10:1)

 

It is impossible, then, to know absolute truth when the ego rules our minds.

 

The ego is loud. It speaks first. It drowns out peace so peace can’t be heard. It smothers love so love can’t be seen. The ego needs to kill us before we even get close to truth.

 

Gratitude’s quiet answer arises when the ego is seen for what it is. Gratitude arises only in silence. All doubt goes when the mind is still. The only answer we can have comes from the realm of love. Love only replies by expressing love.

 

Cate Grieves talks of this in the fifth part of The Healing of the Dream (ACIM, T-27.I). She reminds us we have to learn to ask the question. We have to begin the process of having a quiet mind. It all starts and ends with gratitude. We are always grateful for what is there.

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324/ What We really Are

17th March 2023

 

Lesson 324: I merely follow, for I would not lead. (ACIM, W-324)

 

The lesson today requires trust. It wants us to have faith in what it says.

 

Each lesson in the Workbook is the same. Today, however, we are being asked to trust in God.

 

A Course in Miracles is the path back to God. This path is not easy, but it is practical. To have the experience of God, we need to remove all our doubts. Clearly, the ego loves to make us doubt.

 

“...God will punish me... God does not exist... God hates me and I am worthless...” - the list of doubts bombarding the mind never ends. It is amazing that three letters can create such fear.

 

It also feels impossible to think of ourselves as perfect, loving and whole. We can’t imagine that God would love this neurotic self. A Course in Miracles vindicates everything. ACIM tells us the truth.

 

What is the Will of God? He wills His Son have everything. And this He guaranteed when He created him as everything. It is impossible that anything be lost, if what you have is what are. This is the miracle by which creation become your function, sharing it with God. (ACIM, T-26.VII.11:1-5)

 

We begin to see that there is no meaning in the world.

 

We begin to learn that there is no meaning behind our identity.

 

We begin to find that the only meaning we have comes from discovering what we are.

 

What we really are is God’s Son. We belong in Heaven. Our job is to wake up to this simple memory.

 

A Course in Miracles is clear. We follow the instructions. We do not make them up for ourselves. 

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325/ Guilt; the Final Frontier

18th March 2023

 

Lesson 325: All things I think I see reflects ideas. (ACIM, W-325)

 

 A Course in Miracles gets to the cause of our suffering. We tend to think that the cause is always something external. ACIM reminds us that the cause is always in the mind.

 

This is the purpose of the Workbook. It is to break the grip of the ego and to bring in the Holy Spirit.

 

The lesson today reminds us of this. It tells us that everything begins and ends in the mind. It tells us that insanity makes insanity. It is a statement that forgiving thoughts transform the world we see.

 

We either join or we separate; we either love or we hate; we either judge or we accept. All the tools lie within the mind and the tools of the Holy Spirit simply need to be understood and practiced.

 

A Course in Miracles is therefore a statement that what we have accepted as our truth has not one iota of truth within it. The mention of sin is just an example. Sin can never be benign. Sin always triggers a range of responses that can vary from outright denial to full-blown terror.

 

Sin is belief attack can be projected outside the mind where the belief arose. Here is the firm conviction that ideas can leave their source made real and meaningful. And from this error does the world of sin and sacrifice arise. (ACIM, T-26.VII.12:2-4)

 

It is clear, then, that changing our minds means changing the world.

 

It is a fact that thinking with the Holy Spirit means we can only know peace.

 

A Course in Miracles asks us not to feel guilty about the things we feel guilty about. Guilt just comes down to fear. We have a deep-rooted fear that we are in big, big trouble.

 

The complete dismissal of guilt arises through forgiveness. Guilt is our final frontier and forgiveness takes us there. As we cross the border to peace, it becomes clear that we never have to suffer again. 

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326/ Belief Makes True

19th March 2023

 

Lesson 326: I am forever an Effect of God. (ACIM, W-326)

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that thoughts have power. What we think shapes our reality.

 

A fearful thought makes a fearful world and a loving thought makes a loving world. These are actually the only two thoughts that we can have. There are no neutral thoughts.

 

The lesson today states it as it is. It tells us that a holy Thought created what we are (the Self) within the Mind of God; we have never left our home. It tells us that Cause and Effect are always one.

 

This is clearly not what we think. The thought that created what we think we are (the self) is insane. The world is mad because our minds are projecting out the madness.

 

A Course in Miracles is a reminder that there are no in-betweens. The ego - our state of fear - leads us to death and the Holy Spirit - our state of love - leads us to life.

 

We always go one way or the other. We lose ourselves or find ourselves.

 

The Workbook is the solution. Each of the 365 lessons provides a lesson in mind training. We are training the mind to be aware that our thinking shapes our reality.

 

Another way of looking at it is this. The thought system of the Holy Spirit leads to us peace and the thought system of the ego leads us to pain. Pain is the illusion that the ego loves to nurture.

 

Belief makes true. Our whole experience begins and ends with the mind.

 

This is as true of what is idly wished as what is truly willed, because the mind can wish to be deceived, but cannot make it be what it is not. And to believe ideas can leave their source is to invite illusions to be true, without success. For never will success be possible in trying to deceive the Son of God. (ACIM, T-26.VII.13:4-6)

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327/ A Higher Vantage Point

20th March 2023

 

Lesson 327: I need but call and You will answer me. (ACIM, W-327)

 

There is an unwritten law in the universe. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

 

The lesson today mirrors this. It also has a proviso. Despite our calling - despite our yearning - we are always going make our way back to God when the journey ends. This is just a fait accompli.

 

Many of us call to God earnestly and on a regular basis - no doubt with good reason - but feel we get no reply. There are two good reasons for this. We are asking for the wrong things and our minds are not quiet enough to receive the answer.

 

The answer always comes from peace. It goes to peace and is peace. Essentially, this is the miracle.

 

A quiet mind doesn’t go anywhere. The narrative in the mind is disabled, if only for a moment.

 

A Course in Miracles just reminds us that we don’t lose anything when the noise in our minds is turned down. In fact, the opposite happens. We gain everything.

 

If loss in any form is possible, then is God’s Son made incomplete and not himself. Nor will he know himself, nor recognise his will. He has forsworn his Father and himself, and made Them both his enemies in hate. (ACIM, T-26.VII.14:7-9)

 

The Workbook is the beginning and potentially the end of our journey. Each lesson takes us to that silence - but only if the ego allows it. It won’t and never will. Silence only means that the ego is gone.

 

A Course in Miracles is the promise that God speaks to us all the time. It promises us that, as we do the work, we will hear His Voice.

 

God’s Voice is actually an experience with no opposite. It makes us look at everything from a higher vantage point. From that perspective, there are no clouds that can block our view.

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328/ Just One Goal

21st March 2023

 

Lesson 328: I choose the second place to gain the first. (ACIM, W-328)

 

The lesson today is non-duality condensed into a few lines. We learn that there is one God, one Son, one will and one creation.

 

The one creation is all of us squeezed into the one Son. We see our Self in each other without exception. Peace is then our only will.

 

This means there is no second, just a first. There is no other, just the same.

 

There is one Voice for God and one illusion. And, even though the illusion does not exist, it just appears as if it does. An illusion can magnify and magnify and magnify. It spirals. Our job is to trust the loving truth that is constantly there instead of it.

 

A Course in Miracles teaches that nothing has any meaning unless we put a meaning on to it.

 

We learn that nothing makes any sense unless we see the sense behind it.

 

The purpose of A Course in Miracles is to show the truth behind illusions. It is to see the shining light that is the miracle. It is to know that nothing changes and all is changeless.

 

God is formless and everywhere. God is infinite and unending. God cannot see what does not exist. God does not know what we are not.

 

And what is one to Him must be the same. If you believe what is the same is different you but deceive yourself. What God calls one will be forever one, not separate. His Kingdom is united; thus it was created, and thus will it ever be. (ACIM, T-26.VII.15:5-8)

 

The Workbook has 365 lessons but we have just one goal. It is to find the truth within us. It is to know for certain that nothing ever sleeps and never dies.

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329/ Practice in Action

22nd March 2023

 

Lesson 329: I have already chosen what You will. (ACIM, W-329)

 

The lesson today tells us that we are God’s Love, extending and extending. Sometimes, it’s best just to accept what is said as the truth.

 

Only a mirage stops us from knowing this. We are told we are like thirsty travellers desperate for a drink. Again, painful metaphors make us think.

 

A Course in Miracles states that the only solution lies within the mind. It tells us the ego loves to dress life up. The ego loves to show us that there are others out there who have what we want - and many who don’t. The Holy Spirit only asks us to stop searching. Everything we need is simply here.

 

The ego offers us Botox, bulk and beauty. The Holy Spirit sees the body as just an image in the mind.

 

A Course in Miracles talks to us from where we are. Whether we are high up on a mountain top or way down in the sewer, the message is always the same. Love conquers fear. Our choice is simply to decide when and how we want to make this happen.

 

Each instant is the Son of God reborn until he chooses not to die again. In every wish to hurt he chooses death instead of what his Father wills for him. Yet every instant offers life to him because his Father wills that he should live. (ACIM, T-26.VII.16:5-7)

 

As we read the above, we can see that we are deprived of nothing and are given everything.

 

We can begin to understand that the world is done by us and not to us.

 

We can appreciate that everything arises through the mind and not from some external source.

 

A Course in Miracles is practice in action. It is a mystical Voice. Everything we need is contained within it. Whether we awaken to truth is entirely our own decision.

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 330/ Love without Attack

23rd March 2023

 

Lesson 330: I will not hurt myself again today. (ACIM, W-330)

 

One is one and can’t be two.

 

We have our Self and we have our self. We have our Identity and we have our identity. We have the thought system of the Holy Spirit and we have the thought system of the ego.

 

One is completely true and two is completely false. Only a divided self could dispute this.

 

The lesson today shows us that forgiveness is the way back to truth. The Self cannot suffer and can never know pain. What seems to know pain is just a thought in the mind.

 

A Course in Miracles uses forgiveness to correct the error that made this thought. Forgiveness, then, is a process. It unveils what can never be hurt. Forgiveness reveals only the formless and true.

 

Forgiveness focuses the mind. It looks past the body. Forgiveness gets to the heart of what we worship and symbolise. Forgiveness enables the Holy Spirit to heal the mind.

 

In crucifixion is redemption laid, for healing is not needed where there is no pain or suffering. Forgiveness is the answer to attack of any kind. So is attack deprived of its effects, and hate is answered in the name of love. (ACIM, T-26.VII.17:1-3)

 

Through forgiveness, the mind is healed as we undo our guilt. Interference disappears. As the mind begins to extend its true nature (which is love), we learn its real purpose. It is to love without attack.

 

In the sixth part of The Healing of the Dream (ACIM, T-27.I), Cate Grieves states that to love without attack is actually a Christ blessing. The mind is seeing clarity in everything. Clarity becomes our mindset. We all join as one clear mind.

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331/ A Question of Arrogance

24th March 2023

 

Lesson 331: There is no conflict, for my will is Yours. (ACIM, W-331)

 

Why do we die? Where do we go to? Where are we from?

 

What is consciousness? Does God exist? Why does the sun never have a day off?

 

It’s in our nature to ask endless questions, and most have been answered. Some just can’t be. However, one thing is a fact. Without a deep, inner yearning to get to the heart of truth, we won’t ever know the true meaning of what we call life.

 

This means going within, not looking without. It means understanding the real implication of thought, not thinking that thought is just related to the body. A Course in Miracles would call this stupidity (it doesn’t, but it is implied).

 

The lesson today asks another question. It asks how we could ever believe that Love has left Itself? It also calls conflict ‘sleep’, peace ‘awakening’, death ‘illusion’ and life ‘eternal truth’.

 

The Workbook is the first step in the journey that answers these questions. Persistence and bloody-mindedness is a good second step. An inner certainty that truth will prevail is the third.

 

But what is the ultimate answer? The lesson today also states that God’s Will is One. This means that love surrounds us, peace is within us and joy created us.

 

Whatever suffers only arises out of a mind that thinks otherwise.

 

Our job is to understand God’s Love completely. Isn’t it arrogant to think that somehow it isn’t?

 

It is not arrogant to be as He created you, nor to make use of what He gave to answer all His Son’s mistakes and set him free. But it is arrogant to lay aside the power that He gave, and choose a little senseless wish instead of what He wills. The gift of God to you is limitless. (ACIM, T-26.VII.18:2-4)

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332/ Endless Love

25th March 2023

 

Lesson 332: Fear binds the world. Forgiveness sets it free. (ACIM, W-332)

 

The lesson today relates to illusion and truth. One keeps us prisoner, one sets us free.

 

Our minds can only know fear or love, light or darkness. The distinction is clear. Forgiveness only operates out of love; forgiveness always undoes the dream of darkness.

 

A Course in Miracles teaches this throughout the Workbook, even if it is not always apparent. And, although we might not know it, our minds do change. What was dark before becomes the light.

 

Our job, then, is to forgive. The ego won’t ever know what the Holy Spirit understands completely.

 

The Text asks us to consider this: Abide in peace, where God would have you be. And be the means whereby your brother finds the peace in which your wishes are fulfilled. (ACIM, T-26.VII.19:1-2)

 

Peace always seems to come with conditions. It’s as if this is what we have always known.

 

The Text then continues: There is no difference among the Sons of God. The unity that specialness denies will save them all, for what is one can have no specialness. (ACIM, T-26.VII.19:5-6)

 

Total unity has no conditions. It’s as if this is what we have never known.

 

To understand indivisibility, then, we need to complete the Workbook.  Each lesson teaches unity.

 

Each lesson also undoes confusion. The mind only heals as we give and receive God’s endless love.

 

To get from one is to deprive them all. And yet to bless but one gives blessing to them all as one. (ACIM, T-26.VII.19:9-10)

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333/ The Mountain Top

26th March 2023

 

Lesson 333: Forgiveness ends the dream of conflict here. (ACIM, W-333)

 

The lesson today suggests there is a ‘there’, but there is no ‘there’.

 

The implication is that we are trying to get somewhere. However, there is nowhere to get to.

 

There is only here. There is only now. There is just one solution for one (apparent) problem.

 

The problem is called the ego. It is separation. It is fear. We can dress it up in different ways, but it can never be something external. It is always within us. There is no conflict out there.

 

The conflict is in the mind. A Course in Miracles tells us that, as long as we are in a body, conflict will always arise in some form. This happened to Jesus, Buddha - to all ascended masters - until they found a way out. Their legacy is the path that we can now follow.

 

It is impossible to tread in the exact same footsteps as an ascended master - every experience and every journey has to be different - but we can follow their path. It is only the route that is important.

 

Then, as we reach the summit, we find that we have clear sight and 360 degree vision. The mind is free. There is just us and infinity.

 

A Course in Miracles is one of those paths. It leads to God. It gives us freedom. It takes away conflict. It gives us the miracle.

 

A miracle can make no change at all. But it can make what always has been true be recognized by those who know it not; and by this little gift of truth but let to be itself, the Son of God allowed to be himself, and all creation freed to call upon the Name of God as one. (ACIM, T-26.VII.20:4-5)

 

To be free of conflict means being on the mountain top. The path was made by Jesus and has been updated. Already, it seems, some are on the summit. If we truly want to, we can join them there.

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334/ Time and Space

27th March 2023

 

Lesson 334: Today I claim the gifts forgiveness gives. (ACIM, W-334)

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that everything we imagine to be the creation of the world - spanning billions of years - has already happened. The world was over long ago.

 

One tiny, mad idea was all it took. We thought we could be apart from our Creator.

 

Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea...(ACIM, T-27.VIII.6:2-3)

 

This serious idea was corrected immediately but the rest is a dream - our very own dream of separation. A Course in Miracles calls it a joke. Time could never intrude upon eternity.

 

The lesson today asks us to seek the eternal. It states we should be content with nothing less than this. It tells us that all our thoughts are simply false perceptions. Forgiveness undoes their reality.

 

To forgive means forgiving now. It can’t happen at some future date because there is no future date.

 

Equally, we have never left our Source. Nothing needs to be forgiven.

 

We are looking at the world from an upside down perspective. It is not out there, it is in here; it is not part of time, it arises out of timelessness; it has no distance, just a tiny gap.

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that one mad thought invoked the whole world of time and space.

 

Except that it didn’t. Heaven didn’t change. God didn’t go anywhere. We are still as God created us.

 

Time and space are just an illusion. It seems that a dream of nothing became both reality and a fact.

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335/ Trust in the Infinite

28th March 2023

 

Lesson 335: I choose to see my brother’s sinlessness. (ACIM, W-335)

 

The lesson today outlines what we choose to see. And our choice is always shaped by the past or by the present.

 

We see a chocolate bar and we make a judgment; we see a dog poo and we do the same. A child’s response to both is unlikely to be the same as that of an adult.

 

The ego always judges (reacting from fear); the Holy Spirit only accepts (responding to love). Pain and pleasure are actually two sides of the same coin. And yet there is no coin.

 

Sin and sinlessness can be seen in the same way. However, they cannot oppose each other because nothing has an opposite to the truth. There just appears to be.

 

A Course in Miracles gives us a simple appraisal of why judgment hurts and acceptance heals - of why the ego hates and the Holy Spirit loves. ACIM is all about relationship. It is all about seeing what we are in each other.

 

There is a distance you would keep apart from your brother, and this space you perceive as time because you still believe you are external to him. This makes trust impossible. And you cannot believe that trust would settle every problem now. (ACIM, T-26.VIII.2:1-3)

 

Nothing will help us in the future because there is no future. The present moment is all there is.

 

Form cannot survive and only the formless is real. It is alive, beyond words and all knowing. That is why the ego - a thought system tethered to form - has to be completely undone.

 

A Course in Miracles is a different way of seeing. We have to trust in what lies beyond all thought.

 

Trust in the infinite is learned over time. Trust, however, is simply a stillness of mind.

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336/ Veiling the Truth

29th March 2023

 

Lesson 336: Forgiveness lets me know that minds are joined. (ACIM, W-336)

 

We can be part of the solution or part of the problem. Life doesn’t have to be a quandary but it is an experience. Life can be just as we wish.

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that the solution is the Holy Spirit and the problem is the ego. It is all experienced in the mind. Everything that we do, we do unto ourselves and we cannot escape it.

 

The secret of salvation is but this: that you are doing this unto yourself. No matter what the form of the attack, this still is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, still is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is still true. (ACIM, T-27.VIII.10:1-4)

 

The lesson today merely shows us that all minds are joined. If we are angry at someone, we are angry at ourselves; if we are fearful about something, we are fearful about that which lies within.

 

Nothing ever happens in isolation. What is done to one is done to everyone. What is happening out there is happening in here. The mind is responsible for everything.

 

Forgiveness, then, is the practice that unlocks the door. It establishes our Source. It frees the mind. It opens up a whole new way of thinking that establishes what is infinite.

 

God is known by the forgiven mind. And, if God is seen as infinite love and joy, then that is what the forgiven mind will know. Anything else is just a smokescreen. It is the darkness that hides the light.

 

Time is the great illusion and the body is the same. Yet both are used to serve a purpose. The ego has one purpose but the Holy Spirit has another - and this is to remove the veil that blocks the truth.

 

Time is as neutral as the body is, except in terms of what you see it for. If you would keep a little space between you and your brother still, you then would want a little time in which forgiveness is withheld a little while. (ACIM, T-26.VIII.3:7-8)