Reflections 337 to 350

 

337/ A Changeless Dwelling Place

30th March 2023

 

Lesson 337: My sinlessness protects me from all harm. (ACIM, W-337)

 

The lesson today is about acceptance. Atonement reminds us that we are safe and loved.

 

Atonement undoes the one single error - our belief in separation. Atonement means knowing what is true. Atonement gives us the realisation that we are a Self, already sitting within the Mind of God.

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that Atonement has nothing to do with the reparation of sin. ACIM states there is no sin - just one single error. The error is the belief that we could have ever left God.

 

We haven’t. The Self - what we are - never went anywhere. We forgot that we are a point of light.

 

Atonement is the righting of the wrong. Atonement gives us an inner expansion with no limit. Atonement removes the veil which makes the darkness and smothers the light.

 

Atonement reflects only the now. Atonement undoes any thought of past and future in the mind.

 

Accepting the Atonement teaches you what immortality is, for by accepting your guiltlessness you learn that the past has never been, and so the future is needless and will not be. The future, in time, is always associated with expiation, and only guilt could induce a sense of a need for expiation. (ACIM, T-13.I.9:1-2)

 

Atonement brings us home. Atonement connects us to the present moment. In fact, no words can ever do justice to what Atonement tells us we have always known.

 

Cate Grieves calls this “the changeless dwelling place” as she takes us through the seventh part of The Healing of the Dream (ACIM, T-27.I). If we can find what never changes, everything else simply disappears. It is only in this moment that we can know peace, because only peace can ever exist.

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338/ Here and Now

31st March 2023

 

Lesson 338: I am affected only by my thoughts. (ACIM, W-338)

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that we always look to the future. We think the future will bring us happiness. It is in the future that our safety lies.

 

However, nothing in the future can ever influence us because there is no future. There is only what is here and now.

 

The lesson today is linked to thought. It tells us that everything we know, see and experience arises through our thought. Our thoughts can crucify us or set us free. A thought in isolation is either fear-inducing or love-inducing. Thoughts guide us into a state of panic or a state of joy.

 

The Workbook provides the training we need to change our thinking.  Each lesson is a springboard for peace. Each lesson teaches us to relinquish the need to control the future.

 

We can’t do this alone - we have to surrender our thinking to a force that is greater than us. This is the Holy Spirit and it is the Holy Spirit that becomes the cause of all our effects.

 

Who can predict effects without a cause? And who could fear effects unless he thought they had been caused, and judged disastrous now? Belief in sin arouses fear, and like its cause, is looking forward, looking back, but overlooking what is here and now. (ACIM, T-26.VIII.5:3-5)

 

We have to bring the darkness to the light. This is where religion and A Course in Miracles totally separate. Religion brings light to the world; ACIM knows we have to bring the world to the light.

 

God is stillness - there is no thought, just the experience. There is no darkness, just the light.

 

God is here and now - a state of perfect oneness. Oneness knows no opposite.

 

Our thinking gets us closer to God or further away. The Thought of God only arises in the now.

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339/ Correction of Perception

1st April 2023

 

Lesson 339: I will receive whatever I request. (ACIM, W-339)

 

The lesson today is about sending out confused messages. We do not know what we want.

 

Every living being wants to be happy. No sentient being wants pain. But what if our perception of pain shifts? And what if we find that pleasure gives us pain?

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that pain’s purpose is the same as pleasure. They are both the means to make the body real. ACIM teaches that the body only responds to the desires of the mind.

 

It is the mind that makes the body search for pleasure in the external. The mind wants to numb the pain of separation from God by looking for the solution out there. It grasps for something - anything - to take the suffering away.

 

The ego - acting like a mini god - initiates this. Like a moth attracted to a flame, the ego has to feed its compulsion. The Holy Spirit has its own purpose. And that purpose is to correct perception.

 

The working out of all correction takes no time at all. Yet the acceptance of the working out can seem to take forever. The change of purpose the Holy Spirit brought to your relationship has in it all effects that you will see. They can be looked at now. Why wait till they unfold in time and fear they may not come, although already there? (ACIM, T-26.VIII.6:1-5)

 

We are not the body, although the body delights in informing us that we are.

 

We are not the pain, even though pain loves to remind us that it is.

 

Only the Holy Spirit is able to shift our perception to what is real and known. In the context of A Course in Miracles, this arises through the Workbook.

 

The correction of perception brings the truth. True perception is the means to see ourselves as one.

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340/ An Interval in Time

2nd April 2023

 

Lesson 340: I can be free of suffering today. (ACIM, W-340)

 

Christ’s vision - our way out of suffering - arises through forgiveness. This is the lesson for today.

 

Perhaps this seems a long way off? For most of us, complete freedom from suffering is always another time, but never in this moment. A Course in Miracles says that peace of mind is only now.

 

Christ, God, the Son, the Holy Spirit - in fact, any of the names and terms that  A Course in Miracles might use - they all appear to be somewhere else. They aren’t. They are either wholly with us now or not at all. Nothing is out there; it is always within the mind, alive and present.

 

Heaven, then, is not a place we go to. This is because we have never left.

 

Salvation is not being freed from anything. This is because there is nothing to be freed from.

 

The mind is simply divided. Thinking we are alone is the cause of pain; knowing we are complete is the cause ofpeace. Where we place our awareness determines the effect.

                                                                                                                                                 

Why should the good appear in evil’s form? And is it not deception if it does? Its cause is here, if it appears at all. Why are not its effects apparent, then? Why in the future? And you seek to be content with sighing, and with “reasoning” you do not understand it now, but will some day. (ACIM, T-26.VIII.7:1-6)

 

Becoming familiar with the present moment is crucial to understanding the goal of A Course in Miracles. Peace can only happen now.

 

If the cause of illusion is in the mind, then so is the cause of truth. The mind is split between the two.

 

What the lesson today teaches us is that we need to find an interval in time. It is a moment of silence when time just drops away. It is a moment of reality when illusion turns to truth.

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341/ Differing Opinions

3rd April 2023

 

Lesson 341: I can attack but my own sinlessness,

 And it is only that which keeps me safe. (ACIM, W-341)

 

 

Everything we are contains peace and love. Thus says the Holy Spirit.

 

What we are contains doubt and fear. Thus says the ego.

 

Our true nature is formless and real; it cannot be touched, burnt, prodded or disturbed; it is deathless, alive and certain.  Our false nature seems solid and dense; it is prey to change, sickness and death; it is lifeless and uncertain.

 

A Course in Miracles demonstrates only clarity. Like the lesson today, we learn that we are holy and innocent. We are loved beyond limit. There is nothing that God would not do for His Son.

 

It is also clear we can’t see this. We see ourselves as flesh and blood. We see God as obscure, distant and almost certainly made up. We give God form but could never conceive of God as formless.

 

Jesus - another entity that we can’t quite believe - is the Voice of A Course in Miracles. He simply asks that we be still. Jesus doesn’t want us to look forward or back, but only to look within.

 

Be not content with future happiness. It has no meaning, and is not your just reward. For you have cause for freedom now. What profits freedom in a prisoner’s form? Why should deliverance be disguised as death? (ACIM, T-26.VIII.9:1-5)

 

We are not separate. It just seems that we are separate. We have made a prison cell of our minds.

 

We are not bound. We have total freedom. There can be no limit to the light in our minds.

 

Everyone has differing opinions. And everything also begins and ends in the mind.

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342/ A Simple Shadow

4th April 2023

 

Lesson 342: I let forgiveness rest upon all things,

For thus forgiveness will be given me. (ACIM, W-342)

 

 

The lesson today says that we make our own hell. It also says that we can change this in just a second. We literally make our own reality with every thought that we think.

 

This means that Heaven is just a thought away. In fact, Heaven is right here. We have never left Heaven - even if we think we have.

 

And it is through our relationships that we return. We find Heaven only with our brother. We find it hand in hand. A Course in Miracles tells us it is impossible to go alone.

 

A Course in Miracles states that how we see our brother is how we see our self. We can be a Son or a Self or a light in the darkness; or we can be a stranger or a loner or the darkness in the night.

 

It is forgiveness that enables us to change. We undo what never was and link in to what really is.

 

Forgiveness, then, becomes the process by which we can know our true Self and our real Identity.  We see in our brothers the essence of truth.

 

However much you wish he be condemned, God is in him. And never will you know He is in you as well while you attack His chosen home, and battle with His host. Regard him gently. Look with loving eyes on him who carries Christ within him, that you may behold his glory and rejoice that Heaven is not separate from you. (ACIM, T-26.IX.1:3-6)

 

We see that nothing can hurt us except what we think.

 

 We learn that the memory of God is simply a thought away.

 

We find that a simple shadow obscures truth of what we are.

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343/ Them and They

5th April 2023

 

Lesson 343: I am not asked to make a sacrifice

 To find the mercy and the peace of God. (ACIM, W-343)

 

 

The mercy and the peace of God are free. God only gives and never takes away.

 

Sacrifice is only possible if we believe we are separate from God. It is pretty clear that we do.

 

We have the same characteristics as God. We are complete, perfect and whole. There are no qualities that God has, that we do not have. This is the lesson for today.

 

Because of one tiny mad idea - one tiny tick of time - the separation happened. We believed that we could be apart. The mind became split and the ego - our complete fear of life - became manifest. The mind was split off from the Mind of God.

 

‘Them’ then became the opposite of ‘us’. ‘They’ just appeared to be apart.

 

A Course in Miracles does mention ‘Them’ and ‘They’. It tells us that the memory of God, the Son, the Christ, the Self - in fact, anything that relates to ‘Them’ - just has to be remembered. It tells us that ‘They’ never went anywhere. In fact, it tells us that nothing ever happened.

 

We have to purify our minds to understand our connection to what is all and everything. Completing the Workbook is the first step. The next step is putting everything that we learned from the Workbook into practice. It means condensing 365 lessons into one total and complete truth.

 

The holiest of all spots on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love. And They come quickly to the living temple, where a home for Them has been set up. There is no place in Heaven holier. And They have come to dwell within the temple offered Them, to be Their resting place as well as yours. (ACIM, T-26.IX.6:1-4)

 

‘Them’ and ‘They’ are who we are. There is no difference and no differentiation. When ‘Them’ and ‘They’ merge with us, everything is one, everything is whole and everything is complete.

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344/ A False Innocence

6th April 2023

 

Lesson 344: Today I learn the law of love; that what

 I give my brother is my gift to me. (ACIM, W-344)

 

 

We always think that the cause of suffering is out in the world. It is not. A Course in Miracles tells us that the cause is never outside of ourselves. It is always found within.

 

A Course in Miracles states that we can’t have a false innocence. We are innocent. There is nothing out there. It is all within the mind. God created us to be perfect, loving and whole.

 

This is how God knows us. He gave us our innocence and nothing can change this.

 

The lesson today asks us to forgive our brothers. This means that we see in our brothers exactly that same innocence. The law of love is that everyone is innocent. The law of love is that we are whole.

 

This is why Jesus constantly affirms that how we see our brother is how we see our self.

 

You have no enemy except yourself, and you are enemy indeed to him because you do not know him as yourself. What could be more unjust than that he be deprived of what he is, denied the right to be himself, and asked to sacrifice his Father’s Love and yours as not his due? (ACIM, T-26.X.3:6-7)

 

The world, our brother - in fact, all that we see - is only known by a mind at war or a mind at peace.

 

A Course in Miracles takes us from that mind at war - the perceptions of the ego - to a mind at peace - the perceptions of the Holy Spirit. This means changing the cause, which is in the mind.

 

Cate Grieves talks more about this in the eighth part of The Healing of the Dream (ACIM, T-27.I). She tells us that we have to see past the ego and let the Holy Spirit be in charge. The Holy Spirit is then the cause of all that arises. This is not a false innocence. This is our true innocence projected out.

 

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345/ A Gentle Path

7th April 2023

 

Lesson 345: I offer only miracles today,

 For I would have them be returned to me. (ACIM, W-345)

 

 

A Course in Miracles teaches truth. We learn that what we give is what we receive.

 

The lesson today is about miracles. Each miracle reminds us that the law of love is universal. We surrender to what really is instead of what is not.

 

There is Heaven and there is hell. Hell is simply made up within a mind that is confused. The mind feels separate and alone. Heaven is only known by a mind that is healed. Heaven, then, is our complete awareness within a mind that has no need for miracles. The mind is one and all is perfect.

 

The miracle, then, helps us with the problems that we perceive within a mind that has no peace.

 

Our minds are off track. They are split. We are asleep to the truth.

 

Essentially the miracle tells us that what always is can only be. Nothing can change because nothing needs to change. All that is needed is that we change our mind.

 

The miracle does nothing. All it does is to undo. And thus it cancels out the interference to what has been done. It does not add, but merely takes away. And what it takes away is long since gone, but being kept in memory appears to have immediate effects. The world was over long ago. (ACIM, T-28.I.1:1-6)

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that we have a Father and we are the Son. The world does not exist.

 

The Father is in Heaven and His Son is there with him. The world is merely a projection of separation. The miracle, then, just cancels out this perceived separation. It brings the mind to a state of peace.

 

A Course in Miracles is a gentle path. It leads us back to where we never left.

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346/ All that the Body Is not

8th April 2023

 

Lesson 346: Today the peace of God envelops me,

And I forget all things except His Love. (ACIM, W-346)

 

The peace of God can only be found in the present moment. This is the lesson for today.

 

What is now is perfect. It can have no reference to the past or to the future. It can only be and always is. Time has no relevance to what we are.

 

A Course in Miracles makes a fundamental distinction between what is real and what is unreal - between truth and perception. It tells us that truth has no opposite, no beginning and no end. Truth applies to everything that God created. Perception, however, does change. Perception is related to the body and so represents a limit on awareness. Perception will always see opposites.

 

The body has a past. It remembers and it perceives. The body can only make an illusion of the truth.

 

A Course in Miracles tells us we are not the body. What we think is real has no reality in truth.

 

Remembering is as selective as perception, being its past tense. It is perception of the past as if it were occurring now, and still were there to see. Memory, like perception, is a skill made up by you to take the place of what God gave in your creation. And like all the things you made, it can be used to serve another purpose, and to be the means for something else. (ACIM, T-28.I.2:5-8)

 

And so, we can choose to see or not see. Reality is either with us now and always, or not at all.

 

Everything that we perceive arises through the mind. We either know truth or we don’t know truth.

 

The Workbook allows us to get into what is now. This means we contact the Holy Spirit within the mind. It means we see past the ego. It means we get to the heart of what God created.

 

This is His Son - our Self. It is what we are. We are not the body. We are all that the body is not.

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347/ The Memory of Now

9th April 2023

 

Lesson 347: Anger must come from Judgement. Judgment is

The weapon I would use against myself,

To keep the miracle away from me. (ACIM, W-347)

 

The lesson today is about overcoming uncertainty. It is about giving everything to the Holy Spirit. It is about being one with the Father, which is the miracle.

 

We resort to anger but have no idea why. We use judgement because we are blind to truth.

 

A Course in Miracles is the path back to clarity. It heals. It undoes nothing and gives us everything.

 

Nothing employed for healing represents an effort to do anything at all. It is a recognition that you have no needs which mean that something must be done. It is an unselective memory, that is not used to interfere with truth. (ACIM, T-28.I.3:1-3)

 

It is the Holy Spirit that reveals the truth. The Holy Spirit brings the mind into the present moment where there is no guilt. There is no ego. There is only truth and there is only now.

 

Right in this moment, we have the memory of the Father. However, we have buried that memory beneath a pile of thoughts. It scares us. We have decided that pain is better than peace.

 

Forgiveness becomes our practice in order to regain this memory. Forgiveness undoes the guilt that keeps it buried. Forgiveness returns the mind to the peace that we have never left.

 

 A Course in Miracles never gives us an exact formula that makes it clear what forgiveness is. However, forgiveness simply becomes clearer the more we do the Course.

 

We are in a dream. Forgiveness wakes us up from the dream and shows us what is real.

 

We have the memory of now within the mind. Forgiveness returns the memory that is buried there.

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348/ The Eternal Present

10th April 2023

 

Lesson 348: I have no cause for anger or for fear, for

You surround me. And in every need that

I perceive, Your grace suffices me. (ACIM, W-348)

 

 A Course in Miracles states that there is a cause and there is a Cause. Both arise within the mind.

 

The cause is illusory. It never was. The effects of the cause arise only in dreams.

 

 The Cause is pure truth. It always is. The effects of the Cause arise only in the now.

 

The lesson today is a simple prayer. It is to know the Cause of everything that we are. It is to know our perfection because the Cause is perfect.

 

We are therefore praying to know our Self.

 

We are praying for the certainty of God

 

We are praying for the freedom that is the miracle.

 

The miracle comes quietly into the mind that stops an instant and is still. It reaches gently from that quiet time, and from the mind it healed in quiet then, to other minds to share its quietness. And they will join in doing nothing to prevent its radiant extension back into the Mind which caused all minds to be. (ACIM, T-28.I.11:1-3)

 

Undo the cause and we find the Cause.

 

See past the ego and we know the Holy Spirit. 

 

 Everything arises out of the eternal present. Know the Cause and we are home.

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349/ No Barrier or Limit

11th April 2023

 

Lesson 349: Today I let Christ’s vision look upon

All things for me and judge them not, but give

Each one a miracle of love instead. (ACIM, W-349)

 

The lesson today is about seeing as God would see. This is the healing of the mind.

 

We give the miracle and we are the miracle. Anything else is simply limitation.

 

This, then, is how we limit ourselves.

 

We think we are a mind within a body.

 

We inhabit a world of other bodies. Each one has a separate mind.

 

Creation is limited to a distant God.

 

Thank goodness, then, for A Course in Miracles.

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that Fatherhood is creation.

 

 Love can only be extended.

 

Purity is never confined.

 

The mind has no barrier or limit of any kind. 

 

The circle of creation has no end. Its starting and its ending are the same. But in itself it holds the universe of all creation, without beginning and without an end. (ACIM, T-28.II.1:6-8)

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350/ Love Is All

12th April 2023

 

Lesson 350: Miracles mirror God’s eternal Love.

To offer them is to remember Him,

And through His memory to save the world. (ACIM, W-350)

 

The memory of God depends on forgiveness. If we want it, we can have it. This is the lesson for today.

 

A Course in Miracles tells us that we are dreaming a dream. It says that the Love of God surrounds us but we are asleep to God’s reality.

 

The miracle, then, gives the mind a taste of God’s reality. The miracle broadcasts to the mind a simple statement of God’s Love. The miracle returns to the mind the memory of God.

 

The miracle brings light to the mind that is stuck in dreams.

 

The miracle establishes you dream a dream, and that its content is not true. This is a crucial step in dealing with illusions. No one is afraid of them when he perceives he made them up. (ACIM, T-28.II.7:1-3)

 

Miracles, then, arise as we train the mind.

 

Miracles pave the way to truth.

 

Miracles are simply a change in perception.

 

Miracles have one single message. Love is one and love is all.

 

This world is full of miracles. They stand in shining silence next to every dream of pain and suffering, of sin and guilt. They are the dream’s alternative, the choice to be the dreamer, rather than deny the active role in making up the dream. (ACIM, T-28.II.12:1-3)