Reflections 57 to 70
57/ How to Have a Happy Day
23rd June 2022
Lesson 57: Review 1: Lessons 31-35.
The summaries of the first three lessons in this review use prison imagery to make their point. The first one tells us that the prison door is open. The second one says that we have made the prison in which we find ourselves. The third one says that this world is a prison for God’s Son. The summaries of the final two lessons point toward the freedom of the real world, and the peace that this entails.
A Course in Miracles stresses time and time again that the false is false, and the true is true. There is no in-between. This means that we are either in a prison or in a paradise. Our journey is to re-discover what is true. It is a journey into the re-discovery of sanity over insanity.
It is also a journey into the understanding of the complexity of our insanity. A Course in Miracles tells us that truth is simple. There is no deviation. There is no intricate interweaving of complex patterns. Truth just is, and is in complete contrast to what we have learned. This is our prison analogy. We are responsible for feeling imprisoned. We are responsible for the world in which we find ourselves.
A Course in Miracles tells us that we can have the world we want. We can have the day we want. We can have anything we want, but we only have two choices of guide. We choose either the ego or the Holy Spirit. One leads into the prison, and the other leads out of the prison. There are no other choices.
Who could maintain that lessons such as these are easy? Yet you have learned much more than this. You have continued, taking every step, however difficult, without complaint, until a world was built that suited you. And every lesson that makes up the world arises from the first accomplishment of learning; an enormity so great the Holy Spirit’s Voice seems small and still before its magnitude. (ACIM, T-31.I.4:1-4)
Cate Grieves undoes the myth that we need to suffer. She looks deeply into the section of the Text entitled Rules for Decision (ACIM, T-30.I). She goes into great detail on how we can have a happy day. This is a happy day where we are not in prison. The sun is shining and we are free. The link for the talk is below.
_________________________________________________________________________
24th June 2022
Lesson 58: Review 1: Lessons 36-40.
The five lessons today all tell us that we are holy and blessed. They tell us that we are collectively the Son of God. Nothing can take this away from us, except for one thing. Our minds have forgotten the Thought that this is so.
A Course in Miracles describes it like this. Our minds are dominated by thoughts. These thoughts allow images to arise in our minds. We put all the meaning we have onto these images. We look and label. We judge and dismiss. We take these images for granted. These images then become the world we see. Sometimes we love the world, and sometimes we want to escape from the world.
Nothing is consistent. Images arise that are attractive and terrifying, inspiring and depressing. A Course in Miracles asks us to stop interpreting these images with meanings they don’t have. With a peaceful mind, we can then see the real world in which there is no fear. It is friendly and warm, and it is this warmth that draws us forward.
We are told that we are responsible for everything we see. We simply make it up. The images we see have nothing to do with being holy. They have nothing to do with being blessed. What we see is merely an interpretation of the ego. The ego is merely symbolic of a mind that is asleep.
There is no living thing that does not share the universal Will that it be whole, and that you do not leave its call unheard. Without your answer is it left to die, as it is saved from death when you have heard its calling as the ancient call to life, and understood that it is but your own.(ACIM, T-31.I.9:1-2)
A Course in Miracles tells us that everything arises from within us. We can make God’s Son guilty, or we can make God’s Son guiltless. The former arises from fear, and the latter arises from peace. Both arise from separate sources, although only one is real. The reality is that there is only God, and God has one Son. Everything else is just illusory. It just arises from the images that we make.
The lessons to be learned are only two. We think with the ego or the Holy Spirit, and no other choice is possible. It is one or the other: For as you hear, you answer. And behold! Your answer is the proof of what you learned. Its outcome is the world you look upon (ACIM, T-31.I.11:7-10).
____________________________________________________________________________
59/ We Have no Enemy in Truth
25th June 2022
Lesson 59: Review 1: Lessons 41-45.
A Course in Miracles doesn’t want us to lead or follow. It wants us to walk together.
The five lessons in this review emphasise the power that God gives us. God is within us, around us, in everything and is everywhere. God is in our minds, and we are in the Mind of God
A Course in Miracles does not teach us to behave like gods to each other. It doesn’t want us to bow down to each other, or feel superior. ACIM’s whole message is that, as we see each other, we see ourselves. We make or break ourselves with minds that think.
The ego loves to defend and attack. The ego is great at all displays of emotion, with lots of variations in between. The ego might help someone, and then turn its back. Everything the ego does is based on judgement. A Course in Miracles asks us to take the opposite view. It tells us our brother is our ticket home. Through each person we meet, we either know ourselves or we forget ourselves. The ego will never understand this. The ego only knows separation and judgement.
This is the road to nowhere, for the light cannot be given while you walk alone, and so you cannot see which way you go. And thus there is confusion, and a sense of endless doubting as you stagger back and forward in the darkness and alone. (ACIM, T-31.II.11:4-5)
A Course in Miracles tells us that, as we battle with ourselves, we have no enemy in truth. We always walk with the Holy Spirit, regardless of how we feel. A fear of separation might dominate our minds, but we are never alone. The key, then, is to let go of the past and come into the present.
Think not ancient thoughts. Forget the dismal lessons that you learned about this Son of God who calls to you. Christ calls to all with equal tenderness, seeing no leaders and no followers, and hearing but one answer to them all. (ACIM, T-31.II.7:3-5)
Be very still an instant. Come without all thought of what you ever learned before, and put aside all images you made. The old will fall away before the new without your opposition or intent. (ACIM, T-31.II.8:1-3)
____________________________________________________________________________
60/ Jailer and Prisoner
26th June 2022
Lesson 60: Review 1: Lessons 46-50.
Another five lessons are reviewed today. Four of these reviews mention forgiveness, and one does not. It simply states that there is nothing to fear. This means that, when fear has gone, there is nothing to forgive. Everyone and everything blesses us. We are at peace.
At the end of the Text of A Course in Miracles, there is a very important line that appears in the last few pages. Because it comes in the final chapter, it feels like all our preparatory work has been completed, and we are being told that this must be our response in all situations, without exception. This line has to be the essence of what ACIM is teaching us.
You never hate your brother for his sins, but only for your own. Whatever form his sins appear to take, it but obscures the fact that you believe them to be yours, and therefore meriting a “just” attack. (ACIM, T-31.III.1:5-6)
A Course in Miracles is telling us that everything happens in the mind, and never to the mind. Whatever emotion occurs in us, it has to be looked at. It has to be confronted and challenged. It is never the person opposite us who has caused it. Everything arises through the mind that thinks it. It is basically telling us we are perfect as we are.
If you did not believe that you deserved attack, it never would occur to you to give attack to anyone at all. Why should you? What would be the gain to you? What could the outcome be that you would want? And how could murder bring you benefit? (ACIM, T-31.III.2:7-11)
We are therefore both jailer and prisoner. A Course in Miracles tells us that sins are in bodies and not in minds. It tells us that bodies act while minds do not. It tells us that to think of ourselves as a body is to think of ourselves as a sin. The sin is locked within the body. The body is a prisoner, and not the mind. The body literally jails the mind within it. In itself, the mind is free.
Liberating the mind from pain is why we have the Workbook. The Workbook teaches us to see the truth of what we are, and not the illusion. The mind is endless, boundless and full of love, and only our fear of separation stops us from seeing this. The ego, then, is our jailer and keeps the body prisoner. The Holy Spirit is our liberator. Only the Holy Spirit can set us free.
____________________________________________________________________________
61/ Choice among Illusions
27th June 2022
Lesson 61: I am the light of the world. (ACIM, W-61)
Being the light of the world is not what the world teaches us. The world teaches us that we can do anything we want as long as we obey its laws. The world will never accept that we are pure awareness, extinguishing this thought by defining us as a body with a brain. The world’s whole purpose is to demonstrate that we are only what it tells us we are.
The world tempts us with lights everywhere, yet these are all illusory. We might spend our whole life searching for these lights, not understanding that they don’t exist. Every journey takes us away from the truth of what we are. This is because the truth is within us. We don’t have to go anywhere to find it.
A Course in Miracles tells us that it is not arrogance to believe that we are the light of the world. It is humility. It is a statement of fact. However, we have to experience this. Everything we currently do and everything we currently see has an opposite, and this is all we know. ACIM’s whole purpose is to show us that the world of opposites does not exist. A mind that is still knows no opposite.
The world was made that problems could not be escaped. Be not deceived by all the different names its roads are given. They have but one end. And each is but the means to gain that end, for it is here that all its roads will lead, however differently they seem to start; however differently they seem to go. (ACIM, T-31.IV.2:6-9)
What is the light of the world? The light of the world has no contrast. It has no comparison in this world of form. It is pure and undiluted. It is endless and boundless. The world can only hint at it. It can never contain it.
The world only gives us a choice among illusions, and we need to look within. A Course in Miracles simply states that within us is what we are. We are the light of the world because there is only one light of the world. We find it in each other. Quite simply, it can be nowhere else.
You did not come to find a road the world does not contain. The search for different pathways in the world is but the search for different forms of truth. And this would keep the truth from being reached. (ACIM, T-31.IV.6:3-5)
62/ Meaningless Concepts
28th June 2022
Lesson 62: Forgiveness is my function as the light of the world. (ACIM, W-62)
The lesson today tells us that forgiveness is a gift to ourselves. Forgiveness allows us to find out who we are. Forgiveness enables us to start thinking thoughts of life instead of thoughts of death.
It is inevitable that we might begin the practice of A Course in Miracles and hold suspicions about forgiveness. We come into the world without a self and build one up as we go along. Forgiveness is hardly appropriate. It serves no purpose in the world that we know
The self that we are has two aspects. The first is the self that we show the world, and the second is the self that we don’t. The first is agreeable, benevolent and thoughtful; the second is terrifying to a point where we have to turn away from it. To forgive the first is possible but to forgive the second is much harder. The second is so fearsome that we have to bury it, and pretend it is not there.
A Course in Miracles tells us that we can’t escape this second self. We can disguise it and dull it, but eventually it has to be looked at. Then we see it is really nothing. It is the opposite of what we are.
Concepts are learned. They are not natural. Apart from learning they do not exist. They are not given, so they must be made. Not one of them is true, and many come from feverish imaginations, hot with hatred and distortions born of fear. What is a concept but a thought to which its maker gives a meaning of its own? (ACIM, T-31.V.7:1-6)
To fully comprehend that both the friendly and fearsome selves are just meaningless concepts requires undoing our beliefs. We might spend years defending ourselves. We might spend whole lifetimes listening to the narrative in our minds. But A Course in Miracles tells us that our little selves are no more than puffs of wind compared to our big Self. Who we are is not who we think we are
A concept of the self is meaningless, for no one here can see what it is for, and therefore cannot picture what it is. Yet is all learning that the world directs begun and ended with the single aim of teaching you this concept of yourself, that you will choose to follow this world’s laws, and never seek to go beyond its roads nor realize the way to see yourself. (ACIM, T-31.V.8:1-2)
____________________________________________________________________________
63/ A Reflected State of Mind
29th June 2022
Lesson 63: The light of the world brings peace to every mind though my forgiveness. (ACIM, W-63)
The lesson today demonstrates the power of the mind. Peace flows from it, but so can pain. We have the power to love unconditionally but we also have the power to condemn and victimise. We give or take away according to our state of mind.
Forgiveness is the practice that undoes our negative states of mind. Forgiveness literally means we undo the way we look at the world. We undo our false beliefs. We undo everything that stops our minds from being still.
A Course in Miracles states that there is nothing in the world that can show us what we are. Everything that what we see in the world only reflects back to us what we think we are: The role of the accuser will appear in many places and in many forms. And each will seem to be accusing you. Yet have no fear it will not be undone (ACIM, T-31.V.16:5-7). Forgiveness undoes the accuser’s voice. Forgiveness settles the mind. Forgiveness allows the mind to be what it is.
Our suffering all comes down to one thing. We don’t how to be peaceful. A Course in Miracles wants us to peel away the layers. It wants us to look beneath the surface to what is at its core because this is where our true Self is found. Our Self is only concealed by our little self, and nothing more than that. Our little self pretends to be bigger than what it is, but ACIM says it is actually nothing.
A Course in Miracles tells us that the search for truth is the great preoccupation of the world. Everyone behaves as if they have the answer, and yet the problem only lies with what we think. ACIM tells us that all thought has consequences. All thought is mirrored back to us in one form or another: If you can be hurt by anything, you see a picture of your secret wishes. Nothing more than this. And in your suffering of any kind you see your own desire to kill. (ACIM, T-31.V.15:8-10)
The lesson today shows us that the world does not provide the answers. There is nothing in the world that comes close to what we want. The light of the world is within us but our thoughts choose not to see it. We are actually blind to what we are.
The practice of forgiveness enables the peace within us to be cultivated. We then begin to perceive peace in everyone, and that peace becomes a reflected state of mind.
____________________________________________________________________________
64/ Truth Cannot Change
30th June 2022
Lesson 64: Let me not forget my function. (ACIM, W-64)
The lesson today informs us that our function is to be happy. It tells us that happiness is inevitable if we are led by the Holy Spirit. Happiness is sporadic at best if we are led by the ego. This means we only have two choices: to be happy, or not to be happy.
A Course in Miracles’ whole purpose is to let us know that truth cannot change. Truth remains stable, all-encompassing and all-loving. What is not true always changes. It is illusory, unpredictable and uncertain.
You see flesh or recognise the spirit. There is no compromise between the two. If one is real the other must be false, for what is real denies its opposite. (ACIM, T-31.VI.1:1-3)
Salvation is undoing. If you choose to see the body, you behold a world of separation, unrelated things, and happenings that make no sense at all. (ACIM, T-31.VI.2:1-2)
A Course in Miracles states that it does not matter what we think we are; the truth about us can never change. It does not matter where we think we are; Heaven is always with us, always here and always now. Bodies are forms that come and go, but spirit is changeless. Spirit is what we are.
We are not asked to deny the obvious. We are not asked to pretend that the body does not exist. We are simply asked to look beyond the body. We are told that this is where our true nature lies. This is how we find the truth of what we are. A Course in Miracles has one fundamental message. Truth is permanent. Bodies change but spirit can never change.
Cate Grieves explains how the ego hates that we know this in her next talk on The Obstacles to Peace (ACIM, T-19.IV). She highlights the pain that results from identifying as a body. She explains how our deepest fear - a belief in death – stops us from living. She says that to live fully means a total commitment to spirit. Our whole outlook then becomes different. Our fears disappear and we exude a love of life. The Link for the talk is below.
____________________________________________________________________________
65/ The Need for Contrast
1st July 2022
Lesson 65: My only function is the one God gave me. (ACIM, W-65)
This lesson states that we need complete commitment if we want to be free. This means that, if we are going to achieve salvation, we have to relinquish all other goals. Salvation is complete freedom of mind. All other goals are ones that we have invented and serve no purpose.
A Course in Miracles does not state that it provides the only method of awakening - ACIM says that it is just one way amongst thousands. What it does say is that salvation is for all, and that we all have a definite need for contrast before we can even appreciate the need to be free.
How can we appreciate freedom if we don’t know what imprisonment feels like? And how can we know what God is if we haven’t experienced what God isn’t?
To fully understand this lesson - to fully experience what God has given us - we need to experience its opposite. A Course in Miracles states that salvation deals in contrasts because that is what we know. There is no one who has ever lived who has not experienced the opposite of peace in some way.
You could not recognise your “evil” thoughts as long as you see value in attack. You will perceive them sometimes, but will not see them as meaningless. (ACIM, T-31.VII.2:1-2)
By focusing upon the good in him, the body grows decreasingly persistent in your sight, and will at length be seen as little more than just a shadow circling round the good. (ACIM, T-31.VII.3:3)
This is the contrast we need. We are aware of what causes us pain, and we become aware there is something that gives us peace. A Course in Miracles tells us we find it in our brother. All the brothers that we meet, every brother that we think about, either makes us or breaks us. This is the contrast that we need.
And all this shift requires is that you be willing that this happy change occur. No more than this is asked. On its behalf, remember what the concept of yourself that now you hold has brought you in its wake, and welcome the glad contrast offered you. (ACIM, T-31.VII.5:3-5)
____________________________________________________________________________
66/ Looking in the Mirror
2nd July 2022
Lesson 66: My happiness and my function are one. (ACIM, W-66)
A Course in Miracles tells us that we only have two choices. It is always one or the other. The two choices are always between the Holy Spirit and the ego. It is between Heaven and hell. It is the simple choice of being happy or not being happy.
Ultimately, there is nothing else. There no in between. To be a little bit happy is to choose the ego.
It is our forgiveness that allows happiness to arise within us. Forgiveness undoes the ego and removes the veil which prevents us from knowing who we are. The lesson today tells us that, when we undo the thing that is blocking our happiness, we become one with what is creating it.
A Course in Miracles tells us that happiness is always with us; it is just clouded by the ego. It tells us that happiness is our birthright, but our belief in separation prevents it. It tells us that we are too lenient in allowing our minds to judge and attack, and it is this that creates unhappiness.
The solution is this. The Holy Spirit is with us always. The Holy Spirit simply looks and sees happiness. It knows exactly what we need, and shows us how to find it. The Holy Spirit lives quietly in our minds and it is up to us to know this. The Holy Spirit is our only choice, if we want unending happiness.
The veil across the face of Christ, the fear of God and of salvation, and the love of guilt and death, they all are different names for just one error; that there is a space between you and your brother, kept apart by an illusion of yourself that holds him off from you, and you away from him. (ACIM, T-31.VII.9:1)
Everyone we meet is like looking into a mirror. We either see the ego or we see the Holy Spirit. We either see fear or we see love. We either see the past or we see the present. We either see death or we see life. The truth is, we either see our happiness or we see our unhappiness.
A Course in Miracles merely says we shouldn’t worry about complexity. The solution is really simple: Be not deceived by what appears as many choices. There is hell or Heaven, and of these you choose but one. (ACIM, T-31.VII.14:8-9)
____________________________________________________________________________
67/ Temptation’s Gift
3rd July 2022
Lesson 67: Love created me like itself. (ACIM, W-67)
The lesson today teaches us what we are. Temptation teaches us what we are not.
Temptation has one lesson it would teach, in all its forms, wherever it occurs. It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders him to feel. (ACIM, T-31.VIII.1:1-2)
The lesson today teaches us what is certain. Temptation only teaches us is what is uncertain.
Be never fearful of temptation, then, but see it as it is; another chance to choose again, and let Christ’s strength prevail in every circumstance and every place you raised an image of yourself before. (ACIM, T-31.VIII.4:2)
The lesson today shows us what is real. Temptation only shows us what is not real.
What you behold as sickness and as pain, as weakness and as suffering and loss, is but temptation to perceive yourself defenseless and in hell. (ACIM, T-31.VIII.6:2)
What temptation tells us is this. Every circumstance that happens to us, every moment that we feel unsettled, every situation in which we find ourselves, it is just another chance to choose again. We choose what A Course in Miracles teaches us. We choose that we can express ourselves as love.
A Course in Miracles teaches us that we are God’s Son.
A Course in Miracles teaches us that we are absolute truth.
Temptation’s only gift is this. There is always another chance to remember who we are once more. There is always another chance to remember that our true nature is wholeness.
____________________________________________________________________________
68/ Jesus Speaks
4th July 2022
Lesson 68: Love holds no grievances. (ACIM, W-68)
Yesterday, I heard a preacher on the street outside where I was working. I was curious as to why he had to be so loud, but he seemed to be happy.
Today, I felt some reluctance to use a title with the name of Jesus in it. It is too Christian, too challenging to my relationship with religion and dogma.
A Course in Miracles loves to challenge our perception. It speaks in a way that is personal to each one of us. It is direct but loving, supportive but demanding. There is no ambiguity. We can label its author with any name we want, but Jesus is the one that seems the most appropriate.
The end of the Text tells us this: The Journey closes, ending at the place where it began. No trace of it remains. Not one illusion is accorded faith, and not one spot of darkness still remains to hide the face of Christ from anyone (ACIM, T-31.VIII.12:3-5). The lesson today emphasises this. It tells us that love holds nothing except love. Love is where it starts and love is where it ends.
The beginning of the Text has this: You are free to believe what you choose, and what you do attests to what you believe (ACIM, T-1.II.1:9). The lesson today emphasises that we can love without one drop of judgement. However, we can also hate unreservedly.
Jesus keeps reminding us of this throughout A Course in Miracles. He describes himself as an older brother. He talks to us as if we are his equal in every way. And he tells us that this is the way that we should see each other - without a grievance of any kind.
Jesus tells us we are free to believe in anything we want. He tells us that what we do mirrors what we believe. The preacher man has his belief, I have mine, and you have yours. Jesus tells us what his beliefs are, and says that we can have them too. Below, he says that our potential is limitless.
There is nothing about me that you cannot attain. I have nothing that does not come from God. The difference between us now is that I have nothing else. This leaves me in a state which is only potential in you. (ACIM, T-1.II.3:10-13)
____________________________________________________________________________
69/ The Atonement
5th July 2022
Lesson 69: My grievances hide the light of the world in me. (ACIM, W-69)
The lesson today tells us that grievances hide the light of the world from our minds. A Course in Miracles tells us that, when all our grievances are gone, then this is the Atonement. Light fills the mind. The mind becomes en-light-ened.
The Atonement is therefore the healing of the mind.
The Atonement makes us one with all that is.
Jesus asks that we help each other to know this. Jesus tells us that, when our minds have been restored to their natural state, we become part of the Atonement ourselves. Jesus tells us this: I am in charge of the Atonement, which I undertook to begin. When you offer a miracle to any of my brothers, you do it to yourself and me. (ACIM, T-1.III.1:1-2).
The Atonement therefore means we are all one mind. One mind means no barriers of any kind.
The Atonement connects us to all that is. Miracles arise out of this state of mind.
The power to work miracles belongs to you. I will provide the opportunities to do them, but you must be ready and willing (ACIM, T-1.III.1:7-8). In other words, Jesus wants us to know that everything is perfect just as it is. Nothing external has to change. Only our internal world is important.
The Atonement is therefore God’s gift to us.
The Atonement makes us whole. Jesus tells us that God knows of nothing else.
You are the work of God, and His work is wholly loveable and wholly loving. This is how a man must think of himself in his heart, because this is what he is. (ACIM, T-1.III.2:3-4)
____________________________________________________________________________
70/ Light and Dark
6th July 2022
Lesson 70: My salvation comes from me. (ACIM, W-70)
A Course in Miracles gives us hope. If we wake up in the morning, feeling bad, it tells us we can have its opposite right away. The same applies throughout the day, and into the night. We have the antidote to everything within us. It is sitting there quietly, right alongside what is causing us pain.
The key is to have a gentle awareness and a quiet trust. We are told that nothing outside of ourselves can hurt us because there is nothing outside of ourselves. Our minds hold the key. We can feel guilty, or we can feel free of guilt.
Reality belongs only to spirit, and the miracle acknowledges only truth. It thus dispels illusions about yourself, and puts you in communion with yourself and God. (ACIM, T-1.IV.2:4-5)
A Course in Miracles is for anyone who wants to study it. It is entirely without bias. Its whole premise is that there is one God, and God has just one Son. We are collectively the one Son of God. We appear to be separate but we are not. Within us is the essence of what God created. It is who we are, and it is what we are yearning to find. It is our one Self, and the glue that holds us together. Find our one Self, and we find everything that the ego is not.
The Son of God is egoless. What can he know of madness and the death of God, when he abides in Him? What can he know of sorrow and of suffering, when he lives in eternal joy? (ACIM, W-pII.12.3:1-3)
The only darkness we have are the dark thoughts that wake us in the morning, or that plague us throughout the day. As our light is cultivated, it dispels the darkness. Just like striking a match in a darkened room, our dark thoughts are replaced with the clarity of light.
A Course in Miracles tells us that what is light belongs only to spirit. Our minds contain a light so strong that darkness can only hide if we let it. Our goal is to see this light everywhere, in everyone, and without exception. We are here to help each other.
Light and dark equals love and fear. It all comes down to what we want.
Comments
Post a Comment