Reflections 71 to 84

 

71/ Facing Fear

7th July 2022 

Lesson 71: Only God’s plan for salvation will work. (ACIM, W-71)

There are many definitive statements in A Course in Miracles, and the title of today’s lesson is one. ACIM tells us that the ego has many plans to make us happy, but none of them will work. There is only one plan that will bring us true happiness, and this belongs to God.

We look in all the wrong places, we try all the wrong things, and all the time we don’t see the bigger picture. We don’t see the broad expanse of love that supports us. We feel limited, small and excluded. We never think to look where the only solution lies.

The solution lies in the peace and quiet of the mind. The solution is always there, just waiting to help. It only needs one prompt, and it answers. The Holy Spirit - the Voice for God - is therefore the only alternative to the ego. The Holy Spirit is the only way to find absolute certainty and complete joy. All we have to do is to be present and quiet. Silence allows the prompts to come through.

Whatever is true is eternal, and cannot change or be changed. Spirit is therefore unalterable because it is already prefect, but the mind can elect what it chooses to serve. (ACIM, T-1.V.5:1-2)

A Course in Miracles wants us to confront our fears. It wants us to see through the veil of nothingness that the ego presents to us. It wants us to live fully in the moment, without one iota of anxiety or stress. It wants us to see our full potential which is limitless and boundless.

We just need to confront what is not real. We need to confront the ego, but to face it with the help of what sits quietly in our minds. The ego’s only purpose is to distract us. If the ego raises the stakes, we just have to rise higher. The only way to undo the ego is to face what we fear.

Cate Grieves talks about facing our fears in her eleventh talk on The Obstacles to Peace (ACIM, T-19.IV).  She says that this is the same as confronting our fear of God, and our fear of death. We can’t do this alone but we can do this with the help of the Holy Spirit. The Link for the talk is below. 

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72/ What Is a Grievance?

8th July 2022 

Lesson 72: Holding grievances is an attack on God’s plan for salvation. (ACIM, W-72)

The lesson today tells us that holding grievances is always associated with having a body. We might associate God with a body, so that means that God holds grievances. The body is our saviour. We see ourselves as a body, and the truth is always outside of that body.

A Course in Miracles tells us that the light of truth is within us. The light of truth is in our spirit and this is our natural state. The ego and the body are unnatural states.  The combination of the ego and the body creates pain, illusion and death. This is probably the most painful thing that could ever happen to us. We are separate from the love that created us, and we feel we have no way back.

Holding grievances is what the ego loves. It sees another body, and that body sparks a memory. The memory could be of something that happened recently or long ago, in this lifetime or perhaps another lifetime. Our minds are triggered. Suddenly we are off on a tangent and our thoughts are racing toward different scenarios of love or hate, victory or revenge. This is not natural behaviour.

A sense of separation from God is the only lack you really need correct. This sense of separation would never have arisen if you had not distorted your perception of truth, and had thus perceived yourself as lacking. (ACIM, T-1.VI.2:1-2)

A Course in Miracles tells us that all aspects of fear are untrue because they are all simply imagined. ACIM tells us that the real purpose of the world is to correct our unbelief. All grievances therefore need to be undone because they are stopping us from being what we are. ACIM tells us that we are the same as God because God created us. Our true nature is wholly loving and wholly love.

A grievance means that we have replaced this love with hate. A grievance means we have cut ourselves off from the love that we are. A grievance insists that the body is real and spirit is not. A grievance places us under the control of the ego where truth is forbidden.

The antidote for this is forgiveness. The ego can’t handle forgiveness because it means that it has nowhere to hide. The only thing that is left is our freedom. And our freedom is so real, so loving and so incredible that we wonder how we could have ever left it.

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73/ Strangling Our Self

9th July 2022 

Lesson 73: I will there be light. (ACIM, W-73)

We have a will we share with God. This will involves everything that is Heaven. Words can’t do this justice because words are symbolic. Heaven is undiluted love. The lesson today tells us we can find Heaven on earth if we so wish.

For this to happen, our will has to be strong and unshakeable. We have to have faith in the invisible. We have to trust that truth is everything that A Course in Miracles tells us it is. We have to understand that suffering is not happiness. Suffering only happens if we ignore the will of God.

The problem is when we allow the ego to place its will in our minds. The ego is a voice that never stops. It talks to us continuously. When we question its motives, the ego might get hostile. The ego can change heaven to hell in just an instant.

A Course in Miracles does not want us to spend any time analysing the ego. It does not want us to give it power. Instead, it teaches us to choose its opposite which is the Holy Spirit. It wants us to look deeply into what God is. It wants us to understand where miracles come from, as opposed to where they don’t come from. ACIM wants us to have complete confidence that what it is telling us is right.

You believe in what you make. If you offer miracles, you will be equally strong in your belief in them. The strength of your conviction will then sustain the belief of the miracle receiver. Fantasies become totally unnecessary as the wholly satisfying nature of reality becomes apparent to both giver and receiver. (ACIM, T-1.VII.3:8-11)

The ego creates the fantasy. The ego loves to fantasise about sex, power, adoration, control, acquisition, and an endless array of other variations. These fantasies become our addictions. The ego perpetuates these fantasies by pouring fuel on the fire. Essentially the ego ensures we embrace separation by making us aware of everything that we are not.

We are strangling our Self. We are strangling the Self that we are. When we do the lessons of the Workbook, we are learning to release the grip of the ego. We are learning to expand our consciousness. We are allowing life to flow. This is the whole point of A Course in Miracles. It is to enable us to live happily with the will of God.

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74/ The Garden of Eden

10^th July 2022 

Lesson 74: There is no will but God’s. (ACIM, W-74)

A Course in Miracles tells us that there is only truth, perfection and one single Will. Everything else is a distortion of reality. Everything else is a dream because there is nothing else. The dream only exists in our minds, and this was created out of fear.

You have not only been fully created, but you have also been created perfect. There is no emptiness in you. Because of your likeness to your Creator you are creative. No child of God can lose this ability because it is inherent in what he is, but he can use it inappropriately by projecting. (ACIM, T-2.I.1:3-6)

A Course in Miracles works with us at our own level. This can be described as at the level of the ego, but it can also be described as working with the frightened, the scared and the vulnerable. We do not know what has happened to us. We do not know who we are. We do not know anything about oneness. It terrifies us, and we bury this fear in a thousand different ways.

The contrast between what is form and what is formless is huge. On one level we are living in a world, with all the responsibilities that we have. We pinch ourselves and we are flesh and blood. We suffer according to the absence of love in our lives. On the other level, we are immortal spirit. Spirit has no needs because spirit just is. We are a part of the Infinite Spirit that surrounds us, loving us unconditionally. We are invulnerable to any form of suffering.

A Course in Miracles tells us that we can be whatever we want to be. It tells us that peace is within us, and that true health means that we are simply a part of this inner peace. We have absolute free will. Whatever our lives are like, the chance to re-discover our inner peace can come only from us.

The Atonement is the correction of all the limitations that allow us to have a false identity, allowing our minds to know its truth. There is no more projection of false ideas and concepts. We know only our true Identity, and this Identity is in complete communication with the Source that created us.

The Garden of Eden is with us now, except we have forgotten it. We have fallen asleep to it. We only lost it because we had a tiny mad idea of wandering away, and this idea was spit into trillions of separate entities. However, nothing was lost. God never disappeared. God never took away our free will. He just gave us His Voice. The Holy Spirit is in our minds, reminding us that all is well.

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75/ Finding the Means

11^th July 2022 

Lesson 75: The light has come. (ACIM, W-75)

The sun is shining - another hot July day. However, there is a weight on my shoulders, a feeling in my stomach. The lesson today is just a distant hope. Tomorrow the light might come, but not today.

What is this feeling? It is an ache in the gut when we sense that something is not right. It is a twinge of panic when we feel we are on the back foot. It is the passing thought that clouds a sunny day. Basically, it is fear. Fear always feels like an uninvited intruder.

There is nothing that is overtly wrong. In fact, everything is right. No one banging on the door, bombs aren’t being dropped, and there is plenty to be happy for. But my mind is anxious. And of what that is, it is not clear.

A Course in Miracles says that all fear is just an error in the mind. It is the mind thinking wrongly. Our fears arise from a thought system that demands compliance. ACIM simply asks that we stop being compliant. We then stop the effects by removing the cause.

To you the miracle cannot seem natural, because what you have done to hurt your mind has made it so unnatural that it does not remember what is natural to it. And when you are told what is natural, you cannot understand it. (ACIM, T-16.II.3:1-2)

Jesus wants us to know that we are perfect as we are, but we just don’t know it. He repeats the same message over and over again. He tells us we are simply responsible for what we think. We give the mind free range to think what it wants, not realising that there is an alternative.

The real questions are, what do you treasure, and how much do you treasure it? Once you have learned to consider these questions and to bring them into all your actions, you will have little difficulty in clarifying the means. (ACIM, T-2.II.3:5-6)

The means has to be asked for. We have to focus the mind into asking the Holy Spirit for help. We have to go into our minds and look at every problem with the Holy Spirit. This is what Jesus is teaching us. We simply have to face our fears.

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76/ The Awakening Experience

12^th July 2022 

Lesson 76: I am under no laws but God’s. (ACIM, W-76)

Our main fear has to revolve around the loss of the body. Today’s lesson states that the body is endangered only by the mind that hurts itself. The mind becomes the victim of all the games it plays, and the body suffers. Look at the body and we can see our state of mind.

A Course in Miracles wants us to reach inside. It wants us to realize that nothing external can hurt us. No laws of the world can govern us. The solution to all our pain and suffering lies where we least expect it. It is contained within a tiny speck of light. The tiny speck of light is within the mind.

This tiny speck of light is so still, so silent, we hardly know that it is there. It is not governed by any rules of the world. It is not troubled by whether we are penniless or rich, a beggar or a president. It just sits quietly and waits. Nothing can disturb it, and yet it disturbs us.

There is something about it that is magnetic, appealing and hugely attractive. We search for it in a thousand different ways. However, everything we do can mean nothing to this speck of light, and this is the paradox. We think we are a body but the speck of light is what we are.

As long as you perceive the body as your reality, so long will you perceive yourself as lonely and deprived. And so long will you also perceive yourself as a victim of sacrifice, justified in sacrificing others. (ACIM, T-15.XI.5:1-2)

The body and the light are our two states of consciousness. One is fallible, frail and dies; the other is eternal, boundless and full of joy. We think we are one, but actually we are the other. We side with the fallible, but we can choose the eternal. We select the laws of the world and we reject the laws of God.

The awakening experience is really just a falling away of our belief in what is fallible. We become aware of the absolute truth of who we are. We are that spark of light. This holds our connection to God, creation, and all that is. The irony is that, outwardly, we still remain the same. We can still can keep our name, address and telephone number if we want to. Inwardly, though, we are deeply changed. We are now aware that we are so much bigger than anything we thought we were. We have awakened to our greatness.

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77/ The Wonder that We Are

13^th July 2022 

Lesson 77: I am entitled to miracles. (ACIM, W-77)

A Course in Miracles tells us straight. We are the Son of God. We are entitled to miracles because we are one with God. This is our Identity. It is the truth of what we are. 

There is just one problem. We do not believe this. 

We might believe part of it.  We might believe none of it. Most of us would have some sort of view, and every religion has a different interpretation of the truth. However, nothing really points to the reality of what A Course in Miracles is teaching us. This is that all healing is in the mind, but what needs healing does not exist. 

Whatever you accept into your mind has reality for you. It is your acceptance of it that makes it real. If you enthrone the ego in your mind, your allowing it to enter makes it your reality. This is because the mind is capable of creating reality or making illusions. (ACIM, T-5.V.4:1-4)

We create what we think, but we only have two thought systems to think with. Our minds are therefore used by the ego or the Holy Spirit - fear or love - and nothing else. We are either certain or uncertain. We are either living the truth or we are veiled from the truth. 

A Course in Miracles tells us we have an upside-down perception. Miracles are not frightening, but they are to a mind that is frightened.  The mind needs calming. It needs re-training. The mind needs to arrive at a point where it is stable enough to accept complete healing.

The Atonement, or the final miracle, is a remedy and any type of healing is a result. The kind of error to which Atonement is applied is irrelevant. All healing is essentially the release from fear. To undertake this you cannot be fearful yourself. You do not understand healing because of your own fear. (ACIM, T-2.IV.1:5-9)

We have to slowly awaken to our reality, or else it is too frightening.  We have to work from the bottom up. We need to start at the end and go back to the beginning. The illusions in the mind mean nothing when compared to the wonder that we are.

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78/ Time and Timelessness

14^th July 2022 

Lesson 78: Let miracles replace all grievances. (ACIM, W-78)

Today’s lesson begins by saying that each decision we make is a choice between a grievance and a miracle. This is quite startling. This means that each thought we think is a choice between a hurt and a healing. It’s the same as saying that only grievances make the world we see, or that miracles create the world we see.  We can either see what is held in time, or we see what is timeless.

Grievances prevent us from knowing the truth. Miracles allow us to know the truth.

It is essential to remember that only the mind can create, and that correction belongs at the thought level. To amplify an earlier statement, spirit is already perfect and therefore does not require correction. The body does not exist except as a learning device for the mind. (ACIM, T-2.V.1:7-9)

A Course in Miracles tells us that only the mind is capable of illumination. It tells us that we are completely safe as long as long as we don’t place any trust in mindless chatter.  All we have to do is release our own control and allow the Holy Spirit’s correction into our awareness.

Time controls our lives and yet timelessness places no demands on us. Grievances are held in time and the miracle is held in timelessness. Both time and timelessness can be our friends, but only time can be our enemy. A Course in Miracles wants us to use time constructively, and to experience the timeless.

Cate Grieves’ penultimate talk on The Obstacles to Peace (ACIM, T-19.IV) again confronts the fear that prevents this timelessness. Another video - not connected to Cate’s but to do with the near-death experience – can also be listened to. The story is told by Elizabeth Krohn, a Jewish mother who was struck by lightning in 1988. Her resulting NDE highlights the pure joy that can be found in a realm where time does not exist. In many ways, A Course in Miracles is teaching us to be aware of that love in this world. The links for both videos are below.

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79/ Responsibility for Thought

15^th July 2022 

Lesson 79: Let me recognise the problem so it can be solved. (ACIM, W-79)

The problem, according to today’s lesson, is quite simple. We believe that we are separate. This belief in separation is what creates our unending fear. The only solution is to undo this belief.

A Course in Miracles tells us that we have no idea of the power of our thought. We might believe that we are just idly thinking but then we learn that we can have no idle thoughts.

You may believe that you are responsible for what you do, but not for what you think. The truth is that you are responsible for what you think, because it is only at this level that you can exercise choice. What you do comes from what you think. You cannot separate yourself from the truth by “giving” autonomy to behaviour. (ACIM, T-2.VI.2:5-8)

A Course in Miracles consistently states that we only have two choices.  The two choices are the thought system of the ego, from which we get all our problems, and the thought system of the Holy Spirit, from which we get the solution to those problems. ACIM knows that the mind is very powerful. ACIM tells us that every thought creates, and the end result is how we view the world. This means we either see false world, which arises through the ego, or we see the real world, which arises through the Holy Spirit.

The Workbook is where we bring the theory into practice. We wouldn’t have come to A Course in Miracles without having experienced fear at a very deep level. The Workbook provides the training we need. We become aware of our thoughts and how they influence our responses. Each lesson reflects the same thing. Only our minds can produce fear and only our minds can produce love.

Jesus takes us back to the source of our problems. He tells us it is impossible heal ourselves by trying to control the outcome of mis-thought. He tells us he is not able to reach us when our minds are fearful. We need to take responsibility for our thoughts. This allows us to accept his guidance.

Fear cannot be controlled by me, but it can be self-controlled. Fear prevents me from giving you my control. The presence of fear shows that you have raised body thoughts to the level of the mind. This removes them from my control, and makes you feel personally responsible for them. This is an obvious confusion of levels. (ACIM, T-2.VI.1:4-8)

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80/ Everything and Nothing

16^th July 2022 

Lesson 80: Let me recognise my problems have been solved. (ACIM, W-80)

A Course in Miracles tells us that the only solution to our problems is the Atonement. This is the complete healing of all errors in the mind. It is the disappearance of what never was. It is the simple realisation of what we are. 

The lesson today is an exercise that delves deeply into the mind. It goes beneath all the ripples and eddies on the surface of the ocean to the peace and calm that lies beneath its surface. This is where the solution lies.

By definition, then, it doesn’t matter whether a storm is raging, or simply a minor squall, we can always dip into the healing waters. Another metaphor is to rise above the battleground. This is the miracle of A Course in Miracles.  It tells us that the mastery of our thoughts will always overcome fear.

Both miracles and fear come from thoughts. If you are not free to choose one, you would also not be free to choose the other. By choosing the miracle you have rejected fear, if only temporarily. You have been fearful of everyone and everything. You are afraid of God, of me, and of yourself. You have misperceived or miscreated Us, and believe in what you have made. (ACIM, T-2.VII.3:1-6)

A Course in Miracles talks of creation and miscreation. It says that all fear is implicit in the second, and all love is implicit in the first. It tells us that the nature of God and spirit is to create. It is the nature of the ego to miscreate. Take the atomic bomb as an example. What could have been a force for good became a force for bad.

There appears to be a huge gap between what we see and what we can’t see. There appears to be a huge distance between us and the sky. There appears to be a massive hurdle between our problems and the solution. A Course in Miracles tells us that this is not so. There is nothing out there. Everything exists within us. Our only problem lies in believing everything or nothing.

Nothing and everything cannot coexist. To believe in one is to deny the other. Fear is really nothing and love is everything. Whenever light enters darkness, the darkness is abolished. What you believe is true for you. (ACIM, T-2.VII.5:1-5)

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81/ Perfect Judgement

17^th July 2022 

Lesson 81: Review 2: Lessons 61 & 62.

Another review starts in which we look at two lessons at a time. The first lesson is to do with being the light of the world. The second lesson is learning that forgiveness is our function as the light of the world.

A Course in Miracles tells us that the function of forgiveness is to learn that nothing has happened - nothing can change what we are. In fact, the whole of the Workbook is about training our minds to undo what we think has happened. It is about bringing us back to our natural state of mind. This is a mind that is devoid of anxiety, stress and fear.

We are asked not to attack, but merely to protect the truth. We are told that we project all our fears onto God, and this is the huge error that we make. God’s Mind creates only through love, while our minds create primarily through fear. The inference is that no one who lives in fear is really alive.

Your will to create was given you by your Creator, Who was expressing the same Will in His creation. Since creative ability rests in the mind, everything you create is necessarily a matter of will. It also follows that whatever you alone make is real in your own sight, though not in the Mind of God. (ACIM, T-2.VIII.1:3-5)

This passage comes from a section in the Text which talks about the Last Judgement. Jesus tells us that this is a term that has been projected onto God. We think of it in terms of being punished. However, Jesus tells us it has nothing to do with God. The Last Judgement is a final healing. It is where our minds hold no judgement. We become one mind within the Mind of God.

Perfect judgement is therefore where our vision becomes one with God. We have entered through the doorway to life. We have accepted the Atonement into our minds. We see everyone as we see ourselves, and this is with perfect love. Perfect love is devoid of judgement.

We might think that it is more fun to play the game. We might think it is more fun to live in the world according to the rules of the ego. And this is fine. We have freewill. Jesus says he would never disturb the law of cause and effect. But when we do decide we want to change, he gives us his full support. He is our brother, giving us a helping hand along the way.

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82/ Truth and Only Truth

18^th July 2022 

Lesson 82: Review 2: Lessons 63 & 64.

The review today is about remembering the Self. It is about the peace that can be found through forgiveness. It is about fulfilling our function in order to heal the world.

A Course in Miracles tells us that healing the world means healing our minds.  It tells us that healing our minds means to stop thinking with the ego. Our minds have to be changed if we want to be peaceful. A peaceful mind only arises when we have a single focus.

It is likely we have occasionally experienced a peaceful mind. However, our minds are always thinking, always comparing and evaluating. Our minds only know opposites just as the world is full of opposites. However, the problem we have is that it is impossible to understand absolute truth in terms of opposites.  Truth does not have an opposite. It is just one single, undiluted bucket of love.

It is impossible to conceive of light and darkness or everything and nothing as joint possibilities. They are all true or all false. It is essential that you realise your thinking will be erratic until a firm commitment to one or the other is made. (ACIM, T-3.II.1:3-5)

A Course in Miracles tells us that right-mindedness cannot see anything but perfection. It tells us that wrong-mindedness miscreates because we are living in fear of losing what we have. It tells us that we hold ourselves back by what we think. And what we think is what we create, which is why the world appears in such a mess.

We are asked to invest in only what is true. We are told that nothing exists outside the Mind of God. We are continually reminded that we use our minds wrongly, which is why addictions occur, why anger, violence and fear occurs, and why we suffer. We are told that we are far too tolerant of allowing our minds to wander. We need the application of the lessons in the Workbook to give us the framework with which we can control our minds.

There is light and only light. There is truth and only truth. There is life and only life. There is peace and only peace. Jesus wants us to simply trust that we are far bigger than we think we are: The Son of God is part of the Holy Trinity, but the Trinity Itself is One. There is no confusion within Its Levels, because They are of one Mind and one Will. (ACIM, T-3.II.5:4-5)

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83/ Our Purpose Is to Be Happy

19^th July 2022 

Lesson 83: Review 2: Lessons 65 & 66.

The two lessons reviewed today tell us precisely what we have forgotten. This is that God is the Source of everything we need in this world, and that everything we need simply comes from this Oneness. This means we cannot have conflicting goals. We have one purpose and one purpose only. This is simply to be happy.

A Course in Miracles tells us that happiness cannot come through duality. Each thing we feel happy about, we are always going to find something else to be unhappy about. ACIM tells us there is no opposite to Infinite Love. Infinite Love does not know of infinite terror, which means we only make it up in our minds. All we have to do, then, is to extinguish the source that creates it.

All your difficulties stem from the fact that you do not recognise yourself, your brother or God. To recognise means to “know again,” implying that you knew before (ACIM, T-3.III.2:1-2). Essentially, we are blind to our true Self.  Our true Self is timeless, certain and completely without opposite. We have buried it beneath layers of nonsense. Our true Self is here, and just needs to be uncovered. 

A Course in Miracles tells us we have no idea how much effort is required in order that we prevent ourselves from knowing our true Self. All that we need to do is look at what is preventing it. This means we look at what we fear, and face it without turning away. In many ways, it is as simple as this. This is because fear is a construct of the ego, and the ego is just a set of beliefs.

We see each other differently, and so we perceive there is something to fear. We see each other as a friend or a foe, and so we create our problems. We see each other with love or hate, and this is reflected out into the world. A Course in Miracles teaches us that only forgiveness heals. Forgiveness is the practice through which we come to know this simple truth: that our only purpose here is to be happy.

Regardless of what we believe, the quote below sums up everything that Jesus is teaching us.

 

If you attack error in another, you will hurt yourself. You cannot know your brother when you attack him. Attack is always made upon a stranger. You are making him a stranger by misperceiving him, and so you cannot know him. (ACIM, T-3.III.7:1-4)

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84/ Conflicting Levels

20^th July 2022 

Lesson 84: Review 2: Lessons 67 & 68.

We are created by love, out of love, and through love. There is nothing the body feels that can compare to this love. Love is at our core and does not know of suffering, pain or attack. Love holds nothing except love, it just is. This the essence of the two lessons today.

A Course in Miracles also puts it another way. God knows us only in peace, and peace is our reality. The limitations that we feel do not come from God. God knows nothing of limitations, having created only the limitless.

Spirit has no levels, and all conflict arises from the concept of levels. Only the Levels of the Trinity are capable of unity. The levels created by the separation cannot but conflict. This is because they are meaningless to each other. (ACIM, T-3.IV.1:6-9)

The mind belongs to spirit. The mind is constantly aware of its Source because, if it wasn’t, it would merely cease to be. The mind is powerful, and it is this power that we are funnelling in a different direction. It is this power that enables us to miscreate.

When we identify with the body and the ego, we are like a hamster on a wheel. We keep going round and round, from life to life, making the same old mistakes. Nothing seems to change,

A Course in Miracles tells us we have to correct our errors from the bottom up. We want to question the negative emotions that we feel. We need to look into our minds, and see what is happening. Our thoughts are taking us away from the direction that we want to go.

There is right-mindedness, wrong-mindedness, and one-mindedness. Being right-minded and wrong-minded involves perception, but being one-minded does not. In order for us to heal the mind, conflicting levels need correcting. Each lesson therefore becomes a step in the right direction.

A separated or divided mind must be confused. It is necessarily uncertain about what it is. It has to be in conflict because it is out of accord with itself. This makes its aspects strangers to each other, and this is the essence of the fear-prone condition, in which attack is always possible. (ACIM, T-3.IV.3:4-7)