Reflections 197 to 210

 

197/ The Two Selves

13th August 2021

A Course in Miracles asks us to make a choice. It is between what we think we are, and what we really are. It doesn't mince its words. We either think we are what the ego sets us up to be. Or we know we are nothing less than the holy Son of God.

There's a line in the Text which says this: Each instant is the Son of God reborn until he chooses not to die again (ACIM, T-26.VII.16:5). To die is what the ego wishes for us. The ego is our little self. It creates weird and wonderful scenarios. Spirit is our big Self. It wishes us eternal life. The differences between the two can be summed up as follows.

Our small self is doomed to suffer and to die. There is no way out of this. The little self cannot escape death.

Our big Self is egoless.  It has no beginning and has no end.  Past and future do not exist. It just is.

Our little self is insane. It is insane because it sees itself as more powerful than God. And, if it doesn’t, it sees itself as weak. 

Our big Self knows only eternal joy. It sees only eternal peace.

A Course in Miracles teaches us to know the difference between our little selves and our big Selves. It teaches us that there is only one choice. Only our big Self can make us happy. The responsibility to make this choice is simply down to us.

To know reality is not to see the ego and its thoughts, its works, its acts, its laws and its beliefs, its dreams, its hopes, its plans for its salvation, and the cost belief in it entails. (ACIM, W-pII.12.4:1)

____________________________________________________________________________

198/ A Constant Purpose

14th August 2021

“Your sacred space is where you can find yourself over and over again.” Joseph Campbell.

***

A Course in Miracles tells us we need a constant purpose. This is taken in conjunction with the Holy Spirit. It tells us we need one purpose because we only have one choice that is real. We only have one moment which is now.  Nothing is outside this moment. This moment is the only time there is.

Only a constant purpose can endow events with stable meaning. But it must accord one meaning to them all. If they are given different meanings, it must be that they reflect different purposes. (ACIM, T-30.VII.3:1-3)

A Course in Miracles also tells us our constant purpose reveals deeper insights. For example, time is not what it seems.

Time is a trick, a sleight of hand, a vast illusion in which figures come and go as if by magic. Yet there is a plan behind appearances that does not change. The script is written. (ACIM, W-158.4:1-3)

The script is written means that everything is already over. Everything is just as it should be. Apparently we are merely reviewing events that have already gone by.

A Course in Miracles is telling us we are looking back on a journey that has never been made.

Our constant purpose is therefore  to undo what never happened. It is to wake us up from a dream which never was. There really is no point in trying to understand this because the ego can't make sense of it. We just need to apply ourselves. We need to let go of what doesn't make sense.

____________________________________________________________________________

199/ The Willing Slave of Choice

15th August 2021

A Course in Miracles tells us that, when we are tempted, we deny reality. We become the willing slave of what we chose instead.

From temptation arises guilt. The ego loves temptation, and it loves us to feel guilty about it. We probably remember many times when we have given in to temptation. We have no end of things we feel guilty about.

A Course in Miracles is just a training ground to allow us to see the futility behind this. We come to the Course when we want some control over our lives. We want to know why we keep doing things we don't want to do.

A Course in Miracles says this: What is temptation but a wish to make illusions real? (ACIM, T-30.VIII.3:1). We cover over reality with lots of obscure distractions. We don’t know we are doing this. But ACIM tells us that this is so. 

Our reality is seen with either the ego or with the Holy Spirit. One makes us the slave of choice, the other does not. Equally, how we see others is how we see ourselves

A Course in Miracles tells us this one thing: Reality is changeless. (ACIM, T-30.VIII.4:1)

A Course in Miracles tells us that reality has to transcend all form to be itself.

We are a willing slave to choice. We can choose to be separate from reality or we can choose to be one with reality.  The choice we make is really no choice at all. 

____________________________________________________________________________

200/ The Dream of Conflict

16th August 2021

“God’s love is too great to be confined to any one side of a conflict or to any one religion.” Desmond Tutu.

***

A Course in Miracles tells us this: Conflict must be resolved. It cannot be evaded, set aside, denied, disguised, seen somewhere else, called by another name, or hidden by deceit of any kind, if it would be escaped. (ACIM, W-333.1:1-2)

What we have to do is to see conflict exactly as it is. We have to find it in the mind and resolve it. Then, as the light of truth shines upon it, the conflict within the mind slowly disappears.

In the Text, there's a paragraph which starts with the line: The lessons to be learned are only two (ACIM, T-31.I.7:1). We hear this time and time again. We only have two choices. The two choices are always between the ego and the Holy Spirit. They are always between conflict and eternal peace, between suffering and everlasting happiness.

A Course in Miracles repeatedly says that the ending of our dream of conflict comes through the undoing of our unconscious guilt. Forgiveness is the key. When our unconscious guilt is undone, we come to see the world differently. This means we see a guiltless world.

The outcome of the lesson that God's Son is guiltless is a world in which there is no fear, and everything is lit with hope and sparkles with a gentle friendliness. Nothing but calls to you in soft appeal to be your friend, and let it join with you. (ACIM, T-31.I.8:1-2)

The only thing we need to do is to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The dream of conflict is then over. When conflict is over, pain is gone. Only joy is real.

____________________________________________________________________________

201/ The Battle Against the Truth

17th August 2021

“The enemy is not fighting you because you are weak. He is fighting you because you are strong.” Unknown

***

There is an ancient battle being waged against the truth, but truth does not respond. Who could be hurt in such a war, unless he hurts himself? He has no enemy in truth. And can he be assailed by dreams? (ACIM, T-31.II.1:4-7)

 A Course in Miracles is giving us some insight into the power of our minds. We might think there's a battle going on around us. There's not. It is going on within us. There's a battle within our minds.

In this battle, we are either leaders or followers. We always see others in this light. This obscures the truth in all of us. And it also fuels the war because we can never see others for what they are.

It takes great learning to see everyone as equal, regardless of their traits and qualities. We feel we need our judgements in order to protect ourselves. This seems normal human behaviour. A Course in Miracles gives us the insight into why we make these judgements and the reasons behind our behaviour.

We are guided to get in touch with the one Voice that is in all of us. This Voice sees no difference in any person who crosses our path. There are no judgments that come from this one mind. We see everyone with the love they deserve. This is where the battle stops, and truth becomes the victor.

A Course in Miracles asks us to be very careful about everything we say and do. What we say and do is what we want for ourselves. The battle against the truth might just as easily be seen as a battle of the  ego against Holy Spirit. We are ignorant of this because the ego tends to dominate our minds. We just need to see clearly. The truth can then illuminate our minds.

A blindfold can indeed obscure your sight, but cannot make the way itself grow dark. And He who travels with you has the light. (ACIM, T-31.II.11:8-9)

____________________________________________________________________________

202/ Placing our Priorities

18th August 2021

We all tend to prioritise the body. A Course in Miracles simply tells us this is wrong. We need to prioritise the mind. The mind dictates to the body. The body does not dictate to the mind.

A Course in Miracles tells us this: The body thinks no thoughts. It has no power to learn, to pardon, nor enslave. It gives no orders that the mind need serve, nor sets conditions that it must obey. It holds in prison but the willing mind that would abide in it. It sickens at the bidding of the mind that would become its prisoner. And it grows old and dies, because that mind is sick within itself. (ACIM, T-31.III.4:2-7)

We are asked to change our minds. We are asked to look at what is within our minds, and consider the damage that our thinking causes. This damage always comes back to ourselves. It is subtle and sly, and we probably don't even know it is happening.

It happens through the ego. The ego is really a false idea, and it won't allow us to know this. The ego loves to blame others, but we don't understand that we are really blaming ourselves. The ego sees issues everywhere, but really we are seeing those issues within ourselves. Everything we see through the ego comes back to us, and we don't understand that we are simply hurting ourselves.

A Course in Miracles asks us not to attack. It tells us that when we send out thoughts that harm another, it is like we are asserting we are guilty. 

Our guilt, however, keeps reminding us we deserve attack, which is why we dish it out. If we didn’t believe we deserved attack, it wouldn’t occur to us to attack another.

A Course in Miracles therefore undoes our guilt, and enables us to have a mind that is free.

 

We are asked to place our priorities where it is needed. This is in the mind. However, we have to look after ourselves as we heal. Clearly we don't neglect the body. This is just common sense. We are not asked to suffer. All that is asked is that we just open our minds to change.

____________________________________________________________________________

203/ The Problem at Hand

19th August 2021

The problem at hand, according to A Course in Miracles, is very simple. We think the world is real. This is where all our problems lie. We look to the world for our solutions, but no solutions can be found in the world. We are completely wasting our time.

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)

A Course in Miracles simply tells us that all the roads lead to death. On some we travel happily for a while, and on some we don’t. Whatever our situation, it seems that we are heading towards the inevitable. 

It is impossible to change the inevitable unless we change our minds.

This is not said to disillusion us. It is said to illustrate the central teaching within A Course in Miracles. We make the world within our minds. We project it out. Projection makes perception. How we perceive the world reflects what is going on in our inner world.

If the world is not real, then what is? Near-death experiences are a useful way to explore the clarity we find when we get to the essence of who we are. Jean Hausheer is an ophthalmologist. She had her NDE in 1977, aged 20. As a medical student, she began to suffer from a facial numbness which turned out to be a variant of Guillain-Barre Syndrome. 

During her experience, she saw a ball of "amazing, beautiful, loving light." She said it was like coming home, and very familiar. There were no fears, just absolute love. Her experience is told with clarity and wonder. This would be the total opposite of what we can find in this world.

Jane Hausheer's account can be listened to on YouTube. The interview is with Lee Witting of NDE Radio. The link is below.

____________________________________________________________________________

204/ Acceptance of the Self

20th August 2021

Seek not your Self in symbols. There can be no concept that can stand for what you are. (ACIM, T-31.V.15:1-2)

***

The building of a concept  of the self is what the learning of the world is for. This is its purpose; that you come without a self, and make one as you go along. And by the time you reach "maturity" you have perfected it, to meet the world on equal terms, at one with its demands. (ACIM, T-31.V.1:5-7)

A Course in Miracles tells us that concepts are meaningless, and the self that we think we are is learned. This self-image can come tumbling down very easily. Someone just says something, and we wobble. We can lose our job one day, and our identity is gone. Our identities and self-concepts can disappear in an instant.

 A Course in Miracles tells us that we are nothing less than the holy Son of God. It tells us this is not a concept. It is a fact. What we really are is pure, undiluted, everlasting, unconditional love.

Our ego will distort this. The ego loves to distort the truth. It will find a way to show us that this is impossible. It might hold us hostage to despair. However, A Course in Miracles is all about undoing the ego. It is all about allowing us to awaken to what we really are.

We therefore learn to escape from concepts.

We are taught that in the present moment there are no concepts. There is just pure undiluted presence. We don’t have to make up or distort anything.  This is salvation and this is what A Course in Miracles teaches us to find

The acceptance of our real Self as the holy Son of God is unlikely to happen quickly. This would be too shocking. It comes about through the  gentle prompts of the Holy Spirit, allowing us to undo the concepts we hold about ourselves. This takes time. It requires commitment. We also need the willingness to know that there is something different.

____________________________________________________________________________

205/ One or the Other

21st August 2021

A Course in Miracles consistently tells us it is one or the other – the ego or the Holy Spirit.

For example, we see the body or we see spirit. One is real and the other is false. Recognising one denies the other. A Course in Miracles says there is no compromise in this.

 

To see the body is all we have ever known according to our senses. To see the body means to see a world of separation. A Course in Miracles merely teaches us the other choice. It teaches us to see the spirit beyond the body.

On this one choice does all your world depend, for here have you established what you are, as flesh or spirit in your own belief. (ACIM, T-31.VI.1:6)

A Course in Miracles asks us to undo our belief in the body, but in a very gentle and systematic way.

We strengthen our faith in the unseen. We strengthen our faith in the spirit that surrounds us. In fact we learn it is us. We begin to have faith in what we are.

A Course in Miracles does not tell us to ignore the body. It merely says that we have a choice. It asks us to perceive a world apart from the body. Bodies surround us, but we only know spirit. This doesn’t need any doing. It is simply a case of being what we are.

This is what Jesus saw in his lifetime, and this is what we can see in ours. Jesus asks us this within the context of A Course in Miracles.

Are you a body? So is all the world perceived as treacherous, and out to kill. Are you a spirit, deathless, and without the promise of corruption and the stain of sin upon you? So the world is seen as stable, fully worthy of your trust; a happy place to rest in for a while, where nothing need be feared, but only loved. Who is unwelcome to the kind in heart? And what could hurt the truly innocent? (ACIM, T-31.VI.6:5-10)

____________________________________________________________________________

206/ The Veil that Temptation Hides

22nd August 2021

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)

***

A Course in Miracles tells us there is a space that keeps us in darkness. The space is what gives rise to our desire to find something else. We are told we can't see our brother for what he is, but only for what we want him to be. And what we want him to be is a merely mirror of what we feel about ourselves.

Temptation enforces this sense of separation and keeps the veil in place. We probably give in to temptation every day. A Course in Miracles guides us to place our faith in the Holy Spirit. It tells us the veil is just illusory and temptation is simply a trick of the ego. It tells us this.

Whatever form temptation seems to take, it always but reflects a wish to be a self that you are not. (ACIM, T-31.VII.12:1)

The fact is, we see in others our own problems. And it is only in others that we can find our release.  To do this, we need to close the space. We need to undo the veil that hides our connection.

Christian Sundberg has memories from pre-birth and talks about how the veil was put into place to keep him from knowing the pure love from which he came. This is what would have happened to all of us. He has memories of being born, and of how his life was planned so that he had to confront the fear that prevents all of us from seeing who we truly are.

When we get sidetracked by temptation, when we wonder about the veil, hearing Christian speak might give us hope. There are a number of interviews with Chirstian Sundberg on YouTube. One is with the Jeff Mara Podcast. It's an interesting interview to listen to, especially when you hear someone explaining the process that brought him into this life. The link is below.

____________________________________________________________________________

207/ The Vision Shared

23rd August 2021

A Course in Miracles tells us this: You always choose between your weakness and the strength of Christ in you. And what you choose is what you think is real. (ACIM, T-31.VIII.2:3-4)

Another way of putting it is this. We always choose between our ego and the Self we share. The ego is full of contrasts. It can be divisive, unreliable and confused in its outlook. The Self we share is the Christ within us. It is united, all-knowing and completely clear in what it sees. We either see one or the other, and what we see just comes down to choice.

The choice is all in the mind. It is literally a choice between heaven and hell, between the Holy Spirit and the ego. We are asked to make this choice literally every second of the day. And while we might think this is impossible, A Course in Miracles teaches us that everything that seems to happen to us is just another opportunity to see things differently.

Trials are but lessons that you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain that what you chose before has brought to you. (ACIM, T-31.VIII.3:1)

 When we see the Self, it is a vision shared. We can't keep it to ourselves because that remains within the ego framework. The Self is what we are. The ego is what we are not.

A Course in Miracles is all about discovering our reality. Below is a small summary of some key points.

Regardless of how we see ourselves, we are exactly as God created us.

When we perceive ourselves as being sick and in pain, we are perceiving ourselves as being defenceless and in hell.

All we have to do is to choose once again. This means deciding whether we want to think with the ego or the Holy Spirit.

____________________________________________________________________________

208/ The Meaning of Miracles

24th August 2021

The opening chapter of A Course in Miracles begins with 50 principles of miracles. This is baffling, even to someone who might have been studying the Course for quite some time.  But they do tend to distinguish the difference between our dependence on the body, and our lack of dependence on spirit. In other words, between fear and love.

We have already been prepared  by the introduction's opening statement: This is a course in Miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary (ACIM, T-in.1:1-3). It basically tells us we are free to study A Course in Miracles any way we want, and at any given time.

It tells us the goal of A Course in Miracles is to remove the blocks to love’s presence, which is our natural inheritance. 

So the meaning of miracles remains a mystery as we begin the Text. And perhaps this is the crux of the journey? Miracles allow us to wake up out of our dream of separation. Miracles enable fear to disappear forever and only peace to exist. Miracles enable our minds to change in ways we didn't think possible. The miracle simply allows the ego's grip to loosen and spirit to become in charge.

In the Workbook, there is a page which outlines what a miracle is. It begins by saying a miracle is a correction, and then goes on to say this.

It does not create, nor really change at all. It merely looks on devastation, and reminds the mind that what it sees is false. It undoes error, but does not attempt to go beyond perception, nor exceed the function of forgiveness. (ACIM, W-pII.13.1:2-4)

It continues by saying that the miracle stays within time’s limits, yet is timeless. The miracle makes way for love, and allows fear to simply slip into the background.

Miracles happen. A Course in Miracles says this in no uncertain terms. The meaning of miracles is beyond our understanding, but we all benefit from them as they occur. All we have to do is to do our part to make them happen.

____________________________________________________________________________

209/ The State of Awe

25th August 2021

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” Albert Einstein.

***

It is a rare moment when we can stand in awe. By definition, awe is reserved for those times when time seems to stop. We become very still. Something spectacular is happening. It is something out of the ordinary. Awe is a state that words can't explain.

We would all have had some experience of being in awe. Seeing a shooting star, or a comet in the sky, could be examples. It's the mystery behind it that is the key. Our minds quieten, and then it's over.

The fact is, A Course in Miracles tells us it is all an illusion. None of it is real. All science is really just testifying to the reality of the illusion. We shouldn't be in awe of it because it is not real.

Within the context of A Course in Miracles, awe should only be reserved for revelation. This is the original form of communication between God and His creations. The scope of the Course is merely to get our minds to a state of peace where we can communicate with the Holy Spirit, the Voice for God. This is our natural state. Jesus, as the Voice of the Course, guides us on this journey.

Jesus tells us that awe should be reserved one thing. This is when we stand in awe before our Creator.

Jesus tells us that awe should not be reserved for miracles, to which we are perfectly and completely entitled. And neither should we have awe for him, as Jesus tells us with the following words.

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)

____________________________________________________________________________

210/  A Guide to Atonement

26th August 2021

Inevitably, when reading A Course in Miracles, we come across a lot we don't understand. It starts at the deep end, and never really leaves it. The term Atonement is just an example. It's doubtful any of us would ever understand what Atonement really means.

To begin with, it has absolutely no connection to atonement in the biblical sense. Atonement, according to A Course in Miracles, is the complete undoing of error. The error is that we believe we are separate from God. ACIM tells us that this separation never happened. We are complete, and we always will be complete.

It's impossible to discover this by ourselves. We need to be guided. The Voice of A Course in Miracles is anonymous. At the start of the Text, we have no idea who is talking to us. But slowly, as we continue into the Text, it’s pretty clear that it is Jesus asking us to understand that the belief that we are separate from God is in our minds. This is termed as the ego. The Atonement is the complete dismantling of the ego until it doesn't exist. What is left is what has always been.

This might sound heavy, but the ego will make it heavy. Studying A Course in Miracles takes time because it is so densely packed with information. But really it's the same message throughout. We are not separate from God, and God is unconditional love.  Atonement is simply the knowledge that this is so. 

You have a part to play in the Atonement, but the plan of the Atonement is beyond you. You do not understand how to overlook errors, or you would not make them. It would merely be further error to believe either that you do not make them, or that you can correct them without a Guide to correction. (ACIM, T-9.IV.2:1-3)

All we have to do is to follow our Guide. This is what A Course in Miracles teaches us. And this is what it means by a Guide to Atonement.