Reflections 85 to 98

 

85/ One Person's Path to Forgiveness

23rd April 2021

Fear condemns and love forgives. Forgiveness thus undoes what fear has produced, returning the mind to the awareness of God. For this reason, forgiveness can truly be called salvation. It is the means by which illusions disappear. (ACIM, W-46.2:2-5)

***

If You Sit Very Still is a title of a book by Marian Partington. She is the elder sister of Lucy Partington, whose remains were found in the basement of 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, in 1994. This was many years after Lucy's unexplained disappearance.

It is a profound and hugely moving story of the act of forgiveness. The structure of the book, and Marian's own journey, follows the fourteenth-century Dream Vision called Pearl. This was the book that Lucy carried in her bag the day she was abducted. The structure of Pearl has been interpreted as: Crisis, Confessing, Comprehending and Transforming.

It begins with a father's grief at the loss of a child. His child appears to him in a dream vision, and he has to acknowledge, understand, and transform his grief. Marian spent twenty-one years searching for her sister. And then she had to go through these same stages until she was able to transform her raging grief into forgiveness.

Quaker beliefs and Buddhist practices form part of Marian's healing journey. To forgive, Marian had to learn to sit very still. As Marian says: “In this place forgiveness is spontaneous.”

Not many of us have such a traumatic catalyst for change. But we all have our journey.  The end result comes through forgiveness. It comes through stillness. 

Lucy says this to Marian in a dream: “If you sit very still you can hear the sun move.”

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86/ Let Truth Be What It Is

24th April 2021

A Course in Miracles tells us that we have no idea of the power that we have in us.

What we think is power usually involves strength and control. This means protecting ourselves from certain people and situations, and aligning ourselves with something else. If we have been hurt in the past, we want to stop it from ever happening again.

A Course in Miracles has this to say: You think you hold against your brother what he has done to you. But what you really blame him for is what you did to him. (ACIM, T-17.VII.8:1-2)

To get to this point in our understanding requires a complete turnaround in our thinking. A Course in Miracles tells us we can do this by practicing forgiveness. However, we also need to understand what true forgiveness really is. 

A Course in Miracles tells us that an unforgiving thought is one which makes a judgement that it will not raise to doubt, although it is not true. (ACIM, W-pII.1.2:1)

This means we see something that isn't there. We have made it up in our minds. We are distorting reality.

A Course in Miracles tells us that a forgiving thought is the opposite. It is still and quietly does nothing (ACIM, W-pII.1.4:1). There is no aspect of reality it can distort, because there is no other aspect of reality. It merely looks, and waits, and simply sees.

These are our two alternatives. We see correctly, or we don't see correctly. We judge with the ego, or we see with the Holy Spirit.

We need to let truth be exactly as it is. We shouldn't  try to distort it. When we distort truth, we make it into something that it is not.

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87/ Fragments of One

25th April 2021

A Course in Miracles teaches us the difference between what is real and what is unreal. 

We come to understand there is the ego and the Holy Spirit. We learn that there is only fear and love.  We look at death and life, the unreal world and the real world, and are told that one is illusory. The other is not.

It's obvious we see everyone as separate individuals. We have our opinions and views on everyone we meet. We have our views on what is happening in the world. These views, however, are not seen through the eyes of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit sees everyone as joined and indivisible (ACIM, T-18.I.2:2).

What we are, therefore, is really just fragments of One

A Course in Miracles tells us: You may be surprised to hear how very different is reality from what you see. (ACIM, T-18.I.5:1). ACIM's whole message is about love, not fear. It is about sanity, not insanity.

The near-death experience can show us what is real and what is not real. It can show us how sanity can arise from an insane situation. It shows us that death is just a wonderful transition. In Jeff Olsen's case, he remembers it as being like this: "It was just like stepping from one room into the next, and it was welcoming, loving and home."

Jeff Olsen's near-death experience is moving and heart-warming. He lost his wife and baby son in the accident, but held his son in Heaven. His books are on Amazon and his accounts can be found on YouTube. The account with the quote above is from: 'Present! - Jeff Olsen's near-death experience'. The link is below.

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88/ Sleeping Dreams and Waking Dreams

26th April 2021

“Open your eyes, for this world is only a dream." Rumi.

***

A Course in Miracles makes no distinction between the dreams we have at night, and the dreaming we do during the day. We are asleep. End of. All we have to do is awaken.

Does not a world that seems quite real arise in dreams? Yet think what this world is. It is clearly not the world you saw before you slept. Rather it is a distortion of the world, planned solely around what you would have preferred. (ACIM, T-18.II.1:1-4)

Our dreaming is not real, regardless of whether we are asleep at night or awake during the day. A Course in Miracles calls our dreams perceptual temper tantrums (ACIM, T-18.II.4:1). We demand our world to be exactly as we want it to be.

A Course in Miracles tells us our minds are dominated by the false belief that we are separated, isolated and alone.

When we work with the Holy Spirit, A Course in Miracles says that the first step is for our dreams of fear to be changed into happy dreams. Slowly our perception changes. This means that how we live during the day, and how we sleep at night, slowly becomes happier. We become more peaceful.

Our sleeping dreams and our waking dreams are simply a representation of the wishes in our minds.

Since nothing exists outside the Mind of God, the dream only stops when we wake to this fact.

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89/ The Light Is in Us

27th April 2021

A Course in Miracles tells us our goal is to advance from fear to truth. We are told not to be afraid of love.

When we meet anyone, regardless of who that person is, we are told this: In your relationship is this world's light. (ACIM, T-18.III.4:3)

Light, love and truth seem to go together. Within each one of us, there exists these qualities. These are the qualities of the Holy Spirit. We need to cultivate our ability to see light, love and truth both in ourselves, and in each person we meet. This is how transformation occurs, and is the essential message behind A Course in Miracles.

Making exceptions doesn't work. This is the ego's playground. This is always our choice, and it's probably the choice we have been making every day of our lives.

Changing old habits isn't easy which is why we practice. It feels scary because it is. Changing the way we think is probably one of the scariest things we can imagine. The ego is being dismantled and it doesn't like it.

We all have a spark of light within us which we need to find. A Course in Miracles tells us that we need to locate this spark in each other. This is the purpose of relationship.

The ego does everything it can to prevent this. The Holy Spirit simply knows that this is what we are. The light is in us. When we realise this, the passage below clarifies what happens next.

You have found your brother, and you will light each other's way. And from this light will the Great Rays extend back into darkness and forward  unto God, to shine away the past and so make room for His eternal Presence, in which everything is radiant in the light. (ACIM, T-18.III.8:6-7)

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90/ Our True Identity

28th April 2021

“True change is within; leave the outside as it is.” The Dalai Lama.

***

The passage below is taken from the Workbook of A Course in Miracles.

My true Identity is so secure, so lofty, sinless, glorious and great, wholly beneficent and free from guilt, that Heaven looks to It to give it light. It lights the world as well. It is the gift my Father gave to me; the one as well I give the world. There is no gift but this that can be either given or received. This is reality, and only this. This is illusion’s end. It is the truth. (ACIM, W-224.1:1-7)

The difference between what we think we are, and what we really are, is like comparing a drop of water to the ocean. Our identity is transient and changing. Our Identity never changes.

A Course in Miracles tells us there is no past or future involved in finding our true Identity. It doesn’t come from doing anything. 

A Course in Miracles tells us that the miracle of this present moment lies in letting it be exactly as it is. We just need to be willing to make way for it. 

We are told that there is nothing that is asked of us that we cannot give right now.

 

We are told that all we have to do is to let go and trust.

Everything God wills is not only possible, but has already happened. And that is why the past has gone. It never happened in reality. Only in your mind, which thought it did, is its undoing needful. (ACIM, T-18.IV.8:4-7)

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91/ Simple, not Easy

29th April 2021

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” Confucius.

***

We might read in A Course in Miracles that its message is simple. Never once does it mention that it is easy.

The simple part is that we have two choices. This means listening to the ego, or to the Holy Spirit. One is fear, and the other is love.

We are told that one is completely insane. We only have to listen to our thoughts, or watch the news, to know that this is true. The ego's concept of love is dependent on a whole set of conditions. When they are not met, then the insanity begins to take hold.

The other is quiet, but very real. It can see the bigger picture, which we clearly cannot see. The Holy Spirit's concept of love is unconditional. Everything it does is based on truth, not illusion.

A Course in Miracles gives us two simple pointers. These two excerpts are taken from one small section of the Text.

Your part is only to offer Him a little willingness to let Him remove all fear and hatred, and to be forgiven. (ACIM, T-18.V.2:5)

But forget not that your relationship is one, and so it must be that whatever threatens the peace of one is an equal threat to the other. (ACIM, T-18.V.6:3)

The first excerpt means working with the Holy Spirit. The second excerpt means remembering that any interaction with another human being is an interaction with ourselves. Understanding these concepts might be simple. Incorporating them fully into our lives is a little harder.

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92/ The Illusion of a Limited Awareness

30th April 2021

“Pain is just an illusion of the mind.” Unknown.

***

A Course in Miracles tells us that minds are joined, but bodies are not.

Mind reaches to itself. It is not made up of different parts, which reach each other. It does not go out. Within itself it has no limits, and there is nothing outside of it. It encompasses everything. It encompasses you entirely; you within it and it within you. There is nothing else, anywhere or ever. (ACIM, T-18.VI.8:5-11)

A Course in Miracles teaches us only to work with the mind. If we feel inspired to do this work, it is because we know in our minds that there is something better. This is what motivates us. Our minds hold a memory of perfection, and it a memory that we seem to have lost.

What A Course in Miracles shows us, then, is how to escape from fear to peace. 

We are told that real peace far exceeds anything we can find in a relationship controlled by the ego. We have to step aside from the ego. We have to stop putting faith in the body.

Only the mind can release us from our limitations. When the pain in the mind disappears, the mind is free and is unified. There is a unification of minds.

Nothing is then separate. The illusion of a limited awareness has disappeared.

We have found our true nature. Isn't this what we all want?

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93/ The Higher and Lower Mind

1st May 2021

The belief that Jesus is the Voice who speaks to us in A Course in Miracles is not necessary in order for us to work with it. Very often, we pick up ACIM with no idea that this is so. Then, as we study it, it might occur to us that this must be so.

Some of us have come from a traditional Christian upbringing. We all have our views, and many will defend them, even to the death. One view that Jesus expresses through A Course in Miracles, and that is wholly different from the traditional Christian teaching, concerns sin. The big message of ACIM is that sin doesn't exist. We just make mistakes.

A Course in Miracles tells us that we put too much faith in the body as a source of strength. This means that the symbol of Christ's body on the cross is actually a symbol  of nothing on the cross. The whole purpose of the crucifixion is to prove the resurrection.

A Course in Miracles works with the mind. It teaches us to let go of all interest in the past and the future. This doesn't mean that we don't plan. It certainly doesn't mean that we don't take care of ourselves. We don't even have to change our lifestyle if it isn't appropriate. But we do need to make way for inner guidance.

This happens by finding a quiet place in our mind. It is a place of rest. It is what might be called the quiet center of the storm. (ACIM, T-18.VII.8:2). A Course In Miracles puts it like this.

This quiet center, in which you do nothing, will remain with you, giving you rest in the midst of every busy doing on which you are sent. (ACIM, T-18.VII.8:3)

A Course in Miracles guides us to this place. 

A Course in Miracles is simply about working with our higher mind, which is the home of the Holy Spirit. The lower mind, which is the home of the ego, is undone. Nothing is attacked. Nothing is nailed to the cross. It is just forgotten. In reality, it never was.

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94/ Limits on Love

2nd May 2021

Some spiritual paths place great emphasis on the body. A Course in Miracles does not. It says that the body literally splinters us from the  whole.

Within the body is our little self. This little self is the idea that we are somehow separate and alone. A Course in Miracles makes the comparison of the little self as being like the smallest sunbeam to the sun or the faintest ripple on the surface of the ocean (ACIM, T-18.VIII.3:3-4). We think we are big and important, but actually we pale into insignificance against all that is.

Also, as a little ripple, or a tiny sunbeam, we are asked how we could be terrified of the ocean, or fear the sun? We are just part of it.

Such is the strange position in which those in a world inhabited by bodies seem to be. Each body seems to house a separate mind, a disconnected thought, living alone and in no way joined to the Thought by which it was created. (ACIM, T-18.VIII.5:1-3)

Our Self could not exist if it were separate.  Nor would the Whole be whole without it. Love permeates through it just like light comes from the sun, or water fills the ocean.

The near-death experience proves that love has no limits. Barbara Whitfield had her near-death experience in 1975. She felt that same love pass between herself and her grandmother, after her spirit had left her body. She also felt that same energy a week later, when she left her body again. And she says that learning to love each other in this world with no baggage is what God Is: "That's God. That's God-in-action."

Barbara's account can be heard on YouTube. It can be found under: Present! - Barbara Whitfield's near-death experience. The link is below.

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95/ The Two Circles

3rd May 2021

A Course in Miracles makes references to the following two circles. One is the circle of fear; the other is the circle of light. One is to do with the body, one is not. One is related to the ego, and the other is related to the essence of God.

These are our two choices. The first is perceived at the level of the body. The second is perceived beyond the body. 

The circle of fear lies just below what the body sees. The circle of fear is everything that the ego thinks. These thoughts are fearful, but are always disguised as if they are not. From these thoughts, the world arises. And it is this world that keeps them hidden. 

The circle of light lies beyond the body. It is nothing that the body can imagine. It is all to do with light, and light can be translated as unending love. It has nothing to do with form. It has everything to do with spirit, and spirit is the  formless. No words can explain it. It has no limits, and just has to be experienced.

 

These two circles describe the two ends of the spectrum as far as life is perceived. Which one we identify with depends on whether we think with the ego or the Holy Spirit. A Course in Miracles teaches us that it comes down to forgiveness. Forgiveness undoes our unconscious guilt, and only then can we see wholly.

All that is needed is commitment and desire.

You will remember everything the instant you desire it wholly, for if to desire wholly is to create, you will have willed away the separation, returning your mind simultaneously to your Creator and your creations. Knowing Them, you will have no wish to sleep, but only the desire to waken and be glad. Dreams will be impossible because you will want only truth, and being at last your will, it will be yours. (ACIM, T-10.I.4:1-3)

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96/ Our Daily Practice

4th May 2021

How we begin our day, and end our day, are useful markers for the next passage of time. How will our day unfold, and how comforting will our night-time's sleep be?

Likewise, each moment in the day is a chance to tune in. How are we doing, and how are we feeling?

A Course in Miracles talks about the Thought of peace. (ACIM, W-pII.2.1:4)

The Thought of peace was given to God's Son the instant that his mind had thought of war. There was no need for such a Thought before, for peace was given without opposite, and merely was. The Thought of peace was given to God’s Son the instant that his mind had thought of war. (ACIM, W-pII.2.2:1-2)

The Thought of Peace is therefore our birthright. It has just been smothered by our thought of war.

The Thought of peace reflects the Holy Spirit within our minds. It draws us back. it is anything and everything contained within this present  moment. It is nothing to do with separation, and has  nothing with the ego.

Each day and each moment is simply another opportunity to contact the Thought of peace. A Course in Miracles provides our daily practice. It gives us the 365 exercise exercises in the Workbook. It gives us the theory through the 669 pages of text. It gives us the Manual for Teachers.

Our daily practice is therefore to find the Thought of peace. The irony is that we have it, always.

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97/ Faith and Faithlessness

5th May 2021

"Faithlessness is he that says farewell when the road darkens." J.R.R. Tolkien.

***

A Course in Miracles tells us very specifically about the difference between faith and truth, and faithlessness and illusion.

Faithlessness would always limit and attack; faith would remove all limitations and make whole. (ACIM, T-19.I.5:3-4)

Faithlessness is wholly dedicated to illusions; faith wholly to truth. (ACIM, T-19.I.5:6)

We are told that truth and illusion have no connection. Each is a complete thought system in itself. Truth relates to the part of our mind that is quiet and peaceful. This is the gentle Voice.  Illusion relates to the part our mind that is loud and dominant.  This voice attempts to drown out the quiet Voice.

The quiet, peaceful Voice allows the body to communicate, not dominate. Finding the method that works for us to listen, or feel, or visualize, this quiet Voice is part of the process of undertaking A Course in Miracles.

That is why, literally, each thought we think is so important. 

We don't have to hear this quiet Voice. It appears in different ways. It works with our forgiveness. It undoes whatever is in our path, and new possibilities appear. 

We just to have faith that this is so, and slowly faithlessness lessens and lessens.

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98/ The Upside Down World of Sin

6th May 2021

It is likely that the concept to sin has held us in the vice of terror at some stage in our lives. If we have done something wrong as a child, and have had some sort of religious instruction, we would be very aware of the repercussions of sin.

A Course in Miracles simply dismisses sin as being as illusory as any other part of the egoic thought system. However, it doesn't dispute that we make mistakes. 

Any mistake can be corrected, if truth be left to judge it. But if the mistake is given the status of truth, to what can it be brought? (ACIM, T-19.II.6:7-8)

The correction of a mistake is that we learn to listen to the Holy Spirit. This is reality. This is truth. The concept of sin happens at the level of the mind when we listen to the ego. We make it up. It doesn't leave our mind. But it does fester, creating guilt, pain, and insane thinking.

A major tenet of the ego's insane religion is that sin is not error but truth, and it is innocence that would deceive. (ACIM, T-19.II.4:1)

A Course in Miracles therefore sees sin as the idea that we are alone. 

We are not alone. Through our practice, we slowly come to understand that we are part of a bigger picture.

 

Our reality is what we make it. It all happens in the mind. It comes down to these two choices; a belief in sin, or the correction of the mistake. 

Ultimately, it is a choice between Heaven and hell.