Reflections 141 to 154
14th December 2023
Now can you look upon His sinlessness. High has the ladder risen. You have come almost to Heaven. (ACIM, S-1.V.3:4-6)
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Ref: Forgiveness is my function as the light of the world. (ACIM, W-62)
A Course in Miracles is about getting into the mind and finding our purpose. Really, this is all to do with spreading love and light.
Every time we make an attack (even if it’s the slightest thought of irritation), we are calling upon our our weakness.
And each time we forgive (seeing the truth in someone), we are calling upon the strength of Christ. This is our true, authentic, wholly loving relationship with God.
We either limit or expand ourselves. When we see the absolute truth of what we are in others, then we become the light of the world.
Our limited mind has no idea why we are here; it hasn’t a clue, although it does the best it can to make life as comfortable as possible. The expansive mind, however, does know why we are here.
We are here to testify the truth.
Rob Gentile’s near-death experience is his testimony. He found that God uses light to create, transform and heal. He saw that what God creates is both elegant and simple, even though we think it’s not. And he says that we are all connected in a web of light. God’s love and light are one.
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142/ Truth Is Everywhere
15th December 2023
There is little more to learn before the journey is complete. (ACIM, S-1.V.3:7)
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Ref: Everything you see is the result of your thoughts. There is no exception to this fact. Thoughts are not big or little; powerful or weak. They are merely true of false. Those that are true create their own likeness. Those that are false make theirs. (ACIM, W-16.1:2-7)
Our journey is back to truth. Truth is here, right now. We just don’t see it.
Our thinking smothers reality. If our thinking was reality, we would be in big trouble.
This means that our whole life is a distortion of the Self that we are. Everything we have become, all that we are, it is simply a fabrication in the mind.
This is harsh on the ego. The ego is our limited self. It is the story we’ve make up about ourselves.
And the ego will retaliate. Harsh thoughts are going to enter our minds. There is nothing like an angry ego to make us feel diminished and unworthy.
The key, though, is that we don’t try to change this. We don’t fight the ego.
Instead, we join with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is love and peace, the silence and the stillness.
What can our angry thoughts do? They can’t do anything. We just bring the anger to the peace.
We just start again... and again and again. And we keep going until we finally find that truth (the light that we are) has never gone anywhere.
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143/ Lost and Found
16th December 2023
Now can you say to everyone who comes to join in prayer with you: I cannot go without you, for you are a part of me. (ACIM, S-1.V.3:8-9)
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Ref: Justice is the divine correction for injustice. Injustice is the basis for all the judgments of the world. Justice corrects the interpretations to which injustice gives rise, and cancels them out. Neither justice nor injustice exists in Heaven, for error is impossible and correction meaningless. (ACIM, M-19.1:1-4)
A Course in Miracles tells us that justice is merely an interpretation, and yet it leads to truth.
Equally, the line from The Song of Prayer can also be interpreted as another step in that direction.
We are being shown that all the doubts and anxieties that we hold about ourselves stem from injustice. Our perception is distorted according to how the ego wishes it to be.
This is our reality, according to the world.
Justice, according to A Course in Miracles, is where we restore our awareness to the wholeness of the fragments that we perceive as being broken off and separate.
We then see Heaven, and not hell. Heaven is where we are one; hell is where we are apart.
Awareness is always unlimited; it is a constancy that has no boundaries. Awareness is a non-specific love without an opposite. Awareness is not the loved or the lover; it is solely the love.
If we can touch awareness through presence, we then find God’s Love. It is immortal and endless, without barriers of any kind. What appears to be lost has now been found, and this is justice.
17th December 2023
And so he is in truth. (ACIM, S-1.V.3:10)
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Ref: Living is joy, but death can only weep. You see in death escape from what you made. But this you do not see; that you made death, and it is but illusion of an end. (ACIM, M-20.5:1-3)
What is within all of us can never die.
In fact, technically speaking, there is just the one of us and that can never die.
Death, of course, is the big taboo subject that we like to ignore. It is rare for people to talk about it. Death is probably the one thing that we are all scared of.
Inevitably, we try to cover death up, dismiss it and pretend that it will never happen. And yet it is definitely going to occur, some day and some time. We can never avoid it.
A Course in Miracles merely asks that we make a choice for life. It doesn’t want us to be thoughtless, randomly broadcasting that there is no death to all and sundry. We are just aware of the truth.
We learn to self-investigate, and find out the meaning of our existence in others as well.
And then, if we look deeply enough, we find that there is no end to the expansive flow of truth. We discover what it is to be alive. We are the witness to the simple is-ness that brings us peace.
Within the mind is the only certain solution. Within the mind is a silent awareness that cannot weep.
We just need to find it. Death can be viewed as pain and suffering, but really there is only peace.
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145/ Little by Little
18th December 2023
Now can you pray only for what you truly share with him. For you have understood he never left, and you, who seemed alone, are one with him. (ACIM, S-1.V.3:11-12)
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Ref: Truth is beyond your ability to destroy, but entirely within your ability to accept. It belongs to you because, as an extension of God, you created it with Him. (ACIM, T-5.IV.1:4-5)
A Course in Miracles tells us that physical birth is not a beginning; it is a simply a continuing.
Death is not the end; it is just another beginning.
And nothing good can ever be lost because nothing that is not good was ever created.
We might agree with this in theory. However, if we return the unhealed part of our minds to the higher part, we can also get to understand it at an experiential level.
A Course in Miracles is therefore the reminder that our belief in separation (the ego) does not have anything to do with truth. It is simply an illusion that is smothering reality.
And this illusion, although it feels that we are it, has only arisen out of a shattering sense of loss.
Our job is clear. It is to make our way back to wholeness by undoing this belief.
We start by re-educating our minds slowly and lovingly, always picking ourselves up when we fall.
And gradually we get closer to truth. Little by little, we find that oneness can never be born and can never die.
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146/ Asking what if?
19th December 2023
The ladder ends with this, for learning is no longer needed. (ACIM, S-1.V.4:1)
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Ref: The offer of Atonement is universal. It is equally applicable to all individuals in all circumstances. And in it is the power to heal all individuals of all forms of sickness. Not to believe this is to be unfair to God, and thus unfaithful to Him. (ACIM, M-22.6:1-4)
When the ladder ends, Atonement is complete.
A Course in Miracles tells us that Atonement is merely the correction of error. We believe we are a body, but we are not. We are infinitely greater that that.
The ‘we’ is the ‘I’, and the ‘I’ is infinitely greater than anything the physical can imagine. It is boundless and pure, and includes the sun, the stars and all the galaxies.
What the ‘I’ is cannot be harmed in any way.
To achieve a clarity, we practice forgiveness. We want to see that the separation never happened.
Bodies, sickness, division and death all arose out of one single thought. The ‘I’ thought “what if..?”
What if ‘I’ could establish another identity? What if ‘I’ could be outside of Heaven? What if ‘I’ was apart from God?
And with this, the ‘I’ made a living hell. No matter how we dress it up, the world is not our home.
So the question arises: what if we accept the Atonement for ourselves and then become our Self?
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147/ Simply of God
20th December 2023
Now you stand before the gate of Heaven, and your brother stands beside you there. (ACIM, S-1.V.4:2)
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Ref: This course has come from him because his words have reached you in a language you can love and understand. Are other teachers possible, to lead the way to those who speak in different tongues and appeal to different symbols? Certainly there are. (ACIM, M-23.7:1-3)
The ‘him’ referred to in the passage above is Jesus Christ, a symbol of complete love.
Our brother, as mentioned in the line at the top of the page, is that Christ as well.
We are all the one Christ, except Jesus was the first to know it fully.
A Course in Miracles tells us that, when Jesus awakened to the truth, we were all awakened. This is happening right now, within the mind. All we need to do is recognize it and we are free.
Liberation is ours, if we want it. However, we have to want it fully.
To be fully liberated, we need to accept life. We have to be fully loving, meaning our love is fully inclusive of everyone and everything.
A Course in Miracles therefore reminds us that, as we remember Jesus, we also remember God.
God and His Son are one. We are all His Son and hence we are all one.
We also learn that our oneness is not a love of this world. It is a love that is simply of God.
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148/ Second Opportunities
21st December 2023
The lawns are deep and still, for here the place appointed for the time when you should come has waited long for you. (ACIM, S-1.V.4:3)
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Ref: The emphasis of this course always remains the same; – it is at this moment that complete salvation is offered you, and it is at this moment that you can accept it. This is still your one responsibility. (ACIM, M-24.6:1-2)
What would it be like to have a mind that is free of thought?
If we were offered the opportunity to enter Heaven now, would we take it?
It’s a strange thing, walking along a spiritual path. Nothing ever makes sense until we find what we are searching for at the experiential level.
Somehow, we are always striving for future happiness. We can’t ever tune into what is happening in this very moment, and be happy with that.
A Course in Miracles is just one way to remind us that what is now is the only time that matters. Now is the only moment where time stands still and we can see things exactly as they are.
There’s a light that is shining permanently in our minds, and all we have to do is touch it.
Chris Kito’s near-death experience allowed him to be in that light. It gave him the chance to feel what it is like to have a mind that is free of restrictions. He now says that death should not be feared and life should be lived with gratitude. His NDE really gave him a second opportunity to live life fully.
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22nd December 2023
Here will time end forever. (ACIM, S-1.V.4:4)
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Ref: The miracle is a lesson in total perception. By including any part of totality in the lesson, you have included the whole. (ACIM, T-7.IX.7:4-5)
Time ends when we know our wholeness.
Our wholeness is the Kingdom of Heaven, and we have it within us.
If the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, it also means that the Love of God is within us. Whatever lack that we may feel, the solution will never be found outside of us.
A Course in Miracles is therefore the process of stepping back into our internal divinity.
Love, peace, joy and happiness. All are within a mind that is often unbalanced and strained.
The mind has the ego and the spirit. One causes the trouble and the other creates the harmony. We identify with the first but actually we are the second.
The Holy Spirit (the Voice for God) mediates between the ego and the spirit. The Holy Spirit is impartial but always acts in favour of the spirit (ACIM, T-7.IX.1:5). This really pisses the ego off.
The ego (who we think we are) then becomes even more determined to make a kingdom of its own. This is made out of a fear of loss, anger, hate and greed. It basically constitutes our flesh and blood.
One is inclusion and the other is exclusion. The miracle occurs when love is included into our lives.
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150/ Knowledge Does not Do
23rd December 2023
At this gate eternity itself will join with you. (ACIM, S-1.V.4:5)
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Ref: I was a man who remembered spirit and its knowledge. As a man I did not attempt to counteract error with knowledge, but to correct error from the bottom up. I demonstrated both the powerlessness of the body and the power of the mind. (ACIM, T-3.IV.7:3-5)
A Course in Miracles tells us that knowledge cannot be perceived. It has to be known.
The body arose out of perception, since perception has to be perceived with something. Knowledge does not arise out of anything. It just is.
Spirit is incapable of darkness, which is why spirit can never be understood by the body or by a split mind. It is always the mind that needs to be healed.
The healed mind belongs to spirit, which God created and is eternal. And this is what Jesus knew, hence his statement at the top of the page.
Jesus knows that we are immortal spirit. The body is simply a cloak that we wear.
The body responds to either fear or love. In other words, it obeys a thought system that is fuelled by darkness or light.
Light (which God is) abolishes darkness (which the body is) simply because darkness is an illusion and is not there. Truth overcomes error, and it is always forgiveness that allows this to happen.
Knowledge does not do anything. When we get to this point in our learning, our journey is both eternal and complete.
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151/ Forgiveness Works
24th December 2023
Prayer has become what it was meant to be, for you have recognized the Christ in you. (ACIM, S-1.V.4:6)
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Ref: The “reality” of death is firmly rooted in the belief that God’s Son is a body. (ACIM, M-27.5:1)
The two lines above tend to sum up A Course in Miracles.
We make jailers out of everyone we meet. Guilt is projected outwards and we see ‘enemies’. By recognizing the Christ in each other, we then release our guilt.
Our fear of death is the fear of God. We learn that God did not create bodies. We also come to see that there is no death because there is only life.
It is always one or the other. There is either death or life, fear or love, inner guilt or inner peace.
We either have complete freedom of mind or we have no freedom at all. Truth can never be hidden. Another way of putting it is that a layer of cloud can never put out the sun.
A mind that knows truth can only be at peace. All the guilt has gone from the mind that is seeing.
A mind that knows fear cannot be at peace. Guilt blocks the truth from the mind that is seeing.
We either think of ourselves as a body or we know our Self as spirit. One is illusory and the other is truth.
This needs to be understood at the deepest level. To get there, we allow forgiveness to do the work.
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152/ What We Are
25th December 2023
Forgiveness offers wings to prayer, to make its rising easy and its progress swift. (ACIM, S-2.in.1:1)
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Ref: There is no death. The Son of God is free. And in his freedom is the end of fear. (ACIM, M-28.4:2-4)
The line above is the resurrection. This means that what was once a concept is now known as truth. There is no death. The Son of God is free.
The alternative is the crucifixion. It is our wish to kill the Son of God.
A Course in Miracles tells us we crucify our ‘Self’ all the time. It arises in our pain and suffering. All inner turmoil equals nails in our hands and feet.
And we learn that this is all symbolic because the body is not real. Nothing actually happens. The body is an image in the mind, just as the world arises from the mind as well.
We can know all of this in a holy instant. All we have to do is to bring the shame we feel about ourselves to the Holy Spirit. What was once a dream of pain and turns into the wonder of holy truth.
This is because we are the decision makers in the dream that we have, and only we can decide on the type of thoughts that we think.
The ego will always act up. The ego wants to crucify and kill, console and commiserate. However, nothing can change the peace and love of what is also there. This is the Holy Spirit.
And so the time of Christmas is the time of our rebirth. It is when the Christ arises in the mind. We then see it in everyone and everything, and this is because the holy Christ is forever what we are.
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153/ The Heart’s Yearning
26th December 2023
Without its strong support it would be vain to try to rise above prayer’s bottom step, or even to attempt to climb at all. (ACIM, S-2.in.1:2)
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Ref: Never forget that the Holy Spirit does not depend on your words. He understands the requests of your heart, and answers them. (ACIM, M-29.6:1-2)
Ultimately, A Course in Miracles is all about the real world.
We don’t have to become enlightened, be a saint, give to the poor, or even be particularly good. We just have to train our minds to think with the Holy Spirit.
Currently, we think with the ego and see the false world. We are really grasping at straws.
What’s in our heart, then, is always different to what we think. Our heart is open, lucid, and loving. It is pure and benevolent. The heart just wishes for what it knows.
And the Holy Spirit sits quietly in the mind, waiting. The Holy Spirit has no concern for the incessant chatter of the ego. One could say that the Holy Spirit is an inner stillness that has no opposite.
We, as the listener, tend to obey the whims of the ego by doing what is says. Usually, this means doing something that helps us to lose less and accumulate more. It is always to do with the body.
The requests of the heart is different, and wants us to be. This is what the Holy Spirit listens to. And while it’s hard for us to have trust in the formless, we do have to trust in the process.
When we drop into inner stillness, we allow the heart to do the talking. Deep within us, it knows what we want. The heart’s yearning is love, and this can only be the song of prayer.
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154/ A Doubting Mind
27th December 2023
Forgiveness is prayer’s ally; sister in the plan for your salvation. (ACIM, S-2.in.1:3)
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Ref: This course remains within the ego framework, where it is needed. It is not concerned with what is beyond all error because it is planned only to set the direction towards it. (ACIM, C-in.3:1-2)
True forgiveness means not making the error real.
The error is that we are a body. The error is that we can think we are something other that the holy Son of God. The error is that we fear our Creator’s wrath.
Therefore, it is not a sin to be something we are not - an atheist, a polytheist or a pagan. We can be exactly what we want to be. The only issue is whether we are happy?
And this is not a happiness that is transitory. It is a happiness that is eternal (without the implication of an opposite).
A Course in Miracles merely gives us the information as it is. It tells us that there is no hell. There isn’t even a world. There is only one Heaven and God’s one Son.
The ego - the receiver of this interesting news - hates it. It is not going to accept any of it. If it did, it would simply disappear like a snow flake in the sun.
This means we meet many challenges as we veer from the ego’s version of truth. Nothing, though, can ever hide what is impossible to be hidden.
We are all the one Self and the one Christ. Together, this means the Son of God and there is nothing a doubting mind can ever do about it.
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