Reflections 155 to 168
28th December 2023
Both must come to hold you up and keep your feet secure; your purpose steadfast and unchangeable. (ACIM, S-2.in.1:4)
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Ref: Light and joy and peace abide in me. (ACIM, W-93)
It is both prayer and forgiveness that help to keep us secure. They allow us to re-discover our true nature.
Our true nature is light and joy and peace. It is also a reminder that we did not make ourselves. What we see in the mirror is actually an illusion.
We are so much bigger and so much greater. We are not this body. A good metaphor is that the body is just a tiny speck of plankton in an endless ocean of bliss.
The fact is, A Course in Miracles constantly demonstrates that what we see as being real is not real at all. This means, by definition, that all the things we have ever done have not happened either.
We are just characters in a dream that we apparently take far too seriously.
If we want to actually experience this as the truth, we need to let the veil be removed. And this has to be taken seriously. It is the difference between a life of happiness and a life of pain.
Graeme O’Connor’s near-death experience showed him how living in the now does make us happy. A confirmed atheist before the experience, he is now much more aware of spirit’s joy. He can see the power behind thought, and says that kindness should always be our primary motivation.
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156/ A Unifying Force
29th December 2023
Behold the greatest help that God ordained to be with you until you reach to Him. (ACIM, S-2.in.1:5)
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Ref: Where there was darkness now we see the light. What is the ego? What the darkness was. Where is the ego? Where the darkness was. What is it now and where can it be found? Nothing and nowhere. (ACIM, C-2.6:1-7)
It is forgiveness that allows us to go from two to one. This takes us from the bottom to the top.
There is one light, one love and one Source. Nothing else matters because there is nothing else.
Joy equals peace. There is no ending because there is no beginning. The ‘we’ is just the Son.
A Course in Miracles can seem a little dense and solid, with rather too many pages and many that don’t even make sense. It’s not surprising, then, if we change our minds and look for something else.
The ego’s mantra is search and do not find. It is never going to want us to find anything that might result in a healing of the mind. A healed mind means the end of the ego.
The question, then, is this. Is it fear or love that makes the decision?
If fear is the decision maker, it means that any answers will only lead to more questions.
If it is love that decides, we can be sure that any questions will always be answered by the truth.
Truth shows us that love is a unifying force and fear divides. Love is everywhere, and it is this that allows all questions to fade and the miracle to arise instead.
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157/ Illusions and Symbols
30th December 2023
Illusion’s end will come with this. (ACIM, S-2.in.1:6)
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Ref: The mind can, however, make up illusions, and if it does so it will believe in them, because that is how it made them. (ACIM, T-7.VI.5:5)
The real world is seen when all illusions disappear. This is the whole purpose of A Course in Miracles.
What we see is peace instead of fear, love instead of hate, and joy instead of pain. This is the greatest gift we could ever have while functioning as a body.
Forgiveness is simply an illusion of help because we are helpless; a Thought of peace has been given us because we are in conflict.
The mind needs to heal in order that we can perceive the beauty of the real world. The real world has no lack or conflict. The real world is purity, peace and joy.
And we find our healing through symbols - the symbol of forgiveness and the symbol of the Thought of peace. We do this in order to achieve the perfection that we are.
Perfection is God’s Will for us in this very moment. God does not know form, nor division, nor separation. God just knows peace, which is His Thought.
A Course in Miracles states that all healing is within us. We drop into the mind and witness the darkness. We bring the darkness to the light.
This requires bringing the non-peace to the peace. It means we observe the non-peace through symbols, and it is this that allows the Thought of peace to undo all the illusions of guilt and fear.
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31st December 2023
Unlike the timeless nature of its sister, prayer, forgiveness has an end. (ACIM, S-2.in.1:7)
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Ref: The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. (ACIM, C-4.1:1-2)
True perception allows us to see what is real.
False perception means we see only what is not real. Primarily, this is the body, which is the single most important tool in the ego’s thought system.
Projection makes perception. We project out only what we are holding within the mind.
Forgiveness, then, is the key that opens the door to truth. Forgiveness simply looks past bodies.
A Course in Miracles states that everything that the body’s eyes look upon reminds it of sin and guilt. We are seeing what is not there. True perception simply looks past the form to what God created.
God did not create bodies, nor did God create the world. God does not know anything about division or separation.
God knows only unity. This means that, while we are here, we need to perceive our own Self-unity, and in a way that we can fully understand.
We begin by forgiving the mind of what it hasn’t done. We sanction love instead of hate.
Illusions are then brought to truth. True perception arises only to correct what has never happened.
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159/ Mistaken Identity
1st January 2024
For it becomes unneeded when the rising up is done. (ACIM, S-2.in.1:8)
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Ref: And when you join your will with his, your sight will be his vision, for the eyes of Christ are shared. Walking with him is just as natural as walking with a brother whom you knew since you were born, for such indeed he is. (ACIM, C-5.5:5-6)
Forgiveness becomes unneeded when we get to the top. We have arrived at the gates of Heaven, which is really just a metaphor for being aware of perfect oneness.
Our sight is now like that of Jesus, for Jesus is the ‘him’ with whom we walk, in Love.
And it is here that the name by which we are known becomes redundant. We are the eyes of Christ.
A Course in Miracles is therefore concerned with how we re-establish our connection to our real Name, and this can only be possible if we withdraw our belief in the separation.
Currently, we suffer because of a false identity. We are not who we think we are.
Our real Identity is eternal and hasn’t gone anywhere. It has simply been waylaid by a whim.
A single thought arose within the mind of God’s Son. How would it feel to be outside of Heaven, to be away from the Love, to be beyond what is complete perfection? This thought began to multiply.
And, since all will is free, the separation began. The Son willed to be apart from his Father.
It’s merely a case of mistaken identity. We are still an entirely perfect Son with a Name born of Love.
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160/ A Change of Mind
2nd January 2024
Yet now it has a purpose beyond which you cannot go, nor have you need to go. (ACIM, S-2.in.1:9)
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Ref: The Holy Spirit abides in the part of your mind that is part of the Christ Mind. He represents your Self and your Creator, Who are One. He speaks for God and also for you, being joined with Both. And therefore it is He Who proves Them One. (ACIM, C-6.4:1-4)
As long as we believe we are a body, we need forgiveness. Cut ourselves and we bleed. It hurts. It is hard to dispute that pain is part of life.
The fact is, we need to have reached the end of our tether in order to fully apply ourselves to A Course in Miracles.
We want to have tried everything, and to know that nothing has worked. Fundamentally, A Course in Miracles has to be the only thing that is left.
To face the horrors deep within our unconscious mind requires courage, but this is what we have to do. It means being still and listening. It means going beyond the tortuous pain of the ego.
The discipline starts by accepting it is impossible to understand anything with the ego.
It’s also a process of starting again… and again and again. The Holy Spirit is never going to explain anything to us directly. The Holy Spirit is not a person. It is an echo.
The echo is of God’s Love. So we need to surrender to a peaceful mind and let its power do the rest.
This is how we begin to understand the Holy Spirit’s presence. It’s one step at a time. Only the desire for a change of mind can ignite a new beginning.
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161/ Achieving the Answer
3rd January 2024
Accomplish this and you have been redeemed. Accomplish this and you have been transformed. Accomplish this and you will save the world. (ACIM, S-2.in.1:10-12)
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Ref: Illusions of despair may seem to come, but learn how not to be deceived by them. Behind each one there is reality and there is God. (ACIM, C-ep.1:7-8)
How do we achieve forgiveness in a world that is horrendously unforgiving?
First, we look into the mind, because the world exists within the mind.
And then we just keep on going, because the ego is determined for us not to know the truth.
A Course in Miracles literally undoes everything that we think we know, and this doesn’t relate to anything in the world at all. ACIM’s whole premise is entirely unique, in that it says there is just one God, one Son, and nothing else.
The world that we know would simply disappear if we achieved the goal of A Course in Miracles (which is endless peace). And nothing prevents this more than our own doubts.
Doubt freezes us. It places the mind in a straight jacket of despair. Doubt makes us look outwards for crumbs of comfort, because looking inwards becomes just too painful.
We therefore have to trust in each word as we read it. In isolation, a word means nothing but, accumulatively, their purpose is to heal the mind. Each word is a pointer to God.
Achieving success requires perseverance. It requires discipline, purpose, and a sense of worth. Nothing comes easily but, when it does, all questions disappear and we have only the Answer.
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162/ Choosing to Listen
4th January 2024
No gift of Heaven has been more misunderstood than has forgiveness. (ACIM, S-2.I.1:1)
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Ref: What better purpose could any relationship have than to invite the Holy Spirit to enter into it and give it His Own great gift of rejoicing? What higher goal could there be for anyone than to learn to call upon God and hear His Answer? (ACIM, P-1.2:1-2)
Forgiveness allows us to heal the relationship we have with our self.
We clearly have many relationships during a lifetime, some long-lasting and some fleeting. A Course in Miracles tells us that there is only one relationship we can ever have, and this is with God. We either love unconditionally or not at all.
It all comes down to whether the mind is joined as one, or whether it is apart as separate entities.
A Course in Miracles actually tells us that there is no ‘me’. All we are are simply characters in a dream. There is only the ‘I’, and the ‘I’ is the Self that we are.
To know this, we have to start observing what we are afraid of.
We have to learn to listen to where our pain is coming from and hand it over to a higher power. This means understanding what forgiveness is. It means forging a relationship with the Holy Spirit.
Malcolm Nair’s near-death experience helped him to forgive his ‘self’ and find that Self-awareness. He has learned how to attract into his life what he wants. He explains that, by doing the inner work and choosing to listen to the whispers, we can become what we are.
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5th January 2024
It has, in fact, become a scourge; a curse where it was meant to bless, a cruel mockery of grace, a parody upon the holy peace of God. (ACIM, S-2.I.1:2)
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Ref: In illusions the impossible is easily accomplished, but only at the cost of making illusions true. (ACIM, P-2.in.2:6)
A Course in Miracles tells us that the world is an illusion. Nothing lasts, so it’s no wonder that we end up chasing shadows.
It’s a bit like trying to gather snow flakes falling through the air. Most just get away.
Inwardly, we feel frustrated. No matter how much we seem to get, it is never enough. And it always feels like happiness will arrive sometime in the future, but never now.
We feel secure until the foundations tremble; the world is safe until it threatens us. We try to change the world, but we can’t. Instead, we should change our minds about the world.
In this context, then, we are reminded that forgiveness is also an illusion. Nothing is actually done to us because we do it to ourselves.
Forgiveness, as taught by A Course in Miracles, shows us that nothing can ever happen to anyone. It all arises within the mind and this makes it just a dream. There are no exceptions to this.
Everything is love, and everything is quite perfect as it is.
If we start to be true to our authentic Self, then we can forgive the mind of everything it didn’t do. When the mind knows the truth, then the world just automatically becomes that truth too.
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164/ Present with the Past
6th January 2024
Yet those who have not yet chosen to begin the steps of prayer cannot but use it thus. (ACIM, S-2.I.1:3)
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Ref: My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts. (ACIM, W-8)
We are told that we only see our own own thoughts projected outwards. The mind can never grasp the present, which is the only time there is.
It is the past that influences every thought we have. We use the body as a little fortress to try and keep ourselves protected.
And, because the body only associates what it sees with past experiences, our lives become an expression of that neediness. We feel that something is lacking, and so our minds continue to worry.
The line at the top of the page merely reminds us that forgiveness (the means by which we get free from the ego) is grossly misused. If we do ever practice forgiveness, it is on the terms of the world.
It is like a vicious cycle. We worry, and the worry becomes our prayer; the prayer is then projected out onto the world, and this becomes the screen whereby we re-live every aspect of that worry.
A Course in Miracles brings us back to basics. We start with the mind. We learn to be completely present with the past.
This means bringing the ego to the Holy Spirit. It is also the way in which the miracle can arise.
We are re-connecting to a constant peace, love and light. We stop judging ourselves for our thoughts of the past. We just bring the past to the present, and allow all of our illusions to be forgiven.
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165/ The One Mind
7th January 2024
Forgiveness’ kindness is obscure at first, because salvation is not understood, nor truly sought for. (ACIM, S-2.I.1:4)
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Ref: Let him be still and recognize his brother’s need is his own. And let him then meet his brother’s need as his and see that they are met as one, for such they are. (ACIM, P-2.II.9:4-5)
A Course in Miracles tells us that communication is impossible alone. We are not independent, isolated individuals. We are the one mind and, as such, the one Son of God.
This sounds impressive, because it is; it feels unlikely, but it isn’t. If we dive deeply enough into our inner world, we can see exactly what we are and exactly what we are not.
Forgiveness sheds the light and salvation is the reward. We shine away the guilt to find the treasure.
Essentially, we bring all our fears to the surface. We need to undo a shared belief in separate bodies and separate minds.
The mind that is healed can never believe in the ego. There is no guilt attached to it. A mind with no fear is literally as free as a bird in the sky.
The spirit is now remembered and it fills the mind. What we thought we once were (the ego) has simply lost its power.
We are able to look past the form to what is the formless. Everything is seen with complete clarity.
To know the mind as one is the end of forgiveness and the arrival of salvation. The presence of Love is now all we can see.
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166/ The Cost of Sanity
8th January 2024
What was meant to heal is used to hurt because forgiveness is not wanted. Guilt becomes salvation, and the remedy appears to be a terrible alternative to life. (ACIM, S-2.I.1:5-6)
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Ref: It would be madness to entrust salvation to the insane. Because He is not mad has God appointed One as sane as He to raise a saner world to meet the sight of everyone who chose insanity as his salvation. (ACIM, T-25.VII.8:1-2)
We do not know what forgiveness is. The forgiveness in which we believe is madness.
We make a hell of Heaven and a heaven of hell, and haven’t a clue that we are doing this.
We ignore the One that is in the mind because we are so caught up in all the little ones.
We feel that God must be cruel to allow such suffering, and so it is easier not to think of God at all.
A Course in Miracles reminds us that sin is insanity, and it is the way in which we are driven mad. True forgiveness simply looks past the error and this is because:
- Heaven is forever 'now' and hell is just a state of mind.
- The One is the Holy Spirit and is just waiting to be asked.
- God is with us always and radiates infinite and unconditional love.
The cost of sanity is simply because we believe in insanity. We allow the ego to dictate every thought we think, and it is our thoughts that make the world.
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167/ Hide and Seek
9th January 2024
Forgiveness-to-destroy will therefore suit the purpose of the world far better than its true objective, and the honest means by which this goal is reached. (ACIM, S-2.I.2:1)
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Ref: The body could not separate your mind from your brother’s unless you wanted it to be a cause of separation and of distance seen between you and him. Thus do you endow it with a power that lies not within itself. (ACIM, T-29.I.5:1-2)
A Course in Miracles tells us that love is not a sacrifice. Fear, however demands a sacrifice.
There is love and there is fear; there is the real world and there is the false world; there is the mind and there is the body. One is always sacrificed at the expense of the other.
Forgiveness-to-destroy simply consolidates our suffering. Fear, the false world, our bodies - all become our reality. We are literally establishing a hell of our own making.
True forgiveness merely releases our grip on unreality. It establishes a truth, and this is that we are made of love and everything we see is an expression of that love. The mind dictates that this is so.
We therefore have two ways of seeing. One is through our pain and the other is through our peace.
A Course in Miracles is therefore a journey from torment to tranquillity. It really ends where we began, and this is being a Self within the Mind of God.
Consequently, and since we currently see ourselves as bodies within a material world, we will only fully understand the concept of a Self when our forgiveness is finished and complete.
Infinite love is what a healed mind knows. We have to sacrifice the ego or we just play hide and seek.
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168/ A Fast Train to Joy
10th January 2024
Forgiveness-to-destroy will overlook no sin, no crime, no guilt that it can seek and find and “love.” (ACIM, S-2.I.2:2)
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Ref: Let us not forget that we are helpless of ourselves, and lean upon a strength beyond our little scope for what to teach as well as what to learn. (ACIM, P-2.V.4:8)
We always have the Word of God, in the form of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the silence and stillness within our minds. It has nothing to do with the body, the brain or any other organ of form. The Holy Spirit is simply a part of our awareness.
Peace arises out of this awareness. The body disappears into it. Our awareness has no end and no boundaries. It is simply limitless.
Practice allows us to step into this awareness, even in the midst of a storm. We can be held by its loving embrace even as the world collapses around us.
And, if we start to see this awareness in every person we meet, then it magnifies. Suffering ends, contentment arises and it becomes our one-way ticket home.
A Course in Miracles transports us from a belief in death to a love of life. It surpasses everything we have ever done. Its aim is to provide us with an enchanted state of mind.
We take an imagined journey of no return. We wave goodbye to the noise and bustle of minds in torment, and settle into the silence and stillness of a mind in love.
It’s a fast train to joy. This is the final stop and the Word of God is what we need to get us there.
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