Reflections 183 to 196
183/ Life in Heaven
25th January 2024
Yet it is the only happy dream in all the world; the only one that does not lead to death. (ACIM, S-2.I.4:5)
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Ref: It is not danger that comes when defenses are laid down. It is safety. It is peace. It is joy. And it is God. (ACIM, M-4.VI.1:11-15)
Our happy dream is the real world. It is a world where only peace exists.
The unhappy dream is the false world. This is one of anger and poverty, sickness and death.
It is a dream of hell instead of heaven; it is a dream of terror instead of joy. The theme is always one of captivity and, although we often try to break free, we can’t ever seem to escape.
Even at night, when we are in our bed seeking respite, shadowy figures still come to haunt us. Our dreams are so erratic that even sleep can’t help us to escape from the hell that we have made.
A Course in Miracles is therefore a lifeline. It establishes that guilt is the source of all the pain. It trains us to heal our minds so that this dream of pain becomes a dream of peace.
Forgiveness is the panacea that treats the wound. Forgiveness, when applied to any situation, brings about the freedom we crave and the joy we deserve.
Yvonne Sneeden’s near-death experience took her from the hell of earth to a life in Heaven. She describes arriving into a oneness with no end and no beginning. She talks of meeting Jesus and being held by his care. She just knew that this was no dream and that the Light of God can never go out.
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184/ Life Is Simple
26th January 2024
Only in someone else can you forgive yourself, for you have called him guilty of your sins, and in him must your innocence now be found. (ACIM, S-2.I.4:6)
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Ref: When you come to the place where the branch in the road is quite apparent, you cannot go ahead. You must go either one way or the other. (ACIM, T-22.IV.1:1-2)
Choices are a part of life. We make decisions every moment of the day.
We can forgive or we can blame. We say yes or we say no. We turn left or we turn right.
Even something tiny might come along to change the course of our life. For example, we might bend down to pick up a piece of litter. We notice something and our life changes.
A Course in Miracles is very clear. There are no chance occurrences. Everything happens for a reason.
What comes up in our lives is always the result of the thoughts we think. The mind is relentlessly powerful and like attracts like. We make a cause and we get the effect.
And yet we only have two choices. We either decide with the ego or we decide with the Holy Spirit. It is only the Holy Spirit that communicates back to us through our own inner silence and peace.
We therefore see either love or hate. We know joy or we know fear. We are happy or we are sad.
Life is very simple when we know this. We come to a branch in the road and the choice is ours.
Our own inner Voice decides which way to go, and it is always the right decision at the right time.
185/ Question and Answer
27th January 2024
Who but the sinful need to be forgiven? And do not ever think you can see sin in anyone except yourself. (ACIM, S-2.I.4:7-8)
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Ref: To give up all problems to one Answer is to reverse the thinking of the world entirely. And that alone is faithfulness. Nothing but that really deserves the name. (ACIM, M-4.IX.1:6-8)
We need to have a spatial awareness. It’s important to sense what is up and down, left and right.
Everything revolves around the body. There are eight billion different bodies in the world today, all with their own way of determining which way their feet are pointing.
Every one of us has our own set of assumptions about good and bad, the bigger picture, and what’s important in our own immediate vicinity.
And so, when we are told to “go within”, we assume it is within this form, the one with which we read these words. Where else could it be?
A Course in Miracles simply asks us to trust in the formless. At the absolute core of its teachings is the notion that the body is just an image in the mind. It asks us to go inside what we cannot see.
Everything to do with the world - the emphasis on doing wrong and doing right, on achieving success and avoiding loss - these are just concepts we hold. They actually mean nothing.
Our goal is to know for certain that there is only one Answer to any question that we have.
Trust plays a big part in hearing the Voice that provides this Answer. The world, the ego, the identity that we think we are - by going within, they all just disappear before its sound.
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28th January 2024
This is the great deception of the world, and you the great deceiver of yourself. It always seems to be another who is evil, and in his sin you are the injured one. How could freedom be possible if this were so? (ACIM, S-2.I.5:1-3)
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Ref: Peace to my mind. Let all my thoughts be still. (ACIM, W-221)
God is beyond thought. God comes to us when we are ready to fully accept His Presence.
The lesson above is therefore a plea. It is a yearning to return to a state that we have never left.
The state we are in at the moment is described at the start of this reflection. It tells us that our thoughts are rampant. We are projecting our guilt onto everything, left, right and centre.
The ego, the generator of this guilt, can never join with God. It is impossible. A busy, blaming mind is the antithesis to what God is. Joining can never happen because we are blocking God out.
A Course in Miracles reminds us that the ego arose our of fear. We are terrified of being seen by our creator. The ego is the constant chatter that prevents the quiet Voice of Spirit being heard.
The quandary, then, is how to establish God’s Peace in a totally unpeaceful mind. The answer is to learn to be completely peaceful with the non-peace that is haranguing us.
God never goes away. The Spirit never goes away. Peace never goes away. What we have done is to simply judge that love has gone away, and then assume that we can only find it out in the world.
Which means we are at the opposite end of the spectrum as far as peace is concerned. Our belief is that we are flawed and alone. God, however, is only able to see us as completely perfect and whole.
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187/ Merging with the Whole
29th January 2024
You would be slave to everyone, for what he does entails your fate, your feelings, your despair or hope, your misery or joy. (ACIM, S-2.I.5:4)
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Ref: When you have seen your brothers as yourself you will be released to knowledge, having learned to free yourself through Him Who knows of freedom. (ACIM, T-13.VIII.8:1)
A Course in Miracles tells us that all healing is a release from the past.
Every problem we have simply arises out of a complex web of deceit and injustice; peace arises out of periods of hope and control.
All of this actually means nothing. In truth, there is only God and His Son - a Oneness joined as One. There is only Heaven. Nothing has happened and nothing is to come.
We are a present moment awareness dreaming of events that seemed to have occurred log ago. We are a mind that is split from its Source. We are an identity that has lost its Identity.
Being still is therefore the key to returning back to happiness. We are stepping into what is now.
When we really get into this moment, we find that nothing is needed.
When we really touch the joy of the Holy Spirit, we find that all is light.
When we really sink into the quiet instant, we see that we are one forever.
The past then disappears. The unreal becomes real as the healed mind merges with the whole.
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188/ A Perfect Order
30th January 2024
You have no freedom unless he gives it to you. And being evil, he can only give of what he is. (ACIM, S-2.I.5:5-6)
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Ref: The Christ in him is perfect. Is it this that you would look upon? Then let there be no dreams about him that you would prefer to seeing this. And you will see the Christ in him because you let Him come to you. (ACIM, T-30.VIII.5:5-8)
We are perceiving wrongly. This is the nature of how the ego thinks.
We look at a brother and we either see a reflection of our own inner turmoil or our own inner peace.
If we believe someone is evil, as suggested at the top of the page, then we are actually looking at a reflection of ‘live’ spelt backwards.
We are completely misinterpreting what the mind simply knows.
We always have two choices on how to interpret the images that we see, and often we choose the most difficult and arduous one. To choose separation over unity brings great suffering. It’s like eating a plate of poison instead of a plate of our favourite food.
A Course in Miracles is a re-education of the mind. It provides a change of perception in which we allow the miracle to arise instead of the pain.
Apparently, we are experts at making the simple seem difficult for ourselves. We have learned the impossible and have forgotten what is easy.
A Course in Miracles tells us we’re simply looking at life wrongly. Life just has a perfect order.
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189/ What Is Imperfect
31st January 2024
You cannot see his sins and not your own. (ACIM, S-2.I.5:7)
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Ref: And this is the function of God’s teachers; to see no will as separate from their own, nor theirs as separate from God’s. (ACIM, M-5.III.3:9)
Projection makes perception. How we view each other is how we view ourselves.
If we see ourselves as anything less than perfect, then this is what we project onto others. There are no half measures in this. We are either God’s Son or we are not.
A Course in Miracles states that a teacher of God is anyone who chooses to be. And it tells us that no teacher of God has to be perfect. A light has entered the darkness and that light can never go out.
What we try to do, then, as teachers of God, is to offer proof that we can never be hurt. Even if the pain is ricocheting inside of us, we can still smile. That smile will be noticed and we’ve done our job.
There were people who tried to kill the Buddha, and later became his pupils; there were people who nailed Jesus to a cross, and were still forgiven. A smile was returned by the abused to the abusers.
And thousands have also given their lives for what they believe, which is peace instead of hate.
A Course in Miracles, though, does not ask us to suffer. It does not even ask that we believe in God.
We are just being asked to quietly listen. We become the teacher of that which is heard.
What is imperfect has to practice. It’s an established truth that we only demonstrate what we know.
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190/ Questions Answered
1st February 2024
But you can free him and yourself as well. (ACIM, S-2.I.5:8)
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Ref: Who gives a gift and then remains with it, to be sure it is used as the giver deems appropriate? Such is not giving but imprisoning. (ACIM, M-6.3:7-8)
Most of us have to function within a world of limited possibilities.
Money restricts us. Society squashes us. The mind hammers us.
We might have great desires to explore and expand, but the body limits us. We are forced to move a few inches at a time.
A Course in Miracles frees us from these limitations - but only if we want to be freed. The fact is, we probably need to have reached a dead end in which nothing ever seems to have worked.
However, by rising above our limitations, we can actually become what we are meant to be.
And this is where we seek inspiration from other people. We need to see that it can be done.
Listening to the near-death experience is one option. We might hear just what we want to hear.
Heidi Barr’s near-death experience answered all her questions. She learned about Jesus, about God, and about how everything that we do on earth has an impact. Our words and actions can harm or heal us, and this is what we take back to the other side.
191/ All or Nothing
2nd February 2024
Forgiveness, truly given, is the way in which your only hope of freedom lies. (ACIM, S-2.I.6:1)
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Ref: Conflict about what you are has entered your mind, and you have become deceived about yourself. And you are deceived about yourself because you have denied the Source of your creation. (ACIM, M-7.6:3-4)
We have to start somewhere, so we might as well go back to the beginning.
Nothing ever happened. The Son did not leave Heaven. God is still our Father and we are still the Son.
No one got hurt, even though we think they did, and not one iota of Heaven’s Light has ever gone out.
To think that something went wrong is insanity, which means we are all clearly insane.
Just having a peak at the world and we have to agree that this is so. We kill each other, and love the drama; we attack each other, and don’t know we do; we pretend to love, and don’t know we hate.
A Course in Miracles tells us that we can change it to a happy dream, because a bad dream is all it is.
We do this by removing the cause from the mind which enables the mind to open up into the present moment. All effects then go, which results in us seeing what is real instead of what is false.
A Course in Miracles calls this the healing of guilt. We have forgiven ourselves of all the drama that never happened and have allowed the mind to know its Source.
It’s really all or nothing. We can’t ever be partially healed. To be truly healed is where our freedom lies.
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192/ The Need to Practice
3rd February 2024
Others will make mistakes and so will you, as long as this illusion of a world appears to be your home. (ACIM, S-2.I.6:2)
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Ref: The body’s eyes will never see except through differences. Yet it is not the messages they bring on which perception rests. Only the mind evaluates their messages, and so only the mind is responsible for seeing. (ACIM, M-8.3:8-10)
There is no order of difficulties in anything. This is a complete distortion of the world’s thinking.
The world tells us that there are events and happenings that are just insurmountable. A Course in Miracles reminds us that this is a complete lie.
Jesus healed the dead and so can we. The reason we don’t is because we believe we are alone and apart. Jesus saw the Holy Spirit in everything. We simply see the body.
We see all our likes and dislikes. In order to know the Self, we need to stop making judgements.
This is really to do with the body and what the eyes can see. If we could observe without judgement, then we would only know what is completely true.
We would see truth instead of illusions; it would be the real world instead of the false.
The text of A Course in Miracles begins by stating that there is no order of difficulty in miracles. The workbook starts by telling us that nothing we look at has any meaning at all.
The Song of Prayer, which ends A Course in Miracles, is the song we sing in praise of God. It is the link we have to all that is. This is what Jesus knew and what we can too. All we need to do is practice.
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193/ Undivided Attention
4th February 2024
Yet God Himself has given all His Sons a remedy for all illusions that they think they see. (ACIM, S-2.I.6:3)
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Ref: God is my Father, and His Son loves Him. (ACIM, W-225)
We are the Son. Collectively, we are the Self that knows the Truth.
Within that Self is complete awareness. There is just the one Thought which is the Thought of God.
There is no division and it is whole. Love has no opposite. Love is just perfect and simply extends.
All the physicality, all the pain and suffering, all the constant chatter that we feel - it all arises from one single thought. And this thought is totally imaginary. It has no meaning.
This thought seems to have challenged God. It’s as if the tiniest puff of wind is trying to blow away the vastness of the sky.
Nothing means anything when it is put like this. It’s the silliest concept and the stupidest story.
The ego is nothing. This body and our identity are nothing. We’re just pretending to be really important on the basis of a single thought.
The Holy Spirit is our return to sanity. The Holy Spirit leads us to the Father that we’ve never left.
And all that is needed is our undivided attention. It is the thought of nothing that stops the Truth.
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194/ The Call that's there
5th February 2024
Christ’s vision does not use your eyes, but you can look through His and learn to see like Him. (ACIM, S-2.I.6:4)
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Ref: Have faith in only this one thing, and it will be sufficient: God wills you be in Heaven, and nothing can keep you from it, or it from you. (ACIM, T-13.XI.7:1)
A Course in Miracles tells us that it is impossible to lose ourselves in dreams. God has placed the Call to awaken within us.
This Call connects our one mind to God’s. It is silent but present, loving and kind.
It is with us every moment of each second, and all we have to do is find it.
What drowns it out is what keeps us awake at night. A million thoughts make us restless and unhappy. The Call is simply a Witness that silently beholds.
We never argue with these thoughts but we are asked to observe them. It is always in the witnessing that they lose their power.
And we are also asked to choose the miracle. What this means is that we become aware of the aliveness within us. Guidance is given us through our inner Call.
It asks us to choose love instead of fear, joy instead of misery, and peace instead of pain. Choosing to be instead of wanting to do enables us to perceive life instead of death.
It also allows the mind to slowly awaken. Our compulsive thinking does not control us. This means that nothing can fight the Call that’s there.
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195/ Absolute Core
6th February 2024
Mistakes are tiny shadows, quickly gone, that for an instant only seem to hide the face of Christ, which still remains unchanged behind them all. (ACIM, S-2.I.6:5)
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Ref: I have said that the abilities you possess are only shadows of your real strength, and that perception, which is inherently judgmental, was introduced only after the separation. (ACIM, T-3.V.1:1)
Knowledge does not lead to doing, only being.
Perception is about making, not creating.
Prayer isn’t about having, just becoming.
Bodies are not real, spirit is.
A Course in Miracles challenges every assumption we have ever made. It wants us to look past the shadows to find the light.
Behind every single person is the face of Christ. This is what Jesus calls our “real strength” and is the absolute core of what we are.
Jesus therefore reminds us that we are the Self that we keep hidden in our selfness.
We are the purest Love that arises out of God.
We are the Thought that has been hidden by madness. And we are the Son in the song of prayer.
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196/ Perfect Peace
7th February 2024
His constancy remains in tranquil silence and in perfect peace. He does not know of shadows. (ACIM, S-2.I.6:6-7)
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Ref: You cannot be your guide to miracles, for it is you who made them necessary. And because you did, the means on which you can depend for miracles has been provided for you. (ACIM, T-14.XI.7:1-2)
A Course in Miracles hands us a few helpful pointers:
- Our Identity is changeless. We cannot lose what we are.
- Miracles are ours by right. However, we’re the ones who made them necessary.
- There are no lessons to learn. All our lessons have already been corrected.
- We can never be divisible. God’s Son is indivisible.
And so, if we believe in the above, we’re on the right track. We’re looking inwards, not outwards.
Bags under our eyes, a scowl instead of a smile - these are all images that have nothing to do with what we are. Anger may distort the face but the spirit (who we are) remains peaceful.
We may feel that we need healing, but we are actually perfect. We might think that we need to learn lessons, but we don’t. We probably believe that we are alone, but we aren’t.
Life appears to change until we know it doesn’t. Without perfect peace, we can never understand.
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