Reflections 29 to 42
29/ A Pure Beingness
24th August 2023
What could His answer be but your remembrance of Him? (ACIM, S-1.I.4:5)
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Ref: Very simply, the purpose of psychotherapy is to remove the blocks to truth. Its aim is to aid the patient in abandoning his fixed delusional system, and to begin to reconsider the spurious cause and effect relationship on which it rests. (ACIM, P-1.1:1-2)
We learn that we are all the Holy Spirit’s psychotherapists.
If we look deeply enough into the mind, then we see we have made ourselves up. We are constantly trying to reinvent something that is both unstable and unreal.
When we know ourselves as the Self, we come under the Holy Spirit’s guidance. The Holy Spirit knows our every need. We are led to wherever we need to go.
We therefore have a right mind and a wrong mind. The right mind is here to help others see their right mind. The wrong mind is totally illusory and just needs a nudge to know this as a fact.
There is also the one mind. This is a pure beingness. It is the song of prayer.
The one mind is beyond the scope of A Course in Miracles. We are only here to know the real world within the context of the right mind. And what is real only arises from the formless Love of God.
Keith Kavanagh continues his look at the Song of Prayer in the video below. He ends the section on prayer. As always, we find that the ego can only pray out of a sense of fear. However, when we pray with the Holy Spirit, our right mind is just confirming our thanks to God.
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30/ Prisoner and Friend
25th August 2023
Can this be traded for a bit of trifling advice about a problem of an instant’s duration? God answers only for eternity. But still all little answers are contained in this. (ACIM, S-1.I.4:6-8)
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Ref: Do you not understand that to oppose the Holy Spirit is to fight yourself? He tells you but your will; He speaks for you. In His Divinity is but your own. (ACIM, T-30.II.1:1-3)
What is our will?
A Course in Miracles states that our will is freedom. It says that, unless we do our will, we can never be free from pain.
Only the Holy Spirit knows our will. As such, the Holy Spirit is the expression of God’s Will.
Our will is therefore boundless. It shines in Heaven. Our will is the song of prayer.
Anything outside of our will and we are kept prisoner, meaning that God Himself is not free. What we do within the prison walls of a body, we do to God Himself.
See another as an enemy and we make an enemy of God.
See another as a friend and we make a friend of God.
God’s Will is free will. It is this that ensures we make our way back to Him at last.
We all just play our part. It is the difference between being imprisoned and liberated. It is the difference between being a prisoner and a friend.
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31/ Our New Beginning
26th August 2023
Prayer is a stepping aside; a letting go, a quiet time of listening and loving. It should not be confused with supplication of any kind, because it is a way of remembering your holiness. (ACIM, S-1.I.5:1-2)
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Ref: I am the light of the world. (ACIM, W-81.1:1)
This is an affirmation. It is an affirmation of what we are.
We are the light of the world. We are holy. We are love itself. We are complete and whole and innocent.
We are that peaceful mind - where no clouds obscure the sun. We are the calm mind - because conflict is impossible within the Mind of God.
Prayer, therefore, does not need anything. Within the context of A Course in Miracles, love has no opposite.
Prayer is a joining. It is a ceaseless celebration of life. It is an affirmation of what we are.
Prayer simply extends and extends. It can never be contained. Prayer just gives thanks to our Source. Prayer is an endless song of boundless love and gratitude.
Light is love, and love is joy. There is no differentiation.
The moment we have the slightest thought of anything that is not peaceful, we are off track.
This means we start again. Each moment is another chance for the start of our new beginning.
27th August 2023
Why should holiness entreat, being fully entitled to everything Love has to offer? (ACIM, S-1.I.5:3)
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Ref: God is your safety in every circumstance. His Voice speaks for Him in all situations and in every aspect of all situations, telling you exactly what to do to call upon His strength and His protection. (ACIM, W-47.3:1-2)
God is Love.
We are fully entitled to God’s Love because that is what we are.
There appears to be the ego (an illusion) and the Holy Spirit (a fact). Rely on our own strength and we are relying on an illusion. Rely on the strength of the Holy Spirit and we are listening to fact.
If we could access God’s Love directly, we wouldn’t need A Course in Miracles. The only means of getting access to God’s Love is via the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit knows all our thoughts before we think them. He is closer to us than our own breath.
To trust in the Holy Spirit means trusting in the formless nature of truth. Faith has to be nurtured.
We therefore have to let go of belief in form and see the formless nature of Christ in everyone.
This means we are seeing life in everything. It means we are listening to the song wherever we go.
The mind is the key to knowing God’s Voice. The song is always there, and it is heard in a way that the singer can understand.
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33/ Truth in the Mind
28th August 2023
And it is to Love you go in prayer. ACIM, S-1.I.5:4)
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Ref: The giving up of judgment, the obvious prerequisite for hearing God’s Voice, is usually a fairly slow process, not because it is difficult, but because it is apt to be perceived as personally insulting. (ACIM, M-9.2:4)
God does not Judge. God is Infinite Love.
To sing the song of prayer means releasing all judgements. How could it be otherwise?
The world implies that we have to make judgements in order to forge our path.
A Course in Miracles states the opposite. The world exists because of judgement. It only brings pain.
Love holds no judgement.
Peace has no opposite.
Awareness is just aware.
Spirit radiates joy.
The Holy Spirit holds all the answers, but only if we allow Him to decide on what we need first.
Removing judgement means there is no opposite. Pure oneness is the truth in the mind.
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34/ Forgiving Our Self
29th August 2023
Prayer is an offering; a giving up of yourself to be at one with Love. There is nothing to ask because there is nothing left to want. (ACIM, S-1.I.5:5-6)
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Ref: Heal and be healed. There is no other choice of pathways that can ever lead to peace. O let your patient in, for he has come to you from God. Is not his holiness enough to wake your memory of Him? (ACIM, P-2.VII.9:7-10)
In the section on psychotherapy, from which the passage above arises, it mentions that it is only in relationships that salvation can be found (ACIM, P-2.in.4:3).
Salvation is our return to our original state. This is being one with Love.
A Course in Miracles implies that sin is separation. When we condemn someone, we are confirming that we are apart. We are unloved. The ego makes this unavoidable and inevitable.
There is just the one ego. The ego is a manifestation of all the guilt we feel at being apart from Love.
There is just the one Holy Spirit. The Holy is the manifestation of Love within the one mind, put there by Love Itself.
The one mind is therefore split into (seemingly) many minds. It is the ego that projects the many minds. The Holy Spirit only knows only the one mind.
What we are - the one Self - is just waiting to be seen. It is why how we see each other is so important. We either see the Self or the self, because there is nothing else to be seen.
We return to the one mind through forgiveness. Forgiveness means recognising what never was. Then, as we forgive each other, we find we are simply forgiving our Self.
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35/ Joined or Apart
30th August 2023
That nothingness becomes the altar of God. It disappears in Him. (ACIM, S-1.I.5:7-8)
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Ref: Reflect the peace of Heaven here, and bring this world to Heaven. For the reflection of truth draws everyone to truth, and as they enter into it they leave all reflections behind. (ACIM, T-14.X.1:6-7)
A Course in Miracles teaches us how to remember who we are. It restores our Identity by releasing our identity.
Our Identity can’t be defined in form whereas our identity can. What is real is completely formless.
Equally, identities are never shared whereas our Identity is. The miracle is the means of doing this.
A Course in Miracles also reminds us that it is impossible to remember God in secret and alone ACIM, T-14.X.10:1). By remembering God, it simply means we are not alone.
Our minds therefore reflect the Thought of God (the Holy Spirit) or the thoughts of separation from God (the ego). This is basically all there is. We are either joined or we are apart.
Being joined means we have a sense of calm. The mind only knows peace.
Being apart means we are always restless. The mind is underpinned by agitation.
Fear is impossible for minds that are joined. Fear is actually the fuel that keeps all minds apart.
We are on a journey to unity. By joining with the peace in our minds, we can never be apart.
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36/ Prayer Is Eternal
31st August 2023
This is not a level of prayer that everyone can attain as yet. Those who have not reached it still need your help in prayer because their asking is not yet based upon acceptance. (ACIM, S-1.I.6:1-2)
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Ref: Holy are you, eternal, free and whole, at peace forever in the Heart of God. Where is the world, and where is sorrow now? (ACIM, M-15.1:11-12)
This is God’s Final Judgement and it is found in the Manual for Teachers.
We learn that we can never escape God’s Final Judgement. No one can flee from truth forever. We are boundless, free and innocent, although we definitely don’t see ourselves as such.
This means that, sooner or later, we are going to have to face all the judgements we have made about ourselves. These are the nasty ones and inflated ones - and in this there are no exceptions.
A Course in Miracles tells us we can’t do this alone. It is impossible. We have to join with a symbol of peace in our minds, and this symbol has to be something that has let go of all judgement.
The ego then loses all its power. By letting go of judgement, we bring the darkness to the light.
Non-judgement is what true forgiveness really is. Only the darkness (the ego) can judge; the light (our symbol of peace) knows us as pure and innocent. There is no contrast and no judgement.
Keith Kavanagh continues to expand on this in his next teaching on the Song of Prayer. He begins the section on forgiveness. And while we have learnt that prayer is eternal, we find that forgiveness is always temporary. There is no need for forgiveness in Heaven. The song of prayer is perfect as it is.
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37/ What never Happened
1st September 2023
Help in prayer does not mean that another mediates between you and God. But it does mean that another stands beside you and helps to raise you up to Him. (ACIM, S-1.I.6:3-4)
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Ref: As all therapy is psychotherapy, so all illness is mental illness. It is a judgment on the Son of God, and judgment is a mental activity. Judgment is a decision, made again and again, against creation and its Creator. (ACIM, P-2.IV.1:1-3)
A Course in Miracles tells us that all healing is in the mind.
We come to join with the song of love and gratitude. There is nothing else. God sends out a song of love to His Son (us) and we (the Son) return that song to our Creator (God). This is Heaven.
Everything else is just the echo.
Currently, the mind is mentally ill. Where there was once a song, there is now endless suffering. Where there was once peace, there is now hostility and fear.
It all began with one small thought. What if the Son could be apart from His Father? This established guilt and is why we need each other. We are here to lead each other home.
We need the echo because we only hear the static and never the song. And while we might feel lost, alone and abandoned to the ego, the echo is the sound that leads us from the ego to the light.
The Holy Spirit provides the echo. The Holy Spirit was put into the mind by God as proof that Heaven is with us always. We have never left Heaven and we have never left God.
God did this the instant a thought of separation arose. The echo, then, is always a reminder of what never happened. It is a reminder that the song is always there.
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38/ Shadows from the Past
2nd September 2023
One who has realized the goodness of God prays without fear. And one who prays without fear cannot but reach Him. (ACIM, S-1.I.6:5-6)
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Ref: To forgive is merely to remember only the loving thoughts you gave in the past, and those that were given you. All the rest must be forgotten. (ACIM, T-17.III.1:1-2)
A Course in Miracles talks about holy and unholy relationships.
The unholy relationship is something that has to reinforce itself with past beliefs. It always revolves around bodies. If we feel haunted by the past, then we are haunted in the present.
The holy relationship is where we see only what is present (which is the Christ and not the body). Fear is irrelevant because it does not exist. Our present thoughts are always ones of love.
To find the Source of what is holy, we need to go inside. We need to undo the cause of all our unholiness. We can then begin to find the song within the song of prayer.
The ego stays fixated on the past. It always plans the future with the past in mind. It never allows us to be free of fear.
The Holy Spirit knows only what is now. The Holy Spirit is the peace within our minds. The eternal is all that matters to the Holy Spirit and so it reminds us gently that only love is true.
To move from unholiness to holiness requires presence. We need to be diligent. Since our thoughts create our reality, we need to be aware of what we think and what we do.
We have a still point within the mind and this is where the eternal lies. To really know the Mind of God, we have to clear the mind of all its ghosts and shadows from the past.
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39/ The One and Only
3rd September 2023
He can therefore also reach His Son, wherever he may be and whatever form he may seem to take. (ACIM, S-1.I.6:7)
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Ref: God has not many Sons, but only One. Who can have more, and who be given less? (ACIM, T-29.VIII.9:1-2)
A Course in Miracles tells us that it is only our own guilt that we see in each other.
There is only one mind and there is only one guilt. This is the guilt we feel in separating from God.
As stated above, there is just the one of us. This is impossible to understand for a body but has to be understood by the mind. In the meantime, since we identify with a body, we have to do the practice.
To simply say that there is just one of us is delusional. It has to be known through experience. And the experience has to be arrived at slowly.
We need to go back to the light and peace within the mind - time after time after time. This is the Holy Spirit. The ego - our guilt - is then brought to the light.
Our awareness of the Holy Spirit does not judge. It just looks and waits and judges not.
We simply look at the ego - as a witness - and allow the love and peace in our minds to do the rest.
The ego has nothing to fight against. There is no yeast to bake the bread. The ego loses its power.
We are the one Son. The song in the song of prayer knows this to be true.
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40/ There Is no Threat
4th September 2023
Praying to Christ in anyone is true prayer because it is a gift of thanks to His Father. (ACIM, S-1.I.7:1)
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Ref: It is hard to understand what “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you” really means. This is because it is not understandable to the ego, which interprets it as if something outside is inside, and this does not mean anything. (ACIM, T-4.III.1:1-2)
A Course in Miracles tells us that the ego arose out of separation, and its existence depends on our continuing belief in the separation.
The ego is just a set of beliefs we love to defend. We feel it is our life but it is not. All we need is just a change of mind.
The solution is simple - we need to stop defending what is not real. A Course in Miracles states that nothing real can be threatened and nothing unreal exists. This is the foundation of the Course.
How we see each other, then, is so important in our progress to knowing who we are. Do we bless of do we damn?
What our thoughts ask for (this means our prayers) are equally important. Do we plead or do we offer thanks?
The passage above tells us that we are “The Kingdom of Heaven”. It tells us that this is our birthright and can never be changed. Nothing is outside of us. Everything is given us.
However, for the moment, we just feel apart. This has to be a decision in the mind.
The world is our classroom and it is up to us to learn the lessons. A Course in Miracles asks us not to value what is valueless. What is real can never be threatened.
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41/ Love’s Presence
5th September 2023
To ask that Christ be but Himself is not an entreaty. It is a song of thanksgiving for what you are. (ACIM, S-1.I.7:2-3)
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Ref: I am entitled to miracles. (ACIM, W-77)
What is a miracle? Just a change of perception.
What are we? The full awareness of Love’s presence.
What is the song? Simply the joy of being at one with Love.
So much of our suffering is based on wrong perception. We think we are a body but we are not.
Then what is the body? The denial of Love’s presence.
What is suffering? Anything that does not know Love.
All of our suffering revolves around the ego. The ego says it is our friend but is in fact our enemy.
How, then, can we ever get past the ego?
We let it dissolve into wholeness. We bring our non-peace to our peace, or the darkness to the light.
A Course in Miracles tells us that we are Love’s presence, complete and healed and whole. Nothing can change this and nothing ever will.
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42/ Our Internal Teacher
6th September 2023
Herein lies the power of prayer. It asks nothing and receives everything. (ACIM, S-1.I.7:4-5)
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Ref: A Course in Miracles began with the sudden decision of two people to join in a common goal. Their names were Helen Schucman and William Thetford, Professors of Medical Psychology at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. (ACIM, Preface.1:1-2)
It just takes two and a bit of willingness.
A Course in Miracles began with two people who had no concept of what was going to happen. The first just wanted to find a solution to all the in-fighting and back-stabbing that was going on around him, and the second simply agreed to help him find it.
Nothing more than this was needed.
Within this context, then, the process started and the conclusion has been well documented. It means that it doesn’t matter who we are, where we are on this planet, or what we are doing, we are all have a purpose. We all have an assignment.
It might be as simple as spreading a little love - and it might take a whole lifetime to learn just this.
It is in relationship that we find the solutions. Agree to make sunshine and the sun will shine; agree to make war and the bullets fly.
We therefore learn that, if we join with a common purpose - to know truth - then what seems to be impossible can happen.
A Course in Miracles is here to teach us that we can all find our own Internal Teacher. As we change our minds, we change our lives.
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