Musings… How Could the Separation Ever Have Happened??

September 25, 2018

(by Tim Wise)

In the 1980’s the Talking Heads rock group had a song that kept repeating the line… “Well, how did I get here?”

Probably the most often question ever asked by both new and ongoing Course students is this: How did we/why would we ever leave the oneness and the peace of Heaven, and then separate into something else… if oneness is our true reality.

What is the Course’s short and quick answer to “How did the impossible happen?”… It didn’t!

There are actually three ways the Course approaches and doesn’t answer this ego-based inquiry:

(1) It’s An Assertion, Not a Question

1) It’s not really an innocent question, the Course explains, but rather a statement masquerading as a question. We have already wrongly defined ourselves as separated beings. Now we are similar to two year olds throwing a fit and stamping our feet, insisting on something not real or helpful. We are demanding an explanation from God as to how that exodus from Heaven took place. As with any loving and caring father dealing with a tantrum, there’s not a lot He can say… but simply quietly wait for the tantrum to stop. (Text: p. 376, par.4 & The Quiet Answer p. 574-6)

“Who asks you to define the ego and explain how it arose can be but he who thinks it real, and seeks by definition to ensure that its illusive nature is concealed behind the words that seem to make it so” (Man. p. 81 par. 2).

(2) It’s Not Only in the Past- It’s Happening Now Too!

2) At one point Jesus said to Bill Thetford, when Bill asked him about how the separation happened… “why are you asking about something that seemingly happened in the past (The Big Separation from God), when you believe you are doing it right now?” In any given moment there is only one of two thoughts being projected into our awareness in time and space… either separation (and it’s not our fault), or forgiveness (the Course’s Atonement principle which says separation never did happen, and isn’t happening even now). That all solely depends on which internal teacher we are choosing in this very second, the ego or the Holy Spirit. (Text p.85, par. 6 & p.179, par. 11-12)

“It is reasonable to ask how the mind could ever have made the ego. In fact, it is the best question you could ask. (Because, the ‘best’ answer is…. it din’t.) There is, however, no point in giving an answer in terms of the past because the past does not matter, and history would not exist if the same errors were not being repeated in the present” (Ch. 4, p. 56, Sec. II, par. 1).

(3) Ask for An Experience, Not An Explanation

3) And finally the most comforting description of this process of addressing this belief… Jesus says that when we practice forgiveness in our minds with others and ourselves, this question/belief will simply fade away, into the unreality from which it came. In other words, an experience of our true connection and identity as one Son of God is the direct result of forgiveness. We will know the disconnect never happened, despite the separated images we still seem to see. Then the question “well, how did I get here” becomes irrelevant, and we totally lose our investment in needing an impossible answer to a silly question. The simple answer to the question “how did the the separation ever happen?” is… it didn’t. (Manual p. 77, par. 3-4)

“The ego will demand many answers that this course does not give. It does not recognize as questions the mere form of a question to which an answer is impossible. The ego may ask, ‘How did the impossible occur?’, ‘To what did the impossible happen?’, and may ask this in many forms. Yet there is no answer; only an experience. Seek only this, and do not let theology delay you.” (Man. p. 77 par.4)

https://youtu.be/_lQYJCYIIsA

For further discussion of our ‘leaving Heaven’

see Ken Wapnick’s CD set or MP3 download on

“The Four Splits” (click here),

——————————–

For an SFACIM post on the ‘way back’ to Heaven thru

“The 3 Steps of Forgiveness”: click here

Protected: Immersion One 2020 Homework

September 24, 2018

Musings: on Gratitude… and Thanksgiving

August 30, 2018

“Love makes no comparisons.

And gratitude can only be sincere if it be joined to love.”

(by Lyn Corona)

First, I want to make sure that we know what the ego is and the way that it sees the world.

The ego is the belief in separated, locatable self. The mind mistakenly identifies with the body believing it to be its home. Specialness is the main attribute of the ego, meaning that it sees the world and everything in it from a self-centered point of view. It’s all about ” me”.

From the ego’s point of view the world is one of two things: a prison house or a playground. As long as any perception supports the idea of a separate self, winner or loser, the ego is happy.

This lesson contrasts the ego’s notion of gratitude, which is based on differences and comparison, with the true and only reason to be grateful: love that is not of this world.

The lesson invites us to change our thinking so that our gratitude reflects truth. We can only be grateful for what is real. Love is truth and truth is Oneness. “Love makes no comparisons. And gratitude can only be sincere if it be joined to love.”

Our addiction to specialness (the disease of the ego) is exposed throughout the lessons of A Course in Miracles. This is not to shame us into changing behavior, but to help us see what needs seeing. What remains hidden from our awareness cannot be gone beyond. It remains as a “block to the awareness of love’s presence.”

Specialness is sickness. It is insanity and it is necessary to admit that we are insane before we can become happy learners. Separation is simply a wild idea in the mind that is taken seriously.

“Love Is the Way I Walk in Gratitude” also shows us the way we would see if we accepted Atonement which is the Course’s correction for insanity. What Atonement means is that we never separated from Oneness, never made a body, were never born and can never die. It means that the thought of separation in our mind had no effect.

Hear this: the thought of separation had no effect because it was not God’s Thought. God’s is the original thought and we cannot think apart from Him. The thought of separation is a secret, private thought that we believe to be true, therefore, we are the only ones that can change it.

Our only spiritual responsibility is to accept that the thought of separation had no effect, and that we have no power over God.

God is Love and Love has been defined by Him. The ego’s version of love is specialness. It is the belief that we can and did triumph over God.

Gratitude is to God because we could not/did not succeed in changing ourselves or reality. When this is accepted, as this lesson points out, we will be truly grateful. The ego’s version of gratitude– to be grateful because you are better off than someone else– is “pitiful and deprecating”.

Note: A Course in Miracles uses metaphor—images and symbols—to help us understand our situation. For example, in this lesson it mentions “escape from prison.” These images and symbols refer to a condition in our mind.

Similarly the story of the Holy Spirit descending from God and blanketing us in love and whispering in our ear until we accept that we are loving and lovable is a story. The purpose is to open our minds and hearts to the possibility that love is all there is and has no opposite.

SFACIM Videos on

Thanksgiving & Gratitude:

**Also, click here for Jim on Les. 123**

“I thank my Father for His gifts to me” :

https://youtu.be/cBT1KxpYyhc

A Course in Miracles Seminar on “Fearless Dying,” Sat 10/27

August 30, 2018

ACIM One Day Seminar on:

Fearless Dying.

**“Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem… Without the idea of death there is no world. All dreams will end with this one.” (Manual for Teachers #27)**

Sat., Oct. 27, 2018

9:30am-4:30pm

@ Rocky Mountain Miracle Center

in Denver, Colorado

Click here for details…

REGISTRATION:

($75 )

Also: Tim and Lyn lead the Sunday Gathering @ RMMC on Oct. 28 @11am, and Chris Dixon facilitates Lighthouse Newsletter on that same Sunday @1-3pm … also at RMMC.

Christmas Retreat

Dec. 7-9, 2018

in Colorado Springs:

Click here to see Retreat Schedule and to Register…

Course Immersion One 2019,

Six Month Intensive from January thru June 2019,

(Available In-person and Online)

For more details about the Immersion and how to register,

(click here)

Happy New Year 2023 !!!

June 10, 2018

(by Lyn Corona)

“Make This Year Different by Making It All the Same.”

A new year’s resolution…

Jesus knows he is speaking to a ‘drowning man’ in A Course in Miracles. Every sentence is a lifeline. This one, “Make this year different by making all the same,” is given as a command. It will save us if we grab it, understand it, and do what he says.

The Course’s new year’s resolution comes at the end of Chapter 15, The Holy Instant, the holy instant being the time in which minds are joined in Christ’s love without body identity interference. It is also the chapter in which Jesus speaks about “the season” (Christmas) of his birth, and how we should celebrate it by joining him in holiness. Why not? What have we got to lose?

There always seems to be some justification for the lack of love we feel…some exception we would rather cling to than grab the lifeline of forgiveness. I could feel love if it weren’t for that situation, that person, that event, etc. That’s what we tell ourselves.

I recently attended a concert in which one of the songs was Meatloaf’s “I Will Do Anything for Love.” It’s a powerful thought, but the chorus went like this:

“I will do anything for love, but I won’t do that THAT !”

Jesus’ New Year’s resolution requires that we look at all the “thats”. They are all the people that we won’t release to the Holy Spirit, but would prefer to use them to imprison ourselves as bodies, and them along with us. That will surely keep us from the love we say we would do anything for. That will surely keep us from our holiness.

Jesus introduces the resolution with this poignant recognition of our mutual imprisonment as bodies and our joint release in the holy instant in which there are no bodies. It goes like this:

“I give you (name of person) to the Holy Spirit as part of myself.

I know that you will be released, unless I want to use you to imprison myself.

In the name of my freedom I choose your release, because

I recognize that we will be released together.”

We either release or imprison. There is nothing in between. All our relationships could be made holy by giving them to the Holy Spirit who knows how to make of them something beautiful and fulfilling in contrast to the ego’s use to hurt and blame ourselves.

Image the the world in our minds if we were willing to not make any exceptions. What if everyone was seen the same… worthy of being released to love. It would indeed be a different world. This is what Jesus means when he says, “make this year different by making it all the same.” He asks us to give all our relationships, especially the ones we are using to victimize ourselves, to The One Who can show us our shared reality of holiness instead.

“Make this year different by making it all the same. And let all your relationships be made holy for you. This is our will. Amen.”

Happy New Year!

Lyn

Online Course Immersion One