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School for A Course In Miracles

“The universe of learning will open up before you in all its gracious simplicity.” T-14. II. 6:4
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Musings: on Gratitude… and Thanksgiving

“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

Happy New Year 2023 !!!

(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

Six Month Intensive from January thru June, 2023,

2nd & 4th Sundays  @ 9:30am-12pm Mt. Time

Designed for New “A Course in Miracles” Students…

and anyone desiring to immerse themselves in a profound understanding and practice of the Course.

Click here for info

What is my real purpose for this new year? 

click here

 

Is It Your Time? … A Letter from The Director:

School for A Course in Miracles - logo

Welcome to the website for  School for A Course in Miracles, a school dedicated to helping students understand and apply the teachings of A Course in Miracles. 

Changing the way in which we see is the aim of A Course in Miracles. Most of humanity does not yet believe there is another way to look at the world that brings peace.  Peace is an internal affair that has nothing to do with external circumstances. Only by transforming the one looking is that change possible.

A student must first decide if he or she wants to become a learner in this way—a way that offers no particular gains to the personal self. Peace of mind is an effect of the transcendence of the personal by shifting from self interests to shared interests. 

If you feel called to make this kind of change you won’t be able to stop your Self from following that call. It is as if an internal alarm clock has gone off and it’s time to wake up.  Often it goes off when you become disillusioned with your own ability to find lasting happiness.

“The invitation”, that calling to venture beyond a self-centered point of view, goes on all the time. You choose when you are ready to hear it. “Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what to take at a given time.”

The curriculum is the miracle. “It is a required course”.  What is meant by required is that everyone must eventually turn within to learn how to change their mind. 

The Course undoes the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence. The Lessons, all three-hundred and sixty five, do the work in a realm that you may not even be aware of, a non-place the Course calls the mind. You learn how not to interfere with, or block, your awareness of your true self.

In 2007, a small enthusiastic group of teachers/learners of the Course joined together to start a school for serious students who wanted to accelerate their learning. As a group, we had collectively logged well over 100 years of devotion to the practice of forgiveness. At that time we called ourselves the School of Reason. The name was later changed to School for A Course in Miracles.

As the Director of the School, I would like to share a word about the faculty. Each of the teachers has pursued their calling vigilantly, sometimes for more than forty years. They have direct experience of the miracle that the required course promises so they can’t be fooled by the substitutes the personal self likes to claim.  They know what it takes to sincerely practice forgiveness and to receive the benefits of peace. They know how to help you make the best use of time.

If you are undecided about your spiritual goal and whether the SFACIM might help you attain it, you may find it valuable to attend a regularly scheduled Introduction to A Course in Miracles sponsored by the School.   You will find these events and classes posted on our website. 

We are here only to be truly helpful.

Sincerely and with love,

Lyn Corona
Director, School for A Course in Miracles

Contact Lyn at lyncorona@msn.com

 

Musings: “Forgiveness Is Still, and Quietly Does Nothing…”

What is forgiveness?

(by Lyn Corona)

The following are random notes that I made for a recent Course Immersion class on forgiveness. My goal is not to present a beautifully written document, but to help the reader to better understand forgiveness through comments, quotes from the Course and suggested sections  on forgiveness.

Forgiveness is probably the most important word in A Course in Miracles. It is also the most misunderstood because we come to it with our own ideas about it. The process of forgiveness in the Course is unique among all the world’s spiritualities and must be learned from a teacher who stands outside of time and space. That teacher is Jesus, a symbol of love that is not of this world.

Forgiveness is the pathway to inner peace – the condition of our minds in which God is remembered. It combines a lofty view of reality with practical application as to how, despite the world’s illusory nature, we can live here —  kindly, attentively and aware of our need to practice forgiveness while we reside where we are not at home.

 

"The heart of everything is at peace"
The heart of everything is at peace.

To indicate from the outset the uniqueness of the Course’s forgiveness here are a couple of quotes from What is forgiveness? Workbook, part 2. page 401. I recommend reading the entire section.

“Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred.”

“Forgiveness, on the other hand, is still, and quietly does nothing………….It merely looks, and waits, and judges not.”

We are ready to learn forgiveness when we are motivated by our own despair to seek another way to relate to the world and the relationships we find ourselves in. We have tried to fix them and evidence seems to indicate that they can’t be fixed so a statement like the following suddenly attracts us:

“Tolerance for pain may be high, but it is not without limit. Eventually everyone begins to recognize, however dimly, that there must be a better way.” T. 2. III.3:5,6.

Seek not to change the world

“Seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world.” Ch. 21. Intro. 1:7.
A good thing to keep in mind when turning within is that the correction to all our mis-thoughts are already with us in our right minds symbolized by Jesus and the Holy Spirit. We just need the little willingness to be helped by inviting their Loving Presence to show us how to see the situation without the ego’s interpretation, from above the battleground (in the mind) and outside the dream. By looking we learn are the dreamer of the dream and not the figure in the dream. (For clarification on that subject read Reversing Cause and Effect in its entirety, in Chapter 28.)

Forgiveness: a new morality

The ego, representing the thought of separation, wants us to remain identified with the body as a dream figure so we remain mindless, unable to decide against it. The ego is nothing but a phantom, an impossible idea of separation held in place only by belief in it and all of its shenanigans. Jesus’ mission is to show us how to look at it with him, meaning without judgment. Forgiveness then, is looking at the ego and not judging it. Judgment makes it real and something we fight against. Forgiveness, on the other hand, undoes our identification and belief in it. Remember, first and foremost, ” forgiveness is still and quietly does nothing. It merely looks, and waits, and judges not.”

Further on in What is forgiveness? we read:

“Do nothing then and  let forgiveness show you what to do, through Him Who is your Guide, your Savior and Protector, strong in hope, and certain of your ultimate success.” In many ways this is a new morality in which our behavior is informed by love instead of judgment.

You are the Decision Maker

No matter where we find ourself, and in whatever condition, we are the Decision Maker, and not the dream figure. We have only one decision to make: Who will direct the figure in the dream? Will it be the ego or the Holy Spirit? Given any situation in which we are fearful or angry, the Holy Spirit will, if given the opportunity, reinterpret it for us, and give us peace and joy in return. Isn’t this a fair trade for the ego which directs the figure in the dream to suffer physical and psychological pain and eventually die in order to prevent returning to the mind and choosing against it?

Bringing our projections back to the mind

“The miracle (forgiveness) establishes you dream a dream, and that its content is not true. This is a crucial step in dealing with illusions. No one is afraid of them (illusions) when he perceives he made them up. The fear was held in place because he did not see that he was author of the dream, and not a figure in the dream.” T. 28. II. Reversing Cause and Effect (taking back our projections)

We are the dreamer of the dream and not the physical/psychological person in the dream.  The decision maker (in the mind) chooses either the Holy Spirit or the ego as the teacher. If the ego is decided for, it directs the body’s senses to seek and find guilt outside the mind.  If the Holy Spirit is chosen, the dream is one of healing and forgiveness.

The content of all dreams is fear. Based upon our belief in the ego’s teachings of sin and guilt we believe we deserve to be punished and in fact demand it. The ego tells us we can get rid of the guilt in our mind by projecting it on to our body or someone else’s. Forgiveness is the process of bringing our projections – whether on our body, or someone else’s – back to the mind where they can be looked at with the help of a Loving Presence that shows us our guilt is entirely made up.

Forgiveness requires humility

“Resign now as your own teacher.”

If we want a better way that way is forgiveness. It must be learned from a teacher that represents love that is not of this world. We turned against it when we chose to believe the “tiny mad idea” of separation. If we define our problems ourselves we also are setting limits on their solutions. What the Course directs us to do is to make a deliberate choice to look at our problems differently, meaning with help, instead of defining them and then trying to solve them. We choose to expose their darkness to the light of truth. In the process we learn there is but one problem and one solution.

“When you have been caught in the world of perception you are caught in a dream. You cannot escape without help, because everything your senses show merely witnesses to the reality of the dream. God has provided the Answer, the only Way out, the true Helper.” 
from What It Says

 

Developing trust in the Holy Spirit

As we develop trust the the Holy Spirit as the Great Corrector of our misperceptions our faith begins to grow. In fact the measure of our advancement in the curriculum is our willingness to turn all problems over to Him. We need to develop trust in a Loving Presence within our minds that helps us look at the guilt we have heretofore denied and projected. Our part is to grow in trust in this Teacher show us the truth instead of the illusions the ego has raised as a mighty fortress against it (truth). Our part is to be still, watch, wait, and do nothing.

(Suggested reading: Chapter 18. I Need Do Nothing)

Here is an excellent account of the three steps of forgiveness

“This is the shift that true perception brings: What was projected out is seen within, and there forgiveness lets it disappear. For there (within the mind) the altar (the point where we choose the Holy Spirit or the ego) to the Son is set, and there his Father is remembered. Here are all illusions brought to truth and laid upon the altar. What is seen outside (the mind) must lie beyond forgiveness, for it seems forever sinful. Where is hope while sin is seen as outside (the mind)? What remedy can guilt expect? But seen within your mind, guilt and forgiveness for an instant lie together, side by side, upon one altar. There at last are sickness (separation) and its single remedy joined in one healing brightness. God has come to claim His Own. Forgiveness is complete.” Manual for Teachers, From the Clarification of Terms
True Perception – Knowledge, page 86  (My notations are in parentheses)

The Three Steps of Forgiveness

The first two steps require your co-operation; the third does not. Our relationships reflect back to us the guilt that is in our own minds and give us the opportunity to reverse the projection by bringing it back to the altar where,  brought to the light of truth it is shined away.

Step 1. Reversing our projection. and bringing guilt back within the mind.
The cause of my upset is not external. It’s an interpretation that I am making about me.
In other words, I become the victim of my own interpretation.

“ The secret of salvation is but this: That you are doing this unto yourself. No matter what the form of the attack, this is still true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, still is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is still true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that you were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they could have no effect on you unless you failed to recognize it is your dream.” Ch. 27. VIII.10: 1-8.

We are never upset at a fact. We are upset at our interpretations of a fact. This amounts to “taking it personally.” Our conclusion is always about us being an innocent victim and someone else the victimizer and therefore the guilty one. This enables us to wear a “face of innocence”, gained at someone else’s expense. Through our projection of guilt onto others we imagine we have are innocent and they are now “the home of evil, darkness and sin” not us.

Step 2. Recognizing that the guilt is in me and looking at it with help. Now “I am the home of evil, darkness and sin.”(Les.#93) This is referred to as the dark night of the soul.

The ego’s survival depends upon us never looking within our minds. It shrieks, “Do not look within.” It made the body to look out and seek for guilt in someone else. Keeping the problem in someone else prevents us ever looking at the ego and learning that it has no power other than the power we give it. At that point its days are numbered.

As we bring the darkness to the light we must have help to look at the ego without judgment. It must be a Teacher that is in our minds, but one whose voice is NOT OUR EGO’s. Jesus/Holy Spirit are symbols of this loving Teacher. The ego can masquerade as the Holy Spirit. If the result of your listening to the Holy Spirit makes you special and therefore separates you from others then it is likely the ego’s Holy Spirit that is advising you.

IMPORTANT: Jesus/Holy Spirit do not take guilt from us. They simply stand with us and help us look at it without fear. They are really part of our right minds and we will eventually become them.

The dark night of the soul myth goes something like this: “I ruined my entire life and everyone else’s around me. I withheld love from myself, my brothers, and God. I am indeed ugly, vicious, and mean.”
Look at the guilt involved in that and not judge it.

Step 3. Do nothing. The blocs to love’s presence have been removed. What was always there in your mind will reveal itself if you relax and don’t interfere.

Good reading on this subject is:
Lesson 189: I feel the love of God within me now, Paragraphs 7, 8, and 9.

Open gate and path

Recap/summary

My anger at you was a cover for my anger at me. With the Holy Spirit’s help, I can learn I made them both up.
#1 – I say “no” to my judgment of others: You are the home of evil, darkness, sin… ”NOT!”
#2 – I say “no” to my judgment of myself: I am the home of evil, darkness, sin… “NOT!”
#3 – The slate is now clean. The Word of God/Atonement replaces illusions.

Lesson 23: I can escape the world I see by giving up attack thoughts.

The three steps of forgiveness appear very succinctly for the first time in paragraph 5, sentence 2. It is speaking of undoing the cause of the world.

“This change requires, first, that the cause be identified and then let go, so it can be replaced.”

Forgiveness is the process that gives your life true meaning.
It is all internal so you can apply it anywhere, with anyone, and become a “happy learner” in which you learn there is no world that can harm, hurt or effect you in any way because “there is no world”. (Lesson 135: “If I defend myself I am attacked.”)

You are truly a decision making mind, and not a body. You only have one decision to make, OVER AND OVER AND OVER, until the you, the decision maker in your mind, listens only to ONE VOICE, and learns all of the lessons He has to teach.

The most important things to remember about forgiveness:

It doesn’t ask you to do anything….in fact, it requires that you do nothing so you can be taught.
It doesn’t have anything to do with someone else.
It is applied to illusions, not to truth.
It teaches you how to “see” with your mind instead of your eyes.

Important forgiveness lessons:

Lesson 23 – I can escape the world I see by giving up attack thoughts. The three steps of forgiveness appear very succinctly for the first time in paragraph 5, sentence 2.
Lesson 62 –Forgiveness is my function as the light of the world.
Lesson 72 – Holding grievances is an attack on God’s plan for salvation.
Lesson 121 – Forgiveness is the key to happiness
Lesson 122 – Forgiveness offers everything I want.

Musings: Gratitude… Part two

We are thankful for one thing alone:

God has given the gift of love to each of us.

The ego is grateful because He has favored us in some special way while others suffer.

Salvation is an equal playing field on which everyone has been given everything. (There is nothing the ego scorns more than indiscriminate love.)

It is our responsibility to see it that way because that is the way it is. The way out of hell is the same for everyone.  We must learn to see the world forgiveness sees.

Let forgiveness extend to everyone without exception. Do not exclude anyone. There is only One Son of God: Christ.

(The words God, Christ and Son of God are symbols of symbols. They stand for Love. Love is Oneness.)

Saying “we are one” is not the same as Oneness. While we identify ourselves as separated selves– separate from our Creator and separate from others– our profession (according to the Course)  is to exclude no one from love. This is the means given us to reach the gates of Oneness: accept God’s Love by being loving.

As the lesson points out, we “earn” (symbolically) the right to love by being loving. God isn’t withholding love from us. We are keeping it  from ourselves. Earning the right is a way of saying we can give love until we accept that we are love. It’s a wonderful plan.

We have been given everything.

First of all, we never changed reality so it remains Love and we are still loveable. Secondly, our first loving action is to bless the world with forgiveness. FOR THIS we should be grateful. How beautiful.  How clean and simple and perfect is that? Who is unwilling to take part?

“You will be bound till all the world is seen by you as blessed, and everyone set free of your mistakes and honored as he is. You made him not; no more yourself. And as you free the one the other is accepted as he is.”     Lesson 200

We can offer our friends, family, colleagues,  partners, friends and enemies alike,  their freedom by looking at the thoughts we hold against them and deciding we prefer not to keep that point of view. In wanting to see differently we will.

When our forgiveness is complete we will have total gratitude.

Musings: A Christmas Conversation

Jesus Knocking

A Christmas Conversation

Daily, let me remember this: I have but one brother,

and that is always the one who is before me.

I can see Ken smile and hear him say “….and make no exceptions. This is the way home.”

I hear Jesus, too: “I assure you this is the easiest way home once fully understood.”

My part is to understand and practice the means: forgiveness.

He continues, “Your way will be different, not in purpose but in means. A holy relationship is a means of saving time. One instant together with your brother restores the universe to both of you.”

“The universe is one. I am showing you the way to union. The gift of union is the only gift that I was born to give. That is my Christmas gift to you.”

“Bring your fears to me; this is all I ask you to do. Give me your fear and I will lay before your feet the peace of God. You will not be asked to give away anything you think is real. It is the Holy Spirit’s teaching that will show you what is real and what is not.”

” Accept the Holy Spirit as your teacher, the one you turn to with your fears. They are the only gifts that you can give that will bring your teacher to you.  Anything you learn from Him is given to all. The more you give to all, the more you experience having and being the universe “.

Musings: Is It Healing or Fixing?

“You can’t fix what isn’t real. What’s real doesn’t need fixing.”

When you see a problem in someone else—sickness, mood, disposition—it is your mind that is in need of healing, not the one in whom the problem appears to reside.

There is only one problem…..ever. It is the idea of separation in the mind. If the indivisibility of a single whole mind is to be recognized, healing of the mind must occur.

A Course in Miracles is maddeningly relentless and impeccable in its teaching of non-duality. It leaves no un-swept corners in the mind where the ego’s belief in separation can remain hidden. One of those corners is our own good intentions to help others with their problems without first healing ourselves.

When we attempt to fix problems in someone else we are missing the point. It is an opportunity for our own healing, not someone else’s. Only a healed healer can heal. He heals by knowing we are all already healed. The certainty in his mind extends through his mind to other minds without him doing anything for which he could take either credit or blame.

This is not to say that one could not also do something in whatever form might be most helpful. However his certainty is that regardless of what he does in form, healing is already accomplished.

How different this is from fixing which can only occur where there is an idea of inequality and of “other”.

Yesterday someone tried to fix a problem that I thought I had. He first had to make the problem real by agreeing with it. He then took out his tools that he had learned in a training and began to try to fix my problem. The feeling that arose within me as this was going on was one of inequality. He, with his solution, was superior to me with my problem. Now we both had the same sickness, separation. There was no way out.

When we try to heal at the level of form we are attempting to keep the real problem which is in the mind. That way the ego, our false sense of self, is preserved.

This whole situation illustrated the important distinction between healing and fixing. If there is anything but perfect equality in any relationship the idea of competition has entered the mind. How can there be healing where there is one who is superior? Separation is reinforced rather than healed.

Unhealed healers believe the problem is where it is not, in the body and not the mind. The fact is that we are all already healed…..no exception. Minds are already joined and there is only one.

Nothing that is real that could possibly need fixing. Nothing unreal exists. We do not believe that however, or we wouldn’t be seeing the world of suffering that we see. It is the seer that needs to change the way in which he sees. He needs to learn to see with different eyes and hear with different ears. For that shift he needs a Teacher from beyond the world of form, one that doesn’t believe in differences of any kind.

A Course in Miracles teaches us how to make ourselves accessible to a Teacher who can show us how to look with a single eye from beyond the body and see a different world. This translocation of self from identification with the body to a singular consciousness is the awakened state we all pretend to seek and at the same time fear. It is the shift from the personal and the private,  to the oneness of heaven and non-specificity. This is the land of “no-thing”  and it is this that you and I  fear. That’s what God is. And that’s what Love is. And thats what the Peace of God is. And that’s Heaven. And that’s what you are afraid of.

Would you like to live without fear? Would you like to experience Love? Would you like to be free of torment?

Musings: “Where are dreams but in a mind asleep?”

corn field of dreams

A course to end all dreaming- that’s what A Course in Miracles is. All ego dreams, sleeping or waking, are based in fear. Whether the plot be pleasurable or painful, triumphant or ends in loss, ego dreams are spawned in mind asleep and dreaming of separation. In those dreams we are separated from God and our brothers, and feel split within our own mind. What good can possibly come from dreams that seek to prove that separation is reality?

A world in which we are born into a body that lives a little while and then grows old and dies is the dream that Jesus, teacher of resurrection, will awaken us from if only we will listen to him and do as he says. Resistance is strong because we believe our little lives, pitiful as they may be, are what we are. It is a mistake to be corrected, not a sin to be punished.

Jesus makes a distinction in his course that is still unknown to most of the world. The distinction is fundamental to learning and applying the Course’s lessons so that they change the way we see the world. To the individual it is a prison or a playground, determined by whether our specialness gets what it wants or not. When we get our way it is a playground. When we don’t, it is a prison. Our response when we don’t like the way things go is to change behavior or circumstances. To Jesus the world is a classroom for changing our minds. The problem is we don’t know we have a mind.

In the Course Jesus teaches us that the brain is not the mind. It is part of the body, the manifestation of the thought of separation. Its function is given it by the ego that treasures specialness and individuality and seeks only to prove our personhood is true. The effect is to keep us mindless and asleep. Unaware that we have a mind we can never change it. This is significant because it is the mind not the body that awakens or resurrects. Resurrection is the lesson Jesus learned that “most of all he would have us learn.” C5. 6:8  How can we learn it if we choose to remain asleep and dreaming, believing what our brains and bodies tell us? This is the ego’s fool proof defense of its false identity. But it is not “God proof”.

The world misunderstood Jesus’ earlier teaching of the resurrection over 2000 years ago because it did not have the education that Jesus is now giving us in A Course in Miracles. It could only assume that the body resurrected because it did not know about a mind, let alone how to change it. In learning that our home is in the mind and that minds are joined we can become happy learners of another way that ends dreaming through the gentle path of forgiveness. Forgiveness is something anyone can do simply because it requires nothing of us but a little willingness to learn from a teacher other than our ego. It is a level playing field on which everyone is equally qualified to join Jesus in what he calls “a game that happy children play.” W-p1.153.12:1

Forgiveness, the miracle, the holy instant, and the holy relationship are all terms used in the Course for the return to the mind. They signify stepping above the world’s battleground and joining Jesus in true humility and willingness to be taught. We cannot teach ourselves because we are the problem– the dreamer of fearful dreams in which everything dies. Who would doubt Jesus advice: “Resign now as your own teacher, for you have been badly taught.” T-12…V.8:3

If we knew for certain that the world is a dream we would not hesitate to leave it. It is forgiveness that shows us its unreality. Jesus overcame the world by not believing in it and we must do the same. It is not by struggling against it, but through the process of forgiveness that we learn the world cannot affect us, and ultimately that it does not exist at all. “There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach.” W-p1…132.6:2,3

Jesus is waiting for our resignation as our own teacher to give him the chance to show us that we can never be harmed, or hurt, or suffer, or die. Pain of any kind is a dream of punishment for a crime that never happened in the Mind of God where we reside. God does not sleep, nor dream, and we are like Him and not as we have made ourselves. Nor can we leave His Mind except in sleep.

“From the heart, may it go to the heart.”

Musings: Invitation to Love’s Presence

“Undoing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence” is the curriculum of A Course in Miracles. It is a required course….undoing the blocks, that is. Only the time we take it is voluntary.

Everyone, without exception, wants to feel love’s presence informing their thoughts and actions while moving through this world of time and space. As our natural inheritance, it goes with us wherever we go.

Love is singular so there are no separate wills. The One Will for us is perfect happiness. It’s our will as well. Why should we choose to go against That Will? That’s a good question.

Perhaps we think we have a private will and would like The One Will to deliver on our terms. Bob Dylan once sang in the song, When Ya Gonna Wake Up, “Do you think that God is just an errand boy to satisfy your wandering desires?”

God gives us more than we know how to desire.

Those things we think we want are childish and self-centered. They are part of dreaming but they will not give us what we really want. God’s Will is beyond anything we can imagine.

When we begin the journey home we don’t believe that there is something more fulfilling than having our personal needs and wants met. We are familiar with the dreams and even though their pleasure is fleeting we prefer them to an unknown surprise that might awaken us from dreaming entirely.

Sharing the journey with others encourages us to give up the belief in sacrifice. Love does not demand sacrifice of any kind. Our own plans for happiness fade as we begin to feel love’s presence.  I hope we can learn this together.

Musings: Save Yourself, Bless the World

“Let Him teach you what you need to learn to lay all fear aside, and know your Self as love, which has no opposite in you.”

Please consider this today. There is a Presence that surrounds you, which is your Self. It is constantly informing you of your True Nature which is love without opposite. The environment in which it resides is a state of grace.

When you are absorbed in your body self, consumed with fear, conflict and self interest you cut off the possibility of harmonizing with this Loving Presence which would make your day purposeful and effortless.

Private (what about me?) thoughts of worry, anxiety, lack, inadequacy, and so on, must be brought to the light of this Presence so they can be shined away and you can return to alignment with the Self that you are. This is your responsibility now. This is your salvation and the salvation of the world.

Forgive your personal insanity and the insanity of the world so that this Presence can transform your thoughts and actions in this moment bringing peace to you and to the tired and aching world. This is your part in The Great Awakening that is occurring in all humanity now.

This strength is yours to feel and to give. It is your joy. Your part is essential now.