Musings: The Four Obstacles to My Peace of Mind

March 6, 2020

The Obstacles to Peace

(Chapter 19, Section IV, p. 406-424)

The Course tells us that there are basically four obstacles to finding our true peace of mind…

(with four correlating subheadings, delineated by an “i”):

A. The Desire to Get Rid of It (Peace)

i. The Attraction of Guilt

B. The Belief the Body Is Valuable for What It Offers (A place for our projected guilt, seen as the body’s pain or pleasure)

i. The Attraction of Pain

C. The Attraction of Death (not just death of the body, but belief in the idea of death)

i. The Incorruptible Body

D. The Fear of God (The fear of Love, the fear of sinlessness)

i. The Lifting of the Veil

The Titles Themselves

The first striking thing hits us as we begin to look at these titles above!

Jesus is telling us that the very qualities or feelings that we are attracted to… are not peace, not joy, and not love.

In our make-believe separated state, he literally says we are attracted to their opposites: we are really attracted to guilt, to pain, and to death. These unrecognized attractions to terrible stuff are three of our main obstacles to peace.

For many of us, is that even in our awareness? Do we really believe that?

But, what if it’s possibly true though?… How often have we tried at peace, love, or joy, and seemed to miss the mark? Or even if we felt them temporarily, the other shoe eventually dropped. What if just below our seeming conscious desires for peace and love… something else is going on in our minds. What if we are really trying to push real peace and love away? What if we are not upset, or attracted, or whatever, for the reasons that we consciously think? (WB Lesson #5)

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Then there’s the title of the fourth obstacle, “The Fear of God!” So it gets worse… even more insulting to our egos. Not only does Jesus tell us we are attracted to some real nasty things like pain and death, but then he says that what we are really fearful of isn’t the bad stuff, to which we are attracted, but God Himself. He says that we are not really seeking for God’s Love, but we have actually convinced ourselves we are afraid of It.

So once again is that possible? Is the Course correct, as the country western song laments… we are “lookin for love in all the wrong places”… because we are truly afraid to find it?

The Four Grand Self-Deceptions (Obstacles)

One way of looking at the four obstacles and their order is to review our Wapnick Chart and the Course’s story of how we got here in the world (or at least believing that we’re here)… and then we retrace the steps of our descent into the hell of the world (and the self-imposed obstacles to our return to Heaven), starting with where we think we are now:

We believe are bodies in a world, very vulnerable to the both physical and emotional attacks of others… obviously a not very peaceful state of existence to say the least. But it doesn’t look or feel like something we inwardly chose to be in. But what if it’s true, that my ego internal choice is constantly choosing to perceive a a state of conflict, so I can blame my lack of peace on someone else, and not realizeI chose it. And thus my desire to get rid of peace for that very purpose. And so what if it’s true, that I’m never feeling un-peaceful or upset for the conscious reason I think, that it’s somebody else’s fault? (See Les. # 5)
The convincing, convicting, and conniving guilt we made-up in our minds is projected (misplaced) onto the body, especially others bodies guilty of what they did to mine. The ‘proof’ lies in all the seeming pains and pleasures of our bodies: the belief that the body is valuable for what it offers (guilt galore!). We made up a universe of time and space with many individual bodies for this purpose. Yes I feel pain or pleasure, but it’s seems to be coming from something external to my personality and my body.We believe our pain comes from what other bodies are doing to us (or even what our own body is doing), but we never admit the pain might be coming from the source of guilt in our mind… thus “the attraction of pain.” The body’s seeming pain in the body keeps us distracted from pain’s real source, the guilt within which was made up to prove our separation from Peace. The body’s seeming pleasure (special love) is simply a set up to place the internal guilt on someone else when the special love eventually fails and seems to now be our source of pain.
And then the most insulting attraction of all… what Jesus calls our “dedication to death.” The internal belief in a spiritual death (the end of ourselves as spirit at one with our Heavenly Father) is now projected onto the death of our bodies with which we identify. It is the ultimate ‘proof’ that we left Heaven’s peace. There is and can be no death in heaven, only eternal Life at one with Itself. However once again, from a body’s point of view, our belief in death does not seem to be our choice nor our fault. We tell ourselves that we were born into bodies that simply die…we didn’t choose to do that… it just happens, or worse we blame it all on God. We believe death is real, but of course we don’t want to believe we are actually attracted to it, much less responsible for making the idea of it up in the first place. Death once again proves we pulled off the impossible, and left Heaven.
Finally, back to the ego’s beginning, the tiny mad idea of separation… We, identifying as a separated self (the ego), convince ourselves that we are now afraid of God. On one level we tell ourselves that He is going to punish us (ultimately with death, then hell) for what we did, i.e. leave Heaven. However on a deeper level, the Course tells us that we are not actually afraid of God’s wrath, but that we’re really afraid He’s not upset at all… because nothing really happened. That means no individual us, no bodies, no nothing… everything we think we are, believe in, and seem to react to, all nothing. Jesus constantly reminds us that we couldn’t and didn’t leave our true Identity in Heaven, even if some part of us seemed to want to. Chapter 13 (p.242, par.1-2) clearly tells us:

“You are not really afraid of crucifixion (we think crucifixion is the payment God demanded of His Son). Your real terror is of redemption.” The Atonement principle says separation didn’t and couldn’t happen. God’s experience of love and oneness in Heaven with His Son, which is our only true Identity, does not include or know any experience of a separated state.

It does all sound like Star Wars: In a time long long ago and in a galaxy far far away, we seemed to step outside of our true reality in Heaven and play around with the ‘tiny mad idea’ of being separate from Heaven’s Peace…in other words we toyed with “our desire to get rid of peace.” This started the ego’s make-believe ballgame of separation rolling… To insure believing we actually did separate and did leave our true state of peace, we then made up the feelings of sin, guilt, and fear…thus feelings which ‘prove’ to ourselves we did a really bad thing and did separate from our Father in Heaven. And then all that awareness was repressed, ‘forgotten,’ and the responsibility for our own lack of peace projected onto something or someone in the world.

It seems like we did this in some distant past, but we would be having a true experience of peace right now, if we were not still putting up theses unacknowledged blocks to our awareness right this moment. We need to work on this because it is happening right now.

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Moving through and undoing (with the HS help) the four obstacles to peace are basically the letting go of believing ego’s story of the unholy trinity in our wrong mind: sin, guilt, and fear, that we told ourselves and accepted as reality:

1. sin (we threw Our True Identity as God’s One Son away),

2. guilt (the made-up pain we feel for doing just that, then projected onto the body and its ultimate death), and

3. fear (consciously of God’s punishment, but really of God’s Love)

So, through the process of forgiveness, we look at and uncover each of these stages (obstacles) and become willing to let each one go, not by ourselves, but with of ‘course’ the help of Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, by our side.

The Way Back:

The ACIM Forgiveness Process

The question that Jesus recommends that we learn to ask of the Holy Spirit, about anything is…”what is it for?”

From the ego’s point of view the purpose of our obstacles to peace are just that… self-chosen obstacles that are kept out of our conscious awareness, so it looks like we are running after and chasing peace, when we really are not… the Course says our self-accepted ego mantra becomes “Seek but do not find.”

The Holy Spirit’s reverse purpose, for the obstacles we made up, is to…

1. look at and acknowledge them

2. see their insanity, and the pain (the cost) for believing in them to maintain a separated identity in something that we’re not, and

3. be willing to ask for His help in seeing beyond those obstacles to the “real world” (an experience that our innocence and our brothers’ innocence is still intact, despite what we think we see and hear…)

The Starting Place

Two of the major themes that Jesus develops throughout this entire section (and especially in the section’s intro and the ‘Lifting of the Veil’ at the end) are that the way we move through and beyond each and every obstacle is…

With the Holy Spirit’s help, to have a Holy Relationship with the Holy Spirit in our minds. This then is reflected in our relationships with all our brothers.

He tells us that the first step in connecting with the Holy Spirit’s help is always to ask ourselves… are we willing to look past our judgements of each other, with His Help, to see the true innocence within? This begins the “Lifting of the Veil” of our belief in sin, guilt, and fear, and is specifically spelled out in the Text on p.421, par.8, line 7:

“But first, lift up your eyes and look on your brother in innocence born of complete forgiveness of his illusions, and through the eyes of faith (the HS) that sees them not.”

With each obstacle to peace, we used our brother’s body, personality, and actions as a scapegoat for our own inner choice to get rid of peace, and then blame our guilt and pain on him. To recognize that, by asking for the Holy Spirit’s help, is the only way back in in letting go of each of these obstacles to peace, these “blocks to the awareness of Love’s presence,” that we ourselves put there and then denied. (see the Course’s Introduction on p.1 in the Text)

Another way Jesus describes as the way to start this process is in the Text, p.441, par.9. He tells us don’t even ask how to see my my brother or myself without a body… but am I willing to see past my judgements and have an experience of his and my guiltlessness, the process of true forgiveness. (Click here for explanation of forgiveness in ACIM.)

Your question should not be, “How can I see my brother without the body?” Ask only, “Do I really wish to see him sinless?”… forget not that his sinlessness is (also) your escape from fear.

The second step in the process is… am I willing to see beyond my own seeming guilt for having thrown Heaven away? The same way I was willing to forgive my brother for what he did not do (cause me pain), am I willing to ask Jesus for help… to let go of believing I left him and my Father in Heaven for something else (a separate identity)? He did not go anywhere. And I simply pretended I did.

What if all that seeming separation is just not true?

Not recognizing that that has been my problem all along… not that I actually did separate from what I/ we truly are, but I only convinced myself I did. And then to ask for help to let that silly belief go “back into the nothingness from which it came.”

And then I begin to realize: that each of the obstacles to my peace of mind that seemed like real obstacles were never there, and were all made up.

For further discussion of the “Obstacles to Peace,” see Ken Wapnick’s CD set or MP3 Download on “Lifting of the Veil”

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**or Ken’s “Journey through the Text,” Volume Three, p.78-92.**

The Pandemic Crises: Recommended Videos on Sickness & Healing thru “A Course in Miracles”

February 14, 2020

Here are a few class replays on dealing with fear and sickness…

**by learning and practicing A Course in Miracles approach to healing and forgiveness, especially in this current milieu of all kinds of sickness and hospitalizations in the US and around the world…**

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goJGFZGKj8U&t=381s

Feeling bummed out?

February 14, 2020

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Feeling a bit out of it, possibly even depressed…?

Check out this video replay of SFACIM’s discussion of depression from a Course point of view:

Where it really comes from… How to move beyond it.

(click here)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BseTHhb9Ga8&t=4043s

Online Course Immersion 2026

February 6, 2020

On Saturdays, January thru May 2026, we are doing the SFACIM Immersion Program…

open only to registered Immersion participants.

For weekly online class information…

click here

Musings: Six Stages of Developing Trust in The Holy Spirit

February 4, 2020

Six Stages (or Steps) on

The Ladder of the Development of Trust

… from The Manual p.9-11

(Start at bottom of this post with #1 “The Undoing”… and then move up the ladder to the top at #6 “Achievement”)

6) Period of Achievement: The Real World…we ‘go Holy Instant’, and stay there. This is what the Manual calls “advanced teachers of God”. This is when the nine other characteristics of God’s Teachers automatically become part of us. We then share our awareness of the sameness of God’s Son with all persons and all things in all situations.

5) Period of Unsettling: Dark night of the soul… Ken says it’s when all hell breaks loose. We begin to realize that our own belief in an ‘individual self’ is still holding back our awakening to our true Self . It is similar to lesson 93, when we realize that we still are holding on to a not-self of “evil, darkness and sin.” We are learning to lay all judgements aside…in every circumstance, even about who we think we are (at this stage, a decision maker who could choose the something else of an ego).

4) Period of Settling Down: Time of “reasonable peace”… we have learned that asking Jesus for help not only hasn’t killed us or even taken anything away, but we are actually feeling pretty good and hopeful, being able to ask for his vision whenever things push our buttons again. It’s the calm before the storm, or the eye of the hurricane.

3) Period of Relinquishment: Giving up what doesn’t work… we are starting to see that things that used to seem valuable to us, like getting the stuff we thought we wanted (special love), and blaming and judging others (special hate) and keeping away what we don’t want, may not really be working for us. But we are not quite ready to give some of that up. So there can be a sense of sacrifice during this time. What we really learn to relinquish is not stuff or certain behaviors, but we simply let go of keeping Jesus and his perception of us and the world out of our awareness.

2) Period of Sorting Out: Learning what’s valuable, what isn’t…by asking Jesus to help us see that we are not upset or temporarily happy for the reason we think. We used to think certain things/people caused us pain or pleasure, and then the inevitable pain when the other shoe dropped. Now we are beginning to see that what only brings us true peace is inviting Jesus into our awareness, to help us look at our misplaced investments (distractions).

1) Period of Undoing: Changing teachers… from the ego’s ladder that goes nowhere (“lookin for luv in all the wrong places”), we get on the ladder of the Holy Spirit that takes us back to the right mind. We ask Jesus for help to be our new teacher.

Recent Replay of Course & Coffee Chat on the six stages of trust:

(click here)

May 2022 SFACIM Retreat : Photos

January 31, 2020

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SFACIM Online Classes

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The Retreat:

Welcome to

“Our Resurrection Together!”

Retreat Schedule:

Friday:

1:00- 4:00 pm… Registration (Pick up your room key and sign in @ Registration Table in “Francis Place” Building in main hallway… across from Aspen Room )

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**2:00pm… Orientation & Opening Meditation in Woodmen Room .**

2:30pm… Discussion of ‘Our Resurrection Together’ on Ken Wapnick’s Chart… & Lifting The Veil in Ch. 19 (Tim)

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3:30pm… Break

3:45-4:45pm… Second Session (Pt. I): Chap. 20 Sec. I “Holy Week” (Dave Dempsey)

4:45pm break

5-545pm … #2nd Session (Pt. II) Ch. 20 Sec II “Gift of Lilies” (Steven)

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6-7:00pm… Dinner in Franciscan Center Cafeteria

7:30-8:30pm… Third Session: Intros (2-3 minutes each person… who you are, where you’re from, and anything you might like to share about your relationship with Jesus and his Course.)

8:30-8:50pm… Silent Meditation

9:00pm till whenever… Social time in Bonzel Room (comfy large living room setting in bottom/ground floor of Marian Hall)

9:00pm- 7:00am… Quiet time on Marian Hall & Francis Place sleeping floors (no talking please in first floor and second floor hallways, and open & close room doors quietly)

Saturday:

7:30-7:50am… Meditation in Woodmen Room

8:00-9:00am… Breakfast

9:15-10:30am… Session One: finish Intros, Ch. 6, Sec. I par 1-9 “Message of Crucifixion” (Becca)

10:30am… Break

10:45am… Session Two: Ch. 6 Sec. I par. 10-18 (Bruce R)

11:45am… Break

12:00-1:00pm… Lunch

1:00-3:15pm… Afternoon breaktime : Take a walk, take a nap, or watch Ken video, or even all three…

2:15-3:15pm… presentation: Ken video in Woodmen on “The Changeless Dwelling Place” (Ch. 29 Sec. VI)

3:20pm… Afternoon meditation in Woodmen

3:30pm… Breakout groups of 6 or 7 people each (see group listings above)

Groups 1 & 2: Woodmen Room… Group 3 : 2nd floor Francis … Group 4: Bonzel Room… Group 5: Ground Floor Kitchen in Marian Hall … Led by 1) Bruce, 2) Bevie, 3) Dave VD, 4) Abe, and 5) Jane

4:30pm… Break

4:45-5:45pm… Session Three: Chap. 22 Sec. I “Message of Holy Relationship” (Chris J.)

6-7pm… Dinner

7:15pm-8:15pm… Group gathering on Ch.11 Sec. VI “Waking to Redemption” (Tim)

8:15pm Meditation

8:45pm till whenever… Social time in Bonzel Room (comfy large living room setting in bottom/ground floor of Marian Hall)

9pm-7am… Quiet time on sleeping floors (no talking in hallways, please try to open and close doors quietly)

Sunday:

7:30-7:50am… Meditation in Woodmen Room

8-9am… Breakfast

9-10am… strip beds, pack up, load your cars, and return keys to office (unless you are staying an extra night or more)

10:00am… last session: Lyn on Helen’s poem “Stranger on The Road” (we will hand out copies of the poem)

11:15am… Closing

12:00pm… Lunch (if you already signed up for this lunch as an extra meal)

*Before coming to the retreat:

Please be sure we understand, or refresh our understanding, of the Metaphysics of Ken Wapnick’s Chart… by watching a couple of our YouTube video presentations on the Chart.

**(Click Here… for videos on Ken’s Chart)**

Francis Place: Building # 40 (on right below)

with Registration/Room-key Table, FRC office & Woodmen Meeting Room

Directions from North or South on I-25

Exit #149 >Woodmen Road
Head WEST on Woodmen (toward the mountains).
Go about 1/3 mile, stay in far right lane.
Look for small white sign that says Mt. St. Francis.
At the intersection of Windchime and Woodmen, you will make a right-hand turn. (E. Woodmen Rd. makes a sharp right turn at light, and becomes W. Woodmen)
Follow Woodmen approx. 3.2 miles and you will see the entrance to Mt. St. Francis on your left.
Enter the grounds and follow the signs to Franciscan Retreat Center or Francis Place.
You will stay straight and make no turns once on the property. Road takes you directly into Franciscan Center parking lot. Franciscan Center Office is in Francis Place building #40 (picture above), the building on the right…

Retreat Attendees & Room #’s

* Room keys should be on little table in lobby, just inside Front door of Francis Place Building #40.

** Fill out any requested forms on table, including your license plate number.

*** If you are staying in Marian Hall there is a door code on your room key to access either of two entrance doors (west and east sides of building) to Marian Hall. West entrance (mountains side) is on first floor, east entrance is on ground floor (basement floor).

If you are arriving earlier than 5/20, and you do not see a key table, check with office in Francis Place.

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Please unload your luggage and then park in parking lot north-west of Marian Hall, and not in parking lot in front of Francis Place. Follow the road around to the right of Marian Hall (heading toward the mountains), parking lot is just beyond the Marian building.

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Be sure to bring your room key with you when you leave your room, especially those sharing a bathroom with another room next to theirs…. your bedroom door automatically locks when you close it behind you, unless you purposefully unlock it yourself before you go out. Otherwise you will have to call the office or the maintenance man on the hallway phone to get back in.

Rooms sharing a bathroom with the next door room are… 13 and 14, 21 and 23, 25 and 26, 33 and 35.

There is a $20 charge for a lost room key.

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Please keep your bathroom door closed when taking a shower… or you may set off the fire alarm and get an unexpected visit by a group of firemen (ask Duke). If it’s warm enough outside, you may want to open your bathroom window a little to vent any steam build-up in bathroom.*

(Marian Hall above, adjacent to the right of Francis Place)

All class sessions & meditations are in the large Woodmen Mtg Room, just inside to the right in Francis Place Bldg #40.

The Bonzel Large Living Room on Ground floor of Marian Hall is open for socializing around the clock.

If you are staying in Francis Place, ask someone staying in Marian Hall for access code to Marian Hall door to gain access to Bonzel Room & small kitchen in Marian. (code used to be something simple, like 1234)

** More than a third of the retreat attendees have been here before, so ask around for help and explore the grounds when you arrive.

Retreat meals are served buffet style.

All five retreat meals are served buffet style in the FRC Cafeteria. (north side of St. Clare Convent in expanded picture of Franciscan Property below.) Retreat meals include Friday dinner, Sat. all 3 meals, and Sunday breakfast.

*Please do not eat the food labeled gluten-free or vegetarian on the buffet … unless you already have signed up for either of those two before April 3oth.

All those who did sign up for gluten free or vegetarian… are welcome to eat anything else they can on the buffet line.

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Cold Storage for Food You Bring…

There is also a small kitchen (for our use, with sink and refrigerator, and coffee & tea machine) available next to Bonzel Room on the ground floor of Marian Hall.

And there is also a large refrigerator available in our Woodmen meeting room. It is recommended that you label any refrigerator items with your name, date and room #.

Free bottled water, sodas, juice, even Yoohoo…will be available in Woodmen fridge during retreat.

Click on picture of Franciscan Property above to expand…

(click twice to really blow it up even more)

Look for Franciscan Center (retreat center) on upper left side.

FRC Cafeteria (black area) is just above St. Clare Convent bldg.

The Text of ACIM Class Replay Series: 195 video class replays on Chap. 1 thru 31

January 29, 2020

The ***School for* *ACIM***

195 Class Replays on

The Entire Text,

section-by-section.

(each class is approx. 75-90 minutes) :

Classes on The ACIM Text:

Hello Course Students around The World!

Our series on the Text of ACIM has been a daunting task, for us and the Course students who participated during the pandemic … not so much because of the amount of material contained in the Text’s 600 plus pages. It is indeed a handful, but working thru the Text of ACIM also brings up and challenges our reluctance and resistance to actually hearing what Jesus is telling us.

As ‘healthy’ egos believing we are bodies (vulnerable to other bodies like people and viruses), we don’t want to be told nothing we see means anything (WB. Les. 1)… and the world, and all the blame we are laying on it is not what we are really upset about. (“There is no world!” from WB Les. 132).

But from Jesus point of view that is good news for all of us, because that means that all the blame and judgments with which we are so indulged and preoccupied… is indeed all made up and unnecessary as the One Innocent Son of God that we still truly are.

So Jesus walks us gently but thoroughly through the process of letting go of the pain and blame that supports our belief in a separated identity, separate from him and our Father in Heaven. He helps us let those insistent silly beliefs go.

Jesus respects our fear of him and his message, yet he lays down a spiritual roadmap and offers us a way out, a journey out of our chosen misery and seeming isolation… if and when we are ready to take that gentle journey back with him (see Chapter 8: “The Journey Back”).

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**The link for the list of 195 Video Class Replays on The Text (about 75 minutes each) will be sent to those who are… currently donating monthly any amount of $30 or more.**

Also the SFACIM will include the links for hundreds of other class replays including:

Classes on Many ACIM Topics like Peace of Mind, Forgiveness, Atonement, and Healing
Classes on all The Workbook Lessons
The Series on “Dealing with Anger, Resentments & Grievances”
“The Back-to-Basics” Series for Beginners
and more added every week…

Please click here to donate.

Example of Text Discussions, Chap. 1 Sec. I

“The 50 Miracle Principles” :

Overview of Text Chapters:

Preface: written after completion of Course, with the “What It Says” third section specifically written by Jesus (the first two preface sections are by Helen Schucman herself).

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Chapters 1-4: Basically a conversation between Helen and Jesus (with material edited out personal to Helen & Bill):

Chap. 1: The Meaning of Miracles…Introduction to the main Course themes that will be developed throughout the Text

Chap. 2: Separation & Atonement… Basic metaphysics of Chart (also addresses Helen’s and our own fear and resistance to Jesus & his Course)

Chap. 3: Innocent Perception… Basic definitions of terms used in Course

Chap. 4: Illusions of the Ego… Exploring what ego is and Jesus role in that exploration.

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First major shift in writing with Ch. 5, Sec. V (on guilt), from basically a dialogue with Helen in the first four and a half chapters, to Jesus dictating the rest of Text from this point on:

Chap. 5: Healing & Wholeness… Exploring who/what is the Holy Spirit & how He helps us with our recognizing and letting go of guilt.

Chap. 6: Lessons of Love… First discussion of anger, Four HS lessons (steps) to return to Heaven.

Chap. 7: Gifts of Kingdom… Heaven & Healing

Chap. 8: Journey Back… “Singing” Jesus

Chap. 9: Acceptance of Atonement… First discussion of forgiveness

Chap.10: Idols of Sickness… on Biblical 1^st & 2^nd commandments (shortest chap.)

Chap.11: God or Ego… our ‘authority problem’

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Next major shift in writing… with more intense emphasis on process of looking at ego’s made-up insanity:

Ch.12: HS Curriculum… realizing the ego’s central teaching: that love is dangerous

Ch.13: Guiltless World.. full blown exposé on our internal unrecognized guilt (longest chap.)

Ch.14: Teaching for Truth… the proverbial ‘calm before the storm’ chapter, before the following three chapters (15-16-17) on special relationships… Chap. 14 includes sections on two major Course themes: the “What is a Happy Learner” and “Our Call for Help/ Our Call for Love “

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Ch. 15, 16, 17… on Special Relationships

Ch. 18… on Our Dream “Life”

Ch.19… Our Own Four Obstacles to Peace

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Ch.20, 21, 22… Second “calm before the storm” (with three chapters on Vision, Reason, and Salvation in The Holy Relationship)… before The Laws of Chaos & Specialness (starting in Chap. 23):

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Ch.23… (Laws of Chaos) Ken Wapnick calls this the “toughest” chapter in the Text, with very little reprieve in it… how way we methodically deceive ourselves into believing in separation.

Ch. 24… The Goal of Specialness, extended description of the “Substitute for Love” in the fifth Law of Chaos.

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Ch. 25-26… Third and final ‘calm’ (a breather), on equal justice for all of God’s one Son, how to move from injustice to real justice (is life really not fair?)… before the last part of the Text.

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Ch. 27-28… more on Dreams: the dreaming of the world and its underlying horrific “secret dream” of the wrong mind.

Ch. 29-30… In-depth discussion of the ego’s idols… and and the steps or ‘rules’ on how to move past those idols (the seven rules for decision-making in Ch. 30).

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Ch. 31… The capstone of the Text : all the themes of the Course are brought together, coalescing in this last great movement of the Course’s grand symphony.

Musings… “The Real World” vs “The Fake World”

January 7, 2020

The Real World…

A Course in Miracles uses the phrase “real world” about a hundred times. It also refers to the experience of the real world with other descriptive terms like… the world of holiness, the redeemed or saved world, and the happy world. How is the real world different than the regular world we perceive and seem to live in?

The Course also says in many places that it is our mission to save the world (it talks about the world more than two thousand times). Even though at the same time it says that the world we see doesn’t really exist…. so why save it?

There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth. (Les. 132, par.6)

There is no world because it is a thought apart from God, and made to separate the Father and the Son, and break away a part of God Himself and thus destroy His Wholeness. Can a world which comes from this idea be real? (Les. 132, par.13)

So what’s going on? How do we get from this world to the real world?

The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real. Perhaps you think you did not make the world, but came unwillingly to what was made already, hardly waiting for your thoughts to give it meaning. Yet in truth you found exactly what you looked for when you came. (Les. 132, par.4)

Yet forgiveness is the means by which I will recognize my innocence. It is the reflection of God’s Love on earth… As I begin to see, I recognize His reflection on earth. I forgive all things because I feel the stirring of His strength in me… How safe the world will look to me when I can see it! It will not look anything like what I imagine I see now. (Les.60)

We examine these questions and ideas… and we will use Workbook Review Lessons #51 to 60 to shed light on this process of waking up to a new world… the real world:

The Real World vs The ‘Fake’ World 2/27/20

February 27, 2020

Tim discusses the nature of the real world, its purpose , and how to see it.

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SFACIM Online 2/29 Class:

“Sickness, Disease, & Disasters”

from an ACIM Point of View

Facing Viruses, Death, and Even The Elections…

with Jesus and The Holy Spirit

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For Video Replay: click here

“No pain, no gain… Really?”

January 7, 2020

What is pain? What’s it for?

Did God really do this to us?

Watching the news last night really brought home to me how much relentless pain the planet seems to be in… both here, and abroad.

And then there is our own personal pain: physical, emotional, psychological… sometimes in spurts, at times chronic… sometimes mild, sometimes horrific.

Is it possible to somehow transcend all this stuff, and move beyond it into our true being and into a higher awareness, without being uncompassionate, uncaring, and disconnected?

A Course in Miracles discusses pain throughout the entire book, using words like suffering and pain more than 600 times. Two sections, that spend a lot of time looking at pain and its purpose, are “The (Our) Attraction to Pain” in Chapter 19, and Lessons 190, 193, 194, & 195 in the Workbook.

One of the most humiliating (to our egos anyway) and sometimes downright infuriating things that Jesus tells us about pain is this… It’s not that we don’t like pain or try to avoid it, but we are actually attracted to it. Really?

It gets worse… He continues with statements like: “In your suffering of any kind, you see your own concealed desire to kill.” (Text, p.659, par.15)

Ok, wait… back up…if that’s even possibly true: what, how… why ??

From Jesus point of view, pain is the great and grand witness to our supposed separation from Our Father. It screams our separated selves are real, and proves it by loudly proclaiming “I’m real, I exist, because look how much pain I’m in!”

(First off, don’t be a martyr. Even Mother Teresa said, if you’re in pain, take your medicine if you wish to. Jesus concurs. If you have a headache, or whatever, take an aspirin, take a walk, or do what makes you feel better. It would be silly not to.)

Unconscious pain permeates all three parts of our make-believe “Disconnect from Heaven” story of sin, guilt, and fear… each component of that saga can at least be described as incredibly painful.. the separation from Source (sin), the feeling of awfulness (guilt), and the sweat of terror of impending doom (fear).

**[Click here for the Course story of how we believe we got here, into the world as bodies.]**

But what if the pain was simply made up to reinforce the seeming reality of the story. We are God’s Son after all, and our cosmic make-believe might not only seem actually real, but so real that we even convinced ourselves to believe it… especially by adding the element of pain to the drama…

“If God is real, there is no pain. If pain is real , there is no God.”

(WB#190, par. 3)

Ok, ok… we sorta get the metaphysics, but what do we do now? How do we start to ‘undo’ this whole thing?

When I began working the lessons way back when, I realized one of my problems was… I didn’t consciously believe any of the Lesson titles. For example take one of the the first in-your-face lessons, WB #5 … “I am never upset for the reason I think.” Not maybe, not sometimes, but never.

Seriously? I’m always upset for the reason I think… that’s why I’m upset in the first place. I wouldn’t be upset if it were not for… ok, whatever. At least I can admit that’s what I believe. But, like Byron Katie always says in her sessions with others… “Is that true?”

So to start, I put a what if in front of the lesson (and actually all Lesson titles)… What if I’m not upset for the reason I think? Am I even a little willing to go there? Some part of me says yes. That at least opens the door for me to look at maybe another possibility.

So, what then might be the real reason I’m upset? This is when we/I definitely need to ask Jesus for help to be able to ‘see outside the box.’ My ego experience has always locked me in to blaming others for my pain… sometime myself or my own behavior, but mostly others.

What if I’m upset, in pain, feeling terrible physically or psychologically… simply because I’ve dropped Jesus hand, left my Father in Heaven, and am pretending I’m this separated thing that can feel pain and eventually die? And I’m blaming something or somebody else for the pain I see and feel.

Would I even be willing to entertain the possibility that I made this up?

Another reason we really need Jesus or the Holy Spirit’s help when looking at this is… not only do we not believe it, but it’s really ego-easy to begin beating ourselves up if we did choose something this stupid…. Now I’m not only in pain, plus now I’m blaming myself for creating this mess in the first place… a double whammy ! I hear myself begin the ego litany… “Bad Course student, bad… !”

But then, if I’m willing to listen to another voice, and change ‘course,’ I feel Jesus gently saying to me…

Stop… stop. Look at me; talk to me. Sit with me for a while… let me help you experience something else, something wonderful. I love you. Softly, listen… you are not this separated-alone-self in pain. You and I are connected… to each other, and to everyone else. We always are, we always will be. Be willing to feel this… God is loving us now!

Suddenly, as if someone threw a switch, I’m in a lot less pain, and I’m not as crazed as I was a moment before…