School for A Course In Miracles

"The universe of learning will open up before you."

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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The Ego Pandemic in Our Mind … and The ‘Vaccine’ : Forgiveness

A Forgiveness Refresher:

The Functional Solution to

The Belief in Virus, Disaster & Death in Our Mind

(click arrow below for replay of podcast)

Forgiveness: The Antidote for All Belief in Sickness 

March 5, 2020

Tim uses Lessons #61-66 to describe how we use forgiveness to save the world from our own judgment & condemnation.

A Course in Miracles points out over and over how all sickness and disease and death in the world is simply a reflection of our own internal belief in separation from God. (It takes about two minutes into the recording to get past the background noise.)

Like Download

 

 

“The Real Virus:”

In this post we have replaced the word “problem” in Lesson 79 with the specific problem/issue of “sickness,” to present how the Course approaches all sickness in the world (including the coronavirus) as a reflection of the one and only perceived sickness in our mind: our belief in separation from Our Father in Heaven.

————————————–

“A Course in Miracles” Workbook Lesson 79 (p.141):

“Let me recognize the sickness (of belief in separation in my mind) so it can be healed.”

A sickness cannot be healed if you do not know what it is. Even if it is really healed already you will still have the (original and only) sickness, because you will not recognize that it has been healed. This is the situation of the world. The sickness of (belief in) separation, which is really the only sickness, has already been healed. Yet the healing is not recognized because the sickness is not recognized.

Everyone in this world seems to have his own special form of illness(es). Yet they are all the same, and must be recognized as one if the one solution that heals them all is to be accepted. Who can see that a sickness has been healed if he thinks the sickness is something else? Even if he is given the answer, he cannot see its relevance.

 

 

That is the position in which you find yourself now. You have the answer, but you are still uncertain about what the (real) sickness is. A long series of different sicknesses seem to confront you, and as one is settled the next one and the next arise. There seems to be no end to them. There is no time in which you feel completely free of some kind of illness and at peace.

The temptation to regard sicknesses as many is the temptation to keep the sickness of separation unsolved. The world seems to present you with a vast number of illnesses, each requiring a different answer. This perception places you in a position in which your healing of sickness must be inadequate, and failure is inevitable. (Just believing we are a body, healthy or not, is sick, projected from the unhealthy but made-up belief in our mind that we are separated from Our Father in Heaven.)

No one could solve all the sickness the world appears to hold. They seem to be on so many levels, in such varying forms and with such varied content, that they confront you with an impossible situation. Dismay and depression are inevitable as you regard them. Some spring up unexpectedly, just as you think you have resolved the previous ones. Others remain unsolved under a cloud of denial, and rise to haunt you from time to time, only to be hidden again but still unsolved.

 

 

All this complexity is but a desperate attempt not to recognize the (real and only) sickness (believing we are separate minds, projected onto separate  bodies, healthy or not), and therefore not to let it be resolved. If you could recognize that your only sickness is separation (in the mind), no matter what form it takes (as healthy bodies or sick bodies), you could accept the answer because you would see its relevance. Perceiving the underlying constancy in all the sicknesses that seem to confront you, you would understand that you have the means to solve them all. And you would use the means, because you recognize the problem.

In our longer practice periods today we will ask what the (real) sickness is, and what is the answer to it. We will not assume that we already know. We will try to free our minds of all the many different kinds of ’sick’ we think we have. We will try to realize that we have only one sickness, which we have failed to recognize. We will ask what it is, and wait for the answer. We will be told. Then we will ask for the solution to it. And we will be told.

The exercises for today will be successful to the extent to which you do not insist on defining the sickness. Perhaps you will not succeed in letting all your preconceived notions go, but that is not necessary. All that is necessary is to entertain some doubt about the reality of your version of what your sicknesses are. You are trying to recognize that you have been given the answer by recognizing the problem (in the mind), so that the problem and the answer (the Holy Spirit tells us the our belief in separation is silly) can be brought together and you can be at peace.

The shorter practice periods for today will not be set by time, but by need. You will see many forms of sickness today, each one calling for an answer. Our efforts will be directed toward recognizing that there is only one sickness (belief in the ego) and one healing (The Holy Spirit). In this recognition are all sicknesses resolved. In this recognition there is peace.

 

 

Be not deceived by the form of sickness today. Whenever any forms of sickness seem to rise, tell yourself quickly:

Let me recognize the only sickness is in my mind so it can be healed.

Then try to suspend all judgment about what sickness is. If possible, close your eyes for a moment and ask what it is. You will be heard and you will be answered.

Video replay on dealing with CORONAVIRUS & OTHER DISASTERS…

For a two disc CD seminar or MP3 download

on sickness & healing,

see Ken Wapnick’s

“The Kindness of Healing”…

The Kindness of Healing [CD]

click here

SFACIM Online Course Meetings

… almost every day!

To help get us thru the “crazies,” in these current times…

click here

Musings: The Four Obstacles to My Peace of Mind

 

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)

————————

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:

  1. 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)
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.

—————————

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” 

————-

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

 

Musings: Six Stages of Developing Trust in The Holy Spirit

IMG_1611

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)

“No pain, no gain… Really?”

 

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…

Jesus doesn’t tell me ‘no pain, no gain’…. he simply says ‘no pain… no pain.‘

 

 

For further discussion of pain and specifically the line from Lesson #190,

“Peace to Such Foolishness,” on Ken Wapnick’s CD set or MP3 download: click here.

 

Helen Schucman & Bill Thetford Speak… hear the recorded voices of the two scribes of “A Course in Miracles!”

 

 

Helen Schucman

 

Only known public recording of…

Helen Schucman speaking

(in a 15 min. radio interview)

 

 

Helen Schucman’s Autobiography on ACIM.org:

(click here)

Although the scribing itself was relatively effortless, it did engender tremendous anxiety in Helen, though less in Bill. As Helen wrote:

“It made me very uncomfortable, but it never seriously occurred to me to stop. It seemed to be a special assignment I had somehow, somewhere agreed to complete. It represented a truly collaborative venture between Bill and myself, and much of its significance, I am sure, lies in that. I could neither account for nor reconcile my obviously inconsistent attitudes. On the one hand I still regarded myself as officially an agnostic, resented the material I was taking down, and was strongly impelled to attack it and prove it wrong. On the other hand I spent considerable time in taking it down and later in dictating it to Bill, so it was apparent that I took it quite seriously. I actually came to refer to it as my life’s work. As Bill pointed out, I must believe in it if only because I argued with it so much. While this was true, it did not help me. I was in the impossible position of not believing my own life’s work. The situation was clearly ridiculous as well as painful.”

 

 

Bill Thetford

 

 

 

 

 Bill Thetford Talks About…

His Life & A Course in Miracles:

Part One:

Part Three

Bill Thetford’s Autobiography on ACIM.org:

(click here)

As to the impact of A Course in Miracles on Bill, he said:

“It changed my life totally. I recall typing the first fifty principles on miracles that came through Helen in the Fall of 1965, and realized that if this material was true then absolutely everything I believed would have to be challenged—that I would have to reconstruct my whole belief system. At the time, however, I thought that would be impossible; I didn’t know how I could do it. Yet I felt that was a requirement, since the material that came through Helen in the beginning phase seemed so authentic and genuine. I went into shock for a brief period, wondering how it would be possible to make such an abrupt change in my perception of life and the world. Later I realized that God is merciful, and does not ask us to make changes so abruptly, that there would be adequate time to gradually begin to shift my perception. I think what was important was my willingness to change, not mastery of the material.”

 

 

 

 

Ken Wapnick talks about Helen’s own Course process on Youtube

(click here)

(10 min.)

 

PBS “Visionaries” Documentary:

  (with Sam Waterston) 

Helen and the Course:

(click here)

 

Ken & Gloria Early Days

@ Roscoe, N.Y.

(click here)

 

One Hour Video Introduction to…

“A Course in Miracles”

by the School for A Course in Miracles

with a little history and a brief explanation of the Course’s metaphysics and its unique version of forgiveness …

(click here)

 

Six Month Online Course Immersion Program,

January- June 2022

(click here)

(Please, never let lack of funds be a deterrent in taking any of the SFACIM classes or events listed… give Tim a call @ 720-391-9294, leave a voicemail, and he will get back to you ASAP. We always try to work something out. We want you to be there!)

Autobiographical Book Release From Ken Wapnick’s Writings: “Symphony of Love”

The Temecula Foundation has released an autobiographical book from Dr. Kenneth Wapnick’s writings called a “Symphony of Love.”

Excerpt from Intro by Gloria Wapnick: The book begins with two very powerful unpublished autobiographies, My Life with God and My Life with Jesus. The first, My Life with God, Kenneth wrote at the request of Helen Schucman, who urged him to do that project in 1973. The second, My Life with Jesus, was done mostly after we moved to Temecula in 2001, since people kept asking for one…

Click here for more info and how to order

Healing: What It Is… What It Isn’t

Welcome to The School for A Course in Miracles…

 

 

 

Weekly Online Classes… 

(click here)

Online:

Six Month In-depth Immersion Program

on The Healing & Forgiveness Processes 

in the book “A Course in Miracles”…

 

Online January thru June Every Year

(open to all, especially those recently drawn to A Course in Miracles)

For info: click here

School for A Course in Miracles:

Video Replays on The Topic of Healing …

(click here)

 

 

A Course in Miracles - combined volume - hardbound - English

In Chapter 21, Sec. II of the book “A Course in Miracles,”

Jesus tells us that:

I am responsible for what I see.
I choose the feelings I experience, and I decide upon the goal I would achieve.
And everything that seems to happen to me I ask for, and receive as I have asked.

 

Could that possibly be true?

What if ACIM Workbook Lesson 198 states what is actually going on?

‘Only my condemnation (of others and myself) injures  me.’

 

What healing is…

What healing isn’t?

What does the Course mean by the healing of my mind?

 

(by Tim Wise)

The book A Course in Miracles uses the words heal/healer/healing more than 725 times… only about 100 times less than forgive/forgiveness/forgiven (835). How are forgiveness and healing related in the Course? How are they the same? How are they different?

Early on in my beginning exposure to the Course, the list of Course words associated with a transcendent experience of holiness (ie, guiltlessness) began to grow and grow… a miracle, forgiveness, healing, reason, a holy instant, true perception, Atonement, the face of Christ, etc.

It took me a while to realize that in content they all basically meant the same thing. That freed me to not get so bogged down in sometimes subtle differences, depending on how Jesus was using the words. One of the places in the Course where Jesus explicitly points out their sameness is in the Manual p.55 on “How are healing and Atonement related?”

 Healing and Atonement are not related; they are identical. There is no order of difficulty in miracles because there are no degrees of Atonement. It is the one complete concept possible in this world, because it is the source of a wholly unified (true) perception…

 … To forgive is to heal. The teacher of God has taken accepting the Atonement for himself as his only function. What is there, then, he cannot heal? What miracle can be withheld from him?

… That forgiveness is healing needs to be understood, if the teacher of God is to make progress.

Manual p.85, par. 3:

For true perception is a remedy with many names. Forgiveness, salvation, Atonement, true perception, all are one. They are the one beginning, with the end to lead to Oneness far beyond themselves.

 

 

 

 

So…  healing= forgiveness= Atonement= a miracle= true perception !

Ok then, what is their shared meaning? That answer lies in a closer look at what and where the “only” problem is, and what and where the one and only solution is. Workbook Lessons 79 & 80 are emphatic and uncompromising that our only problem (in spite of all our seeming issues in the world) is our belief in our mind  in separation from Our Father in Heaven, which never really happened. The healing of that belief is our forgiving (i.e. admitting and letting go) of that belief. Our awakening in true perception that separation is impossible and our real identity as God’s One Son is still intact… that’s the definition of  Atonement in the Course.

Another similar helpful realization is that all the words, associated with an ego-based wrong-minded experience in our mind, are also the same in content, and could be used interchangeably… sin, guilt, fear, anger, wrong perception, sickness, death, separation, grievances and judgement… all mean the same thing, all stem our belief that sin/ guilt/ fear and separation from Our Father are even possible.

The mistake or common problem we all have is we take this condition of sin and guilt in our mind and project that onto the world of bodies. Now we think sin and guilt are alive and “well,” but it’s not in us (not in our minds)… it’s in the other guy. He’s the one that’s to blame now; he’s the guilty party. And in time and space he may well be guilty of doing not very nice things… but that ‘s not our real issue.

Our brother’s seeming guilt is just a projection and distraction from the sickness and guilt in our own mind for having pushed God out of our own awareness. And that’s where, in the internal place the Course calls the mind, the only remedy or healing can take place for us.

(1) We start with our perception of our brother’s guilt, (2) honestly admit to ourselves that is what we think (that he is to blame for our lack of peace), and then (3) be willing to have Jesus show me my brother’s sin in the world is simply an outward picture of my own inner condition, i.e. belief in my own guilt.  Jesus will help me then experience that my brothers’ seeming sins and my own have had no effect on our one true innocent identity. Jesus still loves us… he didn’t go anywhere. We are still God’s One Innocent Son.

 

 

Lesson 325

All things I think I see reflect ideas.

This is salvation’s keynote: What I see reflects a process in my mind, which starts with my idea of what I want (the tiny mad idea of sin and separation). From there, the mind makes up an image of the thing the mind desires (to see I am guilty of separation), judges valuable, and therefore seeks to find. These images are then projected outward (the guilt is now in others, not me), looked upon, esteemed as real and guarded as one’s own. From insane wishes comes an insane world (the world we see was made as an attack on God and on our Identity as His Son). From judgment (of ourselves as guilty) comes a world condemned (others are now guilty). And from forgiving thoughts a gentle world (the real world) comes forth, with mercy for the holy Son of God (and not condemnation), to offer him a kindly home where he can rest a while before he journeys on, and help his brothers walk ahead with him, and find the way to Heaven and to God.

What healing in the Course isn’t…

In light of what we said above that the only sickness is in the mind is due to our belief in separation from God, then the solution for that ‘sick’ belief is the Holy Spirit helping us to acknowledge and let go our chosen belief in that separation .

So how do we then deal with sickness, disease, broken limbs, or anything in the body. Do we take our vitamins, or exercise, or should we do any of the stuff we do to keep our bodies healthy?

One way of looking at our bodies is to see them as reflections of the choice between the two inner teachers (ego or Holy Spirit) in our mind. In that sense our bodies are simply puppets of which puppeteer (teacher/guide) in our mind we have chosen. When we choose the voice of separation (ego), we identify and see our made up separated selves as bodies (in which the ego puppeteer actually believes he is the puppet). Just believing we are a separate body moving in a world of separation is the “sick” or psychotic belief…  whether the body seems to be healthy or not. Sickness in the Course has nothing to do with the condition of the body. The sickness is that we believe we are a body… period! 

Can you imagine going to a puppet show and you realize the puppeteer believes he actually is his puppet! That would probably make us all pretty nervous.

At the mind level, remember the real healing is simply letting go of believing we separated from God and are now vulnerable bodies at the mercy of others. That was the ego’s purpose for believing it’s a body in the first place. We maintain the seeming separation, but the pain we feel (the horror of separating from Our Father) is now blamed on something or someone else. The real source of pain, of belief in separation in the mind, is forgotten and projected out onto others.

So… that projection could be on a person who harmed me, or a germ that made me sick. Whatever it was, the ego says I didn’t do it…I didn’t choose this pain, but it was done to me.

 

Just below the surface of any physical or psychological pain we are feeling, there is always a ‘face’… some one or some thing we are pointing a finger at… and we are saying to them it’s all your fault. However, it is simply our constant ego need to blame others for the pain from our own internal choice to be separate from God and each other. We still feel the pain of that belief in separation (the pain is a way to prove to ourselves we really separated). But now we blame the pain on something outside our minds… on the world with all its other bodies, and then judge them as the culprit. They are responsible for my pain, not me. That’s the lie we tell ourselves…

 

So back to exercise or vitamins or bodies staying healthy…

Jesus tells us that the question we need to ask of anything is what’s it really for? What’s my body’s purpose?

 

If our bodies are puppets or reflections of our mind’s chosen inner guide (ego or HS), then the question should not be… do I want an intact healthy puppet or a broken sick puppet to communicate with other puppets. The truly helpful question would be…  what do I want to communicate: what is my body’s purpose? Is it to convey the message of the ego and tell others the pain of my separation is their fault? Or is it the Holy Spirit message (from Les. #201-220): we are not bodies (puppets), we are free, and we are still as God created us.

Either a seemingly healthy puppet, or a seemingly sick puppet, can and will work to communicate either message. The choice is which purpose, which message do I want to share (peace or blame) with my brothers… and not what shape my puppet’s in.

Our bodies are simply communication devices. Do we want them operating properly? Jesus doesn’t care about bodies; it’s our mind he’s concerned about. If we think a healthy puppet helps us carry the HS message in our awareness to others and ourselves, then why not take the vitamins. If our puppets function better with exercise, then exercise if we want to. Respect our bodies/our puppets as classrooms to help others and ourselves wake up. Just try not to take the puppet’s make-believe ‘health,’ or lack of, too seriously.

Remember… our peace of mind does not depend, and will never depend, on our body’s apparent condition…

but, in any given moment, only on our internal choice of teachers.

Excerpts from Lesson 132:

I loose the world (and my body) from all I thought it was.

The world (and the body) is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes (our choice to believe in separation and guilt), acted out so you can look on them (our wishes) and think them real. Perhaps you think you did not make the world (or your body), 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.

Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world (including the way we see our body) must change accordingly. Ideas leave not their source (in the mind). 

There is no world! (There is no body!)

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.

—————————————–

In summary then, what is healing in the Course? Forgiveness..

What isn’t healing in the Course? Healing is never about healing of the body… but only our mind.

Healing References in The Course:

A Course in Miracles - combined volume - hardbound - English

Healing is mentioned in seven of the first 50 miracle principles at the beginning of the Text, p.3-5   (# 8, 17, 20, 23, 24,29, 37).

Two Chapter titles include “healing” … Chap. 5 (Healing and Wholeness) and Chap. 27 (Healing of The Dream).

 

Twelve Section titles in the Text contain ‘healing”:

Ch. 2. IV. Healing as Release from Fear

Ch. 5. IV. Teaching and Healing

Ch. 7. IV. Healing as Recognition of Truth

Ch. 7. V. Healing and Changelessness

Ch. 8. IX. Healing as Corrected Perception

Ch. 9. V. The Unhealed Healer

Ch. 11. II. Invitation to Healing

Ch. 17 V. The Healed Relationship

Ch. 19 I. Healing and Faith

Ch. 26 VII. The Laws of Healing

Ch. 27 II. The Fear of Healing

Ch. 27. V. The Healing Example

 

 

Workbook

Lesson 136. Sickness is a defense against the truth

Lesson 137. When I am healed I am not healed alone

Lesson 140. Only salvation can be said to cure

 

Manual 

5. How is healing accomplished?

6. Is healing certain?

7. Should healing be repeated?

22. How are healing and Atonement related?

23. Does Jesus have a special place in healing?

 

 

Psychotherapy

  1. The Process of Psychotherapy – III. 3-4; V. 4-8; VII. 4, 7; VIII. 1-3

 

 

Song of Prayer

S3.in

S3.III.4-6

 

Here’s a link to Ken Wapnick CD sets and books on “Healing.”   

click here

SFACIM Video on “Hurting Ourselves”  Part One:

Click here

SFACIM Video on “Hurting Ourselves” Part Two:

Click Here

 

The Gifts of God Prose Poem

The Gifts of God Prose Poem was the last of dictated messages to Helen Schucman from Jesus. It is contained at the end of a collection of poetry by Helen, also called by the same title,

The Gifts of God.

(click here to purchase)

The year was 1978. The Course had already been taken down by Helen Schucman and was published. The two Course pamphlets (Psychotherapy & Song of Prayer) were also already scribed, between 1975 and 1977.

It was a cold, snowy February weekend  in New York City… and Ken Wapnick was scheduled to head out of the Big Apple on a train for a couple days, to a Catholic center (about 30 miles north) to do some counseling work. Helen was terrified that Ken would be hurt, or worse, in an impending snowstorm. She had already talked him out of going the previous weekend for the same reason, and Ken dutifully said that this time he had to go, and he did. Helen had herself so worked-up about it, that her conscious fear became over-the-top and out of control. Later, by 3am in the middle of the night, she decided to finally talk to Jesus about it.

What then developed, over a three month period thru April of ’78, were Jesus messages to help her walk thru…  not the distracting conscious fear about Ken’s safety, but the real underlying fear (hers and ours) of simply letting go of separation and being with Jesus. These messages were collectively put together in what today is known as the Gifts of God Prose Poem.

The best description of this process, and a great discussion by Ken Wapnick on the contents of this piece, is Ken’s ten CD set/MP3 download:

“The Gift of the Ego (Fear) vs The Gift of God (Love)”  

Click here for info.

The Gifts of God Prose Poem contains five sections (on 14 pages):

  1. The Dream of Fear
  2. The Two Gifts
  3. The Ending of The Dream
  4. Our Gift to God
  5. The Father’s Love

 

The Prose Poem is a beautifully written synopsis of the entire Course,  with all its verses in Shakespearean iambic pentameter. For best understanding, it is recommended and helpful to have some clear previous study of the Course’s basic metaphysics, prior to reading and applying the poem’s teachings to our lives.

However The Gifts of God Prose Poem is an insightful capstone to the Course itself, and resonates with all Course students as an incredible addendum that wonderfully crowns A Course in Miracles.

 

 

Also, for a complete discussion of the entire Prose Poem by the School for ACIM, visit the SFACIM’s replay series on this amazing literary work of art…

and the expression of Jesus’ love for us in it:

click here

 

Time, Time, Time… What is My Real Purpose for This New Year ?

 

 

(by Tim Wise)

Songs & Movies about Time:

Many great songs have been sung about ‘time’…

  • “Time, time, time…see what’s become of me….” Simon & Garfunkel Hazy Shade of Winter
  • “Does anybody really know what time it is, does anybody really care?”… Chicago
  • “If you’re lost you can look, and you will find me… Time after Time“… Cyndi Lauper
  • “There is a season (turn, turn, turn), and a time to every purpose, under heaven”… Byrds

 

Oprah a while back put out the movie A Wrinkle in Time. It joins a list of more than a hundred movies with “Time” in the title, many in which the characters seem to step outside of time, somehow control it, and/or jump around in it.

Some of the more memorable ones are: Somewhere in Time, Out of Time, A Time to Kill, The Time Machine, and my favorite… Time Bandits.  And there are dozens more about time without time in the title, including: Deja Vu, Groundhog Day, and even the Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life.

 

 

Time holds an incredible fascination and investment for all of us, and we hear it resound every time we wish each other a “Happy New Year.” It’s a greeting that conveys our hopefulness for a new time, a year that’s soon coming that will preferably be better than previous years.

Ken Wapnick said that of all the many topics that Course students ask him to discuss, the subject of time was inquired about more than all the others.

 

 

The Course says the only question we should ever ask about anything is… “What is it for?” What is its purpose? And there’s only two possible answers. At the level of the mind, is it to help support the ego thought system of separation, to confirm the ego’s identity story of sin-guilt-fear? Or does it become a classroom for the Holy Spirit to teach us forgiveness, i.e. letting go of our own belief in separation and blaming others and God for it?

So we will turn to the issue of ‘time’ with these same questions… what is time for? What is time’s purpose from an ego point of view… or from the Holy Spirit’s true perception of it?

But first let’s look at some of the ways time is talked about in the Course. Time is mentioned right away, early on, in five of the 50 Miracle Principles at the beginning of the ACIM Text (p.4-6):

  • #15 (time’s purpose), 

     Each day should be devoted to miracles (in the Course a miracles is simply an act of true forgiveness and its result). The purpose of time is to enable you to learn how to use time constructively. It is thus a teaching device and a means to an end. Time will cease when it is no longer useful in facilitating learning (forgiveness).

  • #19  (miracles and time),

     Miracles make minds one in God. They depend on cooperation, because the Sonship is the sum of all that God created. Miracles therefore reflect the laws of eternity, not of time.

  • #25 (miracles as holographic in time), 

 Miracles are part of an interlocking chain of forgiveness which, when completed, is the Atonement. Atonement works all the time and in all the dimensions of time.

  • #47 (miracles as timeless),

 The miracle is a learning device that lessens the need for time. It establishes an out-of-pattern time interval not under the usual laws of time. In this sense it is timeless.

  • #48 (miracles controlling time).

The miracle is the only device at your immediate disposal for controlling time. Only revelation transcends it, having nothing to do with time at all.

 

 

Time does not really exist.

Jesus introduces some amazing ideas about time in the above lines, that will be developed later in the Course. He quickly re-emphasizes however some of these same miracle principles on time… one page later in Chap. 1, Sec II, “Revelation, Time and Miracles.”

4 “No man cometh unto the Father but by me” does not mean that I am in any way separate or different from you, except in time, and time does not really exist…

6 The miracle minimizes the (ego’s) need for time. In the longitudinal or horizontal plane (of time and space), the recognition of the equality of the members of the Sonship appears to involve almost endless time. However, the miracle entails a sudden shift (The Holy Instant), from horizontal (in the world) to vertical perception (in the mind). This introduces an interval from which the giver and receiver both emerge farther along in time than they would otherwise have been. (Jesus later in The Text does call this the Holy Instant.) The miracle thus has the unique property of abolishing time to the extent that it renders the interval of time it spans unnecessary. There is no relationship between the time a miracle takes and the time it covers. The miracle substitutes for learning that might have taken thousands of years. It does so by the underlying recognition of perfect equality of giver and receiver on which the miracle rests (the willingness, to let go of the past and experience this equality as one Son of God… is described later in the Course as forgiveness). The miracle shortens time by collapsing it, thus eliminating certain intervals within it. ( T p.7-8, par. 4 & 6)

 

 

The most hard hitting of the above lines,to our egos anyway, is … “time does not really exist.” He echoes this again and again throughout the Course, saying things like… “Time is a trick, a sleight of hand, a vast illusion in which figures seem to come and go as if by magic.” (Les. 158, p.298, par.4)

 

The Ego’s Use of Time: Preserving Our Belief in Sin & Separation

In Heaven, time does not exist at all. Therefore it doesn’t exist, period. Everything outside of heaven is simply illusion, including time (… Course Metaphysics 101). We don’t believe that, but Jesus is very matter of fact that’s just the way it is…

When we seemed to step outside of heaven and play with the idea of separation in our mind, we made up the sin-guilt-fear story to prove to ourselves we actually pulled off a cosmic disconnect from our Father and our true identity in Heaven. We separated (our sin in the past) and it was/is terrible (the guilt we feel now) and we will be punished (fear of the future). We then projected that story onto an entire made-up universe of time and space. Space proves our separation (I’m here and you’re over there)… and time (past, present, future) provides a screen for the projection of our mind’s sin-guilt-fear story, except now it gets projected onto others.  Sin-guilt-fear is alive and well but it’s in you, not me…it’s  your sin in the past (not mine so much), the present guilt that you certainly have, and the fear of threatening punishment and doom about the future that you should feel, as payment for what you did.

 As you look upon yourself and judge what you do honestly, you may be tempted to wonder how you (or your brother) can be guiltless. Yet consider this: You (and your brother) are not guiltless in time, but in eternity. You have “sinned” in the past, but there is no past. Always has no direction. Time seems to go in one direction, but when you reach its end it will roll up like a long carpet spread along the past behind you, and will disappear. As long as you believe the Son of God is guilty you will walk along this carpet, believing that it leads to death. And the journey will seem long and cruel and senseless, for so it is. (Text p.237, par.3)

 

The Carpet of Time

The Course tells us consistently the Son of God is still and forever guiltless (the Atonement principle). In  the moment of seeming separation, time seemed to roll out like a long carpet, and immediately rolled back up with our acceptance of the Atonement. It’s already a done deal. What appears to be happening is that we are just reviewing that carpet of time in a linear way from our individual viewpoint in time and space, and have not quite reached the Atonement part of the story yet. ( “For we but see the journey from the point at which it ended, looking back on it, imagining we make it once again; reviewing mentally what has gone by.”…Les. #158). So in a sense we are all in replay mode, watching something that’s already happened.

But in truth (Heaven), it didn’t happen at all…   

So…  did you get all that? Ken Wapnick and Jesus both caution us to not try to wrap our brains around these ideas about time (as part of the world’s illusion, brains were made not to to ‘get’ them).  However we are promised an internal experience in our minds through forgiveness, where we eventually understand and feel this truth as an experience.

And we can do that now, with Jesus’ help. In fact the only time we can do it is… now. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, but now.

 

 

 

Alright then, that’s a general look at the metaphysics of time… but what does that have to do with me, believing I am moving thru linear time? Where do I begin?

Take another look at the first nine Workbook Lessons. The first six entail how there’s something seriously amiss with the way we are seeing, thinking about, or understanding anything. Lessons 7 & 8 explain why: I see only the past because I’m preoccupied with it. What it doesn’t say here in these lessons (but in many other places in the Course) is that what we are preoccupied with (and actually obsessed with) …  is guilt! Lesson 9 more than implies the answer lies in our willingness to admit our preoccupation with the past (based on separation, sin and guilt), and let the past go.

Guilt is promoted, encouraged, and locked in place with our concept of time… We are sure that guilt is very real, whether it’s your guilt or mine. Terrible things happened to us or were done by us in the past. This ‘proves’ that the present is not only on very shaky ground, but that the future is bound to repeat the past… especially when we are not continually on-guard.

I see only the past… Old ideas about time are very difficult to change, because everything you believe is rooted in time, and depends on your not learning these new ideas about it. Yet that is precisely why you need new ideas about time. This first time idea (I see only the past) is not really so strange as it may sound at first. (Les.#7)

My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts. This idea is, of course, the reason why you see only the past. No one really sees anything. He sees only his thoughts (of separation) projected outward. The mind’s preoccupation with the past is the cause of the misconception about time from which your seeing suffers. Your mind cannot grasp the present, which is the only time there is. It therefore cannot understand time, and cannot, in fact, understand anything.

The one wholly true thought one can hold about the past is that it is not here. To think about it at all is therefore to think about illusions. Very few have realized what is actually entailed in picturing the past or in anticipating the future. The mind is actually blank when it does this, because it is not really thinking about anything. (Les.#8)

 

 

One thing to consider, in looking at these ideas about guilt and time: I might not be aware of my own guilt or even of feeling guilty at all, but most of us can quickly admit to and see the other guy’s guilt. His guilt or my guilt… doesn’t matter… guilt is guilt. The Course constantly reminds us that what I see in my brother is what I really see in myself: one finger pointing at him, three fingers pointing back at me… maybe not the same in behavior or form, but certainly the same in motivation and content.

The longest chapter in the Text, and the longest Course expose’ on guilt is Chapter 13, “The Guiltless World.” Also, one of the longest discussions on time is in the very same chapter, in sections IV “The Function of Time” and VI “Finding The Present,” because our belief in time is the great preserver of guilt.

As long as we are not totally in this moment (a Holy Instant in our minds), and we are invested in making serious decisions about a seeming past and a ‘not-yet’ future, we are back in guilt mode…maintaining separation but blaming it on someone else.

This is not to beat up ourselves, or call ourselves bad Course students for buying into time and preserving guilt. It’s simply to remind us there’s more work to be done, and to remember to ask Jesus for help to look at it the way he does.

The ego has a strange notion of time, and it is with this notion that your questioning might well begin. The ego invests heavily in the past, and in the end believes that the past is the only aspect of time that is meaningful. Remember that its emphasis on guilt enables it to ensure its continuity by making the future like the past, and thus avoiding the present. By the notion of paying for the past in the future, the past becomes the determiner of the future, making them continuous without an intervening present. For the ego regards the present only as a brief transition to the future, in which it brings the past to the future by interpreting the present in past terms. 

 … It dictates your reactions to those you meet in the present from a past reference point, obscuring their present reality. In effect, if you follow the ego’s dictates you will react to your brother as though he were someone else, and this will surely prevent you from recognizing him as he is…  And you will receive messages from him out of your own past because, by making it real in the present, you are forbidding yourself to let it go. You thus deny yourself the message of release that every brother offers you now. The shadowy figures from the past are precisely what you must escape. They are not real, and have no hold over you unless you bring them with you. 

 It is evident that the Holy Spirit’s perception of time is the exact opposite of the ego’s. The reason is equally clear, for they perceive the goal of time as diametrically opposed. The Holy Spirit interprets time’s purpose as rendering the need for time unnecessary… The ego, on the other hand, regards the function of time as one of extending itself in place of eternity, for like the Holy Spirit, the ego interprets the goal of time as its own. The continuity of past and future, under its direction, is the only purpose the ego perceives in time, and it closes over the present so that no gap in its own continuity can occur. (Text p.245, par.4-8)

 

 

 

In summary, Jesus tells us (in Chap. 13):

“You consider it natural  to use your past experience as the reference point from which to judge the present. Yet this is unnatural because it is delusional. When you have learned to look on everyone with no reference at all to the past, either his or yours as you perceive it, you will be able to learn from what you see now. For the past can cast no shadow to darken the present, unless you are afraid of light. And only if you are would you choose to bring darkness (guilt) with you, and by holding it in your mind, see it as a dark cloud that shrouds your brothers and conceals their reality from your sight…

To be born again is to let the past go, and look without condemnation upon the present. The cloud that obscures God’s Son to you is the past, and if you would have it past and gone, you must not see it now. If you see it now in your illusions, it has not gone from you, although it is not there…

You would destroy time’s continuity by breaking it into past, present and future for your own purposes. You would anticipate the future on the basis of your past experience, and plan for it accordingly. Yet by doing so you are aligning past and future, and not allowing the miracle, which could intervene between them, to free you to be born again…

 The miracle (by asking the Holy Spirit’s help to do this…) enables you to see your brother without his past (our own guilt projected onto him), and so perceive him as born again. His errors are all past, and by perceiving him without them you are releasing him (the Course’s definition of forgiveness). And since his past is yours, you share in this release. Let no dark cloud out of your past obscure him from you, for truth lies only in the present, and you will find it if you seek it there. You have looked for it where it is not, and therefore have not found it. Learn, then, to seek it where it is, and it will dawn on eyes that see. Your past was made in anger, and if you use it to attack the present, you will not see the freedom that the present holds.”  (Text p.250, par.2-5)

Make This Year Different by Making It All the Same… guilt-free and holy.

Happy New Year!!

 

 What is a Miracle?

(WB p. 473)

1 A miracle is a correction. It does not create, nor really change (anything) at all. It merely looks on devastation, and reminds the mind that what it sees is false. It undoes error, but does not attempt to go beyond perception, nor exceed the function of forgiveness. Thus it stays within time’s limits. Yet it paves the way for the return of timelessness and love’s awakening, for fear must slip away under the gentle remedy it brings.

 

water drip

Other References in the Course on Time:

1) Ch.26, p.550, par. 3-5, 9-10   “The Little Hindrance”

2) Les. #158, p.298,  par.2-4, 9-11   “Today I learn to give as I receive.”

3) Les. 169, p. 323, par. 4-11    “By grace I live. By grace I am released.”

4) Manual #2, p.5, par. 2-4    “Who are their (God’s teachers) pupils?”

Ken Wapnick CD sets (and MP3 downloads ) on Time:

1) The Clear and Shining Instant of Time (9 CDs)

2) The Time Machine (4 CDs) 

3) The Metaphysics of Time (4 CDs) : A Lyn and Tim Favorite, also available as DVD

4) The Meaning of the Holy Instant (2 CDs)

5) How Will The World End? (2 CDs)

6) Forgiveness and The End of Time (4 CDs)

7) From Time to Timelessness (2 CDs)

(click here for descriptions and links to FACIM bookstore)

Ken Wapnick’s Book on

Time, A Vast Illusion

 

Happy Thanksgiving: Be grateful! Our sinlessness is an… “Already-Done-Deal !”

 

Yet our own redemption is done already, and unless you give all that you have received you will not know that you have awakened with him, your brother… already.        

(Text p.209, par. 9)

One of the striking differences between ACIM and traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and most New Age spiritualities is that…  A Course in Miracles takes an ‘already-done-deal’ approach.

Most western religious and spiritual paths assume something is really wrong to begin with, and then go about trying to fix it or evolve beyond it. To them, sin and separation are devastatingly real. The Course specifically sets up its version of the Atonement (that nothing happened), right in its Introduction to the Text on page 1.

This Intro immediately spells out that this is not a course about love, loving, or evolving somehow towards love, or even making the world a better place in which to live… but on letting go of our own judgements of others and ourselves which block our awareness that we are still beings of Love:

 

“The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim however at removing the blocks to the (our) awareness of love’s presence, which is our natural inheritance.” (Text, p.1)

So then, this is simply a course about undoing those blocks, in our minds, to realizing that love is already a done deal, and our true Identity is still part of that Love… period. We are God’s children, always have been, always will be. The Course shows us how to stop pretending that we’re not eternally part of God’s Love… insisting in our criticizing, fixing, and sometimes even ‘helping,’ that we are not ‘still’ as God created us.

“But when I willingly and gladly go the way my Father’s plan appointed me to go, then will I recognize salvation is already here, already given all my brothers and already mine as well.” (Les.#317)

So what’s my Father’s plan? In the Course’s 1300 plus pages, Jesus is always encouraging us to look at each other differently by asking the Holy Spirit for help ‘to see beyond the veil,’ see beyond the differences we think we see and even cherish. Early on in the Course he also states that this course is not about behavior (Text p.29, par.2-3). It is not about what we do or don’t do, but about how we “see” each other.

And more to the point: with whom are we seeing or perceiving… our ego or the Holy Spirit? Jesus tells us we have this internal place called the mind, where we are constantly choosing between one of these two teachers or inner guides. (NB: This internal place is not what the world calls our brain, but a deep place within us the Course describes as the ‘mind.’) When we choose the ego as our teacher, we see separation and blame. When we choose the Holy Spirit, we experience the Atonement, that nothing happened and our true Identity is still intact.

Problem is, when we are choosing the ego, we’re not really conscious of that choice… but we do feel its effects. We are irritable, judgmental, and certainly not peaceful. We are quick to point out that our discontent is not our responsibility, but we easily finger-point the culprit as something or somebody else. It’s amazing when we go thru the course of our day, and begin to realize… how many times each and every day we are blaming, and how much we are on high alert to find a new drama where we can find and accuse others of robbing us of our peace.

However, choosing to ask the Holy Spirit to perceive and experience people and things differently is a very conscious and vigilant effort. We first honestly look at how hateful our thinking and seeing is, and even tho we believe we are right, we admit how painful it is to hold onto that righteousness. (Would I rather be right or happy?) This becomes the motivation to hope that ‘there must be a better way,’ and I begin to be a little more willing to find and try that ‘better way’. The better way for Course students is the Course’s process of forgiveness, ie. learning to ‘see’ differently. We forgive, or let go, of our way of viewing the world full of victims and victimizers. Then we allow, or let, the Holy Spirit’s vision, of what we truly are, take its place.

(Lesson Titles #31-35)

Forgiveness in the Course is a return to the awareness of the “Done Deal.” Whatever our eyes might be telling us, we ask for the Holy Spirit’s gift of vision to see/experience that our brother’s innocence (and ultimately our own) is still intact… already there and present, no matter what they are doing or not. This doesn’t mean, in terms of behavior, that we don’t do the next appropriate and helpful thing. But it does mean that while we are doing whatever our chosen behavior is, in our heart of hearts, we come to know we are each already ok, already saved, and already God’s one Son.

This is not some pie-in-the-sky made up fantasy. For those of us who have practiced the Course’s forgiveness, we experience that this is the reality behind all the seeming facades that ’cause’ us to blame and condemn. We actually begin to feel and know, about ourselves and others, what Jesus consistently tells us in Lessons #201 thru 220:

“I am not a body. I am free. I am still (already) as God created me.”

Thank you Jesus!

and Happy Thanksgiving!

This Thurs.  11/23   @ 10am Mountain Time   

Special Online Thanksgiving Celebration 

with Tim & Lyn 

click here

Replay of video from SFACIM on a discussion of “gratitude”:

click here

Also a five minute youtube clip on Ken Wapnick speaking about our gratitude to Jesus for giving us his Course in Miracles:

Click here

 

 

Coming soon…

Six Month Online

The Immersion 2024

click here for info