A Course in Miracles Lesson 115

Salvation is my only function here (Lesson 99).

My part is essential to God’s plan for salvation (Lesson 100).

In A Course in Miracles, forgiveness is not the recognition of errors followed by a magnanimous willingness to forget them. You stepped on my toe and it really hurts but I’m a good guy and I like you so no worries.

In A Course in Miracles, forgiveness is closer to clear seeing: it means seeing that errors aren’t actually possible. They are illusions; they never happened. Therefore, there is nothing to overlook. Judgment – I’m a good guy, I like you, fair is fair, you’re kind of a jerk – does not enter into it.

Forgiveness means recognizing our own perfection, which is salvation because in the face of our own perfection, the world itself disappears.

How lovely does the world become in just that single instant when you see the truth about yourself reflected there. Now you are sinless and behold your sinlessness. Now you are holy and perceive it so (C-3.8:1-3).

Thus, salvation becomes the recognition of what we are in truth. The world – and our brothers and sisters with whom we share the world – are the mirror in which all that impedes this recognition is obvious. We are in relationship with it in order to forgive it, on terms consistent with A Course in Miracles.

In practice, this looks like a normal life. It looks like being as gentle and patient as possible. It means holding onto the metaphysical premise of the course – I am not a body and there is no world – without pretending to be more spiritually sophisticated then we actually are.

I am annoyed with the student who keeps showing up late to class. Or I am frustrated with my kids who never clean up. Or I am disappointed with myself for stress eating again. To a body in the world, these are real problems. To a student of A Course in Miracles, given to forgiveness and the salvation forgiveness entails, they are opportunities to choose again to see my brothers and sisters as sinless and, in doing so, to remember my own as well.

And now the mind returns to its Creator; the joining of the Father and the Son, the Unity of unities that stands behind all joining but beyond them all. God is not seen but only understood. His Son is not attacked but recognized (C-3.8:4-6).

Our review then is an opportunity to remember what our practice is and why it merits our devoted attention. God Wills only peace and happiness for us, and the world provides very specific lessons adapted to our special learning needs and abilities (e.g., C-3.3:5). Let us give close attention to our lives today, seeking only the Face of Christ in all people, places and things.

Our seeking will become a mirror in which our own perfection leads us away from error (C-3.1:4) and towards the happy fiction of those who have seen past the illusion of separation.

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A Course in Miracles Lesson 117

God, being Love, is also happiness (Lesson 103).

I seek but what belongs to me in truth (Lesson 104).

The commitment we make in our daily ACIM practice is to accept no substitute for love. Even if we are unsure what love is – even if we are lost with respect to it – even if we are utterly bereft – we still resolve to accept no substitute for love.

Our devotion and our intention in this regard are what allow the happy revelation of God as Love to be reawakened in us. We have forgotten what we are in truth, and when we are ready to be reminded, then the Holy Spirit will gently undo all that obstructs our awareness of Love.

And as each impediment is dissolved, joy will flow through us, a single shared stream of light reminding us of the One Life beyond appearances.

Those obstructions appear legion yet they are really neatly summed up in this phrase: a firmly-held belief that we are bodies in a world, and thus subject to the ravages of time and space. We are dead and we are going to die, and from this trap we cannot escape.

Thus, A Course in Miracles is in many ways an invitation to reclaim our inheritance as God’s Children. In doing so, we see the “trap” of time and space for the illusion it is; we do not escape because we are not caught.

We are simply resting in the gentle remembrance that dawns slowly but surely in our mind that peace and joy are gifts given to us in Creation. Laying claim to them is not an error; it is not an exercise of selfishness. It is actually the precise opposite: it is a correction and an exercise of creation that extends to all life.

Thus, we can ask as part of our practice of this review lesson, do we accept that Love and joy are our inheritance in Creation? Is this our truth?

We will not answer this questions with words. Rather, we will see if we are happy or unhappy. There is no other metric that gauge our progress, because there is no goal that is worthy of us in Creation.

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A Course in Miracles Lesson 116

God’s Will for me is perfect happiness (Lesson 101).

I share God’s Will for happiness for me (Lesson 102).

All our suffering arises from the confused idea that our will is somehow other than God’s, and can actually be in conflict with God. But reality is total and it admits no differences that can be in conflict with one another.

The happiness contemplated by A Course in Miracles is not the ersatz pleasure of the world. It is not sensory and it does not involve the externals. It is the recognition that our will is aligned with – and ultimately subsumed by – God’s Will.

Today we practice remembering this. Beyond the repetition of the lesson at regular intervals, what does this practice look like?

Can we notice the moments when we become happy because things are working out? We get a job offer or somebody agrees to go for coffee with us or the rain holds off long enough for us to go for a run?

It’s not a crime against God or nature that we’re happy because circumstances line up in ways we want. It’s human. But we are not bodies and there is no world!

Therefore, we want to let this limited and limiting form of happiness go. In the end, it’s no different than sorrow or loss because it draws our attention to the body and the world. It reinforces the ego’s mistaken conviction that life is about us and that something is truly at stake in our living.

What is the happiness beyond this? What is the happiness inherent in remembering God’s Will?

I will tell you a secret: you already know this. You already know God’s Will, because God’s Will is what you are and you have no life apart from it.

We are confused about this, yes, but our confusion does not change reality. So our practice involves not just looking past the shallow happiness the world offers, but also being willing to remember God’s Will is our reality. It is our identity and our reality; there is nothing else.

Have no goal but willingness in your practice. It is enough to come to the well. We don’t have to bring a bucket. We don’t need to supply the water. We merely need to be present; God will do the rest.

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Reading A Course in Miracles: Workbook Review III

The third review period in the ACIM workbook makes a couple of helpful observations about our practice of the lessons.

First, it emphasizes that we are not to get overly-worked up about those times when we are unable to meet a specific practice session. Rituals are not our learning goal (W-pI.rIII.2:4).

Indeed, allowing our practice to become merely mechanical is self-defeating because it denies our mind an active role in its own learning.

Just as self-defeating, however, is failing to notice when we are using adverse circumstances as an excuse for failing to practice. Too easily we can use the details of our lives to avoid responsibility for our ACIM practice. Doing so is a form of unwillingness, and the workbook urges us to be vigilant against this.

Unwillingness can be most carefully concealed behind a cloak of situations you cannot control. Learn to distinguish situations that are poorly suited to your practicing from those that you establish to uphold a camouflage for your unwillingness (W-pI.rIII.3:3-40).

And yet, even when we do utilize life situations as a means of avoiding healing, the effects are neither permanent nor catastrophic. We simply come back to the missed session and do it now that we are ready and willing (W-pI.rIII.4:1).

There are no consequences to our apparent failure, other than we linger a little longer in time than is necessary.

This all has to do with the value which we assign our practice. The value we perceive in practicing is correlated to the extent we are willing to “cooperate in practicing salvation” (W-pI.rIII.4:2). Thus, when we find ourselves finding lots of reasons to avoid A Course in Miracles, we can set aside a little time to investigate our commitment.

How badly do we want to be saved? How ready are we to let go of the world and its worries and give attention instead to the one who has established the healing plan of salvation? The Holy Spirit waits on nothing but our willingness, and this is a function of how badly we want to remember what we are in truth.

When we do this with this review sequence – when our practice is committed in a reasonable sustainble way – then we can rest in faith that the end of our practicing is nigh.

Place the ideas within your mind, and let it use them as it chooses. Give it faith that it will use them wisely, being helped in its decisions by the One Who gave the thoughts to you . . . Have faith, in these reviews, the means the Holy Spirit uses will not fail (W-pI.rIII.6:1-2, 4).

The truth is, we are looking for proof that A Course in Miracles works! We want to know that we are not wasting our time and energy. We want to know that the promises of the Atonement really are ours for the asking.

God is not disappointed in us for this, and his appointed Teacher will not disappoint in turn. The gifts of our practice are tangible and real (W-pI.rIII.9:3).

Finally, this review period emphasizes the practicality of A Course in Miracles and urges us to think of it as such. The lessons are not meant to be litanies or rituals; rather, they are tools which we can bring into all the apparent circumstances of our living. We need observe no separation between the course and our lives in the world.

Do not repeat the thought and lay it down. Its usefulness is limitless to you. And it is meant to serve you in all ways, all times and places, and whenever you need help of any kind (W-pI.rIII.10:3-5).

Thus, rather than be bored with the repetition of yet another review session, let us use it throughout our day in order that the day might be made holy, “worthy of God’s Son, acceptable to God and to your Self” (W-pI.rIII.11:6).

A Course in Miracles Lesson 108

To give and receive are one in truth.

A Course in Miracles aims to teach its students how to see only what is the same and, critically, to see what is the same as one (W-pI.108.2:3). To see this way is a form of Vision, or knowledge, a state of mind that is so unified that “darkness cannot be perceived at all” (W-pI.108.2:2).

Here, the “light” that makes this sight possible, and the “darkness” that is undone accordingly, refer not to what the body’s eyes perceive but rather to what the mind knows. For example, the body’s eyes percieve a person weeping at a funeral but the mind knows only the cry for love that image represents. It also knows how to respond to that cry with love.

Today’s lesson asks us to apply this understanding to our experience of giving and receiving. Essentially, it will reverse the world’s understanding of these apparent actions and instead suggest that “to give is to receive” (W-pI.108.7:3).

Today we will attempt to offer peace to everyone, and see how quickly peace returns to us. Light is tranquility, and in that peace is vision given us, and we can see (W-pI.108.7:4-5).

So we are not talking about bringing donuts to work or hugging everyone hello or taking the dog for a longer walk. Do those things or don’t do those things! But don’t confuse them for the cause of peace.

Turn, rather, the abstract level of the mind. Take a moment or two to become quiet and still. And then – in that state of calm recollection – gently name the gifts you would offer everyone in the world (broadly defined to include whales and roses, strangers and rain clouds). In silence, name them. In stillness, given them.

What you want for the world is what you want for your very own self: peace, tranquility, happiness, rest. The name you give the feeling does not matter, nor does the form by which the feeling is brought forth. Each is merely a reflection of “the one Thought which underlies them all” (W-pI.108.6:3).

When we do this lesson sincerely, when we are truly open to receiving the gift of peace which is our inheritance in Creation, then this quiet space of offering love will bring forth in us the love we are giving. We will see clearly that in order to offer it, we must have it, and because offering does not diminish its abundance in us, then it must be a quality of our being right here and now.

Then we can truly rest in happiness and peace because we know – we are in the light of knowing – that we remain as God created us, and that everyone remains in Creation with us (e.g., W-pI.94.3:3-4). Giving and receiving themselves dissolve for there is only one mind and only one thought.

There is no cause for worry that the world of form – its many apparent minds and many apparent thoughts, almost all of them in conflict – persists. Think of this not as a failure on your part but as an opportunity to share with others the joy that is given to them but remains obscured by confusion and projection.

Our practice is not to dwell on the one who is weeping nor the one is singing but rather to give attention to the cry for love and the love that is endlessly helpfully responding. Both are in us as conditions of our creation. Today, by practicing seeing giving and receiving as one, we remind ourselves of what we are in truth, taking yet another step towards the fullness of God.

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A Course in Miracles Lesson 107

Truth will correct all errors in my mind.

Errors and illusions are synonymous in A Course in Miracles. To perceive illusions is to mistake what one perceives – to be in error with respect to what it is and what it is for. Errors and illusions happen at the level of mind; the world of form – bodies, buildings, landscapes et cetera – merely reflect the error.

Thus, errors are psychological deviations from truth; when they are brought to truth, they are ended because of what truth is. Truth is the light that shines away our confusion and aligns our mind with love.

Importantly, we do not need to seek truth. We do not need to establish truth. We merely need to consent to the conditions that allow us to see truth without hindrance. This requires a willingness to look at whatever it is that obstructs truth.

We have to be willing to look at both the content of our minds and the processes of our minds that obscure what is true, real and creative.

This willingness to look at error arises in the context of a relationship with our brothers and sisters that is guided by our shared relationship with the Holy Spirit, who is the Voice for God and thus the Voice for truth. The journey to correction, and to the peace correction entails, is not a solo venture. It is cooperative. We need each other. When we accept this need, and allow it to guide our decision-making, the relationships brought forth are holy.

Begin by asking Him Who goes with you upon this undertaking that He be in your awareness as you go with Him. You are not made of flesh and blood and bone, but were created by the selfsame Thought which gave the gift of life to Him as well. He is your Brother and so like to you your Father knows that You are both the same (W-pI.107.8:1-3).

The suggestion here is twofold: our brothers and sisters share our desire for peace and healing, and the Holy Spirit both reminds us of this fact and enables us – with our brothers and sisters – to manifest this healing in the world, in whatever form is most helpful to the world.

This is both abstract and concrete. It is abstract in the sense that we are tuning into the Holy Spirit, seeking its clear calm guidance beyond the static of ego. It is concrete in that whatever the circumstances of our living – at work, with our kids, getting an oil change, cooking dinner, checking for texts – we will be told exactly what to do and say.

Being told “exactly what to do and say” will always reflect ACIM’s general mandate that we are only here – in this body in this world – to be “truly helpful” (T-2.V.A.18:2).

Thus, what we learn when we live this way, is that it is our own self we are inviting to go with us and the invitation is the realization we cannot be apart from our own self (W-pI.107.8:4).

Truth will correct all errors in your mind which tell you you could be apart from Him. You speak to Him today, and make your pledge to let His function be fulfilled through you (W-pI.107.9:1-2).

Thus, in our practice of this lesson, we can glimpse – and perhaps begin to experience in a felt way – our oneness with each other, through the gentle sharing of the Holy Spirit in our mind. It is this relationship, at once both intimate and public, in which we open in ways which allow God to take “the last step” (e.g., T-7.I.7:8).

Today, let us be as happy as God intends, which intention is made clear in our mind, and which we share with all the world.

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