Sean Reagan

My mind holds only what I think with God.

No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth (Lesson 131).
I loose the world from all I thought it was (Lesson 132).

The reason we cannot fail in our search for truth is because truth is all there is. There is nothing else to find. In God there is only certainty about this, for only certainty is worthy of truth. But we are still lost and confused. We still think separation is a thing we did and have to undo, untangle, et cetera.

We think we have to be reborn. God knows we are eternal, and thus incapable of change, let alone birth and death.

Truth is true, and only truth is true (e.g., T-9.VIII.7:2). While we can look away from this, like children squeezing their eyes shut and thinking they’re invisible, we cannot make it false. Nor can we make what is false true.

Therefore, right here, right now, you and I know the truth. We know it and we deny that we know it. We hide behind a wall of projection that we insist is the cause of every problem we have, from a stubbed toe to a missed deadline to death.

A nontrivial aspect of our practice of A Course in Miracles is becoming aware of projection, noticing its negative effects, and becoming willing to no longer project. God’s Love is True, and all there is, and yet we go on throwing block after block in front of it to obscure it. There is a better way!

We want to stop projecting hindrances to our awareness of God’s Love, and we want to stop denying that we are the ones doing it. The better way arises when we agree to become responsible for finding it.

It is a simple shift in thought, a decision at the level of the mind, to remember God’s Love and only God’s Love. And it’s easy because God’s Love is all there is anyway.

Our willingness to stop projecting – which is to become responsible for the content and function our mind (which is to give both to the Holy Spirit) – is what it means to “loose the world” from all that we believe it is.

We think we know what a pine tree is for, or a church, or a wedding ring. This lesson is part of the course’s emphasis on letting go of that deluded certainty. We don’t know what anything is for. Therefore, we let go of all of it.

It is tempting to slip back into definitions. We can make “letting go” a thing we hold onto too! We think saying “I don’t know what it means” means we know something. But we don’t! That’s the challenge. If we don’t know, we can’t say – we can’t say anything at all. We become silent. We become learners. We become humbled.

Really, this lesson is both a review and an opportunity to let the world mean only what God would have it mean. It has no value but the value the Holy Spirit, who is the Voice for God, writes upon it. And all the Holy Spirit writes testifies to our innocence, and the innocence of our brothers and sisters, and thus makes clear and safe the way to salvation.

Let us practice with a glad heart today, reviewing two basic ideas that in conjunction open our minds to the truth as God created it.

←Lesson 145
Lesson 147→

My mind holds only what I think with God.

I will not value what is valueless (Lesson 133).
Let me perceive forgiveness as it is (Lesson 134).

The first part of today’s review teaches us the right use of judgment – the judgment of what is valuable and what is not. It is a way of asking, are we ready to value Love and not fear? Peace and not conflict?

If we value Love and Peace then these are the qualities that we will bring forth in our living, because what we hold in mind must appear in our living. As A Course in Miracles observes, the world is “the outside picture of an inward condition” (T-21.in.1:5). Yet now, instead of the dark shadows of fear, our clear minds reflect only the light of Christ, in which nothing is seen but what reminds us only of God.

The second part of the review is a way of understanding and applying first. Forgiveness “as it really is” teaches us how to value what is valuable, and not value what is without value, and not get twisted up in doing so.

Because we get confused, right? We want to value what is valuable but bodies aren’t valuable so . . . we are supposed to not value our brothers and sisters? Our kids and parents? This dilemma – dramatic as it sounds and intense as it feels – is not actually a problem. It’s just the same old confusion of mind with body arguing its own case.

Forgiveness – clear seeing – teaches us that our brothers and sisters are not bodies but that the love appearing in and as and through those bodies is them. When you see this light and understand what it is, then you can no longer mistake the body as valuable in and of itself. It’s like a coffee mug – we drink our coffee and get on with life. The Light of God is the coffee, our bodies are the mugs. It’s literally the same thing.

If this sounds crazy or difficult, consider that may be because it is true in God’s Mind and you are still resisting your home in that mind. But since our mind holds what it thinks with God, then perhaps this idea is not entirely without merit. Perhaps in giving attention to it, we will finally see that God is the Mind in which thinking is. Not the thought so much as the awareness in which the thought appears.

On this view, you and I are thoughts in the Mind of God. And on that view, we are more like sunbeams than dense and solid bodies. In truth – which is to say, in God’s Mind – we are illuminative and generative, like any other good idea.

←Lesson 146
Lesson 148→

My holds only what I think with God.

Beyond this world there is a world I want (Lesson 129).
It is impossible to see two worlds (Lesson 130).

The clarity of Lessons 129 and 130 braces us for the decision we are called to make: do we want to see the real world or do we want to remain stuck in illusions, and the despair and chaos they bring forth?

We can’t have it both ways. There is no such thing as a little Heaven or a little hell. What do we want? And, are we ready to choose it?

While there is value in investigating these questions – going deeply into our answers, allowing understanding to be the stable foundation of forgiveness – today we are not asked to linger on them in that way. Today we take a different approach.

Today we hold those questions lightly and give the whole of our attention to God’s Word. We enter the quiet space of listening, and simply allow Creation to express itself as it wills. When we do this, we recognize that we are not doing anything. Therefore, we do not actually have to decide anything. It has already been decided; it is already true.

You have reached the end of an ancient journey, not realizing yet that it is over. Your are still worn and tired, and teh desert’s dust still seems to cloud your eyes and keep you sightless. Yet He Whom you welcomed has come to you, and would welcome you . . . Receive it now of Him, for He would have you know Him (T-18.VIII.13:1-3, 5).

Our liberation is not a moment of self-insight but rather a forgetting of the self altogether. When we forget the self, the body and the world lose their luster, and our attention naturally gravitates towards its resting place in God. We are freed from personality, freedom from the needs to survive, freed from the need to compete with our brothers and sisters.

We are freed from the obligation to solve the problem of what we want and how to get it. We have no problems.

The mind that wants only to remember what it holds with God, and in that remembrance, realizing at last what it is in truth, does not have any wants. It does need to choose anything for there is nothing to choose between. Creation has no opposite; no more does Love.

Thus, our review today is in practice a gentle step away from learning goals and towards gratitude, which is always how Love finds a home in us. Let us be thankful and not worry about what need to do or not do; it is done. Our thankfulness is the light in which we know the truth.

←Lesson 144
Lesson 146→

My mind holds only what I think with God.

There is no love but God’s (Lesson 127).
The world I see holds nothing that I want (Lesson 128).

Our minds hold only what we think with God. Let us imagine that today God wants us to think how there is no Love but God’s and the world that we see holds nothing that we want.

What does it mean that there is no Love but God’s?

It might mean that what we are calling love right now is not love at all but something else. This is hard to think about but doing so can be helpful.

Say that I love my dog very much. My love for my dog is as close to unconditional and perfect as you can get. Very few people rank above my dog in terms of how I love them. This is my truth! I’m not going to pretend otherwise . . .

The first thing God would notice is that we are pretending love has degrees. We are pretending that there is such a thing as a little love and a lot of love, and that we know what the difference is and how to apply it. But there is only love! If it has degrees – if it produces differences that seem to matter – then it’s not love. It’s hate. What else but hate would deny the totality of Love?

That makes sense intellectually but it still feels wrong, doesn’t it. It feels like there’s something good in my love for my dog; it doesn’t feel like hate. It doesn’t feel like something God would condemn. Help me move on from maybe – to greater and greater understanding and expression of love, sure – but not condemn.

And, indeed, that is exactly how my love fro my dog – which is a form of hate so far as the world of form goes – is gently redeemed and brought into such proximate alignment with God’s that it becomes a veritable beacon of holiness unto all to the world.

In other words, since the only Love is God’s Love, then even this little tiny love between Sean and his dog is God’s Love. The beam of light that thought it was separate from the sun is gathered back into all the light there is. “The ripple without the ocean is inconceivable” (T-18.VIII.4:6).

If this true – if all love is God’s Love, and God’s Love does not admit to difference or distinction at all – then what remains but that Love? All the forms dissolve – the dog, the friend, the lover, the child, the blue book named A Course in Miracles. Who needs to limit content to form when they learn they have all the content there is, no form necessary?

The world holds nothing that we want because we already have everything we want, which is God’s Love, which is all the Love there is.

This is the way to peace.

←Lesson 143
Lesson 145→

Into His Presence I would enter now.

Let us take this lesson in two parts, in recognitition of both its simplicity and its depth.

The first part – the part that we practice – is simply to be still, as often as possible, for as long as is feasible, in anticipation of “a touch of Heaven” (W-pI.157.3:1). We do nothing but offer ourselves empty-handed to Creation. We make no demands, refuse all fantasies, and simply wait. Here I am, Lord. Your Will, not mind, be done.

He will direct your practicing today, for what you ask for now is what He wills. And having joined your will with His this day, what you are asking must be given you. Nothing is needed but today’s idea to light your mind, and let it rest in still anticipation and in quiet joy . . . (W-pI.157.4:1-3).

It is hard to do this! And sometimes, that is the lesson. That our anticipation and expectation cloud the openness in which God’s gifts to us are recognized and received. I want my touch of Heaven now! And I want it to look and feel like everything I dream of. These thoughts are not crimes against God or Nature but they do block the gentle flow that is our awareness of Heaven.

That is why we practice often and in a sustained way. We want to become aware of the way in which ego – under the guise of sincerity and enthusiasm – can drown out the Voice for God.

This leads to our second – more metaphysical, more analytical – understanding of this lesson.

Heaven is not of the world. A Course in Miracles is not about refining our experience of being embodied; it is not about perfecting the world by bringing it to some new order. This world is a dream, and like all dreams is gone when the mind that dreams it wakes up.

Thus, awakening is not an actual event, like those that occur in the world. Nor does it happen to anybody – like Sean or whomever. That is why the course teaches us that experiences of Heaven cannot be given directly (W-pI.157.6:2).

And yet.

Something happens that “leaves a vision in our eyes which we can offer everyone, that they may come the sooner to the same experience in which the world is quietly forgot, and Heaven is remembered for a while” (W-pI.157.6:3).

If you ask what the something is, there is no answer. If you covet the something, then there is nothing to be gained. If you fake the something, you refuse the something.

All we can do is be humble and come with empty hands to God, saying – and meaning, with the intensity of one who has learned their will is wholly inadequate to the work of Love – your will, not mine, be done.

In the world – in the body – this will be translated to a happy dream in which the world “becomes a little closer to the end of time; a little more like Heaven in its ways; a little nearer its deliverance” (W-pI.157.7:1). And we, in turn, will learn that we are not bodies, eventually no longer even needing bodies in order to spread the light of Love (e.g., W-pI.157.7:3).

Not needing bodies to communicate is a big leap for most of us . . .

Heaven is beyond our imagination, yet we know it (W-pI.157.8:1). It cannot be taught because it cannot be learned (W-pI.157.9:3). It merely is. We “see” it as a vision – first of Christ’s Face (which we will remember in the world – it is simply the face of your brother or sister), and then of the sweet nothingness that language can neither compass nor encompass.

So Lesson 157 inaugurates a new phase of our study and practice. It emphasizes the radical nature of its metaphysics while simultaneously emphasizing the way in which those metaphsyics are realized. We literally do nothing but make ourselves as empty and open unto God as possible. God does the rest, because it is already done. All our learning – our devotion and intensity, all our discipleship – is but a dream that ended long ago.

←Lesson 156
Lesson 158→