Sean Reagan

Truth will correct all errors in my mind (Lesson 107).

To give and receive are one in truth (Lesson 108).

One of the errors to which we are subject when we believe in separation is that cause precedes effect. The two are related but independent. In fact, giving and receiving are the same because the apparent giver and receiver are not separate from one another.

This does not make sense at the level of the body. At that level, if we have one piece of pie and I eat it, you don’t get any pie. But A Course in Miracles is an invitation to learn that we are not bodies, and that what we give away we receive.

One way to think about this is to focus on abstract ideas, like love or mercy. When I show mercy to a brother or sister, have I lost the capacity to extend mercy to someone else?

Or this. If I share my ideas about the importance of closely reading Emily Dickinson, have I lost my understanding of the importance of giving careful attention to Emily Dickinson’s poetry?

It’s clear that ideas do not leave their source, even when shared. The implication is similarly clear: whatever we are, we share a source from which we are not separate and – by extension – which unites us in a fundamental way that does not allow for actual separation.

To perceive ourselves as bodies and thus separate from one another in time and space is an error, which leads to other errors (for example about cause and effect and giving and receiving) that effectively double down on separation, making it appear real and beyond question.

Correction begins with our willingness to learn a new way of seeing that makes the illusion of separation obvious. This has nothing to do with the bodies eyes, but rather with how our thinking functions. We are giving attention in mind to mind, and learning that there is only mind.

When we do this, we experience a gentle peace which itself begets an even gentler – but still sustainable – happiness. Here, our suffering folds in on itself and disappears, and what remains is the quiet stillness of the self recollected in God.

←Lesson 118
Lesson 120→

God’s peace and joy are mine (Lesson 105)

Let me be still and listen to the truth (Lesson 106).

In our practice it is good to make space to sit quietly and give attention to what appears in the interior – the thoughts and feelings, the underlying belief system, the void from which it all emerges, and that from which the void itself arises.

We don’t have to do anything in this space other than be open-minded. Our observation is not conditional on what it observes. It is merely given to observation itself. We place no restrictions, set no conditions. Whatever is, that’s what is.

This is what it means to “be still and listen to the truth” (W-pI.rIII.3:4).

Listen, and hear your Father speak to you through His appointed Voice, which silences the thunder of the meaningless, and shows the way to peace to those who cannot see . . . Be not deceived by voices of the dead, which tell you they have found the source of life and offer it to you for your belief (W-pI.106.2:1, 3).

That language sounds dramatic – “thunder of the meaningless” “voices of the dead” – but that is merely symbolic language emphasizing the power of the clarity that comes to those who are willing to hear only the Voice of God, and to be guided by no other voice.

The truth of our identity is neither a name nor a description, but an experience of truth that exchanges the substitutes for love that we have made for the perfect and eternal joy and peace that are God’s gift to us in Creation.

In this way we learn that in truth there are no substitutes for the gifts of God.

There is no substitute for truth. And truth will maket his plan to you as you are brought into the place where you must meet with truth. And there you must be led, through gentle understanding which can lead you nowhere else. Where God is, there are you. Such is the truth (T-14.VIII.4:1-5).

We cannot be separate from God. We are not separate from God. We are united with our Creator in Creation, and this unity is without beginning or end, and is cannot be altered or affected by anything external because there is nothing external.

Thus, our practice today is simply to reinforce our willingness to give attention to God’s call which is in us as the longing to be perfectly happy and totally free. Freedom and happiness are not separate, but rather two names for the same experience, which itself is wordless.

Today, let us make a quiet space together in which we can be led by grace to the home grace makes for those it knows as family. Let us be welcomed there, and let us extend this welcome to one another, that the whole world might remember the way out of its dream of suffering.

←Lesson 117
Lesson 119→

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.

←Lesson 114
Lesson 116→

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.

←Lesson 116
Lesson 118→

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.

←Lesson 115
Lesson 117→

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).