Sean Reagan

Holding grievances is an attack on God’s plan for salvation.

Lesson 72 extends the previous lesson’s emphasis that God’s plan for salvation is the diametric opposite of egos, and that only God’s plan can actually work in bringing us peace and happiness. Lesson 72 emphasizes that ego’s plan is an affirmative attack on God’s plan.

What is the value of this insight? What do we gain by understanding this?

Sometimes in our study and practice of A Course in Miracles, we get casual. We think that we can negotiate a compromise between God and ego. We’ll keep a little of this and give up a little of that. It feels mature to do this; it feels reasonable.

But between God and ego there is no compromise. There is no middle ground. We “see the flesh or recognize the spirit” (T-31.VI.1:1). This is why ego fights the way it does; it is also why in the end, God’s plan for salvation is the one which will prevail in our mind.

Ego needs the mind to believe it is in – and restricted to – a body. This is what the course means when it describes ego as the physical embodiment of the desire to replace God (W-pI.72.2:1). Grievances are the way in which ego keeps mind focused on the body and the perils it faces in a violent and unscrupulous world.

Yet oddly, ego’s focus is always on what other bodies are doing. The effect of this is to keep our brother and sister yoked in their apparent body; ego does not readily reveal that the purpose of this is to keep us in bodies, too. Moreover, this insistence on bodies is an attack on God.

You are doing more than failing to help in freeing [your brother or sister] from the body’s limitations. You are actively trying to hold him to it by confusing it with him, and judging them as one. Herein is God attacked, for if His Son is only a body, so must He be as well (W-pI.72.4:3-5).

In this way, ego teaches us that God’s plan for salvation requires suffering and ends in death (W-pI.72.5:1). It is this perspective – an “arena where angry animals seeks for prey and mercy cannot enter” (W-pI.72.6:1) to which ego proposes itself as a viable alternative.

Take the little you can get. God gave you nothing. The body is your only savior. It is the death of God and your salvation (W-pI.72.6:6-9).

This grim picture reflects “the universal belief of the world you see” (W-pI.72.7:1). The body is exalted and deprecated, the mind is belittled and ignored. Humiliation and struggle, loneliness and confusion abound. We live in the middle of a war on God. Of course we do not know peace. Of course we do not know happiness.

It is critical to understand that this “attack” on God is a mirage. It has no effect on God. We are not going to be judged and punished. We are not going to be found unworthy for a lack of faith.

We are simply going to be invited – over and over, as a condition of what God is and what we are – to consider another way.

Your upside-down perception has been ruinous to your peace of mind. You have seen yourself in a body and the truth outside of you, locked away from your awareness by the body’s limitations. Now we are going to try to see this differently (W-pI.72.8:3-5).

Effectively, this means that we are going to simply disregard the body and gaze instead upon “the light of truth” (W-pI.72.9:1). We are going to gently look beyond our grievances and the rationale that seems to sustain them and see what – if anything – appears to us.

A Course in Miracles suggests that we will not look in vain.

To recognize the light of truth in us is to recognize ourselves as we are. To see our Self as separate from the body is to end the attack on God’s plan for salvation, and to accept it instead. And wherever His plan is accepted, it is accomplished already (W-pI.72.9:4-6).

Thus, we are simply coming to see what is actually so. We are looking for truth, rather than ideas. We are looking for what is the case right now rather than what might be so tomorrow or in a year.

We are becoming open-minded and willing – to a radical degree – to set aside all our ideas and preconceptions, our plans and goals, our strategies and assumptions – in order to consider the possibility of another, better plan.

Ask and you will be answered. Seek and you will find. We are no longer asking the ego what salvation is and where to find it. We are asking it of truth. Be certain, then, that the answer will be true because of Whom you ask (WpI.72.11:3-7).

We also want to notice that the lesson does not actually answer the question: what is God’s plan for salvation? Rather, it simply expresses its faith that when we ask the question sincerely, we will be given the answer.

Why would A Course in Miracles be so coy on this subject? If it has the answer, why not give it?

One way to respond to that is to consider that God’s plan for salvation is not readily condensed into language. Thus, what we are listening for in our study periods, may not show up as words. It may not show up as an idea or concept. It may not even show up as a feeling!

What does show up when we genuinely turn to God and ask with an open heart and mind to be saved? Who can find out but us?

←Lesson 71
Lesson 73→

Only God’s plan for salvation will work.

From ego’s perspective, our experience of living in the world is predicated on others – how they behave, how they act, how they affect us. Essentially, “our” living becomes an effect of “their” living.

This isn’t a form of unity but rather of upside-down, or backwards, cause-and-effect. We are victims of forces beyond our control. Grievances – which are closely-guarded and nurtured memories of wrongs done by others to us – are central to this confused and painful way of living.

This “backwards” thinking is characteristic of ego, and serves only the purpose of its survival.

Each grievance you hold is a declaration, and an assertion in which you believe, that says “If this were different, I would be saved.” The change of mind necessary for salvation is thus demanded of everyone and everything except yourself (W-pI.71.2:4-5).

Thus, under ego’s plan for salvation, we become judges. We notice wrongs and carefully catalog them, always emphasizing who has done us wrong, how that wrong has adversely effected us, and what the other needs to do to make amends and “save” us.

We are always looking outward. If our spouse was more supportive . . . If we only made more money . . . If our house was bigger . . . If we lived on the west coast instead of the east . . . Salvation always rests beyond our control and so we remain perennially unsatisfied. And the ego is ever ready to point to new exterior “saviors.” Maybe we need a better shrink. Or some other medication. Or a new diet . . .

Thinking this way is basically an abdication of any kind of self-responsibility. It doesn’t work. And, by continually looking away from mind towards our image of others, and projecting all power and responsibility outward onto those images, we ensure that it never will work.

Lesson 71 both identifies and provides a means to actively remember the remedy to ego’s faulty plan for salvation. It reminds us that God’s plan for healing always looks to the source of the problem, not to the apparent symptom. Salvation is in us; in truth, there is nowhere else to look.

Ego argues – and its arguments are not unpersuasive – that this is ridiculous. It is naive and even dangerous. And its litanies of wrong-doers and their myriad wrongs can be very convincing.

A Course in Miracles says: will you at least consider there is another way? Can you at least consider that following the ego’s plan for salvation has made you miserable?

. . . let us rejoice that there is an answer to what seems to be a conflict with no resolution possible. All things are possible to God. Salvation must be yours because of His plan, which cannot fail (W-pI.71.7:2-4).

What do we do? We ask God to show us the plan for salvation established in Creation. We set aside our own “insane attempts and mad proposals” to reach happiness, and wait on that which promises to deliver us unto “release and joy” (W-pI.71.8:4).

Critically, we want to notice when grievances – those long-held and those under new construction – appear in our mind. They are signs that we have projected the cause of salvation unto something external and thus illusory. Can we let them go? If we can’t, why not?

Between God and ego there is no conflict, because what is whole does not recognize what is partial. What is perfect and true does not recognize what insists on error and deception.

Yet to a mind that listens to lies, it is possible to be deceived and confused. If we cannot relinquish grievances, it is because we are still invested in – we are still holding on to – the ego’s plan for salvation. This is not a crime! We will not be punished for this.

But it helpful to remember that our sadness, grief and loneliness are all a direct consequence of refusing to accept the simplicity and clarity of God’s plan. If we would be happy and helpful, can we not spend a few minutes looking for that which will gratefully teach us happiness and helpfulness? For it is already given. It is already working, already waiting on our acceptance.

Lesson 71 is an invitation to do just that. And, more, it is a promise that once we accept this invitation, the end is sure. Only God’s plan for salvation will work. What else do we need to know?

←Lesson 70
Lesson 72→

My salvation comes from me.

When A Course in Miracles talks about temptation, it generally means anything that turns our minds away from the insight that what we are in truth is responsible for – and can perfectly accomplish – the salvation of self, other and world.

In other words, temptation is always that which lures us into believing that we are bodies – subject to suffering, sacrifice and death – adrift in a world in which suffering, sacrifice and death are the law.

In a deep sense, we know this is not true because what we are cannot be apart from either its source or its reality. Yet even that consolation is twisted; it becomes a source of unexamined guilt. We think we are at war with God, or have maybe vanquished God, or have tried and failed to vanquish God and so are subject now to retaliation.

“Suffering, sacrifice and death” are logical outcomes of guilt and fear. The problem is neither the body nor the world, but the mind which is confused about what it is and where it is.

All healing is at the level of the mind.

God would not have put the remedy for the sickness where it cannot help. That is the way your mind mind has worked, but hardly His. He wants you to be healed, so He has kept the Source of healing where the need for healing lies (W-pI.70.3:2-4).

There is tremendous comfort in this insight, for it removes the stress of personal responsibility and it ensures that the outcomes is sure, even if we are not. Indeed, taking comfort in this insight can gently restore us to some measure of sanity even in the context of separation-based anxiety and depression.

God wants us to be healed, and we do not really want to be sick, because it makes us unhappy. Therefore, in accepting the idea for today, we are really in agreement with God. He does not want us to be sick. Neither do we. He wants us to be healed. So do we (W-pI.70.5:2-7).

If we look closely at the quoted material, we might notice that it implies that God’s Will and our will are not separate. We are not in conflict because we want the same thing. This is not like two parties coming to an agreement. Rather, it is like the realization that what believed it was separate and in need of dialogue and negotiation is not separate at all.

We are healed when we realize that our will and God’s will are not separate.

Ultimately, this is what Lesson 70 teaches us. Our salvation is up to us as a condition of what we are in Creation. God created us like unto like; therefore, we can only create like God. Salvation is not an accomplishment, but a joyful remembrance of what we are in truth.

This is not an intellectual endeavor any more than it is an intellectual experience. We are not reaching mental understanding, like finally realizing how to properly diagram a sentence or work through a difficult math problem.

We are actually going into the truth of what we are – and the egoic confusion obscuring it – in order to have a direct experience of God, which transcends language and personal experience. We are pushing past illusions of salvation for the truth beyond all illusions (W-pI.70.9:1-2).

Indeed, this lesson includes a promise that Jesus will personally assist us in our efforts.

If it helps you, think of me holding your hand and leading you. And I assure you this is no idle fantasy (W-pI.70.9:3-4).

The nature of the help being offered here hinges on the word “idle.” Jesus is a fantasy; Jesus remains in the world of illusion. In God, there is neither Jesus nor Sean, neither Love nor fear, neither Heaven nor hell. But in the context of fear-based separation?

There, Jesus can be a very constructive fantasy indeed.

Remember always where the focus of the lesson lies: our salvation is not found in Jesus. It’s not found in the Buddha or Tara Singh. It is found only in what we are in truth.

You are in charge of your salvation. You are in charge of the salvation of the world (W-pI.70.10:3-4).

Calmly – with humility and reverence – let us make it so.

←Lesson 69
Lesson 71→

My grievances hide the light of the world in me.

Love does not hold grievances (W-pI.68.7:2), but ego does. Grievances – nurtured, cherished, clutched – are how ego sustains the darkness in which its unreality cannot be examined, found wanting, and let go.

Critically, the darkness that grievances make, does not only obscure our truth but the world’s as well. Our brothers and sisters cannot see when the light of the world is hidden, and so salvation remains distant, merely conceptual, ideal, and never recognized.

There is another way. And that is to pierce the dense clouds that ego argues are the sum total of our being and altogether impossible to pass through and, by passing through them, literally establish the salvation of all the world.

Share your salvation now with him who stood beside you when you were in hell. He is your brother in the light of the world that saves you both (W-pI.69.1:4-5).

This is all that we want – to wake up to reality. To realize that hell is simply the decision to believe that what never happened happened, and to force our brothers and sisters to share the belief. We have suffered, and so has everyone else, and so has the world. Is it not time to dry our tears and smile in the grace and peace of given us by our Creator?

Learning salvation is our only goal. Let us end the ancient search today by finding the light in us, and holding it up for everyone who searches with us to look upon and rejoice (W-pI.69.3:4-5).

In fact, when we begin to try to reach beyond the prison walls made by ego – and consented to by the mere fact of believing in them – we discover that it is actually quite natural and simple to find the light in us.

Your little effort and small determination call on the power of the universe to help you, and God Himself will raise you from darkness into light. You are in accord with His Will. You cannot fail because your will is His (W-pI.69.7:2-4).

Reaching the light is not to be understood in terms of the world. It isn’t like moonlight or the lamp on your desk. Rather, it is closer to the awareness – the consciousness – in which being itself is known, love and mercy are known, and in which time and space have no meaning whatsoever.

This light is pure and natural; everything that is real is real because of it. We are in it always because it is us. As we open to remembering it, it gently carries and lifts us into a sustained and deeper remembrance. This is salvation, our only need, and in truth, our only function.

←Lesson 68
Lesson 70→

Love holds no grievances.

Grievances are footholds and handholds for ego because they obscure entirely the truth of our creation by love as love. “To hold a grievance is to let the ego rule your mind and condemn the body to death” (W-pI.68.1:4). This is because grievances are tacit admissions that we believe are bodies and thus vulnerable to attack of all kinds.

When we identify as bodies, we separate ourselves from our Creator and from Creation. It is the equivalent of falling into a deep sleep, and dreaming of war, suffering and cruel gods who make it all so. This is the essence of illusion! Our Self “appears to sleep” and the part of our mind given to making illusions “appears to be awake” (W-pI.68.2:1).

“Appears” is key word here. Illusions are different from hallucinations. When we hallucinate, we see something that is not there. When we “see” an illusion, we are confused about what is there. It’s like looking at a bit of rope and thinking it’s a snake.

A Course in Miracles restores perception to right-mindedness, which means we see clearly, and our clear seeing becomes the means by which our mind opens to remembrance of its true nature by remembering its Creator.

In this way, the course is the alternative to the egoic trick of making an image of God and going to war with it.

It is as sure that those who hold grievances will redefine God in their own image, as it is certain that God created them like Himself, and defined them as part of Him . . . It is sure that those who hold grievances will forget who they are, as it is certain that those who forgive will remember (W-pI.68.3:1, 3).

If we let go of grievances, then we will know peace because we will know what we are in truth.

This is a big step for many of us because grievances seem impossible to release grievances. They feel inevitable, unavoidable. If we could release them, then we would have!

And yet.

It is imperative that we realize that we hold grievances because we like them. Yes, this is ego’s work. But ego functions because we choose to let ego function. We have to come to the insight that this is happening because we want it to happen. Then, when the impossibility of relinquishment appears, we can avail ourselves of help.

Love holds no grievances. I would wake to my Self by laying all my grievances aside and wakening in Him (W-pI.68.7:5-6).

Here the split is made clear. The mind that is under ego’s spell cannot let go of grievances. But what we are in truth can. Therefore, the work is simply to trust God and our Teacher – be it Jesus or the Holy Spirit – and allow them to turn our mind away from grievances and towards healing.

This is a miracle and as a miracle it does not acknowledge degrees of difficulty (e.g., T-1.I.1:1).

Note the subtle way in which this lesson reminds us that our healing is not separate from that of our brothers and sisters. We hold grievances against them; as they do against us. Therefore, when we release those grievances, we also release our brother and sisters.

In this way we are no longer “alone in all the universe in the perception of ourself” (W-pI.68.5:5) but joined with our brothers and sisters, all “equal in God’s Love” (T-31.II.7:1).

←Lesson 67
Lesson 69→

Love created me like itself.

What we are in truth is beyond language because it is beyond division into separate parts. What we are in truth is beyond what can be perceived because it is beyond interpretation. Yet – because we believe in division, or separation, and in the interpretation – we need a means of salvation that both recognizes the trap we are in and sees the trap as wholly illusory.

A Course in Miracles uses language and the familiar imagery and mythology of Christianity to help us learn that we are can never be contained by symbols of any kind – be they words or crucifixes or historical saviors.

Thus, Lesson 67 begins by asking us to repeat – in language – ideas about ourselves that point towards the wordless truth. We say that holiness created us holy (W-pI.67.2:3) or perfection created us perfect (W-pI.67.2:6). In Love – in “unchanging and unchangeable” (W-pI.67.2:1) reality – there are no distinctions that would allow us to imagine “perfection” or “imperfection” or “almost perfect” or “less than perfect.”

But here – in these bodies and this world – those words, and those like them, reassure us that we are both loved and lovable. And in the calm that reassurance evokes we are able to let go of the specificity of language and the imagery inherent in thought and approach God.

. . . try to reach past all your images and preconceptions about yourself to the truth in you. If love created you like itself, this Self must be in you. And somewhere in your mind It is there for you to find (W-pI.67.3:1-3).

A Course in Miracles recognizes that this approach may not succeed – or succeed only briefly. But its confidence in our ultimate success is infectious. We cannot really fail, we can only put off Joy and Peace a while. It’s not fun to do this, but it’s not fatal.

Our willingness – and the perseverance which flows from it – are together the guarantee that we will not fail in reaching the Holy Ground of our being. We will pass through ego’s distractions and complications . . .

. . . through the interval of thoughtlessness to the awareness of a blazing light in which you recognize yourself as love created you. Be confident that you will do much today to bring that awareness nearer . . . (W-pI.67.4:3-4).

All that stands in the way of our happiness is our preoccupation with false images of our self, which make all kinds of grief, confusion and chaos possible (e.g., W-pI.67.5:2). Lesson 62 is an opportunity – through the repetition of key ideas and then, in a state of quiet stillness – to enter the actual truth of what we are.

Within us is a Teacher that knows the way to God in the very context of the mess we have made trying to hide from God. When we assure ourself that God creates us like unto God, we are not heeding the “tiny, solitary voice” of ego (W-pI.67.6:1).

This is the Voice for God, reminding you of your Father and of your Self. The is the Voice of truth, replacing everything that the ego tells you about yourself with the simple truth about the Son of God. You were created by love like itself (W-pI.67.6:2-4).

This is the way home, and this is the promise we will make it there together.

←Lesson 66
Lesson 68→