Sean Reagan

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→

My happiness and my function are one.

Our happiness and our function will almost certainly appear different in form but in reality they are the same thing. They are not similar; they are not related through cause and effect. They are identical. Our function and our happiness are one.

This sameness is why the Holy Spirit never responds to ego’s provocations and attacks. Ego is desperate to keep our happiness and function separate, for only then can it keep us in the state of dissatisfaction and confusion upon which its existence depends.

But the Holy Spirit’s calm certainty about what we are in truth forever prevails.

God gives you only happiness. Therefore, the function He gave you must be happiness, even if it appears to be different (W-pI.66.4:2-3).

Ego wants to analyze. Ego wants to argue with today’s lesson. It wants to make it about definitions with which reasonable people can disagree. It wants to brainstorm the various means by which we might achieve happiness. A better job? More sex? Chocolate? How about moving to the Carribean?

These are attacks on the truth of what we are, and the nature of God’s gift to us. With the Holy Spirit we bypass analysis and go straight to knowledge, as befits creations of a wholly loving God.

Yet the lesson recognizes that the temptations of ego remain alluring. So it offers us a very powerful exercise of logic and reason, designed to quiet ego and restore our minds to the creative openness and willingness characteristic of our true nature.

First, God gives only happiness (W-pI.66.5:2). In order for this to be false, we have to define God as evil, capricious and manipulative. Do we really believe that this fairly or accurately describes God?

Second, God has given us our function (W-pI.66.5:3). There are only two possibilities here: either the Holy Spirit, which speaks for God and knows us in our confusion, represents our function, or our function is made by ego, which is an illusion capable only of bringing forth more illusions.

Unless God gave your function to you, it must be the gift of the ego. Does the ego really have gifts to give, being itself an illusion and offering only the illusion of gifts (W-pI.66.8:3-4)?

Finally, the lesson gently invites us to “hear the truth” rather than “listen to madness” (W-pI.66.10:1). We have been listening to the deranged voice of ego for a long time. Has it made us happy? Has it brought us peace? Has it helped us to bring joy and peace to our brothers and sisters?

In honesty, can we not see there must be another way?

A Course in Miracles emphasizes the all-or-nothing nature of salvation. We can listen to ego or the Holy Spirit. We can’t listen to both. We cannot compromise between truth and lies. Reality is not both whole and in fragments.

On one side stand all illusions. All truth stands on the other. Let us try to realize that only the truth is true (W-pI.66.10:6-8).

Our happiness and our function are identical; what is the same can never be different or separate. And only truth is true. On this foundation rests our – and the world’s – salvation.

←Lesson 65
Lesson 67→

My only function is the one God gave me.

If we take nothing else from this lesson, we need to at least take the idea that salvation is a total commitment. This commitment has two parts: first, we recognize – we remember – that salvation is our only function (W-pI.65.1:5). Second we willingly let any and all other apparent functions go W-pI.65.1:5). Then we are ready to take our “rightful place among the saviors of the world” (W-pI.65.2:1).

This commitment we make is not only a matter of intention but also application.

As you share my unwillingness to accept error in yourself and others, you must join the great crusade to correct it; listen to my voice, learn to undo error and act to correct it. The power to work miracles belongs to you (T-1.III.1:6-7).

Our minds are undisciplined; they wander. We are ready to be saviors one minute, but then slip into vengeful fantasies the next. The past is always reminding us of our errors and the errors of others and the future becomes the alternating possibility of correction and revenge at once. Yet A Course in Miracles assures us that outside the Holy Instant, we cannot claim our real identity and the healing it would bestow on us, the world, and our brothers and sisters.

For the instant of holiness is shared, and cannot be yours alone. Remember, then,  when you are tempted to attack a brother or sister that their instant of release is yours. Miracles are the instants of release you offer, and will receive. They attest to your willingness to be released . . . (T-15.I.12:2-5).

Lesson 65 is dedicated to searching out all the trivial ideas, concepts, goals, obsessions, plans and scenarios to which our thinking is given. We want to see the way in which – and the degree to which – our thoughts conspire against our true nature and its function. Ego is persuasive – we need to make more money, be more fit, find better friends, have more or different sex.

Our true function – the salvation of the world – eschews all of this. If we would believe this – and act upon that belief – we would know peace.

Today’s idea offers you escape from all your perceived difficulties. It places the key to the door of peace, which you have closed upon yourself, in your own hands. It gives you the answer to all the searching you have done since time began (W-pI.65.3:2-4).

When faced with conflict, we tend to want to fix it. We want to confront it head on. But there’s another way. We can simply let it go. We can simply realize that this is not my fight, this is not my function. My function is salvation and conflict interferes with that. I am here to serve my Creator and my Creator asks me to remember – for myself and the world – peace of mind.

And then – in an active, intentional and serious way – we let go of conflict.

This letting go is not easy. Yet the more we practice, the more adept we become with it. And as we become more adept, we become happier. Our happiness becomes the guide; we realize that our happiness is a trustworthy barometer. And we see, too, how naturally it extends itself unto others. Happiness becomes our teacher.

It always arrives as a shock, seeing how little one has to do. There is such love and positive energy in our mind and it sustains and nurtures us. But it never forces itself on us. Our efforts neither establish nor secure it. The faintest of faint requests is sufficient to muster mighty forces to aid us. We set aside our foolish ideas and silly games and give attention only to the love that is our inheritance, the gift that only we can give the world.

We become hopeful, and we become happy. And being both hopeful and happy, we become truly helpful. Helpfulness is the other way of which Bill Thetford long ago spoke.  How grateful we are at last to be on it.

←Lesson 64
Lesson 66→

Let me not forget my function.

Lesson 64 of A Course in Miracles owns a powerful simplicity. It is another way of articulating a familiar line from the Lord’s Prayer: “let me not wander into temptation” (W-pI.64.1:1). It’s a way of affirming that if we focus our attention exclusively on the Kingdom of Heaven, then that is what we will experience. There is nothing else we need to do, nobody else to do it and now is the only time to do it.

To the Holy Spirit, the world is a place where you learn to forgive yourself what you think of as your sins. In this perception, the physical appearance of temptation becomes the spiritual recognition of salvation (W-pI.64.2:3-4).

Our role in salvation is to practice forgiveness. To forgive is to perceive from the truth of our own holiness (rather than our separation, loneliness and fear). To see the world as forgiven is to see our own self as forgiven, for the two are not separate. This is atonement.

The world’s salvation awaits your forgiveness, because through it does the Son of God escape from all illusions, and thus from all temptation. The Son of God is  you (W-pI.64.3:3-4).

When we accept atonement for ourselves – and thus perceive a forgiven world – we are making ourselves happy by “using the means by which happiness becomes inevitable” (W-pI.64.4:2). We are essentially resigning as our own teacher and accepting Jesus and the Holy Spirit as our teachers in all things. They guide us; we simply consent to be led.

At first, this is unfamiliar to us. We are used to being the boss of our own lives – and stubbornly cling to that role despite the abundant evidence that we’re not fit for the position. As we turn our lives over to God, trusting that all things will work for good, we are blessed with peace. We are blessed with happiness. This, in turn, deepens our commitment to faith, to this particular path and practice. We know it works. And we want more of that joy that comes from its working.

Indeed, this lesson nails it when it tells us to remember that the only choice available to us is whether to be happy or not (W-pI.64.4:4). How simple! And trusting that, how can any decision be difficult? We are always choosing between our happiness and what happiness is not. We could see peace instead of this! And it is our choice. And there is no thing and no body that can stop us from making that choice.

There is no other way. Therefore, every time you choose whether or not to fulfill your function, you are really choosing whether or not be be happy (W-pI.64.4:3-4).

It is so simple we think there must be something else to it. There must be some hidden meaning. There must be some mystery. Let me break out the how-to books. Let me dial up my teacher.

But stop and ask for a moment: what if it’s true? What if we spent a day choosing happiness? Could we do that? If not, why not? It would undo conflict forever. It would bless everyone we encountered. It would truly render us “the light of the world.”

All we have to do – in all things – is remember our function. We are here to forgive. If – like me – you are prone to complicating things, and so you can’t quite remember what ACIM forgiveness is, or if you are tempted to exempt some people or ideas or things from your forgiveness, then remember that it always comes down to being happy. If we are not happy, we could be. Indeed, our unhappiness is a witness to the fact that we have chosen against forgiveness. Seeing this, can we choose differently? God didn’t make God difficult. We did.

We need to resolve to do this today. We need to resolve to resign as our own teacher and let the light of Love and Forgiveness stream through us. Today is the day the Lord has made – today, the world is the Kingdom of God and nothing but the happiness of all God’s Children is a worthy goal or outcome. We are ready to be happy and to bring the world along with us in our joy. There is no more waiting. No more postponing. There is no more “yes, but . . . ” 

←Lesson 63
Lesson 65→