A Course in Miracles Lesson 48

There is nothing to fear.

To the ego, the statement “there is nothing to fear” makes no sense. Indeed, it borders on offensive – of course there is something to fear. Have you read the news? Looked at the world?

To the ego – and to its home, the body – fear is natural and rational. But we are not bodies (W-pI.199.8:7), and the world is not real (W-pI.132.6:2).

Therefore, there is another way.

In truth there is nothing to fear. It is very easy to recognize this. But it is very difficult to recognize it for those who want illusions to be true (W-pI.48.1:3-5).

So the issue is not what is true or not true, but rather our insistence on remaining in illusion. We want the illusion and not truth. Lesson 48 is a deep dive into the source of separation which is simply our determination that it be true.

When you make something to fill a perceived lack, you are tacitly implying that you believe in separation. The ego has invented many ingenious thought systems for this purpose (T-3.V.2:4-5).

What is whole and integrated cannot fear for there is nothing to attack and thus nothing to defend against. It is only when lack or loss enters our thinking, that fear appears as a reasonable reminder to call upon attack and defense for protection and gain.

But if this worked, would we be here? A Course in Miracles is not given because we are at perfect peace, in full remembrance of love, and thus totally happy in the Kingdom of Heaven.

When we are faced with fear, it is because we have chosen our strength over God’s. And there is another way.

The awareness that there is nothing to fear shows that somewhere in your mind, though not necessarily in a place you recognize as yet, you have remembered God, and let His strength take the place of your weakness. The instant you are willing to do this there is nothing to fear (W-pI.48.3:1-2).

The other way is to simply state that “there is nothing to fear” and be willing to believe it is true. We do not have to make it true; we do not have to force it to reveal it’s truthfulness.

We merely have to be open to receive it as the truth. And we can do this because it is a condition of what we are as creations of a perfectly loving God.

Thus, lesson 48 is effectively an opportunity to directly encounter both our fear and that which reveals our fear to be illusory. We reach the grounds of separation – the supposed birthplace of ego – and we go beyond it – through the “churn and bubble on the surface” (W-pI.47.7:2) of our minds – to the impersonal stillness that is God’s grace, and our true home and being.

This is joy; this is peace.

←Lesson 47
Lesson 49→

A Course in Miracles Lesson 47

God is the strength in which I trust.

In order to survive as bodies in the world, we need strength of various kinds. We need physical strength to move furniture, plant gardens, carry kids and knead bread. We need moral strength to call out evil. We need psychological strength to overcome internal bias and deception.

The body – which includes both a brain and a complex self-narrative – is bound up in its need to be strong and its inevitable failure to be strong enough. Joy and peace in the world are always temporary, always conditional, always unreliable.

This failure – from which we can gain only brief respite – is the ground on which Lesson 47’s promise of salvation is premised.

If you are trusting in your own strength, you have every reason to be apprehensive, anxious and fearful. What can you predict or control? What is there in you that can be counted on (W-pI.47.1:1-3)?

That is a harsh judgment!

But we only need survey our lives – the sorrow, the loss, the fear, the guilt, the hatred, the unpredictability – to see that it is a judgement with merit.

Critically, the lesson is a reminder that we do not have a grip on the so-called big picture. By definition, the body is a limit, and so it is impossible for us to truly know the best outcome in any circumstance – for us or for anyone else. We can’t intuit the best outcome and, even if we could, we certainly can’t bring it forward in the world.

What would give you the ability to be aware of all the facets of any problem, and to resolve in such a way that only good can come of it? What is there in you that gives you the recognition of the right solution, and the guarantee that it will be accomplished (W-pI.47.1:4-5)?

In a sense, ego is simply the body’s insistence (through brain and self-narrative) that it can be aware in this way, and it can resolve any and all problems.

A Course in Miracles suggests we can experience the peace and joy that goes with “only good,” but that is in not our strength but God’s which accomplishes this.

God is your safety in every circumstance. His Voice speaks for Him in all situations and in every aspect of all situations, telling you exactly what to do to call upon His strength and His protection. There are no exceptions because God has no exceptions. And the Voice which speaks for Him think as he does (W-pI.47.3:1-4).

Thus, Lesson 47 becomes an exercise in allowing ourselves to remember this strength and avail ourselves of it. Indeed, it includes a call to go beyond the embodied self and its limitation altogether in order to reach the Kingdom of Heaven itself.

There is a place in you where there is perfect peace. There is is a place in you where nothing is impossible. There is a place in you where the strength of God abides (W-pI.47.7:4-6).

That is a beautiful promise!

And so the lesson is – as so many ACIM lessons are – both a cause for hope and joy and the means by which we remember, here and now, the peace that surpasses understanding.

←Lesson 46
Lesson 48→

Reading A Course in Miracles: The Message of the Crucifixion

I love this section of A Course in Miracles. It’s pretty substantial, compared to other sections which are about half its length. And it addresses two issues that are dear to my heart. First, we get a continuing – and continually helpful – revision of the crucifixion, that pivotal event in Christian theology. And second, our understanding of just who the author is deepens. This is one of most personable sections of all the books, just about as close to sharing tea with the historical Jesus as I can imagine.

First, the crucifixion. As the section notes, we’ve encountered it twice before. First in the introduction to chapter four where we were told it was the “last useless journey” we need take and then in Atonement without Sacrifice in chapter three where we learn the lovely and important concept that Jesus was not punished because we were bad (T-3.I.2:10). But those are largely negative definitions – telling us what the crucifixion is not. Now Jesus aims at a positive, or benign, understanding, one that supplements what we have learned to date.

And it’s actually quite simple. The crucifixion is an extreme example of the fact that a Child of God cannot be attacked. Bodies can be assaulted, torn and even killed, but since we are not our bodies, why lose any sleep over the ills that befall them? Jesus goes so far to say that we absolutely have to understand this. If we don’t, forward progress to Love of any kind is impossible.

The message the crucifixion was intended to teach was that it is not necessary to perceive any form of assault in persecution, because you cannot be persecuted. If you respond with anger, you must be equating yourself with the destructible, and are therefore regarding yourself insanely (T-6.I.4:6-7).

We cannot die. The body can and will die, but not us. If that statement does not make perfect sense – if we cannot accept it calmly and without effort – then we are still identifying with the body. And to that extent, we are holding ourselves apart from the teaching example of Jesus.

When we accept our bodies as real – even infrequently, even to a slight degree – we are admitting the possibility of attack. We are allowing for the possibility of justified anger. We cannot do this and have the peace of Heaven.

There can be no justification for the unjustifiable. Do not believe there is, and do not teach that there is (T-6.I.6:8-9).

Really, we are being asked here to revisit – and reaffirm our commitment to – the course Introduction:

Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.

If we can believe that, then we will teach that, and we will be at peace because we will be home with God.

*

I mentioned earlier that a lot of what is intriguing about this section is the degree to which Jesus is actually talking about his earthly experience. The question of who wrote the Course is a thorny one. Was it the historical Jesus? The abstract Love and Wisdom of Jesus channeled through Helen Schucman? Somebody – or something – else entirely (after all, there are frequent “we”‘s where “I” would make more sense)?

I steer clear of these debates because a) I don’t think you need to take a stand on that question to benefit from studying the Course and b) I absolutely don’t believe that Jesus is the only way, truth or light. I believe that we are called to develop a personal relationship with our savior, the terms and conditions – and the identification – of which need not be disclosed and need not be identical or even similar to the choices of others.

But this section makes a pretty good case for the historical Jesus! In a text that is relatively free of specifics, this section abounds in them. We learn about the apostles – how Jesus really appreciated their devotion but also recognized they were a little thick when it came to grasping his teachings. They really did sleep in at the garden while he prayed. They made up that bit about not coming to bring peace but a sword – lines the Course Jesus specifically disavows. They got the bit about Judas wrong – he was another brother beloved of Jesus who, since Jesus didn’t believe in betrayal, isn’t the big sinner we all tend to see him as. And that’s not to mention all the references to the historical crucifixion.

What’s the point? I guess simply to pay attention. To notice the specificity. To notice that Jesus assumes (T-6.I.16:1) that we are reading the New Testament in addition to the course. To realize that a connection is being drawn – even as it is radically differentiated – between Jesus of Nazareth and the author of the course. You can take it or leave it of course – really, you can – but Jesus is both identifying as the man who lived and died some two millenia ago, as well as a real and active presence in our lives today.

Personally, I find that comforting. I say that carefully: I have no desire to jam Jesus into anybody’s belief system. I merely witness to my own experience – which is to say that I am often guided by a presence, an intelligence that is kinder, wiser and more loving than “I” am, and that I am continually challenged and inspired by considering the historical Jesus as a model for thinking and thus acting.

In the end, this section really calls on me to deepen my acceptance of Jesus as savior. He asks me to see his life and death in the same way he did – as proof that a child of God cannot be killed, despite what the ego judges and despite what is done to the body. And he asks me to be his disciple – one who is committed to changing the way I think in order to wake up and to do what I can to help others do the same. That is the path I am on. Few sections make it so clear or so filled with love.

A Course in Miracles Lesson 46

God is the Love in which I forgive.

This is the first lesson of the workbook where forgiveness appears in an active way. We cannot meaningfully study A Course in Miracles without encountering forgiveness – it is the backbone of the healing the course both teaches and brings forth. Forgiveness is the means by which we make the Atonement a reality in our day-to-day lives, in order to see those lives through a lens of holiness and thus remember truth.

In today’s lesson, we are given a chance to explore the critical idea of forgiveness in depth. We are invited to bring into application this healing gesture.

One of the clearest and most potent references to ACIM forgiveness can be found in Beyond Perception from Chapter 3.

Forgiveness is the healing of the perception of separation. Correct perception of your brother is necessary, because minds have chosen to see themselves as separate (T-3.V.9:1-2).

It is in seeing our brothers and sisters as they are in truth that restores our mind to its natural function.

Fear condemns and love forgives. Forgiveness thus undoes what fear has produced, returning the mind to awareness of God (W-pI.46.2:2-3).

That is a powerful revision of traditional notions of forgiveness. We are not identifying wrongs and patiently agreeing to look past them – i.e., to forgive others for doing us wrong. Rather, we are engaging in an entirely new way of seeing. We are practicing correct perception. This new mode of seeing does not acknowledge the wrongdoing – the sin, the error – at all. It sees only the perfectly healed and perfectly whole brother or sister.

This matters! It can take years to appreciate how A Course in Miracles reframes forgiveness. And even then, we can easily lapse into merely preaching it – talking the walk, so to speak. The question is: can we practice forgiveness? Can we – to paraphrase this lesson – accept our being in God’s creation and – from that space of quiet perfection – see our brothers and sisters as having their being in God’s creation?

To see our brothers and sisters as both sinless and incapable of sin . . . That is something very different than understanding. There is an active component to it, a willingness that surpasses the narrow capacity of  the brain. How do we reach beyond intellect to right mind?

Lesson 46 is instructive on its face: God is the Love in which (and by which) we are able to bring forgiveness – the radical forgiveness proposed by A Course in Miracles – to bear in our lives. It is the means by which we remember what living is in truth.

His Love is nevertheless the basis of forgiveness. Fear condemns and love forgives. Forgiveness thus undoes what fear has produced, returning the mind to the awareness of God (W-pI.46.2:1-3).

All of the recent lessons have been emphasizing – gently, patiently – that the ground of our being is God. God is the light in which we see, the mind with which we think. God is our Source and our Strength. All of these ideas testify to a simple truth – that the separation never happened and that we remain perfect extensions of God and God’s Love. Forgiveness, as we adapt to the ACIM perspective, strengthens our faith in this Truth.

Forgiveness can truly be called salvation. It is the means by which illusions disappear (W-pI.46.2:4-5).

To “forgive” error is to refuse to make error real. It is not to see the error at all. To assert that Love is our Source is to commit to seeing and experiencing reality as God created it – and that means, we do not see sin at all. Not even a hint of it.

So on one level, this lesson is very simple: we list all those people who have wronged us to one degree or another and we forgive them. Then – having cleared the way a little – we forgive ourselves.

But on another level, this lesson is powerful beyond measure. We are actively undoing illusions – specifically, the illusion that we can be harmed or assaulted in any way. A Child of God is not a body and not the narrative structure – the egoic thought system – in which that body is entangled. As we forgive, little by little, we crack the door so the Light of Love and Truth can enter. And that Light will demonstrate that we are not what we think we are. We are not bodies lost in a cruel and hostile world.

Together, as one, we are Love Itself. There are no mistakes. And so there is, in the end, nothing to forgive.

←Lesson 45
Lesson 47→

A Course in Miracles Lesson 45

God is the Mind with which I think.

Two things about this lesson of A Course in Miracles jump out. First are a couple of lines set about halfway through the lesson suggesting our egoic thoughts are actively working against God’s Will.

We will not let the beliefs of the world tell us that what God would have us do is impossible. Instead, we will try to recognize that only what God would have us do is possible (W-pI.45.4:5-6).

This is related to the first principle of miracles, which teaches us that to the miracle no problem is harder or bigger than another. It is ego that decides this burden is too heavy or that challenge too hard.

A critical theme of A Course in Miracles is the degree to which the ego does not mean us well. We’re apt to forget this. But from time to time – either explicitly or in powerful image-based language – the course reminds us that the ego is our enemy and that it wants us dead and would kill us in a second if it could figure out a way to survive without us.

However ridiculous the idea of attacking God may be to the sane mind, never forget that the ego is not sane. It represents a delusional system, and speaks for it. Listening to the ego’s voice means that you believe it is possible to attack God, and that a part of Him has been torn away by you (T-5.V.3:8-10).

In other words, ego is most definitely not our friend. And since it’s the ego whose direction we follow, we live in – and follow rules for decision – that have but one goal: chaos, misery and death.

Most people – including long-time course students – resist this. Me too, sometimes. Life is good! I’m feeling happy vibes! Whatever. But all the time, the ego is working hard to keep us away from true joy and true peace. It doesn’t object to the fleeting instant of happiness, so long as we never challenge its foundation of guilt and hate.

The other aspect of this lesson is the idea that below the clutter of worldly thoughts is the foundation in which we think with God. And that foundation is changeless. It doesn’t come and go. It can’t be affected by apparent shifts in external conditions.

This is what the course says about the thoughts that we think with God.

They are in your mind now, completely unchanged. They will always be in your mind exactly as they always were. Everything you have thought since then will change, but the Foundation on which it rests is wholly changeless (W-pI.45.7:2-4).

The ego has lots of ideas about what enlightenment is or what awakening will be like. They’re not good yardsticks. We don’t really know what that’s going to be like because the ego has no language nor experience with which to describe it. And what it suggests isn’t trustworthy anyway. In the lines I just quoted, we get some interesting suggestions (from a trustworthy source) about what that experience is going to be like. The course is full of such intimations.

This world of light, this circle of brightness is the real world, where guilt meets with forgiveness. Here the world outside is seen anew, without the shadow of guilt upon it . . . Here is the new perception, where everything is bright and shining with innocence, washed with the waters of forgiveness . . . (T-18.IX.9:1-2, 4).

We’re used to thoughts that shift and change. Ideas and concepts that float around, change shape, get judged, get corrected, get admired. But the thoughts we think with God are a foundation – which means that they don’t move. They don’t change. What is a thought that never changes? What is a thought that is so strong and still that it can serve literally as a foundation for love?

These are good questions to ask! And the answers are worth waiting on. Lesson 45 is our assurance that we do not have to wait long on those answers because they are already given.

←Lesson 44
Lesson 46→

Reading A Course in Miracles: The Decision for God

In earlier, less-edited versions of the text, this section was referred to as “The Eternal Fixation,” and included a fairly lengthy riff on Freud and his ideas about fixation. While I think the revised text is a bit jumpy, I very much like the new title. Fixation was meant to imply that our minds were “set” on God. Yet as true as this is, it doesn’t quite capture the need to “choose” God again. We are indeed called – as people bent on salvation in general, and as students of A Course in Miracles in particular – to decide for God.

There is an idea in this section – to which glancing reference has been made in previous sections – that I want to focus on, because it neatly identifies a particular problem of mine when it comes to the Course.

Excluding yourself from the Atonement is the ego’s last-ditch defense of its own existence. It reflects both the ego’s need to separate, and your willingness to side with its separateness. This willingness means that you do not want to be healed (T-5.VII.3:4-6).

I have gotten much better at forgiving others. I don’t hold grudges the way I once did. I see people generally as either loving or calling for love. This is a good thing and there is no doubt that it moves me far along the path to salvation.

Yet I cannot extend that same vision – that same forgiveness – to myself. I “exclude” myself from it. I know better from an intellectual point of view. I can point to those parts of the text that make perfectly clear that my salvation and yours are interdependent.

And yet.

To decide even a little for the ego is to decide wholly against God. There is no other, no better way to say it. This is what Jesus is talking about when he refers in this section to healers who couldn’t heal themselves.

They have not moved mountains by their faith because their faith was not whole. Some of them have healed the sick at times, but they have not raised the dead. Unless the healer heals himself, he cannot believe that there is no order of difficulty in miracles (T-5.VII.2:2-4).

This is important. It is the first principle of miracles that we read. Nothing is beyond God and nothing is beyond us because we are, in a very literal way, one with God. A headache or cancer are the same. Forgiving someone for murder or for dropping ice cream on us are the same. Who knows this? I don’t. Do you? If we don’t, it’s because we are not healed.

I think a lot of the progress we make is because we are still measuring externally. Every Course student with a blog has talked about how they aren’t angry at crappy drivers anymore. There is nothing inherently bad or wrong in this – it’s good to be less angry. It’s good to be less fearful, less guilty. Yet that is not precisely what A Course in Miracles is after.

The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance (In:6-7).

If we cannot bring forgiveness to ourselves – if we cannot include ourselves in the Atonement – then we are not practicing the Course. We are still playing games with it. We are still making half-hearted choices. We are nodding in the direction of God while choosing the ego. The proof is that our experience of joy and peace is so tenuous, so fleeting. Yes, we can get it easier than we did but that is still not the point.

This is very difficult – very hard to write it and very hard to accept it. Partially because we want to be able to pat ourselves on the back – I’m doing better than I was five years ago, and better than I was five weeks ago, and maybe even better than I was five minutes ago. I do it all the time! Yet the Course wants something much more dramatic and profound. Over and over Jesus tells us that he is here for us in a literal way. Over and over he assures us that the Course will lead us to God. Even the early lessons make clear that it can happen in an instant. What stands in our way? Why won’t we let ourselves be blessed?

Here’s the thing: that question is the wrong question. Once we know we aren’t fully at peace and fully in joy, then we simply have to recognize the fact and ask for help. This section – this whole chapter – ends so beautifully with a powerful prayer that reaffirms our ability to “decide for God.” It is evocative of the Rules for Decision which, farther into the text, are a much more complex and deeper exploration of how to undo our resistance.

I must have decided wrongly because I am not at peace.

I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.

I want to decide otherwise, because I want to be at peace.

I don’t feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo all the consequences of my wrong decision if I will let Him.

I choose to let Him, by allowing Him to decide for God for me (T-5.VII. 6:7-11).

But we don’t have to wait! That’s the thing – we can do it now because the separation never happened. We aren’t apart from God. God is in us and when we forget that the voice for God is in us and when we forget that at least we can realize that we aren’t feeling “love’s presence.” The solution is right in the problem: We turn our cares and worries and fears and angers and guilt feelings over to the Holy Spirit. If you can’t do that, ask Jesus to help you. Do this literally! Just ask. Those feelings will be taken from us to the precise degree that we are ready and willing to release them. And when they’re gone what remains is what we are in Truth: God. God and Love.

I know this sounds a new age bumper sticker – and I apologize for that – but it’s true: we deserve to be loved. We deserve to recall our Oneness with God. We deserve to be happy and peaceful. If we can extend that to others, then we must extend it to ourselves. The Atonement is not for anybody if it is not also for us. Can we accept that? Can we accept the solution?