Reading A Course in Miracles: Atonement Without Sacrifice

Sacrifice is so central to traditional Christian understandings of atonement that the possibility of atonement without sacrifice can seem incoherent or sacrilegious. Most of us – despite our apparent learning, cultural sophistication and good intentions – remain invested in the value of sacrifice. It’s the right way – indeed, the only way – to gain God’s favor.

In terms of A Course in Miracles, sacrifice is an extension of the so-called “scarcity principle,” which argues that separate bodies must compete with one another in a zero sum conflict for finite resources, the better to push back the inevitable “final” sacrifice, which is death. What I have, you do not have, and vice-versa. And thought we might establish temporary alliances, they always have as their foundation our personal gain.

It is true that objects like apple pie and diapers and houses are finite and can be thought of in terms of “scarcity.” But truth is always abundant (T-1.IV.3:4). It cannot be lost or gained; it merely is. Like love, the more you give away, the more you have.

It is to this principle – the abundance of love and truth, which are the fundaments of joy and inner peace and love – to which the course aims to direct our attention.

In this sense, atonement is a healed perception of what is valuable and what is not, and a recognition that what is valuable can not be lost or sacrificed in any way.

On a traditional Christian view, sacrifice works something like this: God sacrificed his only son, Jesus, to atone for your sins. Jesus went along with this painful sacrifice willingly. Thus, Jesus becomes the savior you can either accept or reject, and your acceptance opens the gates of Heaven and your rejection opens the gates of Hell. A whole host of martyrs and saints have sacrificed their lives and well-being since.

In this way, sacrifice is yoked to punishment for personal wrong-doing (sin), and so giving something up – the more precious the better (like your life, say) – becomes a hallmark of Christian forgiveness and theology. Thus, perhaps you don’t eat meat on Fridays during Lent. Perhaps you tithe. Perhaps you feel guilty when you don’t do those things. Perhaps you feel guilty just for being alive.

As A Course in Miracles points this inversion of love – which hinges on focusing on the crucifixion, rather than the resurrection (T-3.I.1:2) – is “painful on its minor applications and genuinely tragic on a wider scale” (T-3.I.2:3).

Persecution frequently results in an attempt to “justify” the terrible misperception that God Himself persecuted His Own Son on behalf of salvation. The very words are meaningless . . . The wholly benign less the Atonement teaches is lost if it is tainted with this kind of distortion in any form (T-3.I.2:4-5, 11).

So one aspect of understanding atonement without sacrifice, is to realize that punishment is foreign to God. We are not asked – and thus are not required – to suffer in order to prove our virtue. Our virtue in the eyes of God is a given. We are not called to suffer but to be merciful.

Sacrifice is a notion totally unknown to God . . . Sacrificing in any way is a violation of my injunction that you should be merciful even as your Father in Heaven is merciful (T-3.I.4:1, 3).

Critically, this extension of mercy includes to our own self. We can be quite skilled at giving to others, but still neglect our own well-being. We might call that sort of self-sacrifice as reflecting a crucifixion-based understanding of atonement. Jesus gave himself for us; we, too, must give ourselves up for others (albeit not on a cross).

That is a form of unhelpful thinking that distorts the atonement, because of its implicit believe that we give away we no longer have (hence, others benefit from our sacrifice). It assumes – incorrectly – that love is a finite resource.

Instead, the course invites us to think of atonement as being a reflection of a purity that is wholly innocent and so naturally knows only truth. To be innocent is to know that we have everything; on that view, concepts of getting or taking or hoarding have no meaning. Seeing our brother and sister as wholly equal – because they, like us, are extensions of God’s love – means that all we can do is honor them because “honor is the natural greeting of the truly loved to others who are like them” (T-3.I.6:3).

In this way, the text is reaching a level of being that transcends (without denying) bodily needs and wants. In this section, Jesus-as-narrator is not talking about giving up chocolate for Lent or willingly entering lion dens or signing up for – or refusing to sign up for – yoga classes.

Rather, he is suggesting that our fundamental understanding of who and what we are is deeply, even tragically broken. We think that we are separate from a paternal God who is not above torturing and murdering his children and calling it “love.”

By falling for that lie, we naturally conflate atonement with sacrifice, rather than with love. But there is another way, one premised on remembering our shared innocence.

The innocence of God is the true nature of the mind of His Son. In this state your mind knows God, for God is not symbolic; He is Fact. Knowing His Son as he is, you realize that the Atonement, not sacrifice, is the only appropriate gift for God’s altar, where nothing except perfection belongs (T-3.I.8:1-3).

So we have to look at our fear of sacrifice and be willing to consider that it’s inaccurate and does not reflect the true nature of our being. It doesn’t matter how high the odds against this clear seeing appear.

Sooner or later, all students reach a point where the external world – for all its glitter and gore, all its allure and attraction – no longer matters the way it did. It does not satisfy us; it only brings us pain. In that moment, we see that our ideas about atonement are wrong. And truly, even just holding that thought in mind can feel dangerous, as if an invisible wave of fear were poised to pound us into dust, erase us from the Book of Life, and make it so we aren’t even a memory in the mind of God.

In that moment – as this section of A Course in Miracles teaches – Jesus literally begs us to go with him beside us. God is not symbolic! No more are his children.

And yet.

In the end, the real sacrifice is the ongoing sacrifice of peace and joy – the deliberate decision to go on imagining that the ego is real, the separation happened, and we have no choice in suffering its effects.

Gently but insistently, A Course in Miracles teaches us that true atonement is love, and that love is one, and that is all. Suffering is not mandatory. Salvation is a shared process, a trail we walk together, in order that walking it might not seem so onerous. In time we remember that what we think we’re giving up is nothing and what we “gain” is what we’ve always had, which is the infinite abundance of love.

And that is not a sacrifice, but a blessing.

A Course in Miracles Lesson 18

I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing. 

Lesson 18 of A Course in Miracles is simple but hearty, like oatmeal. It doesn’t pose any dramatic challenges to the structure of our thinking; it doesn’t expose any fireworks or light shows.  And yet, the idea contained in this lesson is so fundamental to our practice of the course and its promise of salvation that we could spend weeks on this one lesson and not reach the end of its healing potential.

Lesson 18 teaches us that all minds are joined and so an experience in one is experienced in all. Another way to frame this is to say that there are not “minds” but simply “Mind.” In our separated state, we equate the body’s brain with the mind, and it makes sense to us that “our” mind is separate from somebody else’s. But A Course in Miracles teaches us that this is not so.

In the holy instant the condition of love is met, for minds are joined without the body’s interference and where there is communication there is peace. The Prince of Peace was born to reestablish the condition of love by teaching that communication remains unbroken even if the body is destroyed, provided that you see not the body as the necessary means of communication (T-15.XI.7:1-2).

Thus, Lesson 18 is also an early introduction to the role communication plays in healing. 

I want to offer two brief observations related to this lesson.

First, it is essential to our practice that we be willing to let go of what we think of as “our” self. As confusing or even disturbing as the idea may be, we are not our bodies and we are not the many stories we tell ourselves about our bodies.  Salvation is hindered by our refusal, often buried quite deep, to give up on this embodied narrative self. Yet over and over, the course reminds us that its function is not self-improvement but a complete restoration of our true identity.

We do not do this; we simply consent to its being done for us. Thus, willingness – which must be checked and rechecked – is our sole prerogative. It’s okay to be scared so long as we retain a shred of willingness to give up our whole self. 

Salvation is a gift. We don’t buy it and we can’t bargain for it. Thus, we have to be in a space of receptivity for it. Think of a kid at his or her birthday party. Consider their joyful anticipation combined with a complete confidence that gifts will be forthcoming. They have no doubt; they are ready. That is the space we want to be in.

The second observation I want to make regarding this lesson is personal.For a long time I was annoyed with A Course in Miracles because it asked me to give attention to my brothers and sisters. In an infantile – not a childish – way, I needed everything to be about me. I believed that any attention given to you was attention taken from me. And that felt intolerable and there was not a lot of interior resolution to change it.

In my mind, I rationalized this situation by saying that once I “woke up,” once I “got it,” then I would be very compassionate and helpful to everyone. But until then, no. Even when I began to appreciate intellectually that the forgiveness I extended to you was offered to me as well – that, in fact, there was no other way to offer forgiveness – I still reserved a special desire to be the special child of God, the favored brother of Jesus, and premier student of A Course in Miracles. 

I think a lot of us feel this way to varying degrees, and also, it is this very selfishness and egoic attachment that ACIM is given to heal. The whole point of becoming miracle workers is to help others become miracle workers, too. In fact, in some ways, the course can be seen as little more than an introduction to waking up – its real goal is to make us fit for leading others back to God. This leading back need not take the form of A Course in Miracles. The form is quite irrelevant. But the content – which is a clear, lucid and innocent love – is relevant indeed. And we only “get” that love when we offer it to others. In fact, we might not even know that we have it until we see ourselves extending it.

Thus, salvation is a shared experience. It is a shared experience of sharing and this so because minds are joined. Of course Lesson 18 is only the beginning of this insight and yet in another sense, it perfectly illuminates the path ahead. We go together, literally.

Thank you, for being with me. 

←Lesson 17
Lesson 19→

A Course in Miracles Lesson 17

I see no neutral things.

Lesson 17 is a natural extension of Lesson 16 which teaches that there is no such thing as a neutral thought. Given this, it is not possible for us to perceive neutral objects – everything is subject to judgment and found pleasing or wanting. The non-neutrality of thought makes this so because we do not see apart from thought.

Thus, this lesson continues the course’s shift of our understanding of cause-and-effect. It appears that the world is separate from us – out there. It acts on us and we react to its acting. That’s how life works. 

For most of us, that’s an eminently logical presumption. Stimulus precedes response – I drop a brick on my foot and my foot smarts. I don’t have to think about it.

Yet A Course in Miracles asks us to reconsider this and does so on the premise that this traditional embodied perception of cause and effect is backwards. Salvation depends on reversing it, on realizing that through the power of thought, we create a world of images each designed to invoke the emotional response that we’ve decided we want. 

You see no neutral things because you have no neutral thoughts. It is always the thought that comes first, despite the temptation to believe that it is the other way around (W-pI.17.1:2-3).

And it is tempting.

So lesson 17 is another step on the road to both appreciating this new belief system and enabling us to actually make positive use of it. In Lesson 16, we explore the absence of neutrality in our thoughts; now we explore how that absence makes, or colors, every image that we perceive in the world.

This tends to become confusing around suffering. We see a hungry child, say, and feel sorrow. We watch a loved one die and feel grief and loss. We watch somebody get through deception a job we wanted and feel anger. Are we really prepared to accept full responsibility for those feelings? Salvation means becoming responsible in just this way. We have to see whatever occurs, we are doing it to our own self.

The secret to salvation is but this: that you are doing this unto yourself. No matter what the form of the attack, this is still true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, still is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is still true (T-27.VIII.10:1-4). 

Yet at this juncture, we are not being asked to take that large step. We are being asked to learn the basics of a new thought system; our learning will be reinforced and refined as we go, and our application will grown increasingly effective.

It is not wrong to allow oneself to be a beginner. Indeed, it is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves as ACIM students. 

Thus, Lesson 17 invites us to look at the bed, the window, the tree, the passing car. These seem insignificant at this stage of our learning, and so we can apply the lesson with minimal resistance. In time we will begin to apply to war, poverty, torture and all the others horrors that appear to fill the world and threaten our existence.

Still, this lesson gives us a little taste of that apparently larger and more powerful reality:

Regardless of what you may believe, you do not see anything that is really alive or really joyous. This is because you are unaware as yet of any thought that is really true, and therefore really happy (W-pI.17.3:2-3).

There are moments when A Course in Miracles adopts an encouraging tone: reminding us that it’s okay if we experience resistance or need to scale back in order to keep ourselves from falling headlong into fear. But here – in the above quote – it’s actually rattling our cage. It’s warning us against becoming too comfortable or too confident.

This is not easy! I don’t like being told that I’ve never seen anything “truly alive or really joyous.” What about my dog when he was a puppy discovering snow? What about when my children were born? What about the Leonids in summer?

These are merely shadows of shadows of joy, says A Course in Miracles.

Shadows of the shadows of joy, says Jesus. He is patient in this lesson, but stern. There is work to do. We have a long way to go. Don’t waste time. Pay attention.

←Lesson 16
Lesson 18→

Reading A Course in Miracles: Cause and Effect

A Course in Miracles asserts that the law of cause-and-effect is “the most fundamental law there is” (T-2.VII.1:4). A is responsible for B, and B is dependent on A (and B may in turn become responsible for C, which will then be dependent on D, and so forth). Cause-and-effect is implicit in creativity; without it, creation as such is not possible.

In this section of the text, Jesus notes that thoughts are causes which yield observable effects. Thus, mind is creative. Yet it is capable of miscreation (T-2.VII.2:2). The purpose of A Course in Miracles is to train us in miracle-minded thinking, which is essentially full respect for the creative power of thought, which enables it to create lovingly.

Thus, in the course, Jesus does not simply eradicate fear. Rather, he teaches us to see clearly how our experience of fear comes into existence (we did it). This clear seeing is what undoes fear, because it reveals that fear is not fundamentally real. It’s a miscreation of a mind that was insufficiently attentive to its own creative power.

This can seem a bit mean-spirited. Why doesn’t Jesus, given his uninhibited communication with God as Love, and power to control both space and time (T-2.VII.7:9) just relieve us of fear? Declining to tamper with it on grounds that the law of cause-and-effect is fundamental can seem overly legalistic, almost as if Jesus were hiding behind a lawyer.

Yet the position taken by Jesus in this section of A Course in Miracles is deeply helpful in at least two ways. First, it places significant emphasis on the power of our thought, and second, it intimates what a helpful and creative relationship with Jesus looks like.

Let’s look at the last point first. In many Christian traditions, the power of Jesus is paramount. He can do what you and I cannot. Nor are there limitations on his power.

In this sense, as a sort of favored child of God, Jesus is superior to other human beings.

A Course in Miracles revises that standard. At best, Jesus is an older brother entitled to our respect and devotion because of his care for and attention to us (T-1.II.3:7). But he is not superior. As miracle workers, we are called not to worship Jesus but to collaborate with him. However, in order to be effective collaborators, we must appreciate the full range of our creative power. We have to bring into alignment with God’s creative powers; we have to “think with His mind” (W-pI.43.3:2).

Thus, when Jesus declines to interfere with what we make with our thought – in this case fear – he is effectively accepting and honoring us as equals in Creation. He is testifying that God does not have favorite children or special children; all God’s children are equal, and their equality and collectivity is what makes them children of God (T-2.VII.6:3). Our holiness arises as a condition of our equality.

Reciprocity at this stage of learning does not mean that we create perfectly lovingly, as Jesus does, but rather that we are willing to grow into the potential Jesus already sees in us. A Course in Miracles exists – we created it – in order to train our minds to create love rather than to miscreate – to make – fear.

This addresses the first point mentioned above: that the course is a curriculum in which we learn to value and to thus correctly apply the power of our thinking. We can choose to miscreate, but we can also choose to create (T-2.VII.3:2). All fear is inherent in the former, and all love in the latter (T-2.VII.3:14). Thus, the basic conflict is between fear and love (T-2.VII.3:15). A Course in Miracles is a means by which to learn how to differentiate between the two and make a better decision as to the one we want to bring forth.

Thus, we are not trying to master or control fear (or hate or jealousy or guilt et cetera). To do that simply reinforces the underlying error that fear is actually real (T-2.VII.4:2). The true resolution of the conflict between fear and love rests on “mastery through love” (T-2.VII.4:4).

That appears to be easier said than done, of course. While we’re here – while eternity is still an idea rather than an experience – we do experience conflict. One way to respond to this is to recognize that conflict – and the pain and discomfort it arouses – are simply signals that we need correction. The solution to fear and discomfort is perfect love which is the atonement. Accepting the atonement in this way is the fundamental correction to all our problems. There is no other solution.

Fear is really nothing and love is everything. Whenever light enters darkness, the darkness is abolished . . . The initial corrective procedure is to recognize temporarily that there is a problem, but only as an indication that immediate correction is needed. This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted without delay (T-2.VII.5:3-4, 8-9).

Thus, mastery through love starts with the simple awareness of our own need for love, right here in the very lives we are living. Whenever we are in pain of any kind, the only answer is love; whenever someone near us is pain, the only answer is love. The more often and consistently we remember this, the more helpful we are to our brothers and sisters, and the more we will experience love, which is the absence of guilt and fear.

Thus, a miracle worker lives in a state of readiness – an ongoing openness to Atonement, to accepting love instead of fear, and thus extending love instead of fear.

It is imperative to remember that this reflects a change in thinking, which is internal. In terms of cause and effect, it means giving attention to thought as cause. Yet note that we do did not create ourselves (T-1.V.1:8). Thus, our thought – which is causative – has its own cause, which is God, or love. Thus, to become miracle-minded is to think with God the thoughts that God would have us think, because to think them is to be with God.

Actually, “Cause” is a term properly belonging to God, and His “Effect” is His Son. This entails a set of Cause and Effect relationships totally different from those you introduce in miscreation (T-2.VII.3:11-12).

Rethinking cause and effect along these lines can facilitate the change of mind that is the miracle.

A Course in Miracles Lesson 16

I have no neutral thoughts.

Lesson 16 of A Course in Miracles is a wonderful opportunity to make contact with what a Zen Buddhist might call call “monkey mind.” Where recent lessons have asked us to bring up particularly frightening thoughts, this one asks that we make no discrimination whatsoever. It asks us to recognize that all thoughts are equal because none of them are neutral. All thinking is creative, causative, gives rise to world and self.

For me, giving attention to thought in this way, means entering a literal alphabet soup of ideas, images, stories, song fragments etc. Monkey mind! It is always astounding to me how crazy that interior space is – busy and buzzing, like a hive of bees.

Actually, a hive of bees isn’t a bad metaphor. I tried my hand at beekeeping a few years ago. It didn’t go well but I did learn a lot about how bees work. I remember when we opened them, the hives were intensely – almost frantically – alive. Bees were coming and going, hovering and landing, crawling in and out of the brood comb. It looks utterly chaotic – yet each bee knows precisely what it’s doing. It has a job and it attends to that job. Each one matters.

That’s the point of this lesson: every single one of our thoughts is powerful and effective. We can’t disregard one of them, no matter how minor or insignificant it appears. There’s no such thing as “idle thoughts” (W-pI.16.2:1). All thoughts cause some effect, yield some result. There’s no such thing as one that doesn’t.

Critically, there is no shade of gray there, either – every thought either promotes truth or foments illusion.

Thoughts are not big or little; powerful or weak. They are merely true or false. Those that are true create their own likeness. Those that are false make theirs (W-pI.16.1:4-7).

This is itself a frightening thought! If we can’t control our thoughts – and, right now, we cannot, apparently – then we are doomed, no? Indeed, this lesson doubles down on the importance of recognizing thought’s power.

. . . salvation requires that you also recognize that every thought you have brings either peace or war; either love or fear. A neutral result is impossible because a neutral thought is impossible (W-pI.16.3:1-2).

Lesson 16 is not aimed at bringing thought under conscious control yet. Its objective goal is simply to encourage us to begin to give regular attention to thought and to accept and appreciate the fact that they’re not neutral. All thinking begets form at some level (T-2.VI.9:14).

This is one of the early lessons in which the scale of the healing contemplated by the course begins to come into view. If each thought – no matter how wispy, no matter how faint – creates either Truth or illusion, then we are going to have to radically alter the way that we think. Radically alter it. 

We might start to wonder what’s going to happen when we cease to tolerate mind-wandering – that is, when we stop just letting our thoughts run rampant. Offering them to the Teacher of Love in order to align them with Love . . . what happens when we do this? Can we do it? 

Hopefully, as we practice these early lessons, we begin to recognize the importance of giving attention to how we think and how that thinking is not separate from the world in which we live. A Course in Miracles is an invitation to be salvation-minded on a second-by-second basis. Separation is a problem in thought; and so its undoing occurs there as well.

The only problem we have is our perception that what we are can be – and in fact is – separate from God. Lesson 16 is observing that this perception is made by a powerful mind. The separation feels and appears real because the mind making it go can move mountains and construct universes. It’s when we appreciate this – when we gain respect for our creative powers – that we begin to move more forcefully and helpfully in the direction of remembering God.

Thus, everything that shows up when we practice this lesson – the despair, the hopefulness, the quitting and starting again, the optimism, the curiosity, the annoyances – are all grist for the mill of Forgiveness. Of the many thoughts that fill my mind during this exercise, quite a few are related to A Course in Miracles itself. When am I going to wake up? When is Jesus going to come and take me by the hand? Why is this so hard?

Lesson 16 asks us to honor those thoughts with condition or qualification. They matter. They don’t matter in and of themselves; rather, they matter because the mind giving rise to them is powerful beyond measure. 

It is in this lesson that I sometimes catch a glimpse of what lies beyond the chatter of monkey mind, the crazy chaos of the hive. It’s like staring into an ocean which is murky and crowded with fish and all of a sudden – for just a moment – the fish clear and a beam of light sinks into the depths and you’re peering into a beautiful bottomless crystal, the light swimming in the current, and it takes your breath away.

And then it passes and you’re back to the lesson, back to singling out this or that thought and reminding yourself that it’s not neutral. It’s okay. Nothing can withstand our efforts, our determination to reach God, to remember God. Because our mind wants that deep down is all the promise we need that it will occur. Hold onto the lesson that show you the light, let them give you that extra push. Then keep on, bent on salvation, the only job we’ve got.

←Lesson 15
Lesson 17→

A Course in Miracles Lesson 15

My thoughts are images that I have made.

Few lessons in A Course in Miracles are as confusing or troubling as Lesson 15. For one thing, it’s a flat-out strange idea for most people – we only think we think the thoughts we think and we only take them seriously because they show up as images to a body. Therefore, we conflate spiritual vision with the body’s considerably weaker seeing. It’s conceptually confusing. What are we supposed to do?

And of course the second reason this lesson throws people are the “light episodes” themselves.

Ah, the ACIM light episodes . . . the bright white frame that surrounds familiar objects, proof that we’re finally advancing up the spiritual ladder. We’re leaving behind the less-advanced students, getting closer to God who loves us a tiny bit more than the others . . . Or we’re freaking out because we’re not seeing the lights. What’s wrong with us?

Set the light episodes aside. They’re a sideshow – and an optional sideshow at that – to the more important work of the lesson. We are learning how to work with our mind here. We are training it to perform miracles, to align it with God and to embrace right-mindedness so gracefully and gratefully that error of any kind simply fades away like smoke in a breeze.

To do that, we need to come to terms with the gap between “seeing” – which is what our bodies do – and real vision, which is the natural function of our minds as miracle workers.

This lesson encourages us to look closely at the apparently dense material objects that surround us and recognize them as images. It is reminiscent of the work we did in Lesson 7 and Lesson 4 (and earlier lessons). We believe the physical world that is revealed to our senses is the real world. Yet this is merely conjectured form into which content – love or the call of love – is poured.

Two key ideas then are presented in this (and related) lessons.

First, we have to begin to see beyond form to content. A good model for this is how the course reframes traditional interpretations of the crucifixion. In Special Principles of Miracle Workers he notes that when he asked God to forgive the soldiers responsible for his execution he wasn’t talking about the execution itself but rather the wrong-mindedness symbolized by it. The suggestion is that the particular form that the error takes does not matter, but the underlying thought process giving rise to it does. We have to begin to get in the habit of looking – of seeing – beyond the forms, or images, that our thoughts construct.

The second idea in this lesson has to do with cause-and-effect. We tend to believe that we are victims of the world – outside influences act on us, driving our behavior. It seems logical enough, right? But A Course in Miracles asks us to consider that the exact opposite is what’s true – that we look inside, decide what kind of world we want to see, and then project it outward. Nothing happens that we haven’t specifically asked for. We are not passive victims but powerful actors playing at passivity.

Hence, those images that we see – the world we experience – is really just a proxy for the internal struggle between salvation and separation. And it can’t be “fixed” or “healed” out there because that’s just images on images on images – it has to be handled on the inside.

Lesson 15 – which includes the important caveat that its fundamental idea is likely to sail right over our heads (which is okay for now) – is a big step in helping us to develop this new perspective on love and healing. In terms of thought reversal – seeing past form and reversing cause-and-effect – it’s a lot to handle in just one day of application.

This is one of the lessons where lingering may not be a bad idea.

One other thought. This lesson includes a critical subtext: take your thoughts seriously. They matter. They are powerful. Your power of thought has literally made the world you see and hear and touch. It implicitly testifies to our extraordinary capacity for Love and for healing calls for Love which we are only just beginning to appreciate. If this lesson feels significant – and it should – consider that it’s merely a prelude to the gentle insights and inner peace to come.

Now about the lights. Human experience is such that we make the spiritual far more mystical or even magical than it needs to be. We feel awe in the presence of channeled texts. We believe that psychics of this or that stripe can provide us with otherwise inaccessible information. Please understand that I am not knocking channeled texts or ascended masters.  I’m cool with psychics. I own Tarot cards. I think crystals are pretty. But I’ve been lifted by non-channeled texts, too. Psychotherapists have been more helpful than psychics. And so-called ordinary stones and plants have been dear allies in learning. As I continually grow closer to the healing contemplated by the course, so-called psychic experiences – communing with the dead, knowing the future, being healed without allopathic intervention, et cetera. – begin to feel more natural, more . . . just the way things are.

All God’s gifts – literary, psychic, healing, teaching – are given to all of us in equal measure. It is a function of the separation that we believe otherwise – and perceive otherwise. Needing light episodes is just another way of glorifying the body’s experience in the world – no different than sex or imported Belgian chocolate or walking your dog at 4 a.m. so you can stargaze. They don’t really matter. If you’re not having them, consider the possibility that you don’t need them – that you have already accepted the truth of Lesson 15, that you are already committed to trading sight for vision.

Above all, don’t allow them to become hallmarks of good or advanced students. Like all our experiences in this world, they are just another illusion. Do the lessons, study the text, practice forgiveness. What’s given is already yours; you will remember it for all of us in time.

←Lesson 14
Lesson 16→

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