Sean Reagan

I want the Peace of God.

It sounds good, doesn’t it? It feels good saying it. But is it our truth?

To say that we want the peace of God and mean it, is to remember instantly and forever that we are not separate from the Peace of God. But – and the previous lesson’s emphasis on the trickiness of language is relevant here – to say it and not mean it, or mean it only partially or sometimes – can only lead to pain.

Lesson 185 of A Course in Miracles makes clear that the peace of God is the end of the dream of separation. It is the end of guilt and judgment, and it is the end of suffering. Our spiritual awakening (in the context of ACIM) makes clear that our honest desire to remember our oneness with God will perfectly and eternally overcome the ego-based illusion of separation.

No one can mean these words and not be healed. He cannot play with dreams, nor think he is himself a dream. He cannot make a hell and think it real. He wants the peace of God, and it is given him (W-pI.185.2:1-4).

The dream of separation refers to the belief that we are individual, separate entities disconnected from God and from one another. According to A Course in Miracles, this perception is an illusion, a dream-like state that causes suffering and conflict – both within us and in the world we project. The dream of separation perpetuates the ego’s need for control and reinforces the mistaken idea that happiness is contingent on external factors.

In contrast, the peace of God represents the ultimate state of unity, love, and harmony. It is a state of knowledge that transcends the ego’s illusions and deceit by remembering the interconnectedness of all life. There is no separation. When we truly desire the peace of God, we signal our readiness to awaken from the dream of separation and embrace the reality of our true nature.

To achieve the peace of God, we must acknowledge our desire for it and also renounce our willingness to accept any alternative. We have to let go of the ego’s insistence on maintaining the illusion of separation. For most of us, this means becoming humble with respect to our need for help and guidance.

We have to actively join with our brothers and sisters and, critically, not insist what form the joining will take.

The mind which means that all it wants is peace must join with other minds, for that is how peace is obtained. And when the wish for peace is genuine, the means for finding it is given, in aform each mind that seeks for it in honesty can understand (W-pI.185.6:1-2).

Is it clear? We have to reach a state of profound honesty and integrity with respect to this one desire. We have to mean it. When we mean it, then we will realize it in our living in form that we understand. Our will aligns with the will of God and naturally we begin to experience glimpses of God’s peace.

Don’t insist on form. Insist on peace and be willing to accept it on whatever terms God chooses.

You choose God’s peace, or you have asked for dreams. And dreams will come as you requested them. Yet will God’s peace come just as certainly, and to remain with you forever (W-pI.185.9:4-6).

Our continued practice of forgiveness – which is right-mindedness manifesting as compassion, service and acceptance, the barriers that maintain the illusion of separation are readily undone. We see ourselves and others as extensions of God’s love, rather than as separate entities competing for limited resources. This shift in perception allows us to experience the peace of God more consistently and deeply.

We learn the truth – and it becomes yet another unshakeable stone in the foundation of our learning – that anyone who seeks God can only succeed, for what they seek is only their own self.

←Lesson 184
Lesson 186→

The Name of God is my inheritance.

In the previous lesson, we learned about the power of God’s Name and how it is also our own. Remembering this fact becomes a means of remembering our underlying oneness. Lesson 184 of A Course in Miracles reinforces these ideas by making clear that our oneness is not a choice on our part or God’s but is rather established in Creation itself. How else could it be our inheritance?

The foundation of our ACIM practice rests on the premise that there is but one Creation; God has “but one Son” (T-2.VII.6:1). If the Name of God is my inheritance, it must also be yours. Therefore, our onenes with God is not a thread between us and God but more like an inclusive space gathering all of Creation – people, animals, quasars, dark matter. Nothing can be excluded. Total and perfect inclusion is what Love is.

It is by remembering – not once but eternally – what Love is that we can finally release false beliefs, ego-based thoughts and erroneous perception and thus experience actual inner peace.

A Course in Miracles teaches us that we live by symbols (W-pI.184.1:1). This process of symbolization inevitably fragments reality by separating one aspect of it from another. Symbols can be helpful in sharing ideas and facilitating understanding at the level of the body but they cannot adequately capture the full essence of wholeness.

We cannot be persuaded of oneness and we cannot be sold oneness. We can only realize oneness for our own selves.

In this way, the Course neatly harmonizes with other nondual traditions which consider the fundamental unity of reality or the ultimate truth to be largely beyond the limitations of language or even pictorial symbols. In the Hindu tradition, the concept of Brahman, the ultimate reality, is generally considered to be beyond description or comprehension. There is no prohibition on the word but there is a recognition of its ultimate futility.

So while symbols can point us in the direction of the unity of reality, they are inherently limited by their separative nature, as they break down the whole into parts or concepts. To truly grasp the unity of reality, we need to leave “the sum of the inheritance the world bestows” (W-pI.184.6:1), the “teachig of the world” (W-pI.184.7:1) and discover that “what is true in earth and Heaven is beyond your naming” (W-pI.184.8:3).

Fear and its myriad forms – confusion, anxiety, distraction, conflict – are merely effects of taking literally our capacity to symbolize, believing it can do more than what in truth it can.

There is – because there is always another way.

. . . what you need are intervals each day in which the learning of the world becomes a transitory phase; a prison house from which you go into the sunlight and forget the darkness. Here you understand the Word, the Name which God has given you; the one Identity which all things share; the one acknowledgement of what is true (W-pI.184.10:1-2).

In truth, God has no name (W-pI.184.12:1). But this does not denote emptiness or nothingness. On the contrary.

And yet His Name becomes the final lesson that all things are one, and at this lesson does all learning end. All names are unified; all space is filled with truth’s reflection. Every gap is closed, and separation healed (W-pI.184.12:2-4).

We begin by accepting the limitations of language, and by recognizing how the way in which it functions naturally brings forth the appearance of separation. After that recognition we can become responsible for how we use language. We can use it to ground our practice in silence and stillness and thus decline to reinforce the underlying fragmentation.

This is the essence of the beautiful prayer at the end of the lesson. It is words but not words that force us into a posture of reliance, substituting yet another interpretation for truth. By approaching this prayer in humility and willingness, we easily remember that we can use words and other symbols such that “all foolish separations disppear which kept us blind” (W-pI.184.14:3).

Let us pray and in our prayer remember that the Vision of Christ is our inheritance. Indeed, it is the active tense of God’s Name.

←Lesson 183
Lesson 185→

I trust my brothers, who are one with me

Lesson 181 of A Course in Miracles emphasizes the importance of trust in our spiritual journey. We are called to trust our brothers and sisters in order to awaken and realize our true nature as one with our Creator. In order to facilitate this realization, we are encouraged to let go of past grievances and judgments because they separate us from one another and thus obscure the truth of our underlying connectedness.

When we trust our brothers and sisters – especially those we do not want to trust, believe we should not trust, are perhaps justified in not trusting – we gradually recognize that the Light of Christ infuses all beings. There are no exceptions in Love. Our shared calling is to remember this together.

As we acknowledge our shared purpose and unity, we naturally extend love and forgiveness, which fosters an even deeper sense of connection and healing. In a sense, when we trust our brothers and sisters, we are also placing our trust in God’s Plan for salvation. This naturally leads to a shift in perception.

Remove your focus on your brother’s sins, and you experience the peace that comes from faith in sinlessness. This faith receives its only sure support from what you see in others past their sins. For their mistakes, if focused on, are witnesses to sins in you (W-pI.181.2:5-7).

This practice of looking beyond errors in order to see the divinity within others is essential for awakening to our oneness with God. By embracing forgiveness and recognizing the divine nature within others, we experience a deep sense of connection and healing, ultimately progressing on our path towards understanding that the past is gone and healing is now.

. . . the past is gone; the future but imagined. These concerns are but defenses against present change of focus in perception. Nothing more. We lay these pointless limitations by a little while (W-pI.181.5:2-5).

This looking beyond error is directly related to our willingness to let go of our fears, doubts, and judgments. We cannot trust ourselves if we do not trust our brothers and sisters and so long as we hold a single grudge, then our trust is not complete. We are not yet fully allowing ourselves to be guided by the Holy Spirit, who helps us overcome the illusion of separation and become aware of our true interconnectedness which cannot sustain the interference of grievances.

This remembrance – this seeing – this knowing our oneness – is tantamount to knowing a “wholly sinless world” (W-pI.181.8:3).

When seeing this is all we want to see, whe this is all we seek for in the name of true perception, are the eyes of Christ inevitably ours. And the Love He feels for us becomes our own as well. This will become the only thing we see reflected in the world and in ourselves (W-pI.181.8:4-6).

Perceiving sinlessness in a brother or sister is what allows us to perceive our own sinlessness. We are basically acknowledging our shared divine essence. And by acknowledging it – by sharing it with the Holy Spirit, who recognizes it for us – we naturally strengthen it. This always leads to happiness.

The Holy Spirit never varies on this point, and so the one mood He engenders if joy. He protects it by rejecting everything that does not foster joy, and so He alone can keep you wholly joyous (T-6.V.C.1:10-11).

Happiness, however, is not the final goal today. Today’s goal is simpler: in each moment we want to give attention only to our brothers and sisters, and only so that we might place our faith in them, trusting them to do their part to bring forth salvation for the world. We are here for them – to learn from them and to be saved by them.

This harmonizes with the overall focus of the holy instant, which is always teaching us to be fully present to and focused on our practice of forgiveness. Future planning – and escaping or valorizing the past – merely distracts us from the truth the present moment is. In this way, we naturally cultivate and nurture our awareness of our oneness with God which extends to all of Creation.

←Lesson 180
Lesson 182→

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

Lesson 180 of A Course in Miracles teaches that we are not alone because we are never truly separated from our source. We remain forever connected in Creation to our Creator. What God creates can neither die nor be injured nor become sick.

Thus, “God is but Love, and therefore so am I” is a declaration of freedom. All life depends on it.

The truth of our lived experience is that we often feel lost and alone; we feel disconnected from others and from God. Our spiritual search may feel empty or hollow, it may ground out in despair, and appear bereft of purpose or function. And yet – because we cannot logically be apart from God – these feelings are basically illusions. They obscure what is true; they are not true themselves.

Thus, this lesson – like all the lessons in this review period – gently but insistently confirms that our true nature is Love, and that there are not many loves but One Love, and that the sooner we remember this, the sooner we can get on with the joy of living. We are united with all that is, because “all that is” in its wholeness, reflects God. Only our belief in separation causes us to feel isolated and disconnected from our brothers and sisters and from God.

Again, the belief in separation is an illusion. It is not grounded in fact but rather in the ego’s interpretation of perception. We are free to choose to ignore the ego – its arguments, its pleas, its threats and empty promises. We are not victims of circumstance, as ego suggests, but rather minds that can choose – again and again and again as necessary – to remember they are not separate from the Mind which brings them forth as thought itself.

Please remember: this remembering does not change the world – our job does not suddenly become a permanent vacation, our hearts do not suddenly turn into prisms that know nothing but Light. But we do experience the world through a lens of joy and peace, which is the Holy Spirit’s gift to us. And this experience is both vastly relaxing and deeply creative.

There is no healing unto which we are not equal.

Thus, Lesson 180 reminds us to look beyond the surface of experience, beyond the endless appearances that comprise the world, and to see instead the Truth beyond all of it – which Truth is the truth of our own being, perfectly reflecting our capacity to choose to remember only Love.

We are not separate beings, each struggling to survive in a harsh and unforgiving world, forever set against one another in desperate combat and competition. Rather, we are all connected in the Mind of God which forever extends itself in us.

Our function is to awaken to the truth of our being, and to remember our divine nature. As the Course puts it, we remember that we are called to accept the atonement for ourselves (T-2.V.5:1) and in that way become capable of loving in a loveless place (T-14.IV.4:10).

Lesson 180 reminds us that every moment is ripe with possibility. We can choose to see the world through the lens of separation, or ego, or we can choose to see the world through Christ Vision, which is the lens of Love, which is the Holy Spirit’s gift to us.

When we choose to see through the Divine Lens of Love, we open ourselves up to the miracles that are present in each and every moment. We become vessels of love and light, and our healing cannot be limited to a body or relationship. The absence of exceptions is what Love is.

←Lesson 179
Lesson 181→

I will be still an instant and go home.

This lesson of A Course in Miracles conveys the idea that the world we seem to live in is not our true home. We are alien here. Yet in the recess of our mind, we know this. The memory of our true home haunts us, as if we were being called to return to a childhood home.

Critically, return is possible.

The challenge is, we do not recognize the voice nor what it reminds us of. That is why the lesson uses the word “haunt.” We are confused and our confusion scares us. This feeling of exile comes and goes – becomes faint or strong – but it never actually leaves us. It’s like a permanent feature of the interior landscape. We miss our home in the same way we miss our identity.

Indeed, it is almost the same problem.

Stillness is the means by which we remember both our identity and the way home. It cannot be accomplished by anything in the physical world or in our bodily experiences in that world. The experience of Heaven transcends all that. It is in essence – because of its fundamental innocence – a childlike experience.

. . . there is a Child in you Who seeks His Father’s house, and knows that he is alien here. This childhood is eternal, with an innocence that will endure forever. Where this Child shall go is holy ground (W-pI.182.4:3-5).

The holiness of this Child – who is not separate from us – literally lights up Heaven,” which in turn reminds us that there can be “no substitute for Heaven” (W-pI.182.3:6). In other words, our ultimate peace and happiness can only be found in relationship with God, and with all our brothers and sisters who, collectively, share Creation with us.

In this way, we go beyond the superficial and temporary pleasures of the world in order to cultivate the interior stillness in which we might care for this inner Child, who is both home in us (W-pI.182.5:5) and in Heaven (WpI.182.5:7). He is our vital link both to remembering what we are in truth and what our actual home is.

The Child is a symbol of the innocence and purity that we all share because we share in God’s Creation. It is a truth in us that remains untouched by the illusions of the world propogated by ego. As those barriers are undone, we remember with increasingly clarity that “Christ is reborn as but a little child each time a wanderer would leave his home” (W-pI.182.10:1).

We are all aliens here, until we remember that we cannot actually be separate from Creation, or Heaven. What is true can be ignored or denied but it cannot be undone. Truth is true. This is the essence of Christ Consciousness – the notion that a universal principle of divine love and wisdom permeates the cosmos, transcending our limited ideas of time and space, identity and home.

Today’s lesson urges us to adopt a nonviolent stance in our practice. Rather than go to war with ego in a futile effort to defeat what is not real, we simply lay down the spear and the sword we raised against an enemy with no existence (W-pI.182.11:1) and rest in Christ, whose cry for help is our own cry, which only we can answer.

Christ has called you friend and brother. He has even come to ask your help in letting Him go home today, completed and completely. He comes as does a little child . . . (W-pI.182.11:2-4).

In stillness today, we recollect our innocence, and we care for it as we would a child, trusting that our efforts will reveal both the way and the journey’s end (e.g., W-pI.182.12:8). In stillness, we are home.

←Lesson 181
Lesson 183→

The introduction to the next sequence of lessons makes clear that we are yet beginners. The goal is to reinforce our willingness to commit to A Course in Miracles, and to bring our “scattered goals” into unified intent, by recognizing what we truly value.

Inner peace and contentment arise because of this unified commitment. This matters! The Course is not asking us to be successful students but rather committed ones – that will bring us peace. That will make us happy.

It is as if the critical detail is our willingness to engage in the process of learning, rather than on measuring or judging the quality of that learning.

There are still nontrivial blocks to our learning; this group of lessons is going to attempt to lift them, even briefly, so that we might experience “the sense of liberation their lifting brings” (Wi181-200.2:3), which relief and rest is beyond language.

We are going to sample a sense of joy and freedom to which we are as yet (perhaps) unaccustomed, and this taste will inspire our practice. The total commitment to which we are being guided becomes desirable because we can now see the final effect of our study and practice.

It is worth repeating: all the lessons ever ask of us is a little willingness. We are going to pratice going beyond all our defenses for a little while – not permanently, not totally, not forever. Just for a little while. Not more than this is needed because our little willingness is the surety that more will come in time.

We cannot fail. So long as we persist, learning will occur, and we will experience their benefits.