A Course in Miracles Lesson 161

Give me your blessing, holy Son of God.

Salvation is collaborative, relational. Without our brothers and sisters, we cannot be saved, and if we cannot be saved, then salvation is a lie. God’s power is a joke, and Jesus a deluded fanatic. And A Course in Miracles even more so.

In your heart, you know this is not so. You may be confused and unsure about the truth of God, Jesus and ACIM, it may yet not be your personal path, but it doesn’t deserve to be scorned and discarded.

Today’s lesson is a deep exercise of open-mindedness and willingness. Thus, it is an exercise in personal vulnerability. Without any supernatural drama whatsoever, we have to give attention to the brother or sister we hate, and be willing to see Christ in them.

This means we have to be willing to be wrong! It means that we have to own our confusion. We have to be able to say “I know nothing” and then be taught by a Teacher other than our own self. Anything else would leave the underlying hate intact, an unacceptable result.

The savior’s vision is as innocent of what your brother is as it is free of any judgment made upon yourself . . . It cannot judge because it does not know. And recognizing this, it merely asks, “what is the meaning of what I behold?” Then is the answer given. And the door held open for the face of Christ to shine upon the one who asks, in innocence, to see beyond the veil of old ideas and ancient concepts held so long and dear against the vision of Christ in you (T-31.VII.13:1, 4-7).

For this to happen, we have to notice the way in which our current mode of understanding is premised on specifics. People are attractive or unattractive; this job is more culturally valuable than that one. People in this neighborhood are more trustworthy than those in this other neighborhood. I like purple and yellow but not red. Men should behave this way, women another. Et cetera.

We see specifics, and we value them according to a belief system that we rarely investigate. We just assume the world is the way it is, and the self too. Don’t its many differences and distinctions prove this? And yet look at the suffering this world includes? Is there not another way?

One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. Such is the truth (W-pI.161.4:1-3).

This does not make sense to us. It might seem like a good idea, or a future ideal. It might makes us feel good to say it. But it’s not how we live.

This lesson aims to change that, not by arguing that its wrong, but by going into it as deeply as possible. You and I have hate in our hearts. Specificity is its hallmark (W-pI.161.7:1). Okay, says A Course in Miracles, then let’s use that. Let’s look in a very literal way at one brother – his outfit, his appearance, the tenor of his voice, his behavior, what is admirable about him, what is not.

Then think of this: What you are seeing now conceals from you the sight of one who can forgive you all your sins; whose sacred hands can take away the nails which peirce your own, and lift the crown of thorns which you have placed upon your bleeding head (W-pI.161.11:5).

We ask a blessing of this brother, that we might see him “with the eyes of Christ” in order to behold our own “perfect sinlessness” (W-pI.161.11:7). We are asking our brother and sister – who we have set in a body and judged against, over and over and over – to show us another way of seeing. The blessing – the way of seeing the other not as a body, and free altogether of judgment of any kind – is a light in which we both are healed.

This is the savior’s vision: that he see his innocence in all he looks upon, and see his own salvation everywhere. He holds no concept of himself between his calm and open eyes and what he sees. He brings the light to what he looks upon, that he may see it as it really is (T-31.VII.11:5-7).

Asking a brother or sister to bless us is really asking them to show us who we are in truth. Being willing to see our brother or sister as our own self is what we are in truth. In the context of the world and of bodies, it is an exquisite symbol of joining that undoes our erroneous thinking by dissolving its foundation: that the world is real and we are bodies.

. . . in Christ’s vision is [our brother’s and sister’s] loveliness reflected in a form so holy and so beautiful that you could scarce refrain from kneeling at their feet. Yet you will take their hand instead, for you are like them in the sight that sees them thus (W-pI.161.9:3-4).

Is it clear? We merely ask Love to remind us we are Love Itself. Our willingness to ask – which is our willingness to be wrong about all our ideas and beliefs, bar none – opens the door to a grace and peace that truly transcends understanding.

Today we give attention to each other, grateful that are savior is near at hand and easy to recognize. Humbly we approach one another, seeing only Love, which is born of the willingness to see nothing else. And where Love is invited, Love enters, and makes welcome unto all.

←Lesson 160
Lesson 162→

A Course in Miracles Lesson 160

I am at home. Fear is the stranger here.

This lesson suggests that we are willing aliens in our home home. Fear arrives, asserts itself, argues it is what we are in truth, and we believe it. And believing it effectively makes it real. And so we believe we are lost – to our home and to our own self, whom we have rejected at fear’s insistence.

Fear is the foundation of ego. It threatens attack and demands defense. It allows no peace but forever generates conflict, insisting that we have not brothers but at best temporary allies and at worst blood enemies who must be killed if we are to live.

Fear’s message is terrifying, and we have fallen for it. Look around and behold the world that fear has made – does it not include war? Nuclear weapons? Dying coral reefs and starving children? Isn’t happiness made of shifting sands?

The miracle teaches us that none of this happened. Fear did NOT render us homeless. We only dreamed that it did. And though the way back to happiness and peace may seem difficult, our return is sure.

Yet is your Self as certain of Its Own as God is of His Son. He cannot be confused about creation. He is sure of what belongs to Him . . . He does not know of strangers. He is certain of His Son (W-pI.160.7:4-6, 8-9).

We experience this certainty as our own when we seek it in our brothers and sisters. That is the theme of this current block of lessons: we are each the other’s savior.

You will not remember [Christ] until you look on all as He does. Who denies his brother is denying Him, and thus refusing to accept the gift of sight by which his Self is clearly recognized, his home remembered and salvation come (W-pI.160.10:4-5).

Today’s lesson becomes a happy mantra offered in gratitude. We are home, sure of what we are, and confident in our Creator’s love. Fear is alien to us – a way of seeing that we no longer accept because Christ’s vision has taken its place.

When we hold this idea in our mind, then it becomes easier to look as Christ looks and to see what Christ sees. This is reminiscent of Lesson 75.

Today the real world rises before us in gladness, to be seen at last. Sight is given us, now that the light has come (W-pI.75.4:4-5).

Gratitude and willingness join forces to clarify our mind, rid it of fearful thoughts and fantasies, and bring forth the light in which we the real world greet us as saviors, one and all. We are telling the truth about our self today, and live in its healing light.

←Lesson 159
Lesson 161→

The Ninth Principle of A Course in Miracles

Miracles are a kind of exchange. Like all expressions of love, which are always miraculous in the true sense, the exchange reverses the physical laws. They bring more love both to the giver and the receiver (T-1.I.9:1-3).

It takes two to make a miracle. Or, to put in another way, it takes two to remember they are one.

You are very new in the ways of salvation, and think have lost your way. Your way is lost, but think not this is loss. In your newness, remember that you and your brother have started again, together. And take his hand, to walk together along a road far more familiar than you now believe (T-17.V.9:1-4).

Miracles occur in relationship. They are natural expressions of love (e.g., T-1.I.3:1, 6:1) which heal the mind that believes it is separate because they are love. Miracles are responses to the universal cry for love, regardless of the intensity or size of the cry (e.g., T-1.I.1:1). They supply love where love has been forgotten, thus meeting and undoing our persistent perception of lack (e.g., T-1.I.8:1).

In other words, without our brothers and sisters, and the world in which we all seem to be living, there would be no need for miracles. Miracles would not even be possible. Miracles unite us in a love that is not of this world, and yet – in the context of that world – allow us to transcend it, not in body but in thought.

What does this mean in practice?

One thing it means is that giving attention to our brothers and sisters is never an error. We don’t want to think of them as illusions – aspects of a dream – but rather as family and friends, fellow travelers in a shared lifeboat while tidal waves of separation rise around us. We are here to be of service to one another, to manifest our function of loving in a loveless place, and thus to remember that we are not separate from our Creator or from creation.

Critically, if we are unable to practice miracle-mindedness in a given moment, then our brother or sister will, on our behalf as well as theirs. The exchange to which this principle refers is a two-way street. Love would not have it any other way, because Love does not exclude. The miracle always gathers us together so that we might enact salvation.

You are your brother’s savior. He is yours . . . This gracious plan was given love by Love (T-21.VI.9:1-2).

Thus, it is not a crisis if we “fail” to love – to show kindness or respect, humor or gentleness. Our so-called failure will be used by the Holy Spirit to bring forth love in ways we might not imagine or even understand. We do the best we can and let the rest go; there are no mistakes in salvation. There is no cause for stress or anxiety anywhere in the system.

We talk a lot about oneness in A Course in Miracles. It is a highly practical Christian variant of non-duality. Yet the Course’s method is not one of intellectual rigor so much as willing communication. It is not about isolation and study so much as community and communion.

The Course invites us to be in relationship with one another as each other’s savior. We must be willing to save, which means that we must also be willing to be saved. Indeed, the two are not separate but are a single flowing movement.

Spend but an instant in the glad acceptance of what is given you to give your brother, and learn with him what has been given both of you. To give is no more blessed than to receive. But neither is it less (T-21.VI.9:7-9).

As Lesson 159 puts it, “You recognized your brother as yourself, and thus do you perceive that you are whole” (W-pI.159.2:3). This is the practice of A Course in Miracles.

The exchange of love that occurs through the miracle does not represent loss of any kind. Giving love away increases the love that we have – giving it away is how we have it. It is how we keep it. In this way, our relationships become sites of healing because they are always sites of exchanging love for love. We are here together to save – and to be saved – together.

A Course in Miracles Lesson 159

I give the miracles I have received.

We can only give what we have – this makes sense to all of us. I can’t give you a slice of pie if I don’t have a pie. Also, if I want pie, then I have to keep the pie for myself. But A Course in Miracles upends this familiar logic, arguing that giving a thing away is how I receive it. Gifting it is “proof that what you have is yours” (W-pI.159.1:8).

This logic leads naturally to one of the sweetest and most instructive paragraphs in all the Text, Workbook and Manual for Teachers.

You understand that you are healed when you give healing. You accept forgiveness as accomplished in yourself when you forgive. You recognize your brother as yoursef, and thus do you perceive that you are whole. There is no miracle you cannot give, for all are given you. Receive them now by opening the storehouse of your mind where they are laid, and giving them away (W-pI.159.2:1-5).

To think this way – which is to become ready, willing and able to open the storehouse of our mind and share its contents without qualification or condition – is to see not with the body’s eyes nor the world’s logic but with Christ’s vision, which both sees and obeys only truth.

Christ beholds no sin in anyone. And in His sight the sinless are as one. Their holiness was given by His Father and Himself (W-pI.159.4:4-6).

We do not presently see this way, yet we can learn to. Our learning is accomplished by our willingness to see our brothers and sisters as our equals, and to recognize in all of us our shared desire for peace and happiness. We don’t want to be victors, we don’t want to be masters, and we don’t want to be better. We recognize in those desires only cause for suffering, and we want something else now. We want the other way.

Thus, we see our fundamental equality, and seeing it naturally dissolves our desire to be separate. My sister’s happiness is my own; my brother’s peace is mine. What else can it mean that we can only give the miracles we have been given?

So tentatively we perceive the peace and happiness that is our inheritance of creations of a loving God, and as we do, that happiness and peace naturally extends itself. It is less like we are entering a storehouse and discovering treasure, and more like we are dusty windows being cleansed so a living light can stream through them and reach the world.

Happiness and love are extension; that is what they are. They can’t be possessed or kept to oneself.

Thus, what we are discovering is not something about the discrete self – my spirituality, my wellness, my growth. Rather, it is the discovery that what we share transcends and thus undoes the illusion of being a discrete self in the first place. Christ’s vision does not acknowledge separation.

Christ’s vision is the holy ground in which the lilies of forgiveness set their roots. This is their home. They can be brought from here back to the world, but they can never grow in its unnourishing and shallow soil (W-pI.159.8:1-3).

Thus, our ministry (e.g., W-pI.157.5:1) becomes the work of becoming messengers of love – carrying “lilies of forgiveness” from the real world back into the nightmare of separation, where they might gently transform the world into the happy dream in which God is remembered and the grounds for separation (and dreaming itself) are dissolved.

And what we give away becomes our own, and its bounty is increased a thousandfold. We become the Christ who dreams of a forgiven world, gently helping guide it from dreams of death and pain to dreams of life and healing. This is our calling, and every moment of every day – every relationship, no matter how apparently trivial or brief – becomes the means by which we remember together our “unlost and everlasting sanctity in God” (W-pI.159.10:8).

←Lesson 158
Lesson 160→

Bodies of Light in the Mind of Love

(I shared a newsletter yesterday, if you’re interested).

I remember once driving through light rain and growing increasingly scared of my relationships. I could not fit them together. I did not understand the demands they made on me. I could not bear the demands I made on them. They seemed shallow and dishonest. I couldn’t make a healthy move with any of them. I wanted to run but there was nowhere to run. It was awful. Awful.

I stopped to buy some groceries. In the bakery section, two hands took me by the shoulders. My body straightened; worry and fear were drawn out of it. Lips pressed against my forehead in a kiss. My mind became like a prism filling with light. Every face I looked at was a rainbow. My heart melted into the hearts of those around me, and their hearts melted and flowed into other hearts. I knew with utter clarity the perfection of minds – not bodies – joining.

I floated past the bagels, past the cakes. I floated past the deli. I couldn’t stop smiling; my eyes brimmed with happy tears. Everybody was perfect; everything fit.

And then it faded! Somewhere between grabbing dijon mustard for Jeremiah and sesame oil for Chrisoula it just drifted away. My body was mine again. Veils fell in my mind. The prismatic rainbows disappeared.

But understanding remained. And that was the gift. Not the joyous transition to a Love-infused Body of Light in the co-op but the conviction after that allowed me to live more gracefully, simply, and helpfully. Mind, not bodies, join. It was so clear. It is still clear.

The experiences we have are not what matter. Bright lights in the bakery are well and good but the lesson – minds, not bodies, join – saved me. That was the answer to my earlier angst and confusion. I was scared of relationship and the Holy Spirit showed me that minds are already joined so I need do nothing.

In time, this understanding generalized and became stable. We covet experience – awakening, bliss, spiritual orgasm, face time with the resurrected Jesus – but only the pure abstract clarity of our shared mind can truly satisfy us.

In other words, it is not possible you do not know how much I love you.

For this – and so much more – thanks.

~ Sean

A Course in Miracles Lesson 154

I am among the ministers of God.

Today’s lesson extends the functional aspect of yesterday’s lesson, and also serves as a true declaration of freedom. No longer do we need to worry about who we are or what we should do or what our function is. All that is set by the Holy Spirit, the Voice for God, and all of it can only serve the cause of Peace and Happiness, ours and everyone else’s.

It also clarifies what God’s Ministers do – they carry messages. They don’t write the message, interpret the message, alter the message or question the fitness of the recipient. They are content to bear the glad tidings of salvation on terms they do not set. Truly, this is a foundation of happiness.

It is also a statement about our willingness and open-mindedness. It reflects our commitment to release our will in favor of aligning wholly with God’s Will. We don’t sweat the details of our day-to-day lives, because that’s not our function. We are here to bear witness to peace and joy. That’s all.

Therefore, the message God would have us carry to the world is given first to us. It is the knowledge that unity with God – in which our innocence and peace are perfectly held forever – is the message that we are meant to carry to our brothers and sisters. But we teach by example. We teaching by knowing that unity as the essence of our lives.

The Messengers of God perform their part by their acceptance of His messages as for themselves, and show they understand the messages by giving them away. They choose no roles that are not given them by His authority. And so they gain by every message they give away (W-pI.154.7:2-4).

Paradoxically, we do not recognize the gift we have been given until we have given it away. In the world, this would make no sense – possession does not begin with dispossession. Not so with A Course in Miracles. We recognize our unity with God when we see our brothers and sisters as our saviors, and thus are saved. We teach salvation by learning salvation.

In other words, we aren’t waiting for some deep insight or awakening experience. We aren’t waiting to be ordained an expert in love. Jesus isn’t going to tap our shoulder and say “you – you be the chief disciple.”

What happens is that one day we wake up and we want peace more than we want conflict, and we actively give attention to our brothers and sisters as peacemakers – not bringers of conflict. We do this in a fumbling way but it doesn’t matter because we have glimpsed the Truth, and a glimpse is sufficient to light the interior darkness. We will never be lonely again. When we teach peace, we learn peace, and when we learn peace, we realize that that the peace which surpasses understanding was in us – and understood by us – all along.

This recognition of our brother and sister as our savior, which awakens the Christ in them, which awakens the Christ in us, is called “joining” and it is the symbolic end of the separation. That is, in the context of bodies in the world – in the very separation itself – we bring the separation to end by joining with one another as Messengers of God’s Love.

It is this joining that we undertake to recognize today. We will not seek to keep our minds apart from Him Who speaks for us, for it is but our voice we hear as we attend Him. He alone can speak to us and for us, joining in one Voice the getting and the giving of God’s Word; the giving and receiving of His Will (W-pI.154.10:1-3).

This joining is literal – it occurs right here in our lives. We begin to seek in experience not our own goals, not our own ideals, not our own preferences but merely the doing of God’s Will, which unites all of us in a shared remembrance of Love.

He needs our voice that He may speak through us. He needs our hands to hold His messages, and carry them to those whom He appoints. He needs our feet to bring us where He wills, that those who wait in misery may be at last delivered (W-pI.154.11:2-4).

This could be a shared smile in the hallway at work. Could be a kind word for the cashier at the grocery store; could be recognizing that the cashier needs to be allowed to do their job with minimal dialogue. Could be a check to the local shelter, a call to an old friend, or a decision to order dinner instead of cook. It’s not our call.

We are the beneficiaries of these messages! For they are all love – they all speak to our unity – and they naturally extend themselves through us when we place nothing of our own in their way. And to do that, we simply need to remember – and accept – that we will not recognize God’s gift of Love to us until we give it away.

A Course in Miracles is clear – only our lack of belief makes this so right now. We hold back a little. We hedge. We’ll carry the message most of the time; or we’ll carry to everyone but this one person.

And that’s okay! We will receive a thousand miracles and then another thousand to get us through this desert of doubt. God is not mocked! His Love transcends our doubt and indecision.

Yet knowing there is another way – and that this way opens before us right now – are we not ready to accept it? Shall we not, at last, remember in each other the limitless love of our Creator?

←Lesson 153
Lesson 155→