“While I can tell you suffering is illusion, you cannot still your fear of it nor tear your eyes away from it or remove from it the feelings of your heart. While I came to reveal the choice of Love to you, the choice that you each must make to end such suffering, the illusion of suffering has continued and in its continuation made the choice of Love seem all but impossible. (Treatises of A Course of Love: Treatise on the Art of Thought, 5.3)”
Affirmation: “I would end any personal suffering today.”
Reflections:
1 – Maya
It is not enough to say that we live in a world of maya, illusion, or dreams. As long as we suffer, we will find it impossible to be satisfied that we do not blame God because all except the real world is illusion. This attitude, expressed by Jesus in this passage, is electrifying and very practical. He knows our limitations. And he knows that we will continue to see God as less than loving when we have not yet given up suffering.
2 – Eckhart Tolle
Pain does not have to turn into suffering! That is the secret. Eckhart Tolle says much about this in The Power of Now and A New Earth. His understanding of the “pain body” is described in great detail in both books, but especially in A New Earth.
3 – Pain into Suffering
How do we accomplish feeling pain that does not lead to suffering? Ah, that is the rub. And the truth may be that we cannot overcome the tendency to turn pain into suffering without divine help. But we do need to end suffering in order to experience all the blessings that the elevated Self of form has been promised (from the Dialogues of A Course of Love). We do need to pray for help, to commune with God, when challenged by pain. He will find a way to get through to us when we are at our lowest point. Indeed, individuals often turn to God at their lowest when they do not do so at any other time. When human resources are exhausted, we relinquish our own attempts to solve our problems, and we turn them over for divine solutions.
4 – Prayer of Relinquishment
Catherine Marshall, an inspirational writer of the last century, said much about the “prayer of relinquishment.” We would do well to pray that prayer often. We do not give up, but we do surrender the problem to a higher solution, that of God’s solution. We wait to be told what to do to make things better, and we do not have to wait long, because A Course in Miracles promises that the solution is with the problem.
5 – Jesus
Let us turn today to consideration of how to end suffering in our lives. This may seem a pipe dream, but I trust that if Jesus channeled A Course of Love (and I think he did), and he says that giving up suffering, seeing an end to suffering, is possible for us, I believe that it is. Let us seek within for the guidance that will tell us what and how to proceed. Everyone’s answer will be different, but the end is sure, and the end is the same for all of us.
Prayer:
Dear Father/Mother,
I would release suffering today. Any little aspect of suffering needs to be gone. And with Your help it will be. Pain does not have to turn to suffering. There are remedies. May my brothers and sisters know freedom from suffering today.
Guide me to any and all remedies that I need to feel totally well in all respects. I sense that You will do this today for me. Thank You for that intuition.
Help others whom I encounter in any way. We need to be there for each other in this sometimes difficult world. Help us to have good days in Your care.
Amen.
MIRACLES EACH DAY 