“How can you who are so holy suffer? All your past except its beauty is gone, and nothing is left but a blessing. I have saved all your kindnesses and every loving thought you ever had. (T83)”
Affirmation: “I have saved all your kindnesses and love.”
Reflections:
1 – Difficult Passage
This is a hard passage to understand. It is true that Awakened individuals acknowledge feeling pain, but not suffering. Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now; A New Earth) is one of these individuals. He says that since his Awakening some 30 years ago, no thought has brought him pain. But most of us have not yet known Awakening on a sustained basis, and what are we to do when bad things happen?
2 – Holy Spirit
I think that the Answer is the one we so often find in the Course. The Answer is turning to guidance from the Holy Spirit. Jesus himself says in this passage that he has saved our kindnesses and loving thoughts. We can, without self-satisfaction, realize that, almost despite ourselves, we have had moments of kindnesses and loving thoughts. If these were ever a comfort to our brother, they can also be a comfort to us in our times of pain. This recollection will help to ensure that suffering, even in the midst of pain, will not arise.
3 – Purification
“I have purified them [kindnesses and loving thoughts] of the errors that hid their light, and kept them for you in their own perfect radiance. They are beyond destruction and beyond guilt. They came from the Holy Spirit within you, and we know what God creates is eternal. (T83)”
What a good thought! We have within us many good things, things that we hid when we did not live in the light. The Holy Spirit or the Christ Self thus knows only kindnesses and loving thoughts. May we be so fortunate, sooner rather than later.
4 – No Struggle
The Holy Spirit or the Christ Self (the latter described in A Course of Love), inwardly, does make these adjustments for us. We no longer have to struggle to be good. Indeed, we ought not to so struggle. Our redemption is sure. Jesus has seen to that in the resurrection (which is never disclaimed in either A Course in Miracles or A Course of Love, though I would postulate that we are talking about Jesus in his ethereal body as the resurrection).
5 – Ego
We have a problem with our egos in this matter of seeing ourselves as possessing kindnesses and loving thoughts. We are never good enough for the ego, and if we think that we are (even when thinking in an egoless state of mind), we are warned by the ego that we are arrogant. But Jesus assures us that it is the ego that is arrogant only. Once we have let the ego wither away, on its way away, then we can be certain that the good things said about us have more truth than formerly. It is the ego that is the bogeyman here. Avoid egoistic thinking, and the bane of our existence, the ego, will be undone.
6 – Satan
The ego is indeed the devil of our mythology.
7 – Pain
If we are still not above suffering, we can find in the pain a blessing. The initial passage in this posting seems to say this. The passage also notes that we ourselves are holy, a concept that we find difficult to accept, because we usually feel so unworthy. May we take Jesus at his word, and believe that we do not have to suffer in this world. As we study A Course in Miracles, perhaps we will come to see this concept more clearly and to feel pain, when it comes, but no suffering.
8 – Peace of God
“I place the peace of God in your heart and in your hands, to hold and share. (T83)”
This is Jesus speaking. We are so early in ACIM at this point that Jesus has not yet made the role of the Holy Spirit explicit. So he has us turn to him.
9 – Jesus Holding Our Hands
Indeed, he never neglects or abandons us. He is always available to hold our hands in our imagination. May this image walk with us today.
Prayer:
Dear Father/Mother,
May I know in my innermost being that I do not need to suffer. In the Course, Jesus says that we do not have to learn through pain. May I feel the truth of this reassurance.
It is good that my loving thoughts have been saved. This seems to mean that my unloving thoughts will fall away. Thank you.
Be with me today as I seek to live an egoless life, an egoless existence. If I falter, please set my foot back on my pathway to You. I specifically ask that the impediments to Awakening be removed, for it is only these impediments that make You realize that I am not yet ready. I do not try to merit Awakening, for that is beyond what can be done. I ask only for patience to run the race set before me.
Amen.
MIRACLES EACH DAY 