“This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.” (A Course in Miracles, T-in.2)
What is real? Do we have any idea? What is unreal? Do we know that either?
At the start of A Course in Miracles, we know neither, for we cannot tell the real from the unreal. And a firm definition would not be helpful in the beginning. It is enough to know, right now, that we want the real and we do not want the unreal. Glimpses of which is which will emerge as we read the Text, and, especially, as we do the Workbook lessons.
We can say a few things at the outset, though. The real is what is of God, and we know immediately that the intangibles of love, harmony, peace, joy, are real. These cannot be threatened by anything other than an insane mind, and the insane mind can really do nothing, ultimately. The insane mind is run by the ego, which is a part of ourselves that we have made in an attempt to be separate from God. An attempt that could never succeed, but which we have thought could succeed. Yet the ego is the first concept that we can understand is unreal, and therefore does not really exist.
A Course in Miracles is written on several levels, none of which conflict with each other. On the ideal level, we know that what the above quotation tells us is true. On the more practical level (which most of ACIM embodies), we are not so sure.
We would invite into our lives today all that is real, eliminating, with the Holy Spirit as our Guide, those aspects of our made-up world that are unreal. We want the peace of God, and we cannot have inner peace when we are anguishing over the ego’s machinations. So let us think today of what we know will bring us peace, and let us concentrate only on that, for that only is real and therefore cannot be threatened.
MIRACLES EACH DAY 