Life Everlasting

“The promise of life everlasting was not an empty promise.  It is a promise that has been fulfilled.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 3.15)”

Affirmation:  “May I revel in the fact of everlasting life today.”

Reflections:

This promise echoes the New Testament, in that we are led to understand in some of Jesus’s words, said on earth, that life everlasting begins now.  We do not have to wait for heaven to be happy; certainly A Course in Miracles suggests this idea clearly.  Eternal life is a joy waiting to be found while still on earth.

Edgar Cayce, the psychic of the last century who died in the Forties and who lived at in Virginia, once did a reading that indicated, in great detail, the Last Supper.  One of the sayings attributed to Jesus by Cayce was a reassuring word by Jesus to his apostles that indicated that “heaven” would be experienced even now, in the moment, when the apostles were gathered with him in love and fellowship.  If we take Cayce seriously (and many people over the years have done so), then we can believe that Jesus was encouraging that the life everlasting to begin now, and, moreover, in the happy times, it is heaven on earth.

Eternal life is a given for students of both A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love.  Many psychics have detailed what life after death is supposed to be like (Note:  Ruth Montgomery in The World Beyond, is one such), and when we take the teaching of ACIM and ACOL to heart, we can believe that the future beyond our bodily death is very grand indeed.  And so the fear of death is gone.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

What a grand promise is life everlasting!  If we believe truly, we will lose all fear of death.  And we know that pain does not have to lead to suffering, so the illness of life is mitigated.

May I experience the joy today that You would have me to feel.  This is a glorious day; may I recognize this.

Amen.

Unity and Everlasting Life

“. . .[T]he nature, even of form, once returned to its natural state of love, is one of unity and everlasting life.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 3.13)

Affirmation:  “May I remember to only love today.”

Reflections:

This passage comes very close, in my opinion, to a promise that we can know “heaven on earth.”  We do not have to die to experience the joys that previously were believed by our elders as reserved for the afterlife.

The “everlasting life” is a phrase that has heretofore been reserved for the afterlife, although traditional Christianity does teach that one joins into this life once one has been “saved,” in the old-fashioned sense.  But it does seem that A Course of Love goes a bit farther in its promises than anything that has appeared previously, even in other New Age thought.  The term “unity,” used so often in ACOL, appears in this context.  This unity always refers to unity with God, inside and outside, and in particular the unity that we share with our brothers and sisters in this world.  This makes us all One, and One with God (a tenet of ACOL).

How can we know the joy that everlasting life holds out to us, even in this sometimes troubled world?  And even in our sometimes troubled personal world?  We must remember that in our better moments, we realize that we love and are loved.  This twin concept, loving and being loved, is not new, but it is newly emphasized and interpreted in A Course of Love.  We have  been told repeatedly that at this point, we have left the ego behind.  And so, we have actually left fear behind, leaving only the love that we have longed to have.

We may still know fear from time to time.  Christ-consciousness does not always come suddenly and completely, with a complete break with the past.  Awakening does not either, and the two concepts are so often linked that they may be seen as one and the same.  That puts ACIM and ACOL on the same wave length, because Christ-consciousness is trumpeted in the latter, and Awakening in the former.

And we can know this joy in physical form.  That is a basic tenet of ACOL, and in this ACOL emphasizes something that is not made firm in ACIM.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I love and, if it is Your will, experience love today.  May I know that any lack of love that I perceive is simply a disguised call for help (and love) on the part of the other person.  Surely I will know Your love today, in my mind and spirit, even if not always in my emotions.

May Christ-consciousness descend upon me today.  I do not know this state on a continuing basis, but may I catch glimpses of this glorious state today.

Amen.

The Original Nature of Our Being

“There is a reason why the original nature of your being cannot exist in a form unnatural to love.  A form whose nature is fear cannot house the creation of love.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 3.12)”

Affirmation:  “May my form house only love today.”

Reflections:

This passage explains further what was begun in the passage quoted yesterday.  We can know our “original nature,” even in physical form, but we cannot know this original nature if we still live in fear.  Fear is the home of the ego, and we are told in A Course of Love that we have left the ego behind.  If vestiges seem to remain, they are illusory, and are meant to be thrust off as unworthy of a child of God.

So the physical can house a being of love, which all of us are aiming to be.  But if we don’t reach for this love, we will not know our “original nature.”  The elevated Self of form, the Christ-consciousness housed in the physical, cannot shine through.  We will be stuck in fear-ridden unreality, the world of the ego.  And we will not know our ultimate glory in this world.

The “New,” as described in this treatise, is meant to convey that we are living in a new time, a time in which we can experience the love that we have lost through separation from God.  We can actually “remember” the state of union with God, and thereby realize that we truly never lost it.  But having forgotten it through the succumbing to the ego’s wily ways, we were unaware of all the joys that could be ours.  The “New” would have us forget all of our former nonsense, and to walk into the sunlight with Jesus (an ACIM concept).

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I know only love today, not fear.  So often fears still try to intrude, even though I have read and studied the words of Jesus in ACIM and ACOL.  I would not have fears to intrude today.  You do not wish me to have fear intrude.

When the day seems difficult, guide my ways into more peaceful pathways.  I know that You wish the best for me, and that is found only in loving relationships with You and with my brothers and sisters in this world.

Amen.

Vision

“The physical form is not the natural or original form of the created.  Vision is the means by which the original nature of the created can once again be known.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 3.12)”

Affirmation:  “May vision come to me today.”

Reflections:

This passage suggests that we existed in a spiritual form before we were born into the physical world, to have the physical form that we accept as natural.  And the elevated Self of form, which we have oft said, is what we are reaching for in this world.

A Course in Miracles does not make the specific statement that we existed in a spiritual form prior to birth into the natural world.  But ACOL does.  Perhaps many of us who are students of ACIM have assumed our spiritual pre-existence, though.

In ACOL, we are told that we can use our newfound vision to recapture the essence of that spiritual state, but we do not have to die to recapture it.  Physicality is not a false state, one to be lamented.  ACOL is quite specific about the heights to which we can climb while still encased in the physical.  ACIM refers more specifically to the illusion that is the physical world, and this has led some students to deemphasize the physical as one to be regretted because of our fall from grace.  ACOL is more optimistic.  It definitely does not champion immortality in the physical form (it denies this elsewhere), but the fact that the physical seems real to us is less discounted.  We are to take advantage of the joys that such physical reality can bring to us, not in any immoral sense, but in more of a joyous way than ACIM suggested.

When we turn to vision, we are led to understand that we can see with our wholeheartedness the joys of physical form.  Note that this vision is not of the eyes, but of the mind and heart combined.  We know in a way that we can only know when we are whole.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I revel in my physical form, especially when I feel that it has been elevated to my Self.  This may not happen all at once, but I may have glimpses of this glorious state.  May I have glimpses today.

Thank You for being there for me, in good times and in bad.  Nothing can be really bad when I know that Jesus is holding my hand as I walk through this world.

Amen.

The Final Judgment

“Once all has been judged with the vision of love, judgment is over naturally for it has served its purpose.  This is the final judgment.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 3.8)

Affirmation:  “May I be judged with the vision of love today.”

Reflections:

Finally we have a definition of the final judgment!  ACIM also tells us that it is nothing to fear, that it will be carried out (and welcomed by us) by Jesus, with the help of our brothers (and sisters).

When we see all in love, we recognize that indeed there is no need for judgment.  There is also, as stated elsewhere in ACIM, no real need for forgiveness, either–for we have moved beyond it.  But in this world, we still do need experience and to express forgiveness, for it is the way that the ego cannot touch.  The way out of the bind in which we find ourselves.

So much of fear and the ego has been made of the concept of the final judgment.  Many cringe in fear at this wholly benign concept.  God’s Son (and Daughter) is innocent.  There is no reason for denunciation.  All are chosen (a tenet of both ACIM and ACOL).

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I used to fear the Final Judgment.  But Jesus’s words make it such a benign concept, so loving and right.  Thank You for this new understanding.

May today I eliminate my own judgments from my life.  It is not up to me to judge my brothers and sisters.  May I remember this all day today.

Amen.

Judgment and Vision

“As the natural state of love is returned to you, judgment falls away because vision will arise.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 3.8)”

Affirmation:  “May vision come to me today.”

Reflections:

This statement is very much akin to one in A Course in Miracles.  We are told that to attack, to judge, and to make plans against contingencies to come will all cause us to lose our way.  In this passage from ACOL, the negative factor of judgment is addressed.  We are to turn to vision, our real salvation from God

Judgment is an aspect of fear, and so long as we judge, we are still caught up in the fears brought on by the ego.  ACOL assures us that we are moving beyond the ego, or we would not still be reading these volumes.  If we have truly left the ego behind, our fear will not long hinder us.  We will live a blessed life, helped through it by the vision that ACOL suggests in this passage.

What is “vision”?  It is simply the right way to view the things of this world.  We are not often conscious of viewing through our vision.  We think that our eyes see, but ACIM says not.  Our eyes see illusion.  Vision is an internal thing.  And it is the way that we will reach higher and higher, or, if you will, deeper and deeper, until Christ-consciousness comes to overshadow us, and we are at Home at last.  This does not mean that we will die; it does mean that we will live, as oft repeated, the elevated Self of form (a tenet of ACOL).

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I leave judgment behind today, knowing that to judge rightly is absolutely impossible for me.  I cannot see the whole picture, and therefore I cannot judge rightly.

Thank You for granting me the vision that I ask for.  I know that I need only fulfill the conditions that you spell out, and then ask, and then vision is mine.

Amen.

A Fearful World and Our Childhood

“Even the most loving parent, like unto your most loving image of God, having brought a child into a fearful world, became subject to the tests of time.  Thus did the world become a world of effort with all things in it and beyond it, including God, weighed and balanced against the idea of fear.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 3.6)”

Affirmation:  “May I leave behind the world of fear today.”

Reflections:

This passage recalls to mind our childhoods, which were often tainted with the image of a fearful world, because that is what our parents believed.  Even religious parents carried this image to a great degree, believing, if they were particularly protective, that we, their offspring, must turn to them to be “saved” from a world that would do us harm.

Jesus would have us lay all this conditioning behind.  We are in an unsafe world only if our perceptions show us such a world.  And even in harsh conditions, we can rise above.  We, of course, do not always do so, because war and natural disasters test us to the limit.  But, as Eckhart Tolle says, we can avoid turning pain into suffering.  This statement is not made specifically in either ACIM or ACOL, but Jesus does say in ACIM that we do not have to learn through pain.  There is a better way.

We must be realistic about what Jesus is saying, because, as Kenneth Wapnick (a writer and scholar of A Course in Miracles) has said, there are two levels to A Course in Miracles.  One I would view as an ideal, sometimes not achieved; the other, the more practical, day-to-day world in which we find ourselves.  We can find this Ideal more often than not through our communion with the Holy Spirit (as in ACIM) or our assumption of Christ-consciousness (as in ACOL).  We are not alone, and we do not have to walk our pathway alone.  There is a spiritual world that impacts our own, and it would be well for us to turn to spiritual guidance more often than not.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May we forgive our parents for the conditioning that they, in their innocence, gave us about living in a “fearful world.”  Let us realize today that this world is fearful only in our perceptions of it, and these perceptions, with the help of the Holy Spirit, can be changed.

May we walk into the sunlight today.  May we take Jesus’s hand and walk without fear.  Mighty companions walk beside us along the way.

Amen.

Joy, Lack of Effort, Love

“For every being there is a natural state that is joyful, effortless, and full of love.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 3.6)”

Affirmation:  “May I be in my natural state today.”

Reflections:

Again, today, we see that our being can embody a natural state that is, as stated, “joyful, effortless, and full of love.”  What a wondrous promise!

How do we find this natural state?  Study of ACIM and ACOL is a first step.  A great deal is not said about prayer in either set of volumes, but much is assumed.  A miracle, though not chosen consciously (because that might be misguided, which is an ACIM tenet), can bring about the desired natural state.  It is true that we may not stay within this blessing, but, as time passes, we will see this real world (an ACIM tenet) more and more often.  And ACIM also tells us that revelation may occasionally reveal the end (Awakening) to us.

The journey to the mountain top with Jesus, in the Forty Days and Forty Nights of the ACOL Dialogues, ends with our acceptance of the elevated Self of form, the acceptance of Christ-consciousness.  More and more individuals in our world are reaching this state, as other writers, such as Echhart Tolle (The Power of Now, The New Earth), have stated.

May we take more tentative steps along this pathway today.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Please be with me today as I seek an anxiety-free, natural state that is effortless and joyful.  I know with all my being that this is what You wish for me.  May my little self not get in the way.  May the ego remain withered away.

Whatever the day brings, I know that I am surrendered to You.  That in itself is a blessing, just to know that.  Thank You.

Amen.

Don’t “Try”

“To have to try to be who you are and to express who you are is the result of the displacement of the nature of love with the nature of fear.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love: ‘ A Treatise on the New,’ 3.5)”

Affirmation:  “May I cease trying to be love, and just be love today.”

Reflections:

We do not have to “try” to be anything in particular.  When we let the illusions drop away from our minds and hearts, we will remember what we really are, and this reality is good.  The remembrance is everything.  Trying suggests work, and elsewhere Jesus says that his new way of living is effortless.  This assertion is like unto the one in the New Testament, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

The fact that being who we really are is natural and effortless is a reassurance of the most keen kind.  How do we achieve this, especially when we realize that we still may harbor anger and attack, harbingers of fear?  Jesus says elsewhere in A Course of Love that if we don’t like a particular trait, we just decide to eliminate it, and then it is done for us.  Maybe this sounds too good to be true, but Jesus is in charge of miracles (an ACIM tenet).

We need to open, wholeheartedly (a tenet of ACOL), to the feeling of love.  This means also when doing so is a stretch.  A “stretch” does not have to be hard or difficult.  Just ask for help, and it will be forthcoming.  ACIM makes the assurance of assistance, upon asking in prayer, a part of the coming of the real world.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to just choose love today.  May I not “try,” when I am so weary of trying.  Love is natural to all of us, and when we ask Jesus’s help, we will experience the love that we so desperately have sought in all the wrong places.

Help me to reach to Jesus today.  Help me to have the spirit of love in my interactions with the brothers and sisters that I meet today.

Amen.

Love and Fear

“This displacement of the original intent can be simply stated as the displacement of love with fear.  It is as simple as that.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 3.4)”

Affirmation:  “May I go through fear to the love that is at the core of my being.”

Reflections:

As discussed yesterday, the two emotions (according to both ACIM and ACOL) are fear and love.  For far too long, we have been ruled by fear in all its distressing disguises.  Now it is time to turn to love in a serious, meaningful way.  There is no other way that we can save our world.  The time is crucial now to make the decision for love.

When we do make the decision for love, we will manifest the original intent of our sojourn on earth.  In time, we will change into the elevated Self of form, a Self that is part of the Christ-consciousness of all of our brothers and sisters, one with ourselves.  May this day come sooner rather than later.

As strange as it seems, it is hard to give up fear, because our minds hold spasmodically to the old records that just go around and around in our minds and our actions.  If we recognize that, when we feel fear, we are actually wanting to feel love, that we are actually expressing a call for love–then there is hope for ourselves.  Turn to Jesus as our companion, and ask his help.  He has promised to be there for us, though to believe this requires an act of faith that our reasoning minds cannot understand.  There are spiritual laws in operation in our world of which we know nothing.  That is how, I believe, Jesus can be everywhere and with everyone simultaneously.  In ACIM, he says to imagine that we are holding his hand, if this will help us; and, he assures us, this will be no idle fantasy.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I hold Jesus’s hand throughout today, knowing that he will lead me along the path to love and away from fear.  May I put my doubts aside and realize that there are spiritual laws in this world that we do not now dream of.  Jesus’s presence is surely one of these laws.

Thank you for helpfulness today.

Amen.

Original Intent = Cause

“Original intent has everything to do with the nature of things for original intent is synonymous with cause.  The original intent of this chosen experience was the expression of the Self of love in observable form.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love: ‘ A Treatise on the New,’ 3.4)”

Affirmation:  “May I express my Self of love today.”

Reflections:

The “chosen experience” discussed in this passage is the advent of mankind on earth, the human form that we inhabit.  But we did, in fact, have a “fall from Grace,” (as depicted metaphorically in the Old Testament), and we detoured into the ego (a part of our belief about ourselves, as discussed in ACIM).  The ego led us to all kinds of fear, manifested mostly in anger and attack, and led us away from the love that we so desperately crave.

Because we thought that we had rejected God, we were reluctant to do what we perceived as His bidding, His “Will.”  ACIM tries to change all that, explaining that to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit is to do our will, that He speaks for us.

So, as A Course of Love makes clear, we did not hold to the original intent of our entry upon earth.  Now later reading in ACOL will support us as we endeavor to become the elevated Self of form, the original intent.  May we take a few steps along this pathway today.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I show the Self of love that I really am this day.  May I not fall into attack and anger, as these are illusory and evidence of the ego having its way with us.

God created me loving.  My Self has not changed from this, though we have fallen into an ego-oriented little self that knows much pain and suffering.  Please take the pain and suffering from me today as I live the Self of love which God meant for me.

Amen.

The Curriculum to Guide Us

“Remember, only from a shared vision of what is can you begin to produce unity and relationship through unity and relationship.  This is your purpose now, and this the curriculum to guide you to the fulfillment of your purpose.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 2.33)”

Affirmation:  “May I join with my brothers and sisters for a shared vision.”

Reflections:

Jesus never says that his way is the only way; he just says that his readers of A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love have chosen him as their guide, and it would be unwise to confuse our minds with ways meant for others (a tenet of ACIM).

He has an almost “hands-off” approach to whether or not we accept his teachings.  He does not force anyone to believe him.  I think that he has enough faith in his teachings and in his relationship to the Father to know that those who read with any open mind and heart will accept what he says.  There is an authority here that is found only when one interacts with Jesus.  It is akin to the experience portrayed in the New Testament, when it is said that Jesus spoke with authority.

In this passage, he is speaking of A Course of Love as the curriculum to guide us.  Certainly, in my reading, A Course of Love is the logical, practical next step to A Course in Miracles.  A Course of Love works.  It is not as complicated a reading as is ACIM, but it is no less authoritative.  Jesus partakes of his channel, Mari Perron, to the extent that she has lent her mind and heart to the process.  He writes very beautifully through her.  Mari did not use the blank verse that is a hallmark of A Course in Miracles.  The co-scribe to A Course in Miracles, Helen Schucman, was a Shakespearian scholar, and so perhaps it is natural that transcribed in iambic pentameter.  A Course of Love is also part of the curriculum, as Mari heard internally–“another Course in Miracles.”

Both works, A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love, are eminently practical to the daily life.  Jesus said in ACIM that a universal theology is impossible, but that a universal experience is not only possible but necessary.  This experience I believe he continues to give to us, through Mari, in ACOL.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May we join with our brothers and sisters today for a shared vision.  May we build upon A Course in Miracles by reading A Course of Love.  May both works bring us ever closer to Awakening and to Christ-consciousness.

Thank You for the knowledge God brings to us through these readings.

Amen.

Christ-Consciousness

“Seeing with the vision of Christ-consciousness is already upon you.  You are in the process of learning what it means.  This treatise is here to help you do so.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 2.33)”

Affirmation:  “May I see the vision of Christ-consciousness.”

This passage clarifies the point of transition.  We are ready for Christ-consciousness, but we may still have questions, and it is these questions that the “Treatise on the New” seeks to explain to us.

Certainly no transition is without bumpy spots.  Neither will this one.  But it can be effortless if we give ourselves to it wholeheartedly, as Jesus asks in the first volume of the series of A Course of Love.  We are used to hearing the Holy Spirit, and most of us are used to rejecting His advice from time to time, even when we know in our deepest being that what He bids us say or do is the right choice.

Now we will take the next step into the time of Christ.  We will follow our inner knowing without the struggle that we sometimes experienced when trying to follow the Holy Spirit.  Previously, we were often weak, often indecisive, when the Voice of the Holy Spirit asked us to say or do something that made us uncomfortable.  Jesus described this situation well in A Course in Miracles.  He even said that what the Holy Spirit bade us to say or do might be embarrassing to us.  But this, he said, was a misperception coming from a “shabby self-perception,” and would best be left behind.  All of us have struggled with this advice, sometimes with more success, sometimes with less.

Now we are at the point of allowing the guidance that we receive to be received unconsciously, if we so will.  God has promised this; Jesus has passed the Word along to us in A Course of Love.  This becomes the effortless way that we will live in the future, once we have accepted the promise of all that this way of life holds out to us.  This is the essence of living in Christ-consciousness.  Let us not allow indecisiveness to delay us further.  May we accept this promise today.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I see the vision of Christ-consciousness today.  May I know what lies ahead for me, if I follow what Jesus has been saying to me.  May I offer the words that he gives to me without embarrassment, and may I listen to the Voice of the Holy Spirit until such time as my guidance is received internally, without any strain at all.

Be with me today as I seek to leave attack, judgment, and unneeded planning of the future behind.  When I have done that, I will know that God will be willing to take the final step for me to reach Christ-consciousness.  Thank you.

Amen.

Purpose

“It [true vision] is believing that you exist in relationship and union with all and that each encounter is one of union and relationship and purpose. . .purpose that will be revealed to you because you exist in union with the Source and Cause of revelation.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 2.32)”

Affirmation:  “May I fulfill my purpose today.”

Reflections:

God is the Source and Cause of revelation; this is a tenet of A Course in Miracles as well as A Course of Love.  A Course in Miracles indicates that miracles do not last, and that we should not contrive to bring them about, as consciously chosen miracles can be misguided.  Jesus himself is the one that tells us what miracles to perform, and he gives us the grace, with God, to perform them.  (This takes a bit of faith, as we must believe that Jesus is available to all at all times.)  Revelation, according to A Course in Miracles, proceeds from God to us–but never the reverse.  And revelation is what reveals the end to us.

What is the end?  It would seem from A Course of Love that Christ-consciousness is our ultimate goal for this era.  We are told in ACOL that this is the time of Christ-consciousness, that the time of the Holy Spirit is fading away.  This idea may be one of the more controversial in A Course of Love, especially to those of us who have come to depend upon the guidance of the Holy Spirit in going about our daily lives.  Are we to be bereft of this guidance?

Not at all.  As previously described in these postings, the (sometimes) slower guidance of the Holy Spirit will be replaced with an almost unconscious inner knowing of the next step to take.  We will be led without having that sometimes painful moment of choice that allowed us to choose differently from what the Holy Spirit bade.  Do not fear, though, that guidance will be removed precipitously.  As long as we want to learn our next step through listening to the Holy Spirit, I believe that that option will remain open to us.  It is only the culmination of a long process that leads us rightly to think and do the best without conscious thought.  And we do not have to expect a sudden transformation that would be unsettling.  Jesus remains our guide throughout both the time of the Holy Spirit and the time of Christ-consciousness (though in the latter he is revealed as a companion rather than a teacher).  Let us put our trust in him with complete knowledge–and it is knowledge and not perception–that he will be there for us in all situations, mundane or “important.”

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me today to know Your way, at least sometimes without conscious thinking or feeling, but through simply knowing.  This is the final goal of this latest course from Jesus.  May I come to understand more today.

Thank You for leading me, gently, throughout all of my life’s pathway.  When the way seemed hard, You were actually “carrying” me.  If today seems hard, may You “carry” me.

Amen.

True Vision

“. . .[T]rue vision is seeing relationship and union.  It is the opposite of seeing with the eyes and the attitude of separation.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love: ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 2.32)”

Affirmation:  “May I enjoy true vision today.”

Reflections:

In A Course in Miracles, Jesus assures us that true vision does not have anything to do with the vision that our eyes have, or the world that our eyes behold.  True vision sees beyond the illusion that is this world.  It is an internal concept that one can enjoy when he or she has left behind the belief in separation from God as well as separation from our brothers and sisters.

A Course of Love, as we have repeatedly described, is based in large part on this theme of relationship and union (often called “unity and relationship”).  The words are repeated so often that perhaps we lose sight of their true meaning, but a simple return to what the words themselves mean can set our minds and hearts at rest.  We are in relationship to the All, which includes our brothers and sisters as well as God, but this All is actually One (i.e., unity).  This easy definition will go a long way toward helping us to understand that Jesus is not asking us to believe or to live the impossible.  We can live in unity and relationship, and indeed we will want to do so.  Only in that way can we come to know the fullest meaning of salvation, the fullest extent of Awakening to Christ-consciousness.

We all too often depend on our perception to determine our reactions in this world.  This is discussed at length in A Course in Miracles.  But we are also told in ACIM that projection makes perception.  And who would want to live a projection from ourselves that shows us an evil and suffering world?  We will not be blind to suffering when we move beyond seeing in this way, but we will see the larger picture–almost miraculously–and in no way will be tempted to blame our God for this state of affairs.  Just as Jesus promises, we can know “pure joy” and “limitless release” on a daily basis.  These two phrases can be the way that we view this world, as Jesus has bade us to do constantly.  Only then will we know the peace that is held out to us in both ACIM and ACOL.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

You would have me to experience true vision–the revelation of a new world that only You can bring to me.  In revelation, You reach down to me, and You bless me.  I ask for this blessing today.

Be with me as I go about our sometimes woeful world.  May I keep my head in the clouds, but my feet on the ground, grounded in You.

Amen.

Inner Knowing

“Have you thought your instincts will be sharpened and that you will know with an inner knowing that will aid the sight of your eyes?  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 2.31)”

Affirmation:  “May I experience the inner knowing of Christ-consciousness today.”

Reflections:

This passage describes succinctly what Jesus has explained earlier in the “Treatise on the New,” but in less cogent terms.  We will know with an inner knowing, once we have accepted the Christ-consciousness that he holds out to us as awaiting us at the end of the “journey without distance” (an ACIM quotation) that we have taken.  This inner knowing is somewhat different from the intuitions that we have come to recognize from the Holy Spirit.  In my experience of the Holy Spirit, there was a definite statement, felt internally, of what the next step was to be.  There was a bit of a delay as the Holy Spirit stepped back and let me make a decision of whether or not to follow His guidance.

But in this inner knowing of the Christ-consciousness, there is no delay.  The way is effortless and easy.  We want to follow the instinct that has suddenly, almost imperceptibly, arisen in us.  This is akin to allowing Jesus to guide us without our conscious awareness, a step that he told us in A Course in Miracles still awaited us.  He said there that most were not yet ready for this type of guidance.  In A Course of Love, we have become ready.  We are asked to become ready.  We are told that we need not seek for yet another way, another pathway that will give us more peace.  The time of peace has arrived.  We are justified.  We do not have to wonder if we are worthy.

This type of reassurance is very important at this juncture.  Many will feel that it is too good to be true, and many will believe that Jesus is misleading us–but if we take him at his word, we will experience the truth of what he says.  ACIM also talked about the fear from us that Jesus might be misleading us.  But no one who has studied those volumes long and faithfully still clings to this early misinterpretation.

Now we are asked to accept A Course of Love with the same acuity.  We need to recognize that perfection on our own part, achieved by ourselves, is not the goal.  Has the belief that perfection of our little personalities not  always been the sticking point?  But in A Course in Miracles, Jesus reassures us that he stands at the end of the journey to reach to us, to correct the mistakes that we cannot correct.  He stands ready to help us at our point of failure.  This he is doing in A Course of Love (though he does not say this specifically).  Jesus would have us to realize that mistakes do not impede the “perfection” to which he draws us.  He wants only a perfect faith, and even though we demur, this perfect faith is, as A Course of Love indicates, within the power of all of us–with Jesus as our always loving guide, ready to correct our errors as we move toward Christ-consciousness (and indeed, as we live Christ-consciousness).

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I live Christ-consciousness today, living with the knowing that is inner entirely.  I recognize the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and I find that actually there is an oscillation between the two ways of coming to know the right pathway.

You would have me just to “know,” but I will be patient and wait for Your messages, however they are given to me.  In A Course of Love, Jesus indicates that what got us in trouble in the first place was our impatience; this is when the “tiny, mad idea” crept in.  May I know patience today.  And may You walk with me every step of my day today.

Amen.

True Vision

“Examine what you may have felt the onset of true vision would mean.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 2.31)”

Affirmation:  “May I come to know today what true vision means.”

Reflections:

This command is daunting.  We are asked to reexamine our thoughts and emotions for the changes that we are undergoing.  And change may be stressful, though Jesus would have us to realize that change, under his direction and without the ego’s interference, is not stressful.

Our vision from God is an expression of revelation.  A Course in Miracles explains that revelation will occasionally reveal the end to us, but to get there the means are needed.  Those means are, first of all, explained in ACIM.  Now A Course of Love has taken us a step forward, beyond the time of the Holy Spirit and His guidance, into Christ-consciousness, which depends on an inner knowing that is normally wordless.

If we have never  thought about what true vision would entail, we will not be ready to accept vision from God when it comes.  I once read that one should not beseech heaven for a miracle that one would not recognize if seen at high noon.  That is a particularly graphic illustration of the change that is set before us now.  We must ask for eyes to see, ears to hear.  We must be anticipatory about the change that awaits us.  Above all, we must not fear this change.  Faith can substitute for the fear that we once had, and which we once felt protected us.  Faith, as I am describing it, is a form of love–and A Course in Miracles says that fear and love are the only two emotions, all others being variant forms of these two.

May we wait at high noon for the miracle–indeed, the revelation–that awaits us.  It qualifies as a revelation rather than a miracle because, as ACIM points out, revelation comes only from God.  God will stay by us now, as He especially eagerly awaits our transformation.  As so many have pointed out before, He has only our hands and feet to do His bidding.  (The same has also been said of our guide, Jesus.)

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I long for true vision, for the revelation that Christ-consciousness holds out for me.  Be with me today as I keep this request in mind.  I know that You have placed this longing in my heart and mind, and that, since it is Your wish, my prayer will be answered.  If not today–if I must wait beyond today–help me to prepare for the vision that You will surely grant when I have been made ready.

I believe that if my faith in You is strong enough today, this will be the day that vision will come to me.  Help me to be steadfast.

Amen.

Changed Vision

“. . .[Y]our vision has already changed, although you are not aware of the extent of this change.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 2.30)”

Affirmation:  “Thank You that my vision has changed even more than I realize.”

Reflections:

Our vision, our revelation from God, has happened–sometimes intermittently and sometimes on a more permanent basis.  We have let go our mistakes–not sins (according to A Course in Miracles).  We have asked forgiveness for our misdeeds, and we have received absolution.  We still do not fully comprehend all that this new state of being, of Christ-consciousness, holds out to us.  We are still living in the shadow of separation from God.

Pray today to have this dichotomy removed.  We will never live a joyful life as long as we are conflicted about our state of mind and heart, our wholeheartedness (a tenet of A Course of Love).  We are ready to step into a new world, while yet still inhabiting this world that we have known since our birth.  A Course in Miracles talks of the change that individuals undergo who have accepted Awakening–indeed, even before we understand fully what Awakening holds out to us.  We are said to smile more often, and we are said to be recognized by others who walk the earth as we do.  Yet the individuals who surround us, and who have not experienced this wondrous change, will not see anything different in us.  They will think we are as we were before.  This is almost a form of communion among believers that many to which many who have not accepted the New are oblivious.

We need to ask for Jesus’s help, as our guide, to come to understand this huge change ahead.  We are on the cusp of this change, and we will not step forward to accept the elevated Self of form if we hold to ourselves any sense of fear.  It is time to leave the ego’s fears behind.  It is time to move into Christ-consciousness, perhaps at first tentatively, but with the promise that this new state of mind and heart is meant for us to enjoy on a permanent basis.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I know what the vision, the revelation, holds out to me.  May I know Christ-consciousness in all Its glory.  This I pray for today.

If the day brings difficulties, may I realize that these difficulties do not have to be experienced as deeply as once they would have been.  With Your help, I am moving into a new world, a world bright with your glory and majesty.

Amen.

Workbook Lesson for Day 248:

Whatever suffers is not part of me.

Shared Vision

“You have lived with the vision of the separated self for so long that you cannot imagine what shared vision will mean, and do not yet recognize it when you experience it.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 2.29)”

Affirmation:  “May I feel alone no longer.”

Reflections:

Shared vision will be one with All, including God as well as our brothers and sisters.  Vision is more an attribute of God than is observation, a concept that refers to the physical manifestation of what vision has first shown.  But, as this passage says, we have long become accustomed to a separated self.  And now we are being asked to move into a shared Self of form, the elevated Self of form.

The elevated Self of form is a manifestation of Christ-consciousness in the physical world.  We do not leave this world by death to experience this revelation, and it is revelation from God to us (never the reverse, as A Course in Miracles makes clear).  We do not achieve immortality in the physical form that we inhabit, though; this ACOL makes clear elsewhere.  This idea of immortality in the physical form that we have now is a frequent misinterpretation of A Course in Miracles.  :Perhaps it is merely wish fulfillment for those of us who still fear death.  But some have said that death itself is like walking through an open door, and who could fear that?

We do not fully recognize, always, when we are in fact experiencing the elevated Self of form, the revelation of Christ-consciousness.  We think that we are not worthy, and so we do not open ourselves to the truth that these altered states of mind and heart are indeed something new and different for us.  We need to leave behind the feelings that we experienced when separation was all that we knew.  With Jesus as our guide, there is now something more out there, just waiting for us.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I believe that the unitive state, the one no longer felt as separation, is my way Home.  You are waiting eagerly for me to return.  The way has been long and hard.  May I find my way Home today.

When I pray, I feel the end of the separation that we have all known so  poignantly for so long.  You are there, inside and outside, and may I know Your presence today.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 247:

Without forgiveness I will still be blind.

The State of Union in Jesus

“This state of union is what differentiated me from my brothers and sisters at the time of my life on earth.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 2.28)”

Affirmation:  “May I know the state of union.”

Reflections:

May we live in a state of union, as did Jesus when he lived his physical life on earth 2,000 years and more ago!  Elsewhere Jesus asserts that his mother Mary also lived the risen life, and that her way is now going to become the way of many on earth.  He was to “do,” and she was to “be.”  And some, Jesus says, will combine the two ways of being in our new age.

But we must not let go of the need to be in union with God and with our brothers and sisters.  We have Jesus as our example life, as the “doer.”  If we choose doing, we still do not choose his pathway; our lives do not normally end in martyrdom.  If we choose Mary’s way of “being,” we are still in union with God and our brothers and sisters.  And the same holds true for those of us who combine the two ways, doing and being.  We have much freedom in this life to make our own choices.

Christ-consciousness is a way of life that is perhaps freer than we experienced in the time of the Holy Spirit, when we were bade always to follow His guidance.  We now have an inner knowing that allows Jesus to guide us without conscious awareness.  This was presaged in ACIM and comes full circle in ACOL.  We are ready.  We must never doubt that, because to do so is only to prolong the “journey without distance” (a quotation from ACIM).

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Is it too bold of me to say that I realize Christ-consciousness from time to time?  I know that the inner feeling and the whispered unheard Voice do not always work as they used to for me.  Is my just knowing enough?  I wish now to reach the certainty that you talked about in A Course of Love, the certainty that I am guided with just an inner knowing that does not “feel” or be “heard.”

Again I look forward to this day with joy.  I know that the prayers that I have made most recently have strengthened me and made my life much happier as well as smoother.  Thank You, as always, for just being there for me.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 246:

To love my Father is to love His Son.

The Disjoining of Heart and Mind

“The separated state was nothing more than the disjoining of heart and mind, a state in which mind attempted to know without the relationship of the heart and so merely perceived its own creations rather than the creations birthed in unity.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  A Treatise on the New, 2.26)”

Affirmation:  “May my mind and heart be joined today.”

Reflections:

This passage alludes to the joining of mind and heart into “wholeheartedness” that the first volume of A Course of Love makes so beautifully clear.  We are meant to live in wholeheartedness.  In fact, we see that A Course of Love is to the heart what A Course in Miracles was to the mind.  Now we have both joined–wholeheartedness.

We are now ready to leave separation behind, separation from God and separation from our brothers and sisters.  We are ready to leave a separated self behind also, to have an elevated Self of form that is wholehearted.  Mind and heart are once more joined in unity.  And in this state we are able to understand, once again, what it means to be in relationship to all that surrounds us, especially our brothers and sisters.

We have long lamented the separation from God.  But ACOL indicates that this separation was part of the plan.  In A Course in Miracles, we learn that this separation happened when a tiny, mad idea crept into the mind of God’s Son.  There was nothing to do but to find a plan that could not be subverted, and this plan ultimately culminated in the plan of forgiveness for each other and ourselves.  Our egos wanted to call our mistakes “sins,” but to call these mistakes by such a term did tend to make them attractive to us on a continual basis (an ACIM tenet).  When we have a mistake, we naturally want to correct it.  We have changed its status from a sin to a mistake, and we respond accordingly.  ACOL makes the same pronouncement, in slightly different words.  Elsewhere we learn that we can turn aside from the things in our personalities that we dislike; we are not bound to keep these lamentable traits.  But we are ready to accept Christ in Christ-consciousness, despite what we may still view as flaws.  ACIM says that Jesus stands at the end of the journey to undo mistakes that we have not been able to undo.  These twin ideas in ACIM and ACOL thus meld into one.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Be with me today as I try to meld my heart and mind into wholeheartedness.  Thank You for being with me in the difficult moments.  Life is not always smooth, but You are there for me always.

May I turn aside from my mistakes, and may I let Your grace repair my wrongdoings.  It is with joy that I look forward to this day.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 245:

Your peace is with me, Father.  I am safe.

Our Separation from God

“God always existed.  But you separated yourself from direct awareness of your relationship with unity, with oneness with God, just as you separated yourself from relationship with the wholeness of the pattern of creation.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  A Treatise on the New, 2.22)”

Affirmation:  “I no longer want to be separated from my God.”

Reflections:

Here again is a further explanation of unity and relationship.  Our unity is not, as we may have suspected, just with our brothers and sisters, but with God Himself.  God is the All, and we would do well to remember this.  He is deep within us, as well as present in the outside as we perceive it.  He is everywhere, but still in the unity that makes Him One, not in pantheism.

We now need to reaffirm this direct awareness that we have lost.  This direct awareness can be viewed as another way of describing Christ-consciousness.  In A Course in Miracles, Jesus says that there is a way for us to be brought under his direct guidance, but that this usually entails a step that we are not yet ready to accept.  Perhaps, by the time we have studied both ACIM and ACOL (and ascended to the mountain top with Jesus in the Forty Days and Forty Nights), we will be ready for this direct awareness again.  May this be so.  Such a joy we would know in all of our days, even the times that seem, on the surface, to be hard.

We have lived in combat with not only our brothers and sisters, but with our environment.  Thankfully, as a worldwide society, we are coming to know better.  The “wholeness of the pattern of creation” does include, to my way of thinking, not only our brothers and sisters, but also our environmental surroundings.  We are a part of creation, and though we look upon ourselves as the crowning part of creation, it behooves us to consider other forms of life as well, along with the natural world.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Please help me to rejoin You, my brothers and sisters, and to adopt a friendly relationships with my environment in this world.  I would not have separation anymore.  You can effect this change in me.  I ask for it now.

Thank you for your support, emotionally and in other ways, as I have sought to walk alone in this world.  I would leave that way of being behind today, as I walk with You every step of the way.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 244:

I am in danger nowhere in the world.

No Struggle

“Not one day is meant to be lived in a struggle with what it brings.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 2.21)”

Affirmation:  “Not one day is meant to be lived with struggle.”

Reflections:

What a reassuring statement this passage is!  We do not have to “fight” life, and indeed we are leading ourselves wrongly when we try.  We learn that acceptance is the way to the real life, the true life.  An awakened individual, about whom I once read, said that his secret was that it did not matter to him what happened.  This reminds us of Paul in the New Testament, when he asserts that, whatsoever state he is in, therewith he has learned to be content.

Jesus would have us to be content on a daily basis, even when life seems tough to us.  Truly it will not seem so tough if we bow to his recommendation.  Life is at times a struggle, but it is a clean struggle if we have asked forgiveness for our mistakes, and we can thereby led to experience the pure joy and limitless release that A Course in Miracles promises.

May we live today a clean life, living in the promise of forgiveness from A Course in Miracles, and living in the unity and relationship promised in A Course of Love.  Then we will turn aside from the suffering that we feel, and even pain is a “clean” pain, with no hint of the “in extremis” feeling that we may have felt in our past.  Life today can be lived better, and what a joy that is!

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I live today without struggle, as Jesus has promised is possible.  May I live in harmony and love, and may I let go of all the “issues” that seem to arise that only upset my peace.  Life is not meant to be a struggle.  I thank You for that promise.

Be with me today as I go about the day, seeking to recall the promise with which I am beginning this day.  Be there for me, the prayer that I pray so much.  I know that You are there, always, and it is only I that sometimes forget.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 219:

I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.

I am not a body.  I am free.

No Need to Evangelize

“This is why it has long been stated that you are not called to evangelize or convince anyone of the merits of this course of study.  This is just a course of study.  Those whom you would seek to evangelize or convince are as holy as your Self.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 2.19)”

Affirmation:  “We are not called to evangelize this course of study.”

Reflections:

This passage is very important.  Unlike the New Testament, when we were called to evangelize the world, we are not called to do so now.  I think that the difference is that our world has changed.  The Internet, for one thing, brings us closer together.  We read more, either on the Internet or in books.  We are not led to try to convince anyone of anything.  The people who are meant to find A Course of Love will find it; there is no better way.

It is also assumed by Jesus in this statement that many will find other pathways, even though he has said elsewhere in ACOL that this is a  mandatory curriculum.  In the Twenty First Century, many are coming to new understandings, because many are awakening to real life for the first time.  We are healing the separation from God.  We are living in a blessed time, despite the turmoil of this world.

If one is not drawn to A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love, perhaps there is a better way for him or her.  Jesus says in ACIM that perhaps some will benefit only from a smile, being unready yet for more.  I think that this is what he is saying in this quoted passage.  If we try to proselytize, we risk turning  people off.  They must be turned on through their own heart–the “wholeheartedness” that the first volume of A Course of Love makes clear.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

It is reassuring to know that people will find their way to You without awkward proselytizing on my part for either A Course in Miracles or A Course of Love.  May those who are ready for these writings find them.  May my life be a good example of what following the words of these courses can accomplish.

Be with me today as I seek not to be defensive about anything, especially not these courses from Jesus.  May I simply do Your will, as Your will is made known to me.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 218:

I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.

Only my condemnation injures me.

Unity and Relationship

“Only from this shared vision, this observation of what is can you begin to produce unity and relationship through unity and relationship.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 2.18)”

Affirmation:  “observe what is“

Reflections:

The hallmark features of  A Course of Love are the “unity and relationship” in which we are now to live.  We are one in unity, and we are one in relationship.  We do not “learn” in the old way, but we observe in this world, and especially in our encounters with our brothers and sisters, the new way.

“A Treatise on the Personal Self,” the third treatise (just prior to the “Treatise on the New”), explains more fully what unity and relationship really mean.  In a sense, the meaning is no different from the words themselves.  We are all One (unity), and yet we are differentiated into individuals (making relationships necessary, and, indeed, allowing us to experience life, and for the God within us to experience life).

We share a vision with all of our brothers and sisters, whether or not they have walked the same pathway that we are walking through ACIM and ACOL.  They may choose a different pathway, even though Jesus says that this curriculum is required.  He goes on to say, elsewhere, that the curriculum is mandatory much as school is mandatory for young people, but if they don’t go to school, they learn in a different way.  In ACIM, Jesus says that contemplation will work, but that it is tedious, and it is not our way.  In ACIM, our way is the special, turned holy, relationships with our brothers and sisters, through forgiveness.  And even this forgiveness, we ultimately realize, is not even necessary, as the thoughts and actions that we spurned were madness, an illusion.  In ACOL, the difference in emphasis is on the unity and relationship that we experience with these same brothers and sisters who people our world.  Thus there is a logical progression from ACIM to ACOL.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Please help me to understand all is One, and that, with my brothers and sisters, we are One in relationship.   When I am very busy, it is so easy to get tunnel vision, to fail to look outward and to offer my help to those who surround me.  May I not forget to reach out to my brothers and sisters today.

Thank you, as always, for being there for me.  As someone said, “I may forget You today.  But please don’t forget me.”

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 217:

I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.

It can be but my gratitude I earn.

The Omnipresent Self

“Your awareness of the Self that you are now was not present in the past, but you can truly now, with the devotion of the observant, see that the Self you are now was indeed present, and was the truth of who you were then as now.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 2.15)”

Affirmation:  “The Self that I am now was present also in the past.”

Reflections:

This passage indicates that we “remember,” that we have never really lost, the true Self that was covered over during the time of our separation from God.  Our separation, given elsewhere in A Course of Love, was a plan in which we participated because we were eager to experience life, and God had no other way to deal with us but to let us go (much as a parent lets a teen who is rebellious find their way through a sometimes troubled world).  But if we “remember,” we have not really lost that Self that existed prior to the separation.  And we are now ready to remember, in the form of the “elevated Self of form” (an ACOL tenet).

What a joy to know that this new way of living has always been available to us, but that our culture covered it over with concepts of God and the Holy Spirit meant for another time and place.  We are ready now to walk into the light.  May we do so today.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I truly know, in the depth of my being, the Self that You have said I really am.  May today know no attack nor anger.  May my little self not intervene in the glory that I can feel when the Self is in ascendancy.

Thank You for these words of reassurance in the passage for today.  I know that if You say that I have always been this Self, then my awareness of this Self will expand and develop.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 216:

I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.

It can be but myself I crucify.

How Different Are We Now?

“Although you are different now than you were as a child, and different now than you were a few years ago, and different now than when you began your learning of this course, you are not other than who you have always been.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love: ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 2.15)”

Affirmation:  “I am not other than who I have always been.”

Reflections:

A Course in Miracles indicates that our memories of childhood are so covered over with misconceptions that it is like we remember a different past.  This ACIM concept is reiterated and elaborated upon in this passage from A Course of Love.

We are, in many ways, the same people that we have always been.  If we have kept journals, we may recognize this more clearly.  I once read entries from my teen years, and thought to myself, “You haven’t really changed very much.”  Now Jesus agrees with this idea.  But he makes a clear distinction:  We are ready to assume the elevated Self of form, because our study and learning have prepared the way, a way that we could not have known in an early part of our lives.

Much of what Jesus says in A Course of Love is meant to reassure us that we do not have to hold negative views of ourselves, always seeking for a new pathway that will give us the inner satisfaction and will eliminate the inner emptiness that is a part of the human condition.  In ACOL, especially in the concluding Forty Days and Forty Nights of the Dialogues, he indicates that we are ready for Christ-consciousness.

Eckhart Tolle, in an interview available on the CD, “Even the Sun Will Die,” says that our early experiences of Awakening may be brief, and that we may have experienced these brief glimpses even without being aware at the time of what was transpiring.  His own experience of Awakening was significant and sudden, but other people experience a gradual opening to Awakening–nothing as dramatic as what Eckhart experienced.  Eckhart also indicates that many of his correspondents are reporting evidences of a new life, that they are on the cusp of Awakening.

Certainly Jesus would feel that those of us who study A Course of Love are ready.  We have only to accept this great blessing.  We have only ourselves to blame if we do not ask to receive the great blessing of Christ-consciousness.  If it is withheld from us, then perhaps we are not as ready as we think.  But Jesus’s clear explanation in A Course of Love does say that we are ready for the elevated Self of form.  It is held out to us for the taking, and what a blessing it is!

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I have had glimpses of Christ-consciousness, and for that I thank you.  I hope to move gradually into an experience of Christ-consciousness continually.  Help me to do this.

Help my brothers and sisters to evolve also.  I know that this is Your will for all of us.  Be with us throughout this day, and may we remain calm and easy in the face of any outer turmoil.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 215:

I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.

Love is the way I walk in gratitude.

No Glorification of the Ego

“You would not be here if you were still interested in glorifying the ego, but you also are not yet completely certain of your Self and in your uncertainty, still subject to the patterns of thought of the old.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 2.13)”

Affirmation:  “I would not be here [reading ACOL] if I still interested in glorifying the ego.”

Reflections:

This passage emphasizes the movement between studying A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love.  Most people will come to A Course of Love after studying A Course in Miracles, and thereby to have been lead to the thought processes that helped one to relinquish the ego as a bad idea.  In ACIM, the ego is presented as a false way of viewing the self, part of our idea about ourselves, part of our belief about ourselves.  And it is seen as a part of the self that led to visions of a terrifying hell that might await us on the other side.

Now we are in A Course of Love, and we would not have read this far if we still felt that glorifying the self was something that we thought good.  Maybe we are still susceptible, but elsewhere in ACOL, we are told that we have left the ego behind.  What a relief!  Indeed, much of ACOL is meant to lead us to accept our limited self as it is, and to welcome the elevated Self of form that we are meant to inhabit.

In our uncertainty, explained in this passage, we will occasionally fall behind.  Salvation is not a straight line to heaven; there will be detours.  But we can be assured that if we follow Jesus’s advice, there will be fewer detours.  We need to leave the old behind, and to accept these new ideas for the salvation that they bring, the Christ-consciousness that they make nearer.  Then we will completely ready to leave the old behind.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I know that I will sometimes slip and let the ego take the upper hand.  Even though I am studying A Course of Love, salvation is not a straight line.

May I live today for my brothers and sisters, as well as for my better Self–my real Self.   Thank You for always being there to help in any and all situations.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 214:

I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.

Those Who Will Follow Us

“. . .[T]hose who have achieved ‘first place’ do so realizing that the elevated ‘place’ they briefly hold is of a finite nature and that others will soon do the same and that those who follow in time will do so more easily, with less effort, and with even greater success.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 2.12)”

Affirmation:  “more easily and with less effort”

Reflections:

This passage from the “Treatise on the New” echoes a similar statement by Jesus in the New Testament.  He indicated that those who followed him would do even greater things.

In the same way, those of us who are coming to A Course of Love early on will eventually be surpassed by others who have greater understanding than do we.  The world will have advanced, and so their speaking to a new audience will have more meaning in a later culture.  It is perhaps too early for the Christ-consciousness of which Jesus speaks to take hold in a universal way.  Elsewhere Jesus says in ACOL that soon the world will be peopled by those who were born in the time of Christ, and they will not need nor understand the ways of the time of the Holy Spirit.

Now we are caught between two worlds:  the world in which guidance comes from the Holy Spirit (as A Course in Miracles relates), and the world in which Christ-consciousness rules (as A Course of Love relates).  We will receive guidance through an inner knowing in the time of Christ, the new time.  We will not, unwittingly, look outside ourselves for our guidance.  We will know from observation, not from learning (an ACOL concept).

It is certainly helpful to those of us who have long been seekers, and with some effort, to know that the way of the future holds less need for effort.  Life is meant to be lived peacefully, and while struggle may continue, it will lose its hold on us.  We will live in peace, not so much from inner conflict, and more from a loving heart.  May all of us work today to speed this “new day” on its way.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I am frequently very much wanting to find the easiest and most effortless way to do my tasks.  If “easy and “effortless” are called for, may they come to me today.  And it is a blessing that those who come after me will enjoy this boon ever more often.

Thank you for making my pathway easy by your Grace.  Even when times have been difficult, there is joy because You have helped the pathway to be smoother.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 213:

I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.

All things are lessons God would have me learn.

The Purpose of the Holy Spirit

“I revealed a God of Love and the Holy Spirit provided for indirect and less fearful means of communion or communication with God”  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  “A Treatise on the New,” 2.4)”

Affirmation:  “God is a God of Love.”

Reflections:

The Holy Spirit, as described in A Course in Miracles, is our source of guidance.  How does He speak to us?  There are many ways.  Sometimes it is in our silence, when we have gotten quiet enough to “hear” an inner voice that reassures us of the next turn on our pathway.  Sometimes it is a quiet inner knowing that comes unbidden (but usually after we have become still and quiet on the inside).  Sometimes it is through the words of our brother or sister, which seem to speak to our situation, and we recognize that we have heard the “truth.”  There are, perhaps, as many ways to “hear” guidance as there are people to receive this guidance.  We do not usually have to wait long.

We need to get the fear out if we are to listen to guidance effectively.  Many people, even many advanced seekers, hold to a notion of God that is fearful.  We retain the image portrayed by writers of the Old Testament, which was written in a different era, with a different culture to address.  But we are now in the Twenty-First Century, and it behooves us to turn aside from all fearful concepts of God, and to see Jesus’s interpretation of a loving God.  We will not see God as loving if we continue to blame Him for the bad things that happen in this world.  All such unloving concepts must be abandoned.  God does not wish evil on anyone; he does not “punish” anyone.  These things we bring upon ourselves, as part of the higher Self (an ACOL concept) that sees a broader view than do we.

This interpretation is not a “blame the victim” mentality.  We are not aware of the larger picture beyond our world.  Usually we don’t see the broader picture, and where we fit into it.  But trust that it is there, and that our higher Selves had a part in the planning.  Then we do not have to hold onto the fear of God anymore.

God did not bring our pain and suffering unto us.  And, even when we do feel pain, we don’t have to turn it into suffering.  This latter concept is gloriously described by Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now, A New Earth), who suffered tremendously before his release, miraculously, about age 30.  Jesus says in A Course in Miracles that we do not have to learn through pain.  Eckhart did, but this pathway is not for all.  And, as students of both ACIM and ACOL, we can pray that any pain be lessened, and certainly that any pain not turn into suffering.  Then the fear of God’s part in that evil can be eradicated.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to know that God is not a fearful God.  He wishes only the best for us, His children.  May we accept this assurance today, and walk in peace.

Be with us as we go about this day.  Thank You for the quiet sense of peace that communing with You gives me.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 153:

In my defenselessness my safety lies.

The Forgotten Self

“Although God never abandoned the humans who seeded the Earth, the humans, in the state of the forgotten self, could not know God because of their fear.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  “A Treatise on the New,” 2.4)”

Affirmation:  “May I lay fear aside and know God.”

Reflections:

This passage amplifies upon the oft-stated words in A Course in Miracles that fear and love are the only two emotions.  The ego has ruled fear, and we have been caught by the ego for eons.  Now, in both books, the hope is that we will relinquish the ego and move into love as our single emotion.

Having love as a single emotion does not mean that we will never feel negative emotions.  Elsewhere in A Course of Love, we learn that we may continue to experience anger, but if we don’t like this, we can (as A Course in Miracles says), see this as a mistake and drop the emotion from our list.

Our channels to God’s love had been closed to Him (an ACIM concept).  Now we must, once again, realize that God is a loving God, and that His will does not include the visitation of pain and suffering upon ourselves.  We have done this (an ACIM concept), and we can choose to undo it.  May we choose to undo it today.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

As we revisit the passage for today, may we realize that we could not know God as long as we allowed fear to rule.  May we drop fear from our repertoire of emotions.  May we know only love.  And if this is too much for us to assimilate today, may we make inroads on this accomplishment.

I wish for a good day of love with no fear.  May I recognize that if I find attack, I have in some way chosen a fearful state of experience.  May I drop fear from my perception, and because projection makes perception, may I now and always move closer to the love that is Yours.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 152:

The power of decision is my own.

Does God Know of Us?

“The constant going out of His Love is blocked when His channels are closed, and He is lonely when the minds He created do not communicate fully with Him.  (A Course in Miracles, T71)”

Affirmation:  “May my channel to God be open.”

Reflections:

There is a difference of opinion among interpreters of A Course in Miracles about whether or not God actually “knows” about us in this world.  Some students have found in the interpretation that God doesn’t know of this world a “healing” thought.  Certainly if we believe that God does not know of us, we cannot blame him for the conditions in our unhappy and tragic world.  But ACIM counsels that God is never to blame, that he is a loving God (just as described in the New Testament by Jesus), and that it is ourselves that have “made” the awful conditions in this world.  Other New Age writings, such as the Jane Roberts books channeling Seth, have agreed.  Seth says, “You create your own reality.”

But about God’s knowing of us, I have reached the conclusion that God does indeed know.  The relevant passage in ACIM is as follows:  “. . .”[U]nless you take your part in the creation, His joy is not complete because yours is incomplete.  And this He does know.  He knows it in His Own Being and its experience of His Son’s experience.  (T71)”  He is both inner and outer, and our deepest inner Self does know that we are not alone in this world.

Our prayers are answered–always (according to A Course in Miracles, which says that the “prayer of the heart” is always answered).  A Course in Miracles notes specifically that God knows when his channels to us are closed to Him:  Is this not what our prayers would seek to reestablish, a communion with God?

According to Jesus in the New Testament, the Father has not left him alone.  He questioned this from the cross, but do we not all question it from time to time?  And some have decided that God lets us out to play, and cares not what we do in our play.  (This interpretation is given in Conversations with God, by Neale Donald Walsch.)  But, personally, I don’t quite believe this austere thought.  Our Self always knows about our plight, and our Self is a part of God (a tenet of A Course of Love).

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I find comfort in the truth that You are available to me in the deepest part of my being.  You are All.  How can You not know of each individualized part of the All?

I do not believe that my prayers go unheard.  I believe that just as you are Everything, that this Everything is a “knowing” concept.  Be with me today as I go about Your world.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 151:

All things are echoes of the Voice for God.

Anger and Attack

“Anger is never justified.  Attack has no foundation.  (A Course in Miracles, T638)”

Affirmation:  “no anger and no attack”

Reflections:

A Course in Miracles counsels firmly against anger and attack.  Neither have any foundation in truth.  This, we are told, is because all anger and attack are really calls for help, or, if we will, calls for love.  Jesus was a peaceful man, and he is still urging us to be the same.

Perhaps we can also live peaceably in even hard times that we experience.  Surely we can try.  And in the trying, we will often succeed.  Perhaps we will even surprise ourselves.  In the living of a peaceful existence, we can live without guilt, in that we are not accusing ourselves of attacking our brothers and sisters.  Surely the “peace that passeth understanding” can be ours even if outer circumstances work against us.  We need the inner peace that God only can and does give.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I confess that I still feel anger upon occasion, and when I feel anger, I am susceptible to attacking, mostly the ones that I love the most.  Take this bad character trait from me now.  I know that I never attack unless I am stressed; help me to remain on a calm and serene basis now and forever.

But I will ask Your blessing day-by-day.  I will ask to remain calm and serene for today only, knowing that tomorrow morning I will repeat the prayer.  Life is lived one day at a time.  Give me the grace to live today well.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 150:

My mind holds only what I think with God.

I will accept Atonement for myself.

Only salvation can be said to cure.

Miracles

“Miracles are healing because they supply a lack; they are performed by those who temporarily have more for those who temporarily have less.  (A Course in Miracles, T3)”

Affirmation:  “miracles. . .performed for those who temporarily have less”

Reflections:

We are asking for God’s blessing.  In this we are like Jesus, who turned to his Father often during his ministry.  “Peace” is seen as the great boon.  Indeed, even now, most of us seek happiness with peace of mind as the greatest worldly blessings that can be bestowed on us.

Jesus speaks as an elder brother in A Course in Miracles, and he speaks in very comforting terms.  We are to see him as our friend, and in A Course of Love, he resigns as our teacher and becomes our companion.  We are equals in the sight of God, even though in ACIM we see him as an elder brother, who temporarily knows more and therefore is in a better position to aid us.  Indeed, many of us are seen as temporarily having more than our brothers and sisters, but this not lessen our equality (an ACIM tenet).  We are all One in the eyes of God.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to have patience with my brothers and sisters who temporarily have less, and therefore may treat me poorly.  May I recognize anger and attack as the call for help that it really is.  May I be there for my brothers and sisters, assuring that I love them no matter what.

May I feel no pride that sometimes I do recognize that I temporarily know more.  Knowing more puts a responsibility on me to be especially kind and loving in the face of provocation.  May I always feel You at my side, supporting me as I reach out to others.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 149:

My mind holds only what I think with God.

When I am healed I am not healed alone.

Heaven is the decision I must make.

“You Need Not Have Tribulation”

‘In this world you need not have tribulation, because I have overcome the world.  That is why you should be of good cheer.  (ACIM, T56)”

Affirmation:  “I need not have tribulation.”

Reflections:

1 – Jesus Is Our Savior

My interpretation is that Jesus sees himself as our Savior (an oft-repeated statement of faith by believers), and that he continues, even now, to seek for the salvation of the peoples of this world.  Believers recognize that a secular view frequently makes life hollow.  All people encounter difficulty in living through a lifetime, but those who have a faith to which to cling often seem to fare better in the long run.

2 – We Do Not Have to Learn through Pain

ACIM asserts that we do not have to learn through pain.  Often we do, though, as Eckhart Tolle has described in some detail in The Power of Now.  His way to Awakening was paved by an overwhelming sense of pain that abated in what may be termed a miraculous way one night around age 30.  Since that time, he has sought to understand his experience and to help others also to move toward Awakening.

3 – Our Holy Relationships Move Us toward Awakening

ACIM is different, in that it would have us to move toward Awakening by the holy relationships that we develop with our brothers and sisters, through our forgiveness of the words and deeds that they do which are upsetting to us.  Our way is through the transformation of special relationships into holy ones.  It is indeed reassuring to know that we do not have to learn through pain.

4 – Do Not Turn Pain into Suffering

We will probably know pain in our lifetimes, though, and Eckhart makes the point that we do not need to turn pain into suffering.  Our attitude is what makes the difference.  Jesus says much in both ACIM and ACOL that can lead us away from both pain and suffering.  We have heretofore “made” our world (a tenet of ACIM), but as we reach into Christ-consciousness, we can “create” a world that is more to our liking.  We have this much power, though often we don’t recognize this and we reject our power in a misguided belief that power is corrupting.  With Jesus as our guide, owning our power becomes a new and better way of living (a tenet of ACOL).

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to claim the promise that I do not have to experience tribulation.  I realize that I can bring tribulation upon myself by overreacting.  May I turn to You when I am tempted to turn any passing pain into suffering, into tribulation.

Thank You for the promises of Jesus that focus on His overcoming of the world so that tribulation need not be necessary.  May I turn to him as my guide, and may my day today be a good one, secure in Your love.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 148:

My mind holds only what I think with God.

If I defend myself I am attacked.

Sickness is a defense against the truth.

Christ-Consciousness

“That you have chosen God and chosen a new means of coming to know the truth–the means of Christ-consciousness, is what has ushered in the new time.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  “A Treatise on the New,” 1.18)”

Affirmation:  “We are in the new time.”

Reflections:

We have sought long and hard for the reassurances that Jesus is ready to give us now.

This passage builds upon the passage of yesterday.  We are indeed living in a new time, and the “Treatise on the New” is written to detail to us what this new experience will mean.

Perhaps we will not all experience Christ-consciousness immediately.  But the means to reach this experience is what Jesus is trying to impart to us now.  Perhaps our experience of the new will vary from time to time.  Perhaps we will not live in Christ-consciousness in a sustained way–yet.  But the sustainability of Christ-consciousness, the reality of the elevated Self of form, is what Jesus holds out to us, in A Course of Love, as attainable.

What must we do?  We must welcome the experiences that come to us.  We need not doubt that new experiences will come.  We must await them in this new time.  And we will not, according to Jesus’s words in the third book in the series, the Dialogues, have to wait long.  Our readiness is held out to us as something tangible and real.  If we resist, we may need more time.  It is best that we accept Jesus’s words as true and real in the present.  Then the miracle of Christ-consciousness will burst upon our ready souls.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

If I am ready, may my experience of Christ-consciousness deepen and expand.  May it grow to contain my whole world.  May I be made ready for this glorious new experience.

Thank You for assisting my growth into a new individual.  I know that You stand ready, by my side, at all times.  Help me to be aware of this, and to fear nothing.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 147:

My mind holds only what I think with God.

I will not value what is valueless.

Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.

Heaven Here and Now

“Could it [what has been activated now] have been activated hundreds or thousands of years ago, by countless souls more worthy than you, and ushered in the time of heaven on earth and the end of suffering long ago?  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  “A Treatise on the New,” 1.13)”

Affirmation:  “heaven on earth”

Reflections:

This may be our goal, but first we must understand it.  We must, I think, recognize that a certain humility is asked of all of us.  Simply because we are seekers, we are not better than others who have come before us.

Previously, most of us as a people in this world were not yet ready for Christ-consciousness.  Since the time of Jesus in his physical life over 2,000 years ago, and at his instigation, we have been living in the time of the Holy Spirit.  This is what Pentecost was all about.

Certain prophets from earlier times were gifted with guidance in what appear to be supernatural ways.  These occurrences are resplendent in the Old Testament.  So there has been a natural progression for humankind.

But now, in the Twenty First Century, we are ready to move into the time of Christ.  This new era is upon us, though not all of our brothers and sisters know it yet.  Their understanding will come in time.  In the meantime, we are not to judge them in any way because we believe that we have been led farther along the pathway, to a way of knowing by observation and not by learning.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I know “heaven on earth” today.  I claim this promise now.  I know that I do not have to wait until I die to experience a paradise.  Even in the midst of this troubled world, I can be at peace and even joyous.

Thank You for your guidance always.  May I come into Christ-consciousness on a continuous basis.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 146:

My mind holds only what I think with God.

No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth.

I loose the world from all I thought it was.

When Jesus Is Our Guide

“This is a course in miracles.  It is a required course.  Only the time you take it is voluntary.  (ACIM, T1)”

Similarly, A Course of Love makes the same assertion:  “This curriculum is mandatory and so some have rebelled and will rebel against it.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  A Treatise on the New, 1.10)”

Affirmation:  “a required course”

Reflections:

Many of us are still like adolescents, rebelling when something is labeled “mandatory.”  Perhaps Jesus is saying here that all peoples will eventually study his curriculum, his teachings.  What does this mean?  Surely we live in a world in which all will not study Jesus’s words or see him as their savior.  Is reincarnation the explanation?

Certainly Jesus in A Course in Miracles counsels against our taking a public stance on reincarnation.  He says in the Manual of ACIM that we can discuss this concept privately, but a public stance would only limit our usefulness as teachers of God.  It appears in the passage above that we must adopt reincarnation as an explanation if indeed the curriculum is mandatory for all.

But there is another way to interpret the assertions of Jesus.  Perhaps he speaks only to those of us who have chosen him as our guide.

Jesus says in ACIM that his writing is always practical, and that a universal theology is impossible.  A universal experience, though, is not only possible but necessary.  This universal experience is, I think, what Jesus is talking about in all of these readings. And, for those of us who have chosen him as our guide, he would simply have us lay down our rebellion and listen to him.  He is not talking to those who have not chosen him as their guide.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I have chosen Jesus as my guide.  He has proved to be a sure and steady guide.  May I not trouble myself about anyone who would choose a different guide.  May I not try to proselytize, because Jesus himself has said that we do not need to convince others of the truth of his words in A Course of Love.

Thank You for providing so sure a guide in the person of Jesus.  His leadership is certain, because he has walked the whole pathway back to You.  May he stand, as promised, at the end to help me if I fail to reach You by my own direction.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 145:

My mind holds only what I think with God.

Beyond this world there is a world I want.

It is impossible to see two worlds.

The Chosen

“Why, you might ask, is a word such as chosen used, when many other words would do, and when the concept of being chosen is one laden with so many false ideas about exclusivity?  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  A Treatise on the New, 1.6)”

Affirmation:  “All are chosen.”

Reflections:

But we do often bristle at the thought that there are only certain people who are chosen of God.  A Course of Love changes all of that.

Many religions have the concept of a chosen people.  In this treatise, Jesus is aware that we may have trouble with the use of the word “chosen,” which in this world has frequently been a divisive word–not only religiously, but also politically and culturally.

A Course of Love is all-inclusive, for all peoples.  For those of us who find these volumes arresting, we have chosen Jesus as our guide.  Elsewhere Jesus, in these volumes, indicates that he is the pathway for us, and that his words are meant to be accepted by everyone.  I think that Jesus is here saying that the way for us is through him (as the New Testament and A Course in Miracles both say).  In A Course in Miracles, he indicates his awareness that others have chosen other pathways.  He indicates in ACIM that contemplation will work, but that it is not our way, and why would we choose something that is meant for others and leave aside what is meant for ourselves?

Jesus would not teach a gospel of exclusivity.  Those who are ready to choose him as their guide already know that a guide is meant to be followed.  Why choose a guide such as Jesus unless one has confidence in what he says?  All who choose him as their guide can be reassured that all peoples are “chosen.”  Some will know more for a time, but the message of Jesus goes out to everyone who is ready to accept it.  All will come to know eventually.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank you for making clear to me that all are chosen.  We do not have to fall back on the ego, and think that because we know the “right” way, we are the chosen.  All are chosen, regardless of their religious pathway.

Thank You, though, for having Jesus as our guide.  His way is sure, and it is not only effortless but also loving in the extreme.  Love creates joy.  Thank You for my joy today.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 144:

My mind holds only what I think with God.

There is no love but God’s.

The world I see holds nothing that I want.

Living with Certainty

“[The Treatise] will. . .be conclusive. . . .[I]t will do this only to reach a conclusion of certainty from which you can live.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  A Treatise on the New, 1.2)”

Affirmation:  “May I live with certainty.”

Reflections:

The Treatise on the New is the fourth and last treatise in the second volume of A Course of Love, and the entire volume is entitled, Treatises of a Course of Love.  This final treatise is written to prepare us for the final book in the trilogy, the Dialogues.  The Treatise on the New is a preparatory book to lead into a new age for us in our knowledge of living as the elevated Self of form.  At this point, at the beginning of the Treatise on the New, we are not yet ready to turn to inner knowledge only.  We still need external guidance in the form of these words.

We are trying to reach a certainty about how to live that will serve us well in a sometimes alienating world.  This certainty has eluded all of us, perhaps particularly those of us who are drawn to A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love.  Many of us have been seekers all of our lives, and elsewhere Jesus specifically addresses this point.  We have always thought that understanding (and knowledge) would be found in the “next” book or the “next” speaker or the “next” experience of religion.

Jesus would have to step back and to reassess.  He says here and elsewhere, repeatedly, that the seeking is to come to an end.  There are things that we know, in the most inward way, and yet we still do not trust our knowing.  Jesus would have us to leave all of this foolishness behind, and to trust that we do have the certainty that he is, once again, showing us in this treatise.   Once again, he is trying to get his message across, this time with a finality that was not fully accepted by us through studying both the New Testament and A Course in Miracles.

Always we have sought a way to be sure, to be certain.  In the Twenty-First Century, we do have new readings that point the way for our time and place.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I live today with the certainty that You love me.  May I live with the certainty that, soon, the seeking will reach a glorious conclusion.  I do not have to look always for the “next” pathway, the one that will give me peace and reassurance, ultimately.  The time for this reassurance is at hand.

Thank You for these words of Jesus.  May I read and interpret correctly.  And may you stay by my right hand always in these moments, guiding my thoughts to fuller understanding.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 143:

My mind holds only what I think with God.

In quiet I receive God’s Word today.

All that I give is given to myself.

The Embrace

“[This treatise] will continue the view from within the embrace, an embrace and a view that is inclusive of all.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  A Treatise on the New, 1.1)”

Affirmation:  “Jesus’s embrace includes all”

Reflections:

The passage immediately above refers to one of the most beautiful (and beautifully written) passages in the first volume of A Course of Love.  The “embrace” in that first volume was an invitation from Jesus to come into his arms, and to be at peace and at rest.  He recognized then that many (maybe all) of us are tired from seeking, and that the ways of this world have taken their toll on us.  He would have to rest awhile in the embrace, to feel his loving presence, to know that all is well.

The embrace in ACOL is essentially an assertion that Jesus is there for us when times are tough.

A Course in Miracles is to the mind what A Course of Love is to the heart.  We are bade elsewhere to live in “wholeheartedness,” a combining of the mind and heart in Jesus’s loving embrace.  He never leaves us comfortless.  In Matthew, in the Sermon on the Mount, we too see this quality in Jesus.  His reassurances are comforting in the extreme.

Note that the passage from ACOL emphasizes that all are included in the embrace.  Jesus will soon say that “all are chosen.”  This is a reemphasis of the statement in A Course in Miracles, a statement that became book titles for Kenneth Wapnick, a scholar and student/teacher of A Course in Miracles.  Ken wrote books entitled, All Are Chosen, and Few Choose to Listen, quoting ACIM.  I think that Jesus is saying in A Course of Love that all are chosen, and not only that, but perhaps we might imagine that those of us who are reading his words in A Course of Love do “choose to listen.”  May we choose to listen aright, no longer letting the ego rule our lives.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I rest awhile in the warmth of Jesus’s embrace.  May I know that this embrace is always there for me, to give me comfort and solace.  This world bears heavily on us, sometimes, despite our best efforts.  Thank You for the words of Jesus that what he offers is the rest and safety that we all need.

Thank You for being there for us.  May I never forget that prayers to You give my day a greater benefit not only to myself, but to my brothers and sisters also.  May I be alert to the guidance that is there for the taking.  May I listen for the unheard, but felt, whispers of the heart–of the wholeheartedness–that tell me what to say or do next.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 142:

My mind holds only what I think with God:

I thank my Father for His gifts to me.

Let me remember I am one with God.

Contentment

“Forget not once this journey is begun the end is certain.  (ACIM, M91)”

Affirmation:  “May the journey to Awakening be near.”

Reflections:

ACIM assures us that our pathway can also be one of contentment.  If we hesitate about our salvation, and feel the way ahead is long and arduous, let us remember the passage for today.

In A Course of Love, Jesus walks the final pathway with us.   Especially in the third volume in that series, the Dialogues, he sees us to Awakening in the Forty Days and Forty Nights that he accompanies us to a metaphorical mountain top, a mountain top that we ascend with him, even though we do not leave our daily lives and work in the forty days.   These times in which we live are perilous, indeed, but we can find in our spiritual lives the contentment that we all seek, even in the midst of hardship and pain.  God becomes our Rock, and Jesus becomes our guide.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May my pathway today be contented.  May I be assured that the way to Awakening is sure, and is near.  May I know that once begun, the end of the journey to Awakening is certain.

I wish to be contented all days, but let me take one day at a time.  Thank You for walking my pathway with me.  Help me to find the right pathway always.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 141:

My mind holds only what I think with God:

Forgiveness is the key to happiness.

Forgiveness offers everything I want.

Planning

“Yet planning is not often recognized as a defense.  (ACIM, WB254)”

Affirmation:  “May I not be tempted to ‘plan’ today.”

Reflections:

We are great planners in this world.  Our careers almost demand it of us.  Yet living in a spiritual sense does not emphasize planning.  We are told in A Course in Miracles that we will be told when and how to plan, when the need arises.  But we are not to look for those times, for they are far fewer than most of us realize.

We are meant to lean on God, to lean on His mercy in this troubled world–indeed, in our troubled lives.  We may even have been told to “Go to God,” when we are tangled up.  (I was once told that by a close friend.)

A Course in Miracles would have us to turn to the Holy Spirit for our guidance through life.  Indeed, the Holy Spirit is seen in Christianity as one part of the Trinity–Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  Unfortunately, we often make our decisions ourselves, and then turn inward for guidance.  And, as ACIM says, the guidance that we hear may not coincide with what we have already decided, and so we are confounded.

Today let us vow to make no plans without first asking for guidance.  God is the All, and His essence is also a part of our inwardness.  Turn inward with confidence that the answer found there will be sufficient, without the planning that would only confuse our future acts.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You that today, at least, I have been diligent in listening to the Holy Spirit for my guidance.  Help me to do so consistently, day after day after day.  Help me to learn how the Holy Spirit and Christ-consciousness coincide.  I am teachable, dear Lord.

May I resist the troubling desire to plan in advance, because I realize that such planning can often even be counterproductive.  May I hear your Word to know when planning is needed, and, perhaps even more, when planning is not needed.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 140:

Only salvation can be said to cure.

Freedom

“Allow yourself, now, to experience your arrival, your return to your true home, your return to your Self.  Laugh.  Cry.  Shout or wail.  Dance and sing.  Spin a new web.  The web of freedom.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 140)”

Affirmation:  “dance and sing”

Reflections:

From the Forty Days and Forty Nights in the Dialogues of ACOL is found the preceding.  It is from the day entitled simply “Freedom.”

Certainly our freedom frequently brings us happiness.  And Jesus, in A Course in Miracles, assures us that we do not have to learn through pain.  Our joy is a God-given right, and even though some times are tough during the course of a lifetime, we will have an easier pathway if we remember that we need to choose joy whenever it is at all possible.

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to find joy today.  I know that it is out there, waiting for me, if my attitude is right.  Help my attitude to be right.

Thank You for these words of reassurance.  “Dance and sing” are positive affirmations of life.  Help me to affirm life today and everyday.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 139:

I will accept Atonement for myself.

Special Relationships

“I have said repeatedly that the Holy Spirit would not deprive you of your special relationships, but would transform them.  (ACIM, T358)”

Affirmation:  “transform my special relationships”

Reflections:

A Course in Miracles makes much of our way toward Awakening:  forgiveness, expressed through the changing of our special relationships into holy relationships.  Many of us look to our significant others when we think of the many passages in ACIM which discuss special/holy relationships.

Many students of ACIM read the “I” as Jesus, and, indeed, this is what Bill Thetford and Helen Schucman, the co-scribes, believed (though they were hesitant to say so in public presentations, the few that they had).  The transformation of special relationships, we learn as we read farther on, is into holy relationships.  We have forgiven our brothers and sisters for the wrongs that we, and perhaps they, believe that they have done.  ACIM sees forgiveness as the way Home.

What is “Home”?  We can perhaps see that this is heaven on earth.  This theme runs through A Course of Love also.  We can experience a better world in this world; we do not have to wait for life after death.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I indeed experience the heaven on earth that I read about, as I forgive my brothers and sisters unconditionally.  May my special relationships transform into holy ones.  May You lead me to this transformation.

Thank You for listening to my prayers.  I want to keep my channel to You open at all times.  I want to feel You near me and within me.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 138:

Heaven is the decision I must make.

The Cessation of Learning

“Learning is not meant to last.  This is why even this course work comes to an end.  It comes to an end here and now as we move past study and learning to observation, vision, and revelation.  (A Course of Love:  Treatise on the New, 9.1)”

Affirmation:  “May I come to understand how I will ‘know’ when learning ceases.”

Reflections:

As readers, we have been seekers, probably all of our lives.  We have longed to know of the hidden things of heaven and earth.  Surely many who preceded our time in this world were also seekers.  It is our blessing to have more words of reassurance upon which to draw, words from these more recent readings.  Many of us do view both A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love as channeled writings of Jesus.

Are we to keep seeking through our reading, and through other means, relentlessly?  Is there a place where we will rest easy, that we are justified?

A Course in Love indicates that there is a time when learning, as such, ought to cease.  Or perhaps to be transformed into another means of coming to know.   It does take a a bit of “learning” to understand what is meant by “observation, vision, and revelation.”

“Observation” is akin to noticing what surrounds us, even in this sometimes misguided world.  “Vision” and “revelation” are familiar words from A Course in Miracles also.  Vision gives us the means to see, and it is viewed in ACIM as a gift of the Holy Spirit.  Revelation is viewed in ACIM as a gift of God, and proceeds from God to us (never the reverse).  A significant passage from ACIM indicates that revelation may occasionally reveal the end to us, but to get there the means are needed.

ACIM is meant to be those means for the time of the Holy Spirit.  A Course of Love, meant for the time of Christ, takes us a step farther along.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

As I reach forth to understand what living in the time of Christ really means, may I be reassured that You are always there.  This time is what many generations have waited to find.  Thank You for my life during this time.

Thank You that I can be reassured that my life does not have to be a constant seeking, that there is an end point, a point of arrival.  Help me to know what this means as my pathway ahead unfolds.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 137:

When I am healed I am not healed alone.

The Chosen

“‘Many are called but few are chosen’ should be, ‘All are called but few choose to listen.’  (A Course in Miracles, T44)”

“All are chosen.  (A Course of Love:  Treatise on the New, 1.6)”

Affirmation:  “We are chosen.”

Reflections:

Here we may rest easy.  All (and this includes even those who are not religiously inclined) are chosen of God.  There are no exceptions to those who receive the love of God.  We are all cared for, and when we accept this truth, we are ready to understand God’s mercy.

May we accept this truth today.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

When I accept the new truth that all are chosen, I do not judge those who have believed that only a given religion has people chosen of God.  We all understand differently.  Thank You for leading me to know that, indeed, all are chosen.

Help me to do those things that chosen people are led to do.  May I extend mercy, kindness, and forgiveness to all of my brothers and sisters, and may I remember that this “all” includes everyone.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 136:

Sickness is a defense against the truth.

Joy and Release

“There is one thought in particular that should be remembered throughout the day.  It is a thought of pure joy; a thought of peace, a thought of limitless release, limitless because all things are freed within it.  (ACIM, M41)”

Affirmation:  “pure joy and limitless release”

Reflections:

We are meant to be joyous, even in the midst of a world that has many woes.  We pray for its improvement, and we do what we can to improve our part of this world.  Yet we miss the point if we fail to rejoice in the good news that God has found in us his people, and that God has given to us the means to be joyous.

We will not always avoid pain and struggle, and perhaps this is not bad.  We can normally avoid escalating our troubles into real suffering if we turn to God.  We may often fail in the endeavor to give over our problems to God’s true answers, but if we fail, we do well to pick ourselves up and try again next time.  And, when we forget to turn to Him, may we know always that He does not forget us.  Even when the way seems the most severe, He is carrying us.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Sometimes I find it hard to be joyous.  Perhaps I find it hard because I am thinking “hard.”  I can do much to improve my frame of mind by thinking “joy.”  Help me to know this blessing today.

I have often returned to A Course in Miracles and the phrases, “pure joy” and “limitless release.”  Jesus said that these were thoughts to keep in mind throughout the day.  May I do so today.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 135:

If I defend myself I am attacked.

A Note on Being

“You have returned to your true nature.  Perhaps you will remember that within A Course of Love you were once asked to ‘Imagine the ocean or the cheetah, the sun or the moon or God Himself, attempting to learn what they are.  They are the same as you.  All exist within you.  You are the universe itself.’  (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 248)”

Affirmation:  “I have returned to my true nature.”

Reflections:

Our struggles are over.  We have returned to level ground from the mountain top after Forty Days and Nights with Jesus.  We will live in love henceforth.  We will simply be.  For awhile, we may be conscious of trying to “become,” but this will fade as we relax into being.  We are told by Jesus to expect heaven on earth.

Our joy, which will be ever-increasing, is not selfish, for we take our brothers and sisters with us in unity and relationship (the hallmark words of A Course of Love).  Our futures are up to us.  The possibilities are all ours.

Perhaps we still wonder a bit if we are truly ready, but Jesus asserts that we are.  He did not intend for us to take a trek up the mountain top repeatedly, but to accept his words, and to realize that we are now ready.  We will be happy and contented.  We will know, unerringly, how to act naturally from our being.

If we still worry about errors that are in ourselves, we will simply acknowledge that we want them gone, and they will be gone.  We are as accepting of ourselves as we have been of Jesus.  We approach our days with love, and this is sufficient.  Our quest now is for love’s expression–nothing more.  An endless quest for love’s extension is eternity itself.  We know now how to respond in love, for we are love, being.

Thus ends our Forty Days and Forty Nights on the mountain top with Jesus.  If we are ready to accept his promise, we are ready to embrace Christ-consciousness.  Perhaps it will not come al at once; perhaps we will have glimpses, perhaps for a long while yet.

But be reassured, just as A Course in Miracles reassures.  Once begun, the end is certain.  We will know God, we will know Jesus, we will know our brothers and sisters, and we will know ourselves.

Note:  With these reflections this day, the Forty Days and Forty Nights in the A Course of Love: Dialogues are concluded.  Later on, reflections will focus on the second volume of ACOL, with the Treatise on the New.  These reflections will begin on Saturday, May 22.

In the meantime, there will be miscellaneous postings on both A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You for finding in Mari a person who would accept the task of channeling a new message from Jesus.  May we accept, gradually, all that we can from this new message.  May we be patient with ourselves if we do not immediately find the joy that Jesus promises.  May we anticipate in faith that his promises are true, that we will know the joy of a new reality in this world.

Perhaps this world is not yet ready for the truths of A Course of Love.  I pray that the messages held within, if true, are accepted sooner rather than later.  And I do believe that these messages are true.  Thank You for taking our hand and leading us to the promise of a better future.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 134:

Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.

Day Forty: Who You Are to Me

“When you turn the last page, will you cry tears of sadness that our dialogue is complete, that you will hear my voice no more.  Or will you brave your own relationship with me?  Will you turn to your brother and hear my voice in him?  Will you be my voice as you turn to your sister?  Will you carry the fullness of our relationship within you?  Will you be one with me, and in being one with me never feel alone again?  Will you let the emptiness of separation leave you once and for all?  (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 247)”

Affirmation:  “May I brave my own relationship to Jesus, and may I know real companionship with him as well as with all my brothers and sisters.”

Reflections:

We are an extension of I Am in form.  Through that extension, we become who we are to Jesus, instead of who he has been to us.  There is creative tension in this relationship, and that is good.  This will allow the power that is needed as we return to level ground.

As separate beings, our existence was circumscribed by fear.  As beings living in unity and relationship, love is our hallmark, our extension.  Christ-consciousness is the awareness of existence in relationship.

We are one Self, love’s extension, one to another in unity and relationship.  This one Self the Christ Self.  We must let the emptiness of separation leave us, and we must join with Jesus in all his fullness.  We must not cry tears of sadness that we are no longer on the mountain top with him.  He will go with us to level ground.  We carry the fullness of our relationship to him with us.  And we must share this relationship with all in our world.  We join together with our brothers and sisters, and Jesus is our companion.  We are never alone.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May love be my hallmark in the new reality in which I find myself as I descend to level ground.  May I recognize that, with my brothers and sisters, I am one Self.  I am also one Self with God.  Help me to understand this blessing, this knowledge that has never before been made so clear to me.

Help me in my daily walk on level ground.  Thank you for the blessing of the Forty Days and Forty Nights.  Thank You, Jesus, for your channeling to us in A Course of Love.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 133:

I will not value what is valueless.