Day Thirty Nine: Who I Am to You

“But breathe a sigh of relief, my beloved, for you do not have to learn all that the Christ in you learned.  This is why we have had to enter the time of non-learning–so that you accept that you do not have to try to learn the unlearnable.  This is why we have left the time of becoming behind, why you stand ready to enter the time of being in union and relationship.  The Christ in you is the accomplished.  The Christ in you is that which, upon this final acceptance, returns your wholeness to you.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 240)”

Affirmation:  “May I be whole today, and may this wholeness extend into the future.”

Reflections:

“Individuation” and “differentiation” are used interchangeably in A Course of Love.  We are individuated beings in relationship to each other.  But God is there all the time.  We are not separate beings, sent into an alien world to try to live by ourselves.  We have often thought of ourselves this way, but this way is a fallacy.  We are meant to establish a relationship with Jesus that is not difficult at all, but simple in the extreme.  We are individuated beings that live in relationship to each other and Jesus, and in unity with God.  This relationship, in truth, is just as simple as any relationship that we have ever encountered in our daily life, at any stage upon the journey.

We do not project any longer; we extend.  In extension, we are living in the relationship that is truly real.  Our projections have been of the ego, and we would leave these behind.

Who is Jesus to us?  Only who we are to ourselves.  This is a paradox, but a true idea.  We will not leave this mountain top with our illusions about ourselves still in place.  We do not have to achieve sainthood or perfection to live in relationship to the All.  We will find heaven when we realize that what is asked of us is not hard at all.  We will find God.  Previously, we have judged ourselves as not being worthy.  Realize now that we have walked the whole pathway to Christ-consciousness.  We are ready in one more day to return to level ground, to descend from the mountain top and to take our place among our brothers and sisters–changed but completely whole, differentiated beings who are joined in unity and relationship.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I am ready, almost, to return to level ground.  I am a different person than I was before I went to the mountain top with Jesus.  May this trek be a permanent change in me.  May I realize that I am justified by the faith that his words have given to me.

May Jesus be the companion that I have always longed to have.  He said in A Course in Miracles that we might imagine him holding our hand as we walk along.  And he said that this would be no idle fantasy.  In A Course of Love he has been similarly reassuring, and he now welcomes us as equals in his love.  I do not fully understand all that this promise holds out to me, but as time passes, may I come to understand ever more fully.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 132:

I loose the world from all I thought it was.

Day Thirty Eight: Who I Am

“Being full of love for one another is the beginning of extension, the end of withdrawal.  It is the mutuality of our love that causes this fullness.  Remember briefly here the feelings of withdrawal you have experienced when you believed you loved more or that you were loved less by a friend or lover.  Remember briefly here the feelings of withdrawal you experienced when you felt loved for being something other than that which you are.  Know, through your brief contemplation of these feelings that this is behind us now.  Know that we can be known and loved equally for who we are.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 234)”

Affirmation:  “May I be loved for who I am in truth.”

Reflections:

In Day Thirty Eight, Jesus returns to a reassurance of his love for us.  He expresses his union with us, and he notes that we are in relationship to each other in that union.  He welcomes us again into his embrace, harkening back to a beautiful passage in the first volume of the series of A Course of Love.

In a somewhat confusing statement, he tries to explain to us, simply, that “I Am,” and “Who I Am,” are different, but that in “Who I Am,” we come to know him in unity and relationship.  “Who” is an acknowledgment that we are differentiated beings, but beings who are joined in unity because they choose to be so.

Day Thirty Eight is a powerful statement of Jesus’s love for us.  In the fullness of his love, we will come to possess our souls.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I have not always been aware of the depth of love that Jesus feels for all people, and also for me.  Previously I have sometimes seen Jesus as a judge.  Help me to accept the veracity of his love for all of us today.  Help me to return that love.

Thank You for Jesus’s messages to us.  His messages are a great comfort.  May I rest at ease in his reassurances today.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 131:

No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth.

Day Thirty Seven: A New Idea of God

“You realize that the man, the God, the historical figure who has been called Jesus Christ was not only Jesus but Christ.  Not only Christ but Jesus.  Not separated but individuated.  You realize that the call for the second coming of Christ has sounded and that it is a call to the difference you have always desired while not requiring you to remain separate!  (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 230)”

Affirmation:  “Lead me to understand, finally, the Second Coming of Christ.”

Reflections:

The previous day, Day Thirty Six, replaced an old idea of God with a new:  a God in which we all share.  Day Thirty Seven elaborates upon this conception.  We have previously seen ourselves as different from each other, and different from God.  But, in unity, we are all the same, the same in relationship to each other.  We are differentiations of God, creators even as He is.  Our previous work has often been “made,” rather than created (a tenet of A Course in Miracles), but now we would accept how to be creators of reality, not illusion.

We have seen ourselves as separate beings, encased in a human body that was made (rather than created) by the ego.  Now we recognize the falsity of this conception, and we move to see ourselves as one with God.  We accept this reality when we move into Christ-consciousness.  We then know, as opposed to perceiving.

We are told that the divineness of our being is most revealed in relationship.  This is because we are one with our brothers and sisters.  When we separate ourselves from them, we separate ourselves from God.  He would have us all join together.  We have seen glimpses of this new state, but soon this new state will become permanent within ourselves.  Then we will truly live in a new reality.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I do not want separation anymore; I want union.  Help me to incorporate this new reality in my understanding of the human being that I am.  May I also recognize the fact that the divine is part of my nature.  I have not always understood this, but I ask to understand divinity today.

Thank You for this new and exciting truths.  May I understand honestly and in depth.  May I recognize that Your truth is something that, with grace, I can come to understand.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 130:

It is impossible to see two worlds.

Day Thirty Six: Who You Are in Unity and Relationship

“You do not disappear or cease to be.  You are not replaced by God whom you have always been one with in being.  You simply accept the truth of being and the truth of being in union and relationship.  Both at the same time.  Both/and rather than either/or.  Cause and Effect.  Means and End.  You accept the end of choice and the beginning of creation.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 227)”

Affirmation:  “May I live in union and relationship with God and my brothers and sisters in this world.”

Reflections:

Day Thirty Six notes that we have always been in relationship to God, and that God Himself, as the Trinity of God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, indicates that He can know Himself only in relationship.  This “knowing in relationship” has been what we have been reaching for.  We are in union one to another, and we are also in relationship one to another.

Our world has come very close to destruction.  Now is the time that we need a better direction.  As we accept our unity and our relationship with all our brothers and sisters, with God, indeed with the Whole, we will know peace.  We have been creating all along, but now we create, not in illusion, but in truth.  This will make the new world a better place, and this will save us from destruction.

We are differentiations of God; this we have always been.  But until we know the power of this relationship, we will not create anything of real value.  We have often seen Him as apart from us, but this has been part of the illusion which we have built for ourselves in our egoistic nature.  Now we would know the truth, and this we know, as a theme of A Course of Love, only in union with our brothers and sisters, and in relationship to them and to All else.  The dichotomies are over; we are joined in Christ-consciousness.  This is the ultimate message of ACOL.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

It is a great blessing to know that Christ-consciousness is upon my brothers and sisters, and upon myself.  I welcome Jesus’s message of this new time, and I wholeheartedly embrace his message that the time of Christ is upon us now.

May I understand what it means to be in union with God and with my brothers and sisters.  May my relationships be only those of love in the deepest sense.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 129:

Beyond this world there is a world I want.

Day Thirty Five: Being a Creator in Unity and Relationship

“Creation itself, which stands apart from particulars but united with wholeness, has led to this time of opposites becoming one and wholeness becoming actual rather than probable.  Wholeness is actual.  All that is left to be created is awareness that this is so.  (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 222)”

Affirmation:  “May I become aware today that Wholeness is actual.”

Reflections:

Day Thirty Five is a bit obtuse.  Perhaps we have often thought this of both A Course of Love and A Course in Miracles, but did not say it.  But perhaps we will appreciate more when we are frank.  The problem is the complexity of ideas, and the fact that most ideas on Day Thirty Five are meant to be a union of opposites.  This union of opposites is a part of the “union and relationship” that is oft counseled in A Course of Love.

We are told that in relationship to God, we are actually in relationship to All, as well as all in this world.  And in this experience we know only love.  When we return to level ground, as we are preparing to do, we will retain the mountain top experience.  We will have an idea of oneness, an idea of sameness.  We will also share in accomplishment and union here, and we will not so much look beyond this world to a world beyond death for our fulfillment.

We will assume the nature of creatorship; we will re-create ourselves and a new world at the same time.  Both will emanate from the unity and relationships that we have often read in A Course of Love.  Previously, we “made” a reality; now we will “create” one.  There is a world of difference, because now we know that we do not choose ourselves, but let God in us make the decisions.  We are within the embrace of All in  All.  We are in a state of being more than a state of doing.  Thus we embody our Christ-consciousness.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank you for the many ideas of this day.  May we know that we have reached far enough that, with God in us, we can “create” rather than simply “make” (as our egos did previously).  I do not know all that creatorship will hold out to me, but I long to know.  Please help me today.

It is good to know that I will retain much of this knowledge when I have left the mountain top.  Help me to remember, now and always.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 128:

The world I see holds nothing that I want.

Day Thirty Four: Saying Yes to Power

“The wholehearted desire that is upon you now is the desire to know and experience this oneness of being in relationship rather than the difference of being in relationship–the wholeness of being in relationship rather than the separation of being in relationship.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 218)”

Affirmation:  “May I be whole and one in relationship to my brothers and sisters.”

Reflections:

We have talked frequently of being in relationship, and of this being as being one of union.  The next logical step is to realize that this being makes the diversity of relationship merge into one as sameness.  This is not bad.  It is the beginning of real power.

We are leaving behind the striving for differences and specialness.  We are reaching for the oneness that will encompass the whole world.  This we will do by creating the world that we experience.  This repeated theme is made more definite by the realization that to continue to seek for differences in our brothers and sisters is to see them as either more or less “special” than are we.  This is the remaining vestige of the ego in us.

In sameness, we experience the power of God.  Previously, we have denied this power many times.  Now it is our best response to welcome it with open arms.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I realize that sameness is not bad.  In our world in recent years, we have heralded diversity, and so to talk about sameness as good is a challenge for us to understand.  Help me to understand today.

We would not be special.  We would not be ego-inspired.  May we be one in union and relationship, as A Course of Love says repeatedly.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 127:

There is no love but God’s.

Day Thirty Three: Being in Relationship

“While these may seem like simple words, or like a theory being proposed, these words are at the heart of the new way of seeing yourself–a way of seeing that will create a new world.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 215)”

Affirmation:  “May I do my part today to create a new world.”

Reflections:

Many new ideas are broached in this chapter.  We return to a statement from one of the Treatises (the second volume of A Course of Love, A Treatise on the New):  All are chosen.  The power of God exists in everyone because all are one with God.  God is being in relationship.  So are we.  We seek the divine marriage, the divine relationship of form and being.  This is the oft-repeated idea of the elevated Self of form.

It is at this point that Jesus says the words that are given in the chosen passage for the day, quoted above.

Jesus then moves to a strong statement about the primacy of love.  Love, he says, is the only response.  If we respond as who we truly are, we will respond with love.  All relationship is with love because all relationship is with God, who is one in being with us.

The chapter then moves on quickly to a consideration of true power.  Being is power.  Relationship is the expression of power.  Jesus asserts that every single person has the power within to affect, change, or recreate the world.  We have this power because we are in relationship with everyone and everything.  This is oneness and unity.  And love is the condition of union.  Jesus concludes this chapter, “Thus when you realize your relationship to all, you are all powerful.”

This is a dense chapter, which Jesus will move to explain further in the upcoming days.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I do my part to create a new world.  I so long to make a contribution in this sad and lonely world that will make a difference, that will create a better place for us to live.  Love will do this, as Jesus says.  May we all seek to meditate on this all-important word, a word that has become the hallmark of religions throughout the ages.

Be with me today.  We need a better way to live, and I believe that Jesus has for all time been trying to lead us in this direction.  May his words succeed.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 126:

All that I give is given to myself.

Day Thirty Two: The Experience of the Self and the Power of God

“The experience of the Self is God.  It is not from God   It is not of God.  It is God.  (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 211)”

Affirmation:  “May I come to understand  that my Self is encompassed in God.”

Reflections:

Day Thirty Two is a comprehensive discussion of what concepts of God we have held at various points in our lives, and among various thinkers.  These concepts are (1) God as Supreme Being; (2) God as Creator; (3) as a part of God as Creator, the concept that God exists in all that has been created.  Then we are told that a “concept” of God is not necessary.  Indeed, we have been told repeatedly that concepts are not needed for ourselves, for other people, or for God.  Concepts are normally misleading, and even evidence of the influence of the ego.

Whether God is seen as Supreme Being or as Creator, He is seen as All Powerful.  But we read, in the next sentence, that to see God as All Powerful is to disenfranchise ourselves.  God does not intend this.  We too are part of Him.  We too are powerful.

Yet there is a further thought that helps us to understand.  God must be in relationship to know Himself.  This is why our union in relationship has been stressed throughout A Course of Love. God is one in being, but different in relationship.  This idea explains our diversity, as well as that of the natural world.  God experiences Himself in diversity. His is a Being of union and relationship, just what Jesus has been calling us to emulate in our lives in ACOL.  We are limited in relationship, though, and thus we have limited power.  As we move toward holy relationship, though, we reach closer to the epitome that is God.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

It is insightful to realize that even God has to experience Himself/Herself in relationship, in diversity.  I do not fully understand, but I do not expect to understand fully.  My little self is not able to comprehend.  As I reach toward the Self of form, I hope that my understanding will increase.

May I move ever close to holy relationships with all of my brothers and sisters.  Help me to do this today.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 125:

In quiet I receive God’s Word today.

Day Thirty One: Joining

“What the mountain top experience is helping you to see is that you are the experience.  The mountain top experience did not happen to you or happen separately from you.  It has happened and is happening within you.  You are the experience and the experiencer, the knower and the known.  This joining is the point of the experience and the key to experiencing wholeness.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 209)”

Affirmation:  “May I experience wholeness today.  May I be the experience.”

Reflections:

Day Thirty One functions as a summary of the thirty days that have preceded it.  Jesus uses repetition deliberately and often to make his point.

On Day Thirty One, we realize that “joining” has been what this trek to the mountain top, with simultaneously the experience of level ground, is to mean to us.  We are One with our brothers and sisters, just as we are one within ourselves.  The relationship that we share with others dovetails into union, one with another.  This union is a manifestation of God.  God is our point of unity, and we are all one with God.  God is the essence of everything that we can see and know, and, moreover, all that we cannot see and know, but which is a part of the All.

Previously in our lives we knew only separation, and this includes a perceived (but inaccurate) sense that we were separate from God.  Now we recognize how wrongheaded this thinking was.  We were thinking only, thinking with our minds.  Now our spirits have joined with our minds in wholeheartedness and with the realization that we are ready for the next step in spiritual evolution.  Jesus will not disappoint us.  He, as our companion, will lead us to discover what awaits in the final days of our mountain top experience.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to know–not to perceive, but to know–what it means to be One with You.  My little mind is so inadequate to comprehend such a great truth.  Help me to understand today.

God is within.  I have long known that.  And God is within the All.  God is the All-in-One.  May I know what it is to experience your personal caring, in the midst of the great universe of which I, along with my brothers and sisters, are a part.

Amen.

Workbook Lesson for Day 124:

Let me remember I am one with God.

Day Thirty: Yielding to Wholeness

“Stated another way, the self cannot know the Self without joining with the Self.  The Self must be the knower and the known, the experience and the experiencer.  The quest to join with God is this quest.  The quest to be the knower and the known, the experience and the experiencer.  The culmination of this quest then, is joining.  (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 208)”

Affirmation:  “May my little self join in glory with my Self on this day.”

Reflections:

“Wholeness” is a theme of A Course of Love.  Repeatedly we are encouraged to combine dualities into one by the power of our desire, our wholeheartedness.  Separation and union are both experienced, but it is union that wins out in the long run.  We reach through relationship to others (and to ourselves) the union that is so desired.  This is the way Home for us.  It is the epitome of Awakening.

We are part of the many separate selves in our world.  We combine into the one Self.  This is another way of saying that we combine in God.  The combining of the many into the one, the union of the many into the One, is the state of wholeness.  We are joined one to another, and in this we recognize that we are one with God.

We have been on a quest.  We must see that the Self is both the knower and the known, the experience and experiencer.  By drawing together all dualities, we make of our world one whole.  We do not leave anyone out, whether or not they have ever themselves knowingly sought the quest that we are so urgently seeking.  We are joining.  And when we make this joining real, we will be finally whole.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I leave none of my brothers and sisters out of the personal world that I am creating.  May everyone I have ever known be remembered in this new reality.

The Self that I seek to be–the elevated Self of form–is before me now.  May I leave behind egoistic patterns of mind and spirit, and reach toward my brothers and sisters with wholeheartedness.  May I do this today and everyday.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 123:

I thank my Father for His gifts to me.

Day Twenty Nine: The Common Denominator of Experience

“A new state of being is a new reality.  It is linked with your notion of who and where you are, for who you are and where you find yourself and experience yourself, are your reality.  This is why experience has needed to find a place in which it could become the common denominator between wholeness and separation.  Once you experience yourself in wholeness and find yourself in union, you have made of yourself the common denominator upon which experience can find anchor in wholeness and union.

“You are thus, as always, the creator of your reality.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 206)”

Affirmation:  “May my experience of this world bring the experience of wholeness and union.”

Reflections:

ACOL is a very unifying series of books.  In this, Day Twenty Nine, we see that we ourselves are the unifying part that gives meaning to our living, to our existence.  Duality in it many guises–joy and sadness, sickness and health, being two–cease to lose their potency, as we realize that all is really one.  Our sustaining of unity in the elevated Self of form will allow us to encompass the whole of our experience with equanimity.

Our mind and heart are joined in the wholehearted manner which the first volume of A Course of Love made clear.  This wholehearted way is one of desire that we become all that we can be, in God’s sight.  This desire then is the source of our power.

We will combine the experiences of separation and wholeness into a single experience.  This allows the end of duality in our world.  We have become a new being.  In the concluding statement to this chapter, there is an echo of the groundbreaking work of Jane Roberts, speaking as Seth, in the Seth books, first published a generation or more ago.  We are the creators of our reality.  A Course in Miracles has said the same thing.  Now it is up to us to make this truth a reality to ourselves, and to make that reality a good thing.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I have long known the concept of creating my own reality.  Now I begin to understand further.  This basic New Age thinking can be misunderstood, and often is.  I ask that I understand in the right way today.

May I know wholeness in my experience today.  May I come to understand fully that my wholeness will usher in a new reality.  Thank You for leading me to this concept.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 122:

Forgiveness offers everything I want.

Day Twenty Eight: From Externally to Internally Directed Life Experience

“Now something new awaits you.  It is a choice so different and a means so revolutionary that it will take some getting used to.  This change is predicated on all the changes that have come before it, including, and most particularly, on that which was most recently spoken of, that of apprehending the new reality of wholeness.  It is not wholeness that is new, but the reality of wholeness that is new.  The reality of being able to experience the variability of separation from within the state of wholeness is what is new.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 202)”

Affirmation:  “May I come to understand what it means to be ‘whole’.”

Reflections:

On Day Twenty Eight of our Forty Days and Forty Nights, we begin to experience what it will be like when we have descended from the mountain top back to level ground.  We will be different people, for Jesus does not wish that we make this journey to the mountain top repeatedly; we need to realize that we are ready for all that he has held out to us.  (He does say elsewhere, though, that if we wish to go to the mountain top repeated times, that this too is open to us, but not what he would choose for us.)

On this day, Jesus recounts the experience of life as many of us have lived through it:  schooling, career, marriage, and family.  Others, he notes, have pursued dreams or adventures.  But all of these choices have been externally directed, and he would have us move to internally directed choices that, nevertheless, in the manner of wholeness, retain the external focus as a part of the whole.  He notes that in the past we may have chosen our pathway through much inner reflection, but the fact remains that the direction of the various choices was primarily external.  Now we are bade to move to wholeness, both internal and external, not in separation, but in wholeness..

Jesus recounts the two primary ways that we have lived our lives.  We have believed that we took what life had to give, if our focus was upon money or career.  We have believed that God determined the circumstances of our lives if relationships have been our focus.  We now must move beyond these two ways of thinking and living.

As we transform, new conditions will apply.  We have had access to two levels of experience–the experience of wholeness and the experience of separation.  Now we are seeking just an experience of being–a new state of being.  This is the spacious Self that will define our future roles in our world, internally and externally, through Wholeness.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

All of us have lived in separation for eons.  Now we are bade to come to understand what living in Wholeness will hold out to us.  This is a transformation that all have longed for, even when we have not know for what to ask.

Thank You for sending Jesus’s message to me now.  I need to experience all that Wholeness would promise, and I ask for this blessing this day.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 121:

Forgiveness is the key to happiness.

Day Twenty Seven: The Apprehension of Levels of Experience

“Life, your humanity, is the variability.  Spirit, your oneness, is the constant.  Life is oneness extended into separation and variability through experience.  The elevated Self of form will be the expression of new life lived within the constant of wholeness but continuing to experience the variability of separation.  This is what you practice as you gather on the mountain top while remaining on level ground.  (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 200)”

Affirmation:  “Life is the variability.  Spirit is the constant.”

Reflections:

The apprehension of which Day Twenty Seven speak is not an apprehension of fearfulness, but a comprehension, an apprehension, of life itself.  We are asked to reach for life itself in all its variability.  We seek for variability through wholeness.  This is actually more familiar to us now than we realize, because in studying ACOL from the mountain top, while simultaneously remaining in our daily world, we have been experiencing two levels at once.  This is the basic reason why we were asked to go to the mountain top while not removing ourselves from daily life.

We experienced external life for many years in out past without the benefit of spirit.  Now we are beyond such evidence of limitedness.  We are experiencing life through the spirit as well as the mind.  We are experiencing the wholeheartedness that is the hallmark of A Course of Love.

To experience the human and the divine simultaneously is to be what we have actually always been:  Whole.  This is leading to the sustaining of the elevated Self of form, a basic tenet of ACOL.  We are heading toward an experience of variability within wholeness rather than within separation.  The biggest revelations are ahead of us.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I welcome the chance to experience both my humanity as well as my spirit.  This is a new contribution of A Course of Love, and I find this concept enchanting.

May I learn in this period of 40 Days and 40 Nights all that the “mountain top” experience is meant to hold out to me.  Be with me as I seek.  Help me to learn through thoughts that I do not think, even as this trilogy that is A Course of Love has encouraged learning to cease, and observation and experience to continue as I walk further along my personal pathway..

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 120:

For morning and evening review:

I rest in God.

I am as God created me.

Day Twenty Six: Self-Guidance

“You can trust in your Self.  Will you?  By tending your garden you will develop this trust and prepare for your descent to level ground.

“Your self-guidance can be thought of as an internal compass.  It will not necessarily know the answers as each answer is sought, but if paid attention to, it will show you the way to knowing.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 196)”

Affirmation:  “May I trust in my Self.”

Reflections:

We have often prayed for guidance from the Holy Spirit.  This was the way laid out for us in A Course in Miracles.  We may not have fully understood exactly Who the Holy Spirit was, but we knew that He was our true guidance, as the Course made clear.  Now we are led to understand that we can get guidance from our Self–the grander Self, not the little self of the ego.  We have traveled farther along the pathway.

Turn inward for this internal guidance of the Self.  This Self will lead us down the mountain top to level ground.

Previously, not only have we listened to the Holy Spirit, but we have sought external guidance from other teachers and books.  Now we reach inward, and we find the guidance that we have sought so fervently.   This Self-guidance is the way that we will come to know the one Self, the Self that we share with all the universe.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I come to know through listening to guidance from my Self.  May I never mistake the Self for the little self that is frequently informed by the ego.

Thank You for this logical progression, in the time of Christ-consciousness.  Our heretofore dependence upon the Holy Spirit is tempered by the understanding that we live in the time of Christ now.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 119:

For morning and evening review:

Truth will correct all errors in my mind.

To give and to receive are one in truth.

Day Twenty Five: Tending Your Garden

“You are not what you once were.  You need not guard against an over-zealous ego-mind.  Your ideas in this time may sound crazy, even to your own ears.  Let them come.  Your feelings may be confused in one moment, crystal clear in the next.  Let them all come.  Your thought will slip from the sublime to the mundane.  Let them come.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 194)”

Affirmation:  “May I accept my ideas and my feelings in this time of change.”

Reflections:

Jesus tells us that at this point in our progress we may feel an emptiness of mind, that the mind may be still.  This is probably a new experience for us, and we are not to resist it.  This relaxed attitude is what tending the garden is all about.  We ought to let our mind wander as it will, relaxed or uptight.  This is a period of transition, but the stillness is the hallmark of the progress that we have made.

We are encouraged to be reflective, to sort and to cull.  This metaphor continues the image of tending the garden.  It is not yet time for the harvest.  It is a time for gathering, a time of preparation–but not of waiting.

We are not to try to sort things out with the mind, which is far too small to understand the totality of what we are experiencing.  Don’t ask, “What am I looking for?”  Just relax and realize that we are tending our garden.  More will come later.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

This day seems to be a time of confusion for me.  In the past, I wanted to clear away any confusion as soon as possible.  Let me now be patient with the confusion, knowing that I am being prepared for better things, better ways of living.

May I tend my garden well today.  Thank You, as always, for Your easy guidance.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 118:

For morning and evening review:

God’s peace and joy are mine.

Let me be still and listen to the truth.

Day Twenty Four: Potential

“When it was said that A Course of Love was a trigger, it was meant that the course is both a trigger of choice and a trigger of nature.  It was meant to convey the action of a catalyst.  Now it is up to you whether you allow your true nature to be revealed.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 192)”

Affirmation:  “May I allow my true nature to be revealed.”

Reflections:

We have spent a lifetime struggling against our true nature.  Day Twenty Four asks us to just “stop.”  This chapter says that we are the caterpillar, the cocoon, and the butterfly, and that all are part of our nature.  We have the potential to turn into butterflies by the power of our will.  We are bade to do just this.

Our true nature is more the aspect of the butterfly than the caterpillar or the cocoon.  We are meant to awaken, and to become all that we can be.

It is the nature of spirit to become.  This is why we are always stretching to our limits.  Now we ought to do what we can to realize our potential, the butterfly.  The Self remains all of our various facets, but the butterfly is the epitome.  Our will is the greatest of all triggers to effect this transformation.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

You know that the image of the butterfly has called to me since I was 23 and on a trip to Italy.  I didn’t know then all that this image could mean, but now I see more clearly.  Many have used the image of the butterfly to imagine rebirth, and now You see it as Awakening.

Thank You for this chapter.  I am reassured that my own nature can shine through, regardless of what might happen on any given day.  May I become all that it is in my nature to become.  And thank You for helping.

Amen.

AC IM Workbook Lesson for Day 117:

For morning and evening review:

God, being Love, is also happiness.

I seek but what belongs to me in truth.

Day Twenty Three: Carrying

“Forget not that who you are is what you are here to make known and that thus, you must be a being who knows love without fear, joy without sorrow, and life everlasting.  You must be this.  A Course of Love gave you the understanding you needed in order to realize that you are this.  The treatises gave you a way to apply this understanding.  This dialogue is meant to give you the means to carry what you have been given.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 190)”

Affirmation:  “May I come to understand what I truly am.”

Reflections:

“Carrying” within the knowledge that we have experienced is our way Home.  When we carry within what we have experienced on the mountain top, we will be ready to take our place on level ground once again, with our brothers and sisters who have not yet made the trek to the mountain top.

Jesus reminds us that surrendering within is actually surrendering to our own will.  As we learned in A Course in Miracles, God’s will is actually our own.  We are never coerced.

Carrying these truths within will ready us to reach outward to this world.  The new will be birthed through us.  But we are never alone.  We do not have to feel burdened by a responsibility to carry the good news to our brothers and sisters.  Our life in the future will be a joy that is the truth of Christ-consciousness.

Dear Father/Mother,

May I come to understand all that Jesus has been saying to me.  Thank You for the guidance that I am finding in what I am reading.  May I not be burdened or frustrated by my progress or lack of progress.  Once begun, the end of the journey is certain.  May I rest easy in that knowledge.

May I know the joy that You hold out to me.  I so want to feel this joy continually.  May I not feel what I have learned, and what I have come to understand without learning, as a burden.  May I know that You are always near to help me take up my responsibilities in this world.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 116:

For morning and evening review:

God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.

I share God’s Will for happiness for me.

Day Twenty Two: Channeling

“You are life, and you are also surrounded by living forces channeling to you constantly.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues)”

Affirmation:  “May I listen to the guidance that surrounds me.”

Reflections:

Day Twenty Two makes clear that all of us are channels to the unknown.  We choose that which we express.  The channeling goes on all the time.  What each person expresses is unique to that individual.  Each person can bring forth only that which is expressly his or hers to bring forth.

Every choice is a mean of channeling.  This makes clear the closeness of our world to other worlds beyond us.  We are not, however, simply intermediaries between our world and other worlds.  The channeling which we express would come into being only by our own choice, our own means of expression.

We can know God better in this unique way.  We can, through channeling, through expression of the unknown as we come to see it, make known the love of God to individuals in this world.  When we do this, we are making known love in its purest form.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to be aware, constantly, of the impact of an unseen world on my own personal surroundings as well as this world in general.  Thank You for the clear statement of this great boon.  We are never alone.  Forces from beyond reach out to us and comfort us.  Thank You.

May I discern wisely the channeling that comes to me. A Course of Love does not say that we have to discern spirits, but through the years I have believed that.  Be with me as I assimilate the new insight of ACOL, and if I must discern spirits, please guide me rightly in this endeavor.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 115:

For morning and evening review:

Salvation is my only function here.

My part is essential to God’s plan for salvation.

Day Twenty One: The Reversal

“No intermediary is needed when you exist in union.  It is recognized that the knowledge, wisdom, guidance, or information that is needed each moment is available within each moment and that the interaction, rather than being one of taking something from an outside source into the self where it is learned and then regurgitated or even applied, has given way to an interaction that begins within and extends outward.  (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 186)”

Affirmation:  “May I exist in union.”

Reflections:

Day Twenty One elaborates upon the previous day’s commentary  We are led to understand more completely that we cannot rely upon external sources for the truth.  We are led to realize that we cannot even rely upon Jesus to impart the truth to us.  We must reach inward, and in dialogue with the Self that is the All of us, we will come to know.  This will not be an external seeking, but an internal transition to relying on the Self.

Jesus is preparing us to cease thinking of him as our teacher.  He has said in these commentaries that he is our companion, but he is resigning as our teacher.  We are not to look outside ourselves for the answers, but to turn inward.  Ideas such as these are reiterated throughout the Forty Days and Forty Nights.

Life itself is a channel, and we are constantly both receiving and giving.  There is nothing channeled to one that is not always available to all others.  Teacher and learner are equal, an idea that was presented in A Course in Miracles; in ACIM, though, it was said that only time separated the teacher from the learner, because the teacher  temporarily knew more, and was therefore in a position to help.  In these concluding chapters to A Course of Love, we are led to realize that time no longer separates the teacher from the learner.  We have walked farther along the pathway.  We are assuming Christ-consciousness for ourselves.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You for reassurance that I have come farther along on the pathway, and that union with the Self that I am will answer my questions.  I want to be in union with You.  I do not want separation any longer.  Help me to know union with You.

Thank You for the spectacular promise of this day.  I do not have to rely on external sources, but I only need to turn inward to You and the Self that I am.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 114:

For morning and evening review:

I am spirit.

I will accept my part in God’s plan for salvation.

Day Twenty: The First Transition

“What has happened here is that words have been put on the feelings and remembrances that you have within your minds and hearts and have been sharing in this dialogue.  The way of saying this perhaps is new, but the way of saying this is the expression of the human being receiving it.  The way in which you are hearing and responding to these truths is perhaps new, but that way too is of the human being receiving it, in this case, you.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 183)”

Affirmation:  “May I come to understand the ‘new’.”

Reflections:

We have long depended on learning, on our minds, to live as comfortably as possible in this world.  Day Twenty clarifies that we cannot learn the truth that way, the unknown cannot be taught.  We know intuitively, and have always known intuitively, the truth of our being, the unknowns for which we have sought externally for solutions.

The first transition ends when we realize that we are in a state of transition, the state of knowing that we cannot learn anything, that we have always held internally the truths of which we are becoming aware.  The more we turn inward, the more we will know these truths.  Our minds are not the way; our hearts are.  Thus we are at the true end of learning.

We are preparing here, at the halfway point of our Forty Days and Forty Nights, to return to level ground, to leave the mountain top.  We will be different people when we have returned to level ground.  We will know the beauty, truth, and wisdom of the one Self, the Self that we share with all our brothers and sisters.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

It seems to me that You are teaching me that I have always known intuitively what is just now becoming clear to me.  How foolish I have been!  I have put more faith in what others have told me than in what I knew internally.

Perhaps I needed to learn from others.  But now You are teaching me to rely on the inner Word that You have place in my heart.  May I rest in the comfort of this concept.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 113:

For morning and evening review:

I am one Self, united with my Creator.

Salvation comes from my one Self.

Day Nineteen: The Way of Mary

“The way of Mary is not a place or state of non-interaction however.  This is not the state or place of the monks, nuns, or the contemplatives of old.  It is not solitary nor isolated, nor confined to a specific community.  It is a way of existence in which relationship is paramount.  It is not listening to a calling to ‘do’ but a calling to ‘become.’  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 180)”

Affirmation:  “May I seek to ‘become’ in the way of Mary.”

Reflections:

The way of Mary is not a “doing” so much as a way of “being.”  This does not mean that doing will be absent from our brothers and sisters who follow Mary’s way, but their primary mode of living will be in relationships.  They will not always be as known by our world as those who are actively doing.  But they will not dwell in obscurity.  As we fulfill the obligations and mission for which we live in the world, we will naturally move more toward being rather than doing.

Eventually all will follow the way of Mary.   This may be hard for us to understand at this time in our history, when there is so much that we perceive as “wrong” with this world.  But as we all learn to “be” rather than to try (sometimes misguidedly) to “do,” then we will see that no change is lasting that does not include an internal change.  This is a largely unexpressed but implicit tenet of Jesus in both A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love.

Both Jesus and Mary are anchors in this time of transition.  Both ways–doing and being–are needed as we seek to bring to our world a new, transformed world.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I have spent most of my life “doing”–sometimes in a feverish pace.  I am so relieved that Jesus does not ask me to “do” compulsively any longer.  Thank You for the words that indicate that “being” in relationships is also a good thing.  Help me to truly understand the way of Mary.

As I balance the way of Jesus–the doing–with the way of Mary–the being–may I have Your constant support.  I cannot live well in this world without Your guidance every step of the way.  Thank You.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 112:

For morning and evening review:

Light and joy and peace abide in me.

I am as God created me.

Day Eighteen: The Way to Paradise

“The new visual pattern is that of spirit resurrected in form.  It is the ascension of the body, or elevation of the self of form.  You are called to demonstrate this pattern.  The choice is to demonstrate this pattern through interaction with the world, or through incarnation through relationship.  Neither is exclusive.  Both are contained within the other.  (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 177)”

Affirmation:  “May my spirit be resurrected in my form.”

Reflections:

This passage encapsulates the essence of Day Eighteen.  Some will follow the way of Jesus through interaction (the active way) with the world, some will follow the way of Mary through relationships (the receptive way), and some will combine both ways in their time in this world.  All ways are needed in this time of transition.

Feelings are now our way of coming to know.  This idea has been expressed previously, but now is reiterated.  We lay aside all sickness as a temporary manifestation of external searching, and we turn within to find our knowing.  The way that we exemplify this knowing, though, differs–whether the way of Jesus, the way of Mary, or a symbiotic relationship of the two.

This passage also encapsulates the entire Forty Days and Forty Nights quite well.  We are to become the resurrected self of form, elevated to the Self that has always been innate in us.  This Self has never left God, and when we welcome this Self into our little self, we will know love and peace and joy as we have not known them for many eons.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I earnestly want to fulfill your plan for me:  that my little self elevate into the Self that I truly am.  This means that earthly being is not less than heavenly.  What a joy this means that life in this world can become!  Thank You.

I do not yet know whether my way is the way of Jesus, the way of Mary, or a combination of the two.  Guide me in this dilemma.  I will listen to Your Voice today.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 111:

For morning and evening review:

Miracles are seen in light.

Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one.

Day Seventeen: The Fulfillment of the Way of Jesus

“What Jesus represented or demonstrated has now been realized, which is why this is called the time of Christ.  The ‘time’ of Christ, whom so many associate with Jesus Christ, represents the ‘time’ of fulfillment of the way of Jesus.  What could be taught and learned has been taught and learned.  Now it is time to move beyond what could be taught and learned to what can only be realized through relationship.  Now is the time of the final revelation of what can be realized, or made real, through following the example life of Jesus.  (A Course of Love:   Dialogues)”

Affirmation:  “May I realize through relationship now.”

Reflections:

We have been in a time of learning, a time that emphasized the mind.  As we move into Christ-consciousness, we are bade to come into knowing.  The mind and its learning have fulfilled their time.  We are now to move into the sustaining of Christ-consciousness, rather than simply the maintenance of this state intermittently.

The way of Jesus was acceptance, and the realization of an example life.  It was Christ-consciousness through teaching and learning.  Now we are coming into a different form of Christ-consciousness, through relationship, which is exemplified in the life of Mary, his mother.  We have “learned” all that we can; we are encouraged now to live with our feelings in relationships.  We will truly “know.”  And this knowing is beyond needing proof of any kind.  It is the fulfillment of all that the sustaining of Christ-consciousness can offer to us.

Day Seventeen affirms that Mary also realized Christ-consciousness.  But as Jesus accepted, and was an example life, Mary taught through relationship.  And it is this time of relationships in which we find ourselves now.  The final paragraph in this chapter begins, “Thus we enter the ending stage of what can be realized through fulfillment of the way of Jesus and the beginning of the fulfillment of the way of Mary.”

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I am so used to learning.  I have sought You in so many ways, and now I am tired of seeking.  You, through Jesus, tell me that the time of learning is over, that knowing will happen now.  Thank You.  I realize that I have longed for this, without realizing what I longed to reach.

May I reach out to others through more loving relationships to them.  This heralds the time of Mary, and,, while I do not fully comprehend what this means, I know that the living out of it will make it clearer.  Jesus, please guide me in this new phase of my development as a spiritual being.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 110:

I am as God created me.

Day Sixteen: Paradise Re-Found

“When you feel an ‘intuition’ you respond differently than you do to unwanted feelings that you are quick to want to ‘do something’ about.  If all feelings were treated more like intuition is treated–with a ‘knowing’ that the feeling has come to tell you something that is as yet unknown to you, but nevertheless for your benefit, you would go a long way toward acceptance.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues)”

Affirmation:  “May I treat all feelings more like intuition–with ‘knowing’.”

Reflections:

We need to accept all feelings, even those that seem borne of fear rather than love.  By so doing, we encompass all feelings with the spacious Self of Christ-consciousness, and the fear, held within the love, is dissipated.

Illness is a form of rejected feelings.  When sickness comes upon us, we are likely to try to reject it as an unwanted intrusion into our world.  But we must hold within ourselves these feelings, knowing that illness is a form of external searching.  When we accept all feelings, whether of loneliness or despair, anger or grief, we join with the spacious Self.
When we live in the present, we are accepting of all feelings by living the Christ-consciousness that we have all so desired to call our own.

Paradise is re-found when the fear that had been expelled is welcomed back by the embrace of love.  No feelings are bad; all are to be accepted, and kept if we deem them good and “loved” into a better feeling if we deem them bad.  The rejection of fear thoughts helped to create the hell that overcame our world.  Welcoming back the fear thoughts, while encompassing them always within love thoughts, will lead us back to paradise.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I come to understand my feelings in the same way that I have, over the years, come to accept intuition as valid guidance.  May I come to understand and to act on what my feelings are telling me, but only if they are loving feelings for my brothers and sisters.

May I encompass fear with love, rejecting nothing, because rejection will only act as a force field to make the fear stronger.  Thank You for these thoughts by Jesus for this day.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 109:

I rest in God.

Day Fifteen: Entering the Dialogue

“While there is division remaining between the self and the spacious Self, the self and the creative force, you remain in the state of maintenance rather than sustenance of Christ-consciousness.  This is an acceptable state for this time of limited practice with those with whom you are engaged in this specific mountain top dialogue.  It is not an acceptable state for full-scale interaction with the world.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 164)”

Affirmation:  “May I reach and sustain Christ-consciousness.”

Reflections:

The chapter for Day Fifteen is lengthy and complex, bringing together in one place the disparate threads of meaning that we have earlier explored in separate chapters, and, at the same time, moving the discussion forward by a further explanation of what “entering the dialogue” really means.  Basically, “entering the dialogue” is recognized as a necessary sharing of self with others.  These others do not negate the fundamental nature of individuality, though, and we will remain clear about our individuality as we progress.  We will also not limit our interactions to those who believe as we do, who travel to the mountain top as we do in these Forty Days and Forty Nights.  We will reach out to all others in our world, and we will do so non-judgmentally.

We learn to be neutral in our observation of our world and the brothers and sisters in it.  It is important, very important, that we not judge.  We let what we observe pass through us in invisibility.  We do not hold to these observations, to come back to them and to judge them.  This action of observation without judgment, in invisibility, is a very creative act.

We join with others in Christ consciousness, and we do so without boundaries.  If we see that there are others in our company who are not ready to let go of their boundaries, that are too fearful to loose their boundaries, we accept these brothers and sisters as they are.

There is much that is as yet unknown to us, and it is in dialogue with others that we may come to know more fully.  This does not negate a personal understanding, but it does open us up to dialogue with the spacious Self, the Self we share with all others.  Our own pathway may be different from that of others, and our path may not even interest others in the slightest.  This is alright.  We will realize our true identity as we walk alone or with others.  But we never want to disregard the brothers and sisters who have not made the mountain top trek with us.  We need to encompass all in the Self that we share with all brothers and sisters, those who believe as we do and those who do not..

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I know all that You hold out to me on this mountain top experience.  I do not try to learn, but to know without learning.  I would experience the Christ-consciousness that I long for by sharing myself with all of my brothers and sisters in love.  I would sustain the elevated Self of form.  All of this I cannot do of myself alone.  I need Your help, and I rest in certainty that Your promise to me of these things is true.

May I share my understanding with those in my world who are ready.  May I not try to share and may I not hold in judgment those of my brothers and sisters who are not ready.  You will teach me the difference.  Thank You for this assurance that You have given to me on this day that encompasses so much of my pathway to You in maturity and spiritual awareness.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 108:

To give and to receive are one in truth.

Day Fourteen: Healing

“Your acceptance of these words is a form of acceptance of the unknown and as such a means of coming to know.  These words are only one means, which is why this is called a dialogue.  Realize now that this is but one voice of the many.  You have entered into the dialogue with the many as well as the one.  This dialogue is going on all around you.  Have you been listening to but one voice?  Or have you begun to hear the one voice in the many?  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 161)”

Affirmation:  “May I hear one voice in the many that surround me.”

Reflections:

Healing is found in the acceptance of the spacious Self–the Self that we share with all others in unity and in relationship one to another.  Earlier we have been tempted many times to reject feelings, and we have thereby been led many times into sickness.  Now we are called upon to accept all of our feelings.  Our feelings are not unique to each of us individually, but are part of the whole which we all share.  Others feel as we do.  This concept in itself is comforting, because we are tempted to think that nobody else in our world has ever felt quite as we do when we are feeling down.

We are asked to hold within our feelings in the spacious Self, the Self we share with all others.  We are not as likely to feel wounded when we know that others are a part of ourselves.  We will not understand all things, but we will hold within not only our spaciousness but also the invisibility of that which we do not comprehend.  We do not reject these unknowns; we hold them in our spaciousness.  We are accepting of the unexplainable.

Our spacious Self will be a healed Self.  We reach out to others, and we accept them in this dialogue.  We are not alone on the mountaintop!  We accept that others are with us on the same ascension.  We then sustain one voice, the many expressing the unity in relationship that we have all needed for eons.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I recognize that in my Self are the others that surround me.  I am never alone.  My spacious Self includes all.

May I be forgiving of all of those others.  May they be healed along with me, as we realize that we are all One.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 107:

Truth will correct all errors in my mind.

Day Thirteen: Union with the Spacious Self

“Attempts to eject the self of suffering from the spacious Self create disharmony.  It is only by this holding within that the loveless self and the suffering self are rendered ineffective.  It is only in this way that you realize that all exist within.  It is only in this way that you become completely fearless and totally spacious, for fear is part of the density of form, being a lack of love.  (ACOL Dialogues, p. 158)”

Affirmation:  “May I be totally fearless today.”

Reflections:

Before we can understand Day Thirteen, we need to try to comprehend what is meant by the “spacious Self.”  It is discussed herein as a “boundary-less Self,” the all-encompassing Self that we share with everyone.  It is the Self of Love, and when we focus on Love, we can overcome any fearful thoughts and feelings of the small self of form.

Jesus says that we are not to try to eject the self of fear, but to encompass with the greater spacious Self, thus rendering it ineffective.  Trying to eject the self of fear actually makes it worse in our experience of fear.

Look again at the passage from A Course of Love, the Dialogues, quoted above.  It actually summarizes much that is said in Day Thirteen.  At the conclusion of the chapter, Jesus once again returns to the theme of unity and relationship.  We have true relationship with our brothers and sisters when we recognize and incorporate the spacious Self, and then we are truly in unity with all.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to be fearless, and to know that I can transcend the suffering self by my fearlessness.  Help me not to be tempted to try to reject this suffering self.  Help it simply to wither away as I come to know my real Self.

I know that my real Self is always one of Love, but I tend to forget this oft-repeated truth.  Help me not to forget the Self of Love today.  Thanking You in advance, I turn to You often today and every day.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 106:

Let me be still and listen to the truth.

Day Twelve: The Spacious Self Joined in Relationship

“Navigating this endless space as an expression of love is the simplest thing imaginable.  All you must do is listen to your Self.  Your Self is now a feeling, conscious space, unhindered by any obstacles of form.  (ACOL Dialogues, p. 155)”

Affirmation:  “May I follow the feeling that my Self offers to me as my guide to living.”

Reflections:

This Day Twelve we learn what being relationship is all about.  Jesus calls upon us to rely on feelings within an empty form (a spacious form), because consciousness is not form.  Our Self occupies emptiness in space, and by this we can easily join with others in this invisible space.

This description is not totally clear in this first day of description.  More days of description are to come.  But this is the introduction to relationship with others, human and non-human.  Jesus says that it is easy to join with non-human forms in invisible space, and when we read this, we may think of how easy it is to join with our pet companions.

This space that we occupy is the space of unity, and with this assertion Jesus once again returns to his oft-repeated exhortation to join in unity and relationship in Christ-consciousness.  He says that navigating this space is the simplest thing imaginable, once we follow our feelings and not our thoughts.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I have long known that my feelings, and my following of them, are my way to salvation.  Now I see that not only is salvation held out to me by feelings, but Christ-consciousness as well.  Truly I am blessed, and I thank You.

Be with me as the mountain top experience proceeds, and I come to see more clearly.  Guide my inner eyes to see more clearly.  Guide my relationship to All.  Thank You.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 105:

God’s peace and joy are mine.

Day Eleven: Christ-Consciousness

“Christ-consciousness is the awareness of existence through relationship.  It is not God.  It is not man.  It is the relationship that allows the awareness that God is everything.  It has been called wisdom, Sophia, spirit.  It is that without which God would not know God.  It is that which differentiates all from nothing.   (ACOL Dialogues, p. 154)”

Affirmation:  “Christ-consciousness is seen in relationship of myself to everything.”

Reflections:

This one passage helps to explain why separation from God, and our return to Him, was necessary in the first place.  If God is within (as well as without), then He could know Himself only in separation from the Whole.  But it is in the rejoining in unity and relationship that makes Christ-consciousness what it is.

The words, “unity and relationship,” are used repeatedly in A Course of Love.  They are so repeated that their meaning may be lost, unless we take care to understand fully at the outset.  We are one in unity with our brothers and sisters, and we are one in relationship to them–being that two or more are held together in relationship.  Thus the phrase, “unity and relationship,” is the central point without which Christ-consciousness could not function.

We are one heart, one mind, one Self–but seemingly fragmented into parts.  This is an illusions, but this fragmentation is the only way that God can experience Himself.  The All must separate and then see Itself in those separate, but united parts.  While this may be hard for us to wrap our finite minds around, here is one of the secrets of salvation, one of the philosophical tenets around which A Course of Love is built.  We know Christ-consciousness when we have rejoined our brothers and sisters in unity, but kept them close to use in our relationship to them.  This knowing is a celestial event of the highest magnitude.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I offer myself in service to the All that is You.  I am in relationship to that All, and I will know Christ-consciousness only as I accept this relationship.  I would accept this relationship now.

Thank You for guiding me in this shift in perception, this miracle.  I would know the elevated Self of form, and I will endeavor to turn to You often today, so that I may remain close to this new reality.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 104:

I seek but what belongs to me in truth.

Day Ten: Power

“Thus I will speak to you from this point onward as the voice of Christ-consciousness, the voice of your own true consciousness, the consciousness that we truly share.  I came to you in the form of the consciousness of the man I once was because you were, prior to this point, unready to give up image for presence, the individual for the universal, reliance on an outside source for reliance on yourself, Jesus for Christ-consciousness.  (ACOL Dialogues, p. 148)”

Affirmation:  “Christ-consciousness is my own true consciousness.”

Reflections:

This chapter is lengthy, but the passage above does encompass the most important point.  Jesus tells us many things about power, but his most important concept is the fact that reliance upon our own Self in Christ-consciousness will help us to save the world.  This is a strong assertion, but he does not mean for us to be crusaders unless our intuition guides us to our goals.  He says quite a bit about following intuition, in relying on our Self rather than to turn to outside sources in trying to make decisions about our life.  We must have confidence in our feelings.

So Jesus will stop speaking in these 40 days and nights as the man who lived over 2,000 years ago.  He will speak as our own Self, the Christ-consciousness that we are meant to share with him and all others.  Jesus stresses that these communications are dialogues, not simply the imparting of information from him to us.

He describes what we will feel as the elevated Self of form.  We will feel not much different than we do now, but more peaceful and free of the constraints of the body.  Jesus compares what we will feel in this world with how we imagine our loved ones who have crossed the barrier of death.  We imagine them as we knew them, but more peaceful and free of the body that they knew in this life.  Jesus too notes that he wants us to feel happiness and peace, especially now in this final chapter in which he addresses us as the man Jesus, rather than the Christ-consciousness which we will share in the remainder of the 40 days and nights.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You that Jesus is ready to see our own Christ-consciousness, and, in effect, to speak to us as equals.  I do not feel worthy, but help me to realize that these thoughts and feelings are the vestiges of the ego.

I welcome Jesus, once again, into my life today.  I am very grateful that he lives in service to all of my brothers and sisters, and myself.  Thank You for Jesus.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 103:

God, being Love, is also happiness.

Day Nine: Freedom

“For if you believe that we are proceeding to some predetermined ideal state, we will not succeed in the work we are doing here together.  If you believe this, you will not accept your Self as you are.  If you do not accept your Self as you are, you will not move from image to presence.  If you do not move from image to presence you will never realize your freedom.  If you do not realize your freedom, you will not realize your power.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 142)”

Affirmation:  “Help me to understand that I am not to proceed to an ideal through the ego, but must accept the Self as it is now without ego.”

Reflections:

This passage emphasizes the fact that we have been trying, through the past time of learning, to build an ideal self, which we believe would then express.  But we want to express our Self without the goals of the forsaken ego, without trying to be other than what we really are.  It is in our expression of our freedom to be as we really are that we express our Self, the elevated self of form.

We are encouraged to express ourselves on this Day Nine in any way that feels appropriate–laugh, cry, shout, wail, dance, sing, and so forth.  Any way is alright.  All are blessings of the time of the coming Christ-consciousness.  We are taught not to place any faith in our inaccurate notion of an ideal self, because this fiction was of the time of the ego, the time of learning.   We are all different, and diversity in this world is a gift of God.  We are meant to give up this fiction of an ideal self, or else we will not be able to express our real Self.  We will not accept ourselves just as we really are, and that acceptance is what is called for.

We are not like the young child that we once were–the young child who felt free to express himself or herself in a carefree manner.  Freedom of expression has become diminished in ourselves, and we must welcome it back if we are to move forward.  We must debunk the fiction of an ideal self, and realize that this was only an idol, now an idol that we would leave behind.  We will achieve confidence to express our real Self when we leave this false image of an ideal self behind.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to accept myself without the ego.  Be with me as I relax into the “play” that Jesus suggests for this day.  I know that only through consciousness of You will I have the presence of mind to be at ease.

Thank You for these many words of Jesus.  He is my guide, and I am very grateful.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 102:

I share God’s Will for happiness for me.

Day Eight: Accept the Present

“Now, however, it is crucial that you come to acceptance of yourself–in the present, as you are–for only by doing so will you come to full acceptance of who you are and be able to allow the Self of unity to merge with the self of form, thus elevating the self of form.  You will also, only in this way come to true expression of the elevated Self of Form.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 136)”

Affirmation:  “May I come to full acceptance of who I am.”

Reflections:

The title for Day Eight, “Accept the Present,” is particularly apt.  Virtually everything in the chapter explains this assertion in some way.  We need to accept the present of being in normal life as we spend this time on the metaphorical mountain top.  We do not need to separate ourselves from our brothers and sisters, for they are the only way to the love that will give us unity with them.  We also do not need to separate ourselves from our normal living routines.

We are not called, however, to accept what we do not like.  We are not called to any passivity.  We are called to total acceptance of our Self.  Once we have accepted the Self, sometimes it will take some time for conditions to change, and sometimes conditions change immediately.  This is one of our blessings.   Change will not come without first having acceptance of our Self.

We should accept our own feelings.  Distancing ourselves from our feelings is not only dishonest; it will prevent us from further movement forward.  We are called to unity with our brothers and sisters through love.  We cannot err when we follow our feelings–for these feelings have now been cleansed.  If, however, we have not accepted all that Jesus holds out to us, we must be wary of feelings that take us away from the Self that we want to be, the Self of Christ-consciousness.  Then and only then do we need to be wary of following our feelings.  (This latter point is an interpretation, not a tenet of ACOL.)

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to accept myself as I am, knowing that You do.  I chastise myself so often, and I think so often that I am not worthy.  Jesus would have me to drop these thoughts and the actions that result from them.  I am not perfect, but I must accept that You accept me as I am.

If there are things about myself that need to be changed, please give me the grace to change easily.  I understand that I have made real progress, and that the elevated Self of form is something that I can attain.  I am apt to forget this.  Help me to remember this.  And thank You for the blessing of the Christ-consciousness that You hold out to me.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 101:

God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.

Day Seven: Conditions of the Time of Acceptance

“Certainty is a condition of the present.  Realize you may say you are certain of the future or the past but that you cannot make it so.  Thus your ability to maintain and then sustain your access to union and thus your certainty, goes hand-in-hand with your ability to live in the present.  This ability is also contingent upon your recognition of what certainty really is.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues)”

Affirmation:  “May I live in the present in certainty.”

Reflections:

We are now supported in our progress toward Christ-consciousness.  In truth, we have always been supported, but fear blocked our awareness of this support.  Love will now let us see that we always have support from the divine.  When we were learning, we felt that effort was required, and we did not feel support.  But we are beyond this time of learning now, and the support that we have always longed for will be there for us to experience.  We are now in the time of discovery, and we will learn through “thoughts that we do not think.”

We are in a time of expansion, so that once the elevated Self of form has occurred, we will create a new world, a new universe.  Living in this new universe will be as natural as breathing.

Our doubt will be replaced with certainty.  We really have nothing to worry about, nothing at all.  The union with the divine is ours to behold.  Accept and be assured.  And focus on living in the present at all times.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to understand the certainty in which You would have me live.  Help me to live in the present, knowing that if there are plans to be made, I will be told of them in the present always.

I long for this elevated Self of form.  Help me to move ever closer to this reality of Christ-consciousness.  Thank you for your constant abidingness with me.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 100:

My part is essential to God’s plan for salvation.

Day Six: The Time In Between

“What you are going to realize from this time of seeming difficulty is an end to difficulty and the growth of your ability to do whatever you do peacefully and to be who you are in whatever situation you find yourself in.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 128)”

Affirmation:  “May I  act peacefully and be who I am in any situation.”

Reflections:

We are in the “time of becoming” on the metaphorical mountain top with Jesus as our companion, but not our “teacher” any longer–for the time of learning has passed, and we are in the time of discovery.  We are becoming the true self of Christ-consciousness, the elevated Self of form.  But there is an in between state of trying to maintain rather than the sustaining of Christ-consciousness, and we are called to this in between state right now in this 40 days and nights of preparation.

Jesus makes a comparison to an artist composing a piece of music.  There is a time when the music may or may not “flow” into him or her, and then eventually, there is a feeling that completion is needed.  All along the way, the artist may make the decision to share his music, either early or late in the process of preparation.  We are reaching out to our brothers and sisters in love, with the thought that we are heading toward a greater understanding while in the midst of daily life.  These 40 days and nights are not meant to take us “out” of life; the optimal situation is to remain in our normal lives.  We may think that a removal would be advantageous, but Jesus asserts not.

We need a created place of calm within; that is a main reason why we are not told to try to remove ourselves from normal life.  We are the created becoming the creator of our lives.  The passage for today emphasizes the ease with which life will be lived when we have attained Christ-consciousness.  We reach for this without strain or effort; we allow Jesus to guide us at all times in this mountain top experience.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to be patient on this mountain top with Jesus.  I long for peace, and I long to be who I really am without strain.  I have strained so often.  It is a great blessing to learn that all of that can be put behind me now.

May I create a place of calm within myself, as I leave behind the old self and reach toward Christ-consciousness and the elevated Self of form.  May I be patient, knowing that this boon is my destiny.  Thank You for being with me today and every day.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 99:

Salvation is my only function here.

Day Five: Access to Unity

“You simply want to rest and have whatever transformation is to come to you to come.  If you could indeed give in to this desire fully, it would speed the transformation along quite nicely.  So please, listen to your weariness and to your heart’s desire to rest.  Listen to the call to peace and let yourself recline in the embrace of love, feeling the warm earth beneath you and the heat of the sun above you.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, pp. 120-121)”

Affirmation:  “May I listen to the call for peace and recline in the embrace of love.”

Reflections:

Unity is defined on Day Five as being fully who you are and expressing fully who you are.  It is not a matter either of effort or of learning.  Jesus says repeatedly that the time of learning is over.  The time of learning was in trying to satisfy the ego that one had accomplished.  Unity is something quite different, as defined by Jesus in A Course of Love.

Likewise, as in the passage quoted above, the time of effort is over.  We are to rest and to relax as our point of access to unity becomes clear to us.  Jesus notes that there are various ways that access can be experienced:  via part or all of the head, the heart, the hands, or even arising from the earth and felt throughout the body.   A point of access will no longer be needed once we have sustained the elevated Self of form, rather than just tried to maintain it.

This summary will likely not be fully satisfying to you, because Jesus’s words are dense with meaning.  Know that we are only on Day Five, and 35 more days of explanation will follow.  In the meantime, rest assured that unity–being who we are and expressing fully who we are–is Jesus’s intention in the 40 days and nights on the mountain top.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I long to peace today, for rest in You.  I have sought salvation through my learning so earnestly, and I would now rest in Your promise that the time of effort is over.  I do wish to express fully who I am, being reassured that I am sanctified.

Thank You for Jesus’s reassuring words in this Day Five of the mountain top experience.  He ever has looked to You for his knowledge, and may I rest in surety that what I read today is knowledge and not simply perception.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 98:

I will accept my part in God’s plan for salvation.

Day Four: The New Temptations

“I must realize that here is where fear must be totally replaced by love.  If you fear to go where the portal of access will take you, you will not go.  Thus your desire needs to be greater than your fear.  Love needs to reign.  Love of self and love of your brothers and sisters, love of the natural world, of the world of form that is, love of the idea of the new world that can be, all of these must come together and be victors over the reign of fear.  (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 113).

Affirmation:  “May my fear be totally replaced by love.”

Reflections:

The “new temptations” meant in this title are two:  real choice and access.  These are not negatives, but goals toward which we wish to go.  We are leaving behind the time of learning, so that we learn through “thoughts that we do not think,” as a child does, and as early man and woman did–before language entered into our experience.

We must now want union in relationship to our brothers and sisters and our God more than anything else.  We must find acceptance of ourselves, despite our anger or our depression, or anything else that seems to be imperfect.  We are told that we do not have to be perfect, and we are reminded of the Prodigal Son, who surely did not feel perfect when he returned to his father.  He only needed to accept the father’s love.  That is our situation now.  And unity is within ourselves; our God is within.

The portal of access is love and only love.  Nothing else will do at all.  This is the portal that here on the mountain top, we will discover with Jesus.  We are only just beginning our 40 days and nights with him on the mountain top.  More is to follow.  But we would do well to realize that perfection is not required of us.  Acceptance of love as the only way is.  Fear must be left behind forever, and when we have done that, we will be Home.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I recognize that, like the Prodigal Son, I do not have to be perfect to be accepted by Jesus, to reach the heights that the mountain top experience is meant to bring to me.  I may resist this concept, and so please guide my thoughts and feelings so that it is acceptable to me.

May I be united with love.  May I drop fear.  These are perhaps my two greatest needs, and these build on A Course in Miracles and are further explained to me now in A Course of Love.  Thank You for helping me to devote my life and myself to love.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 97:

I am spirit.

Day Three: Accept Abundance

“You have accepted now, because of whatever experiences of unity you have had, that the knowing of unity is available to you.  You may not have given great consideration to the access through which that availability arose, but since for most of you it has arisen as thoughts you did not think, if you were to make an association in regards to entry, you would likely say the entry point was the mind.  This is, in a sense, true, as wholeheartedness is comprised of the mind and heart joined in unity.  (A Course in Love:  Dialogues, p. 103)”

Affirmation:  “May I experience today ‘thoughts that I did not think’.”

Reflections:

The passage chosen here is tangential to the argument put forth in Day Three.  It does, however, say some very important things about the A Course of Love as a whole.  In unity is abundance accepted, and this abundance is the very practical matter of money–having enough, feeling secure, knowing that we will be taken care of in the future.

Jesus notes that in coming to a new understanding of abundance we will move through stages of denial, anger, bargaining, and depression.  Only then we will be ready to accept abundance as our natural inheritance from God.  We will be ready to discover, rather than to learn through the mind.  This includes the “thoughts that we do not think,” which is the infusion of knowledge into our wholeheartedness rather than the learning through our mind that the ego so enjoyed.  We have now moved beyond the ego.

Jesus talks quite a bit about money here, and he is very, very commonsensical.  He knows that may of us have issues about money (he calls it “abundance”) that might preclude our acceptance of all that he holds out to us in the new wholeheartedness that he extols.  Day Three is among the most practical chapters in the entire three-volume ACOL.  Surely we can follow his reasoning, and reach for the unity of all brothers and sisters without reference to relative abundance.  He concludes, “The active acceptance of abundance is the way to abundance.”

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I know the security that only resides in You, in the abundance that You promise to me.  May I not be tempted to fret about my future needs, or even my present ones.  May I do what I can, when I can, and may I rest secure in the knowledge that my real needs are always met.

Abundance is a relative term, but I do not long for the abundance of material goods so much as spiritual.  Jesus promises that I can have both, and I rest in peace in that assurance.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 96:

Salvation comes from my one Self.

Day Two: Accept Your Self

“Here, then, is where you need to make the choice that those in my time could not make, the choice to end suffering.  This is the choice I made ‘for all.’  This is a choice you make for all as well.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 95)”

Affirmation:  “May I choose to end suffering for all, and may I include myself in this.”

Reflections:

This passage makes the point well that many of us who are on the mountain top (the setting of these 40 days and nights) feel that we are not worthy of this experience to which Jesus calls us.  We think of the many things that we have done wrong, or that were done wrong to us, and we do not accept these things and put them in the past.  Acceptance is the great call that Jesus makes to us on this day.

Jesus says that his example life was meant to bring the end of suffering, that he did not suffer, because he knew who he was.  We will find this assertion hard to believe, but we need to trust that Jesus is leading us aright.

We are worthy, we have experienced Atonement, and we are ready to elevate the Self of form.  The self and the Self are meant to be combined.   We will not recognize that we are worthy of this great blessing until we reach acceptance of all that has gone before.  Our mistakes have been forgiven; that is all that we really need to know.  Then we will be ready to take our place as Awakened beings.  In this 40 days and nights, this call is made by Jesus to all of us who are his readers of the Dialogues and who accept his word, as expressed therein.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I accept myself as I am.  May I know that the Atonement that You have offered me is freely given to all, including myself.   If there are things about myself that I want to change for the better, help me to make these changes in the midst of my acceptance.

May I assist in ending suffering in this world, for others and myself.  Until I have taken my place in this great endeavor, I will feel that something is missing.  May nothing be missing today.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 95:

I am one Self, united with my Creator.

Day One from the “Dialogues” of “A Course of Love”: Accept Me

“This has been spoken of as the second coming of Christ because my story goes unfulfilled without your fulfillment.  It is only in your fulfillment of the continuing story of creation that my story reaches completion.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 90)”

Affirmation:  “May I know my fulfillment.”

Reflections:

This “Day One” represents the first of 40 days and nights on a “mountain top” with Jesus as our guide.  In this chapter of the Dialogues, Jesus makes a comparison of these 40 days and nights with his own 40 days and nights in the desert, prior to the beginning of his mission on earth 2,000 years ago.  We are to become what he became.

Jesus stresses that it matters not what we call “God,” because God knows who He is.  But acceptance of Jesus as our guide is necessary; it explains that this is just the way it is in salvation.  This tenet of A Course of Love, the Dialogues, will be difficult for some of us to accept, perhaps, but if we realize that in A Course in Miracles we have already accepted Jesus as our guide, we will be less resistant.

We are meant to become all that Jesus was.  His was the example life.  We do not have to go through what he experienced, because that was for him alone.  But we do have to accept him as our guide.  Then we will be well on our way to recognizing that indeed this is the time of the second coming of Christ.  We are meant to embody that second coming as we elevate our self of form to the elevated Self.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I wholeheartedly accept Jesus as my guide.  May I drop any resistance that I have ever had around this idea.  On this Easter morning, may I choose the best for my future, and may I realize that Jesus is a part of my personal future.

Thank You, dear God, for leading me to love better.  As I go to the mountain top with Jesus over the next 40 days, may I know a resurrection that only You can bring to me.

Amen.

A Course in Miracles:  Workbook Lesson for Day 94:

I am as God created me.

revised

“A Course of Love” – 40 Days and 40 Nights

Beginning on Easter, for 40 days, I will publish passages and reflections from what some view as a sequel to A Course in Miracles.  It is a three-volume series entitled A Course of Love, channeled by Mari Perron, believed to be from Jesus.  The passages chosen are from the last half of the final volume in the series, the Dialogues.

Mari Perron’s web address is as follows:

http://www.acourseoflove.com/A_Course_Of_Love_And_Grace.shtml

I will introduce A Course of Love by re-posting an essay that compared A Course in Miracles to A Course of Love.  This posting will remain first on the blog until Easter.

–Celia Hales

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 93

Light and joy and peace abide in me.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 92

Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 91

Miracles are seen in light.

Entering Your Home

“The morning star of this new day looks on a different world where God is welcomed and His Son with Him.  We who complete Him offer thanks to Him, as He gives thanks to us.  The Son is still, and in the quiet God has given him enters his home and is at peace at last.  (M92)”

Affirmation:  “May I enter my Home at last.”

Reflections:

This is the final few sentences of the Manual.  And it is a great comfort to read and to reread.  The “morning star” is an allusion to Revelation in the New Testament.

May we reach this place of Home and be at peace sooner rather than later.  May we study the Course diligently, so that this great blessing will be ours.  May we love our brothers and sisters, forgiving them their mistakes.  May we thank God for His great blessings to us.

Jesus is with us all along the way.  Remembering this will help us to remember our blessings, even as our path meanders toward Home.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You for guiding me through the Manual.  May I accept the fact that my journey without distance to my Home will not be a straight line, but that there will be a bit of wandering about on my part.  I realize that this is natural, but I ask You to help my path Home to be as straight and clear as possible.

Thank You for A Course in Miracles.  As I read through the Manual,  I am especially grateful for the blessings that I find therein.

Amen.

Workbook Lesson for Day 90:

For this review we will use these ideas:

Let me recognize the problem so it can be solved.

Let me recognize my problems have been solved.

The Journey

“Forget not once this journey is begun the end is certain.  Doubt along the way will come and go and go to come again.  Yet is the ending sure.  No one can fail to do what God appointed him to do.  When you forget, remember that you walk with Him and with His Word upon your heart.  (M91)”

Affirmation:  “The ending is sure.”

Reflections:

We are sure to get Home.  Once the journey is begun, the ending is certain.  And all of us have begun the journey, the “journey without distance” (quoted elsewhere in the Course).

Getting Home is not a straight line.  We will vary, and sometimes we will fall off the pathway.  But if we give up attack, judgment, and planning against contingencies to come, we will find our way back onto the pathway.  These three aspects of our experience–attack, judging, and planning–are all the means by which we fail (a Course concept).  Let us give up such nonsense now.

We do walk with Jesus, as we walk with God and the Holy Spirit.  Elsewhere Jesus invites us to imagine that we hold his hand as we walk along, and he assures us that this is no idle fantasy.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would like to imagine today that Jesus is walking along the way with me–through everything that I see and know today.  Help me really to feel this.  I know that this is a blessing that requires a leap of faith, but I am ready to take that leap.

Thank You for the comfort of the Course.  Thank You for the reassurance that, once begun, the way Home is certain.  I will find You again.

Amen.

Workbook Lesson for Day 89:

These are our review ideas for today:

I am entitled to miracles.

Let miracles replace all grievances.

The Christ

“Is he the Christ?  O yes, along with you.  His little life on earth was not enough to teach the mighty lesson that he learned for all of you.  He will remain with you to lead you from the hell you made to God.  And when you join your will with his, your sight will be his vision, for the eyes of Christ are shared.  Walking with him is just as natural as walking with a brother whom you knew since you were born, for such indeed he is.  (M88)”

Affirmation:  “May I walk with Christ, my brother, today.”

Reflections:

A quite comforting passage, this indicates that Jesus has nothing that we too are not meant to have.  He has just reached Home sooner, and therefore is in a better position to help us do the same.

We too are part of the Christhood.  We have not assumed our place yet (at least most of us have not), but the time is at hand when we will.  Studying the Course is our way Home.  Other pathways are valid also, but we have chosen the Course, and it has been meant for us.

This passage indicates that we have walked with Jesus since we were born; we just have not been aware of this blessing.  Let us now be aware of this blessing.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I learn today what it is to walk closely with Christ.  He has indicated that he will be with us always.  I claim that promise today.

Thank You for helping in so many ways.  Sometimes the way seems long, and other times I am comforted that the way to You is short.  May I rest in Your presence today.

Amen.

Workbook Lesson for Day 88:

Today we will review these ideas:

The light has come.

I am under no laws but God’s.

The Name of Jesus

“The name of Jesus is the name of one who was a man but saw the face of Christ in all his brothers and remembered God.  So he became identified with Christ, a man no longer, but at one with God.  (M87)”

Affirmation:  “May I see the face of Christ in all my brothers and sisters.”

Reflections:

This passage explains the true role of Jesus as the Christ.  Elsewhere, repeatedly, Jesus in the Course refers to himself as our brother, our elder brother, who has walked the whole pathway, and who stands at the end to help us when we fail to walk the whole pathway.  He will assist us.  We do not have to feel alone.

All of us are eventually to reach Christ consciousness (an interpretation, not spelled out in the Course).  Then we will surely understand what Jesus has been trying to tell us.

When we see the face of Christ in all our brothers and sisters, we will know that we have made much progress.  Seeing the face of Christ in our brothers and sisters is a prerequisite to finding our way Home.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I recognize the face of Christ in all of those people who surround me, my brothers and sisters.  May I come to understand exactly what this means.  I realize that I do not have to understand to recognize when this miracle is happening.

Thank You for leading me farther along the pathway to You and to Christ consciousness.  May I prove worthy in my dealings with all whom I encounter.

Amen.

Workbook Lesson for Day 87:

Our review today will cover these ideas:

I will there be light.

There is no will but God’s.

You Have Never Left Heaven

“There is no need for help to enter Heaven for you have never left.  But there is need for help beyond yourself as you are circumscribed by false beliefs of your Identity, Which God alone established in reality.  Helpers are given you in many forms, although upon the altar they are one.  (M87)”

Affirmation:  “May I recognize my Helpers.”

Reflections:

This is a lovely passage, but one that may be hard to believe.  Have we really never left Heaven?  It certainly seems that we have.

The passage refers to the larger Self of which we are a part; this Self has indeed never left Heaven.  The “false beliefs of your Identity” refer to the falling into the egoic state of mind, from which we would escape.  We can escape by turning to the Helpers given us–the Holy Spirit (of primary importance), Jesus, other brothers and sisters, the Course itself, and the like.  We are not alone in this world, and we would do well to reach out for help back Home.

It is a very loving thought to realize that we have never left Heaven.  If we keep this one point in mind, it will lead us to the “limitless release” and “pure joy” that the Course speaks about elsewhere.

Dear Father/Mother,

May I realize the beauty of the fact that my Self has never left Heaven.  Thank You for this reassurance.  May I know where to turn and what to do to realize Heaven.

I appreciate the reassurance that You offer me continually.  Help me to live through this day and to make of it a good day.

Amen.

Workbook Lesson for Day 86:

These ideas are for review today:

Only God’s plan for salvation will work.

Holding grievances is an attack on God’s plan for salvation.

Forgiveness = A Happy Fiction

“Forgiveness might be called a kind of happy fiction; a way in which the unknowing can bridge the gap between their perception and the truth.  They cannot go directly from perception to knowledge because they do not think it is their will to do so.  (M83)”

Affirmation:  “Forgiveness = a kind of happy fiction”

Reflections:

Forgiveness is “happy fiction” because there is actually nothing that we need to forgive.  But in this world, this is not entirely true.  We need the practice of forgiveness until we reach the point that we realize that everyone is actually innocent, and what our brothers and sisters have done to us is not real.  Forgiveness thus becomes our way out.

Forgiveness is a central point of the Course.  Until we master forgiveness, we will remain lost in a world of ego-oriented thinking and living.

Our perception needs to move closer to the truth, which is knowledge given by God.  We do not make this transition ourselves because we do not fully understand, and we cannot fully understand, because knowledge is the providence of God.  He will reach down and lift us up when we are ready.  And that is all we really need to know.  That is the great promise held out to us.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I practice forgiveness today for my brothers and sisters, and for myself.  It is comforting to read that it is just a happy fiction–that we are all actually innocent, and that we have not, in reality, changed ourselves since our creation.  We have been lost in illusion.

Thank you for prompting Jesus to give us these ideas.  They are internally consistent ideas, and from them we will eventually come to the knowledge that only You can impart.

Amen.

Workbook Lesson for Day 85:

Today’s review will cover these ideas:

My grievances hide the light of the world in me.

My salvation comes from me.

Consciousness

“Consciousness has levels and awareness can shift quite dramatically, but it cannot transcend the perceptual realm.  At its highest it becomes aware of the real world, and can be trained to do increasingly.  Yet the very fact that it has levels and can be trained demonstrates that it cannot reach knowledge.  (M80)”

Affirmation:  “May I become ever more aware of the real world.”

Reflections:

These are the theoretical underpinnings of the Course.  This passage indicates that achieving the real world, a world of love devoid of the ego, is a gradual process.  Moreover, perception can be cleansed, and we seek to train our minds to increase our perception in order to get us out of the ego-oriented world that we see.  But knowledge is of God, in revelation, and this cannot be taught.  It is a gift of God, when we have removed the barriers to the presence of knowledge.

Our consciousness is important to us, and we have learned falsely, through psychology, that a strong ego is necessary to live in this world.  We do not need ego in the sense that the Course refers to the “ego.”  But this word is slippery, and it is does not mean the same to all people, even psychologists.  In the Course, the word “ego” is a false perception of ourselves, a false image that leads us into pain and suffering.  It is not a thing that we would want, and we are bade to leave it behind.

In this world, the ego is constantly being undone.  We are pricked at the point of our greatest pride, an egoistic trait.  We are constantly brought low when the ego has been in ascendancy.  This is no accident.  It is the way of salvation for us, according to the Course.

We may not realize it, but the real world is what we want while on this earth.  The real world will sparkle with joy, and our eyes will light up at the thought of another day.  Let us not be discouraged if we don’t achieve this boon on a constant basis.  Elsewhere Jesus says that here we will not be without limitations, but that our task is to escape from them.  This we will do increasingly as we study the Course and make its tenets our own.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I be increasingly conscious of the real world of joy and love.  I realize that this is still a perception, and so it is not the knowledge that only You can give.  I hope to walk further along the pathway, so that I am ready for the knowledge that only You can impart.

Thank you for being there for me.  As I pray so often, help me to follow in Your way and by Your guidance.

Amen.

Workbook Lesson for Day 84:

These are the ideas for today’s review:

Love created me like Itself.

Love holds no grievances.

The Ego’s Questions

“The ego may ask, ‘How did the impossible occur?’, ‘To what did the impossible happen?’, and may ask this in many forms.  Yet there is no answer; only an experience.  Seek only this, and do not let theology delay you. (M77)”

Affirmation:  “May I seek spiritual experience rather than theology.”

Reflections:

This passage refers to the beginnings of time as we know it.  How did we separate from God?  What tiny, mad idea did we entertain?  The ego wants to know, and maybe we do also.

The Course is always practical, and elsewhere tells us that it is concerned with only the practical.  It says that a universal theology is impossible, but that a universal experience is not only possible, but necessary.  The Course does not waste much, if any, time debating theological issues, and recommends that we not do so either.  It suggests that theology is heavily influenced by the ego, which is our false concept of ourselves.

We need to seek the experience that the Course holds out to us–an ego-less form of living that marches us straightway toward Awakening.  We get there, as we have said repeatedly, by following the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus would not have us delayed on this “journey without distance,” and so bids us to seek the experience and not to let theology delay us.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Theology is the preoccupation of so much religion.  Please let my religion, my spirituality, be different.  May I seek an experience of spirituality, one that You lead me to discover.

Thank you for Your guidance always.  May I better follow Your guidance this day.

Amen.

Workbook Lesson for Day 83:

Today let us review these ideas:

My only function is the one God gave me.

My happiness and my function are one.

Ask of Your Teacher and Receive Immediately

“Ask all things of His Teacher, and all things are given you.  Not in the future but immediately; now.  (M71)”

Affirmation:  “If I ask, I will receive immediately.”

Reflections:

This passage is incredibly helpful.  We receive answers immediately to our questions and to our prayers.  “Now” may not be recognized by us, though.  We may not hear the Answer that we are expecting, leading us to believe that we are not heard at all.  But we are.

When answers do not seem to come immediately, go within.  Get calm and relaxed, or, as the Course says, “perfectly calm and quiet.”  Ask why there seems to be a delay.  And you will be told.  The answer will present itself.  If you are very upset, you may not be able to hear the response immediately.  Pray diligently, and then quietly go about your life.  When you are quiet within, the Answer will appear.  This is an assurance that this passage gives.

The fact that the answer is given “now” does not necessarily mean that we are in the frame of mind that can hear that answer.  Be patient with yourself.  We are not without limitations in this world (a Course concept).  Know in your deepest heart that the Answer you are seeking has been given, and in time, usually soon, the Answer will appear spontaneously in your mind and heart.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I know that when I ask, I will receive answers.  The Course says “immediately.”  But I know that Your time is not always mine.  When my faith is strong, though, the beginning of an answer to my problems does come immediately.  That much I know for certain.  Thank You.

Once again I ask for the strength and willingness to follow guidance always.  I have often said that I am much happier when I do follow these whisperings, and I ask for that willingness, that flexibility, today.

Amen.

Workbook Lesson for Day 82:

We will review these ideas today:

“The light of the world brings peace to every mind through my forgiveness.”

“Let me not forget my function.”

Your Father Loves You

“God would be cruel if He let your words replace His Own.  A loving father does not let his child harm himself, or choose his own destruction.  He may ask for injury, but his father will protect him still.  And how much more than this does your Father love His Son?  (M71)”

Affirmation:  “My Father loves me.”

Reflections:

This passage seems to suggest the real reason that we sometimes think that we do not receive answers to our prayers.  The Course makes clear that we are always answered in our best interests, and our prayers may have asked for something that, in the long run, would be to our detriment.

The Holy Spirit, just like Jesus, is our Friend.  He will protect us in this sometimes chaotic world.  We have only to offer Him the slightest nod in His direction, and He tells us where to step next.

God is our Father/Mother.  He, like an earthly father (normally), wants only the best for us, His children.  He will protect us by sending the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, to help us make our way in this world.  Then we will know the blessings that are truly intended for us.  We must pray for solutions to our difficulties.  We will not be disappointed, though God’s timetable in answering may not be our own.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

You know how often I have prayed for certain things in my life.  I do not know Your timetable, but I do pray that You will remove the barriers in me, if there are some, that hinder Your answer to my prayer.

Thank You for being there always for me.  If I ask amiss, help me to realize this  possibility, and to pray that You guide my prayers aright.

Amen.