Feed No More the Wild Dog

“And so, the hand that feeds the wild dog must do so no more.  Feed the meek.”  Mirari

In Mirari, the “wild dog” is characterized as male more often than not.  But also in Mirari, we know that some women can be wild dogs as well.  The “wild dog” metaphor is an apt description of the subconscious hostility that has engulfed our world.

Here we see that we are to feed the “meek.”  I think this is a harkening back to the New Testament, and Jesus’ words about the meek inheriting the world.  “Meek” never meant “weak,” though in our language we often equate the two.  “Meek” is more akin to “gentle,” and it is a characteristic of those who are shorn of anger and hostility. 

A Course in Miracles indicates that anger is never justified, though it is the expression of anger that we really have to watch.  The meek do not express anger, even if they feel it.  Nowhere is it said in Jesus’ channeled writings that we will get to a place where anger is non-existent.  But we will learn, and then discover, how to transmute our anger into socially acceptable ways.

The “wild dog” metaphor is very arresting.  Our unconscious hostility has taken us to the brink of annihilation.  We need to realize this, and, as Mirari counsels, feed no more the wild dog in us.

Peace

“Once the thought pattern of concern arises, you make that concern real, which then encompasses the entire space of your mind and heart, and thereby you lose peace.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 3:I

When we focus on something, we make that something real to ourselves.  A Course in Miracles says this, though using other words.  ACIM says that if we make our anger at another person real by concentrating on it, how can we overlook this anger?  The thing to do is to fail to focus on something bad or wrong, thereby never making it “real” in our experience.

The thought pattern of concern is worry, pure and simply.  We do too often rue our days by worrying about all manner of things.

Worry/concern does not have to happen.  I find that if I journal about an issue, the solution often surfaces—and in the journaling, I am setting aside worry.  Then my mind is free and clear, and nothing is hindering my contact with God.  Prayer then follows easily, nothing separating me from Him.

We need peace.  ALL of us need peace.  Our troubled world can only turn to those who do have inner peace. 

Who else is in a position to help?

Compassion

“Compassion is what will make you able to integrate your human nature with God.”  COL bk.2, 15:III

I have never read this statement anywhere else in recent channeled writings—that compassion will integrate us with God.  But I can believe it, for compassion is an explication of love.  It gives us something to cling to when times are tough.  It gives us the right attitude toward our brothers and sisters in this world.

I think compassion is particularly potent when we have anger.  The way to transmute anger is to realize compassion toward the one who seems to be giving us grief.  Thich Nhat Hanh says a great deal about this in his classic book entitled, simply, Anger.  If we realize that the one who attacked us is suffering as we are, our anger at the attack will dissolve, and in its place will be compassion, which is healing.

But Choose Only Love takes this concept farther along.  We actually “integrate” our human nature with God when we exhibit compassion.  And who among us does not want this?  We want to be One with God, as He intended. 

It is not hard to give compassion the highest place in our mind and heart.  All of us deserve compassion when we slip up and hurt another person in our circle.  We deserve to give compassion to ourselves, which will lead us to forgive ourselves.  And then we turn this compassion outward, to the one who has hurt us, and then forgiveness heals.

Meditate a bit on compassion today.  I think we will find gems there, gems that will enhance our living.

Tenderness

“Tenderness counteracts anger.  No war can stand against it.  Purity appeases and banishes the evil intentions that sometimes creep into the heart of the child of God.”  COL bk.2, 15:III

If we ever face anger in our relationships, here is the antidote:  tenderness.  Here we read that no war, even, can stand against tenderness.  When we are tender, we are expressing a purity that is lost to us when we give in to anger.

A Course in Miracles says that anger is never justified.  But that does not mean that we will never experience anger.  We are still living in this world with feet of clay, and as long as we are finite creatures, I believe that there will be misunderstandings that cause hard feelings.  ACIM also says that forgiveness is the Answer.  And when we forgive, we must not leave ourselves out of the equation.

So here we have it, from two sources combined:  Tenderness and forgiveness will lead us aright.  Tenderness and forgiveness will right the negative pattern that might creep into our relationships.

Sometimes we will need this reminder, because we are still in need of God’s help as we walk this world.  Anger will come, but anger will also go.  And here we have the message from Choose Only Love that will heal our overwrought feelings.  Negativity cannot stand when we listen to God’s solution.

Crystallize Our Love in the World

“If what you think you perceive is uncontrolled anger, tell it also, just as you would with a very angry girl, ‘I love you, you are part of me, you are very beautiful.  I love you as you are, because you are a part of me.’ 

“This exercise is not a banal.  It is the exercise that will crystallize your ability to bring love to the world.”  Choose Only Love:  Let Yourself Be Loved (COL bk.2, 14:III)

All of us have expressed anger and hostility on some occasions, often when we are feeling very hurt.  I read this quotation as the reaction of a girl in pain.  She is being told that she is actually a part of the one who speaks to her.  Yes, all of us are One.  We may also have counterparts in the world, soulmates who speak to us in ways that resonate through and through.

We write a contract before we enter this world, and we may write rejection and pain into it.  Why?  We won’t know the “why” of suffering while in this world.  These ultimate questions cannot have an Answer here that we would accept.  But it is in the overcoming of anger and hostility, even when we are in pain, that strengthens us in ways we cannot comprehend.  It is in the overcoming that we grow into our own.

When we overcome our anger, we are primed for the love that has actually enfolded us without our knowing, but only with our acquiescence. 

This love will save us now.  This love will save us each and every day.

We Are Doing This unto Ourselves

            As Jesus says, unfairness and attack are one mistake (T-26.X.3:1), just two aspects intertwined at every point.  We must beware of the temptation to see ourselves unfairly treated, for the secret is this:  We are doing this unto ourselves.  Nothing happens without our permission being granted at some level of our being.  Always we are trying to effect our salvation.  We may be misguided in the choices that we make, but remember that it is our dream we are dreaming.  When we perceive ourselves to be deprived, we are the culprit.  We need only turn to the Christ within, the presence of God within, to set aright again our little world, to give up our sick little games.  Of course, just to turn to the Christ within is the first step.  We must still retrace all our steps and have the ladder toward egoism withdrawn for us, and this the Holy Spirit does well, being the function for which He was created.

            The world’s purpose is not to play sick little games of blame and victimization.  As the Holy Spirit sees the world, its only purpose is to make known to us the presence of our Guests within–the Christ and God Himself, the Son (or Daughter) and the Father (or Mother).  Playing the “blame game” will obscure their presence, and the sparkle that the world could have will grow dim and even dark.  We must not seek to add our purpose to the world, thereby confusing the issue and taking away from its singleness of purpose as viewed by our Teacher, the Holy Spirit.  Instead, let us let Son and Father be shown to us, and know that in this revealing will the purpose of the world be completely fulfilled.

            We are not “special,” different, or unique in that what we are can in any way be better (or less) than our brother.  We will all walk Home together, or none of us, and Jesus assures that all of us will find our way back to God, though the time will be far distant unless we pull together.  Because each needs his brother, the way will be shorter (the time more compacted) if we hold our brother’s hand as we walk.  If we realize this shared destiny fully, we will never wish to be considered more “special” than another.  We will be friends one to another because we have a shared purpose. (T-24.I.6:4)  We will protect one another along the way, aware that our failure is his, and just as clearly, his failure is ours. 

There is a brighter side because the victories belong to both of us as well.  There can be no solitary purpose when we are all joined as One in the eyes of God. Look closely at whatever divides one from another.  Is it not that each of us harbors a secret belief that we are more special, better than the other to whom we have been in relationship?  This is what causes broken bonds, an egotistical desire to be separate in order to preserve one’s specialness.

–from Out of the Maze, an e-book by the author of this blog.

Increase the Daily Calm

We must honor our brother, for in him God has given a part of Himself for us to love and cherish.  The Christ in us sees our brother truly, in the holiness that is his own; would we allow the egoistic false self to see otherwise?

            Remember that it is much easier to see one’s brother as holy than to see him (or one’s self) as special.  We taught ourselves specialness with much effort, because we wished it to be true. It takes much effort to assimilate a lie, and no effort at all to let the truth be shown to us.  And with this, effortless accomplishment comes to us and we are at rest.

The Attraction of “Sin”

            There is an attraction to “sin” that is not found in what is recognized as merely as a mistake.  The Course says that our way to sin is lit only by “fireflies” that would hurl us over precipices. (T-24.V.4:2)  The attraction to sin exists because in our debased self-image, we still long for specialness.  And specialness carries with it the seeds of destruction and decay.  Be glad that this is true, for the decay is the decay of the ego, and with the ego’s demise goes all our pain and suffering.  With Christ’s vision we know a perfect lack of specialness as we hold our brother’s hand and walk Home together.

            If we can see our brother as holy, we will have come a long way toward seeing ourselves in the same light.  “In him is your assurance God is here, and with you now.” (T-24.VI.1:4) If we see our brother as sinful, it is sure that we perceive ourselves the same.  Do not be variable in private assessments of our brother, for such variability will permeate the whole of the world as we see it.

            I have frequently recognized that I never get angry unless I am stressed, and this is possibly true for most of us.  It is thus very likely that the variability we have been discussing arises out of stress, which is really fear causing us to feel threatened.  If we can so clear our minds that we are calm and at peace, we will not be tempted to think ill of our brother.  It behooves us so to organize our daily lives to maximize the calm and minimize the myriad frustrations.  This we owe to ourselves and to our brother. 

Quiet Answer

Note that while a request to remove anger may be granted immediately, it is more likely to be a slow process. Giving up all our angers requires a complete relinquishment of self-will (in the egoistic sense) to the better way of the Spirit within. And it requires attunement to the Divine at the moment in the heat of anger. Do not fight the sin (error)! That will only make it stronger. Instead, withdraw into one’s heart and mind and seek the solace of God’s solution to the situation that so troubles. Avoid the quick retort; know that this impulse is fueled by fear (stress) and is unworthy of a child of God. If we fall down on the pathway, know that God is ever ready to pick us up and set us aright again. Forgive self for the lapse! It does no good and much harm to chastise one’s self harshly and in the throes of guilt. Ask for divine assistance and it will be forthcoming. Above all, be grateful for the surfacing of anger. It is the only way for the boil to be lanced, the false self to be undone, and the better way available to all of us once again.

If problems assail us one by one, two by two, or more, please know that we are living in error. This is the human condition. Jesus says, though, that we will have freedom when we give over all problems to the one solution—the Holy Spirit. He will impress upon our minds the solution in a quiet answer without fanfare, a quiet answer that leaves no one the loser. Until every problem is given over in this way to a Higher Power, the essentially same “problem” will arise repeatedly in different forms. To keep a problem, moreover, is to make it great, past the hope of accomplishing a solution. God would not have this so for His children. In the Holy Spirit’s sight, though, problems are little and “. . .worth no more than just a tiny sigh before they disappear. . . .” (T-26.II.7:4)

If God’s Son in truth is innocent, then God’s justice would hold nothing against him. When we fail to offer the same justice to our brother by seeing instead that he is not due true justice, that he has done something not worthy of forgiveness, we judge against ourselves as well. Madness, as Jesus says, only seems terrible; in truth it has no power to make anything. (M-17.9:1-2) Justice would say to our brothers, “Choose again. This thing you decry is false and not reality at all.” Then our brother is granted complete justice as an innocent, though mistaken, son or daughter of God. We forgive, though we, strictly speaking, do not need to do so at all because there is nothing to forgive. Illusions need to be simply dispelled, and all will be as if they had never been.

Anger

When we recognize that our minds are one, that the mind that is in one’s brother connects to our own, it is a very short step to eliminate attack, because we recognize that the attack is upon ourselves as well. And eliminating attack will eliminate guilt, the reason that we have been driven mad and into this world of illusion.

This new way of approaching life may not come readily. We first may find our anger rising more easily from the depths because we have been sensitized to the fact that it is there. How can we eliminate it unless we are first made aware of it? As one comes closer to living in the fully spiritual life, the tiny inconveniences of living, the nagging doubts and negative thoughts, the scraps of anger, will seem more burdensome to us than before. That is why saints have historically viewed themselves as the blackest of sinners: They are more conscious of the tiniest of errors. So too will this dynamic occur as we make our way along the spiritual pathway. Do not, therefore, lament the awareness of anger within; open up to feel it and then bid it leave forever. Think you that the Holy Spirit would not grant this request, so in line with God’s will for us?

Giving Up Attack Thoughts

For many years, the most important passages for me to read in all of A Course in Miracles have been the ones that discuss attack and the reasons why this choice is never justified. It is a hard lesson for me to learn, as I have been mired deep into egotistical thinking and also have made simultaneously an attempt to be “good.” Ultimately, though, the lessons that Jesus teaches in the Course prick the conscience and allow all of us to realize when we are being too egotistical and perhaps not as spiritual as we might want to consider ourselves. Only within the last half dozen years of my almost 20 years of studying the Course [Note: This reflection was written in 2002] have I found the truth of the words of Jesus self-evident. My perceptions have changed, and my world as I have perceived it has altered to a happier place. How did this miracle happen? Let’s follow the development of the passages that decry attack and false innocence to see what I have been led to find out.

One of the most obvious statements about the dynamic of attack vs. innocence in all of the Course is the reassurance, “Being wholly without attack, it [love] could not be afraid.” (T-19.IV.A.10:7; the antecedent, “love,” is added) I started using this sentence as a refrain when I realized that my anxiety was not necessary and could be erased with the right frame of mind. Indeed, eventually, many of my anxieties smoothed out as increasingly I attempted to put the words of the Course into practice; I stopped attacking in my mind and in my actions. The results have been, to me, is the clearest possible personal evidence that attacking others (or the wish to do so) is the real cause of fear in any form. The Course also states this idea specifically, “When I let all my grievances go I will know I am perfectly safe.” (W-p1.68.6:9)

“Safe” suggests a peaceful sense of well-being, and what are grievances but attack?

Everything Is Conspiring to Take Us Home to God

“Each gesture, each thought, the way that the body breathes, all of these things are going on constantly, and they are communicating or revealing the effect of what you have allowed to make a home in your mind.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Chapter 2, Page 12)

Everything is conspiring to take us home in God. Our every gesture is either a conscious or subconscious, unrecognized, desire to heal the separation that is not real, but in which we have believed. This separation from God has taken us on a long journey that is ending.

If we allow our mind to open to Love, we will gesture differently, think differently, breathe differently. We will be in a flow that takes us through the day with an ease that we have not imagined possible.

If our thoughts and actions are anger-oriented, then we know what we have given a place in our mind. And A Course in Miracles says that anger is never warranted, not that we will never feel it, but that it is not necessary. While this doesn’t mean that push the anger down into the subconscious, or that we are passive-aggressive, it does mean that we need to go back to the beginning, before we felt anger. What prompted it? What exactly was going on?

We may find that we are stressed, or tired, lonely, or hungry. Our bodies may be betraying us, for though we imagine the body to be illusory, it does seem to have effects in this world. Physiology of the body does make a difference.

But the mind and heart can rise above. Turn over unpleasant thoughts, too-fast breathing (maybe), to a Higher Power. The Holy Spirit knows how to heal us, and by bringing up these concerns in the mind, we are healing these concerns. All from the subconscious has to eventually be brought up (something Jesus says elsewhere in WOM).

Let our greater understanding of exactly what is going on with us, eventually free us to love more fully.

Real Scoop on Anger

“If anger arises in you now, it does not mean that you will react in what¬ever way anger once called you to react and it does not mean that something is wrong with you or that you are not spiritual enough! It simply means that you are involved in a situation or relationship that has called forth that feeling. It is in the expression of that feeling that who you are is revealed, not in the feeling itself. The feeling is provided by the body, a helpmate now in your service as a route to true expression.” (ACOL, D:Day8.22)

Jesus here says that it is our expression of the feeling of anger that might be a problem, far more than the feeling of anger itself. He has told us, though, in A Course in Miracles that there is no justification for anger. There is no justification for anger because when our brothers and sisters, and ourselves, react to the feeling of anger we are acting in insanity. We are not seeing the innocence in children of God, and we might also conclude that we are blaming the person who felt anger.

Let us look to the expression of anger or rage as the real problem here. There is no reason that we need to react poorly, for our brothers and sisters are doing the best that they can at any given time, given their state of understanding. No one does what he/she thinks has no justification. But we are still very prone to attack back, when we are attacked. The fact that all of this is happening in illusion is often lost on us.

If we just say to ourselves, in the midst of poor behavior, this is just insanity, madness, then we will have a more efficacious basis on which to forgive. And it is just insanity or madness when a brother or sister screams at us in rage. There is no other way to describe what is happening.

So: Jesus says that it is not our feeling of anger toward a brother or sister that is the real error; it is how we might choose to express that feeling. If we choose to attack, we have made false assumptions, and we will be hurt in return.

Prayer

Dear God,

When I have walked the whole pathway, I know that my responses will be of love, even when faced with an angry brother or sister. I can choose the same reaction now, while on the pathway. Give me the fortitude to turn from attack, even verbal, and to choose the least escalating response.

Be with me throughout the day. I have the best day when I sense Your presence in my life. I am adrift when I am so overwrought that You seem far away.

Amen.

A Gentle Turn toward Love

“Now you look for one upon whom you can unload your burdens, hoping you can pass your grievances en mass to someone else. If you succeed through anger, spite, or meanness, you simply take on guilt and withdraw still further into your own misery.” (ACOL, C:7.12)

Guilt is what has made us mad. This from A Course in Miracles, and emphasized in this passage. We, of course, damn ourselves when we don’t forgive, and here Jesus is telling us straight out what we do to ourselves. He didn’t talk about “meanness” in A Course in Miracles, but he is telling us about our most negative aspects, here, in A Course of Love. Few of us would want to characterize ourselves as “mean,” but perhaps we need to open our minds to this concept. We are capable of much that is negative.

Our misery is profound when we are lost in grievances. We wallow in this misery, not sure of how to lighten our mood. But a little reflection on what we have been reading in A Course of Love would be all that it would take to lighten our load. We need to listen to what our heart tells us about interacting with our brothers and sisters. We don’t want to harbor grievances, but instead to practice forgiveness, knowing all the while that what we are forgiving is simply illusion, a dream of a world that does not exist. Nobody has done anything to us except in illusion, and so actually nothing has happened at all. We know this from our study of ACIM, but we are still prone to forget it when our thoughts turn dark.

All of us can get angry, and, perhaps surprisingly, Jesus does not lament anger in A Course of Love as much as he did in A Course in Miracles. In ACOL, he recognizes that we may still get angry, but the anger has no teeth in it if we quickly forgive the illusion as never having happened at all. In ACIM, he had told us that anger was never justified, an assertion that many of us found hard to accept, because we still can fly off the handle at the slightest provocation. We cannot so control our emotions that we never feel anger, it is true, but we can fail to flame the fire by stoking it. This in itself is a major step forward. And it short-circuits meanness as well.

Let our negative emotions fall of their own weight. We don’t have to encourage them, and thereby encourage our own misery. When in a bad mood, notice that our own thoughts have turned against us. We have dipped into the ego-mind, something that we haven’t passed beyond yet. And this ego-mind seeks to be our undoing.

We don’t have to let the ego-mind win. We are stronger than that. Rise above with a gentle turn toward love, the genuine love that we do feel for other people as well as for ourselves, as well as for God. Listen to our hearts, which will serve us well in moments on temptation to turn to darker thoughts. The way out is clear. We forgive, recognizing illusion when confronted with it. We lift our minds to a healthy love for a better world, a world that we can inhabit when our projections become wiser. Listen to the inner Christ Self, Who will not lead us wrong—if we truly listen and don’t just think that we are listening. The way is clear; the answer is provided us. There is no reason that we cannot prevail.

When the Natural State of Love Is Returned to Us

“As the natural state of love is returned to you, judgment falls away because vision will arise. With the onset of the vision of love, many of you will make one final judgment in which you find everything to be good and full of love. (The Treatises of A Course of Love: ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 3.8)”

1 – Like ACIM

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

2 – Judgment

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

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

3 – Love

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

4 – Leave Judgment Behind

A Course in Miracles says to leave judgment to the Holy Spirit, and here in A Course of Love we are told to just leave judgment behind entirely. When we see with love, we no longer feel called upon to judge others. And this is said to be the final judgment.

5 – The Final Judgment

Many of us have wondered for a long time what the final judgment would really mean. And here it is given a wholly benign reading. We do not have anything to fear. We need only to love, and all the blessings will accrue to us. But can we believe this?

6 – Understanding

Try love and see if it doesn’t work. That is the basic way that all of us will come to understand. Just give up grievances as a bad way to react. Know that grievances will hide the miracles from us. Know that we want to experience miracles. So there is no other best way to proceed: Choose love and everything else falls into place.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

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

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

May I know that the angry and attacking things that others do, things that I notice, are just the result of bad conditioning. May I understand that I need only forgive this illusion, and all will be well with my day. This anger and attack will fade into the sunset when I recognize that I am seeing this because I don’t want to see it. Just illusions. That is all.

Amen.

Accept Your Anger

1 – Day Three

“Accept your anger for it is the next step in the continuum upon which we travel. When a person is dying, just as when a person is undergoing this final surrender, there are stages through which one moves. (Dialogues, Day Three)”

2 – ACIM and Anger and Attack

Jesus chose an especially volatile example of what can be accepted. In A Course in Miracles, there is a very significant passage in which anger is said to have no justification and attack no foundation in fact. This is especially crucial to our holy relationship, which is the way that A Course in Miracles is preparing us for Awakening by God. Here, in this quotation, Jesus says in A Course of Love, that anger can be accepted as part of a continuum. I suspect that Jesus knows how hard some of us have tried to eliminate anger, and our suppression of it has not worked very well.

3 – ACOL and Anger

Here, in A Course of Love, Jesus would have us just turn aside from anger, without giving it any credence, and, I would believe, especially not try to suppress it. The ego has a field day with suppression, for what is resisted only gets stronger and comes out in even worse ways (sometimes). Jesus compares our acceptance of anger, on this continuum, as akin to the stages of grieving only one’s own death. And acceptance is only one stage in that process, but a very important one. Likewise, when we accept the anger, the anger loses its force over us. It becomes meaningless, and we don’t resist any longer. It is not made stronger, as it would be made in resisting the anger actively.

4 – Money / Abundance

“There is one area that is greeted with even more anger and more resistance in regard to learning of all kinds—in other words both old learning as well as new—than love. This is the area that you call money and that I call abundance. (Dialogues, Day Three)”

5 – Jesus

Jesus moves into “abundance” or “money” from the discussion of anger. He spends a great deal of time on this day in discussing money. He knows that it is a hot point for many of us—either the love of money or the regret that we don’t have more of it. Jesus indicates that abundance is not something that is to be regretted, and here he differs from his words as quoted in the New Testament. There he tells his apostles that it is harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Many there are who have taken Jesus at face value in this statement. The rich young ruler in the account turns aside sadly, for he had great riches. He is told to sell all, give to the poor, and follow Jesus. The rich young ruler can’t bring himself to do this because money is his god (an interpretation).

6 – Crisis Point

Here, in this quotation, Jesus is said to find money or abundance more of a crisis point than even the concept of love. We can all agree on love. We can’t all agree on money. It is a dividing point for many, the final straw that our dedication to salvation is actually weak.

7 – Fallacy

“This is the basic fallacy that the time of learning supported. The idea of if this, then that. The idea of abundance earned. The idea of nothing being truly free. Not you, and not your gifts. (Dialogues, Day Three)”

8 – Learning

Here Jesus is saying that the past time, the time of learning, supported the idea that everything of value—and this especially includes money—has to be earned, is not truly free. We also think, erroneously, that we have to earn our way into Heaven. This, I think, is the basic concept that Jesus is challenging. We don’t, ever, earn our way into Heaven. The bestowal of Awakening by God, or Christ-consciousness, is a free gift. We can, we are realizing, prepare ourselves for this gift in various important ways, but the final bestowal is God’s choice, His timing and His choice, always. We don’t earn our way into this most coveted of evidences of salvation.

9 – Earned?

But abundance that is truly abundance does not have to be earned in every instance. There are many instances of abundance that don’t cost anything. And the law of attraction often indicates that money itself is subject to our thinking about it, our drawing it to ourselves. Abundance is good, as long as the abundance (or the money) doesn’t become one’s god. When that happens, we have substituted an idol for the richness of Heaven.

10 – Acceptance

“Yet how can you accept yourself when you have feelings such as these? How can you accept the idea of inheritance with ideas such as these? How do you accept me when you see me as symbolizing a life of ‘godly’ poverty, and of calling my followers to abandon their worldly goods? (Dialogues, Day Three)”

11 – Bad?

This gets even closer to understanding that abundance, per se, is not necessarily bad—in fact, that abundance may be very good indeed. But we often get our priorities mixed up when it comes to money, and that is indeed what Jesus was saying in the New Testament story of the rich young ruler (an interpretation). Jesus knows that his readers will not take lightly any admonition to give up worldly goods for another world, although that, in effect, is at issue. We give up the LOVE of money, and then the abundance itself is not a bad thing. And how do we separate the love from the money itself? Ah, that is the rub, and that is why Jesus spends so much time in A Course of Love talking about abundance and money. He knows that the historical Christianity has always denigrated worldly goods as being ungodly, and that people who might otherwise have been Jesus’s followers get stuck on just this point.

12 – Misplaced Priorities
A Course of Love settles the point. Abundance, per se, is not the issue. It is the misplaced priorities, choosing the world over spiritual matters, that keeps us in real poverty of spirit.

13 – Set Your Mind at East

“Let me set your mind at ease, for you are not called to sacrifice, as you have been told time and time again. (Dialogues, Day Three)”

14 – Sacrifice?

We are not called to sacrifice anything at all in A Course of Love, any more than we are called to sacrifice in A Course in Miracles. We are given things, many things, and we are told that our happiness is God’s first priority. That’s right. But how many of us can take this good news and run with it? We get so caught up in believing that we are tainted by material goods, even though we don’t stop ourselves from having such goods. Jesus would eliminate our confusion and our conflict, telling us that we need not sacrifice for him. But we do need to understand that the things of the spirit only give us the happiness that he wishes for us. Any material object is of this world, and our joy in it will subside over time. We are also liable to get caught up in the ego when we wish for material possessions, and the ego is a bad idea from the start. We have indeed sacrificed in this world, but it has usually been for the things that the ego told us would be good for us. And that was a lie. Nothing the ego bade us get has ever turned out well. The elation that we feel always turns to tears of despair.

15 – Unity

“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)”

16 – ACOL

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.

17 – New Understanding
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.
18 – Common Sense
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.”
19 – Natural State
“Abundance is the natural state of unity and thus your natural state, just as certainty rather than uncertainty is your natural state, just as joy rather than sorrow is your natural state. (Dialogues, Day Three)”
20 – Unnatural Lives
We see here that abundance, certainty, joy—all—are natural states of human beings. We have lived such unnatural lives so far. Let’s give up the unnatural in favor of the natural any day. Let’s drop the idea of sacrifice that is so dear to the ego’s persona. We will thrive when our hearts are right with God. He blesses us, as He does everyone, when we ask. There are many things for which we must ask, many blessings, and we hesitate to ask because we think that they are undeserving things, or even that we ourselves are undeserving.
21 – Deserving
We deserve the good things of good. Just know that those good things are mostly intangibles—joy, harmony, peace, no conflict,–and we will have to abundance that we so richly deserve. We will know the function of happiness, which is akin to forgiveness in A Course in Miracles. Our salvation is to know happiness and forgiveness as our function (from A Course in Miracles).
22 – Materiality
Materiality is part of abundance, and it is part of what money can buy. Money is not a dirty word or concept. It is only the overweening love of money that speaks to the ego and gets us into trouble.
23 – Replacement of Learning

“While you think of acceptance as just another word, another concept, another trick of the mind, you will not see it as the replacement of learning, and as such as an active state, a state in which you begin to work with what is beyond learning, a state in which you are in relationship with what is beyond learning. It is in truth a state in which you enter into an alternate reality, the reality of union—because you accepted that reality. (Dialogues, Day Three)”
24 – Union
We are asked to enter union with our fellow beings and with God. Elsewhere, many times, A Course of Love stands up for unity and relationship as twin goals for everyone. But our acceptance of that union is an acceptance that will free us to walk with Jesus on the way home. It will take us to the mountaintop, metaphorically holding his hand. We are not “learning” anymore, we are “accepting.” And we are not straining in our acceptance. We feel no strain in our daily doings. We don’t work in the same way, though work we will, and hard. We will find work to be effortless without the agony of thinking that we are learning through our backbreaking work. We do not have to struggle to learn anymore. What we need to know will be given us.
25 – Alternate Reality
This is our alternate reality—a state of union with All that is (God). And All that is includes our brothers and sisters who are walking together with us. All may not be walking to salvation, but that is partially up to us. We need to share, when sharing is OK to those involved. We do not have to proselytize, which would indeed be counterproductive if one needed only a smile (from A Course in Miracles). So we accept our reality as Sons and Daughters of God. We accept that our personal self (our persona) and our Christ Self are one, and in that understanding do we take our place in a new world.
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.

Wholly Give Up Attack

1 – Teacher = Holy Spirit

“But the Teacher Who knows the truth has not forgotten it. His decisions bring benefit to all, being wholly devoid of attack. And therefore incapable of arousing guilt. (M71)”

2 – Answers

Here is a reason that the Holy Spirit, the “Teacher,” does so well in guiding us. His answers are totally devoid of attack. Our judgments, even when we are at our best, may have an edge of attack, often very subtle. Our judgments can even be passive-aggressive, in which we do not directly confront another, but we attack then subtly by kind words that are not really kind.

3 – Benefit

Note that the Teacher’s truth brings benefit to all. And that includes us as well. So we are not wrong to see a selfish motive to following this guidance. It helps us as well as our brothers and sisters.

4 – Ego

We cannot stress too often the need to give up attack in all its forms. Until we do, we are caught in the ego, for only the ego will attack. May we pray to be free of the machinations of the ego, and to turn to our Teacher in as many times as would be practical. Jesus does say elsewhere that we are not bade to ask the Holy Spirit’s advice constantly, as this is not practical. We are bade to ask for guidance in the mornings and again at night, and to turn to the Holy Spirit at other times that are propitious. Then our thoughts and actions will be well-placed.

5 – Inheritance

“To ask the Holy Spirit to decide for you is simply to accept your true inheritance. Does this mean that you cannot say anything without consulting Him? No, indeed! That would hardly be practical, and it is the practical with which this course is most concerned.”

6 – Be Practical

Here is another entreaty to ask the Holy Spirit for guidance. Moreover, we are given specific guidelines: Be practical, which means that we do not ask on a continual basis because that is not practical.

7 – Guidance

Our true inheritance is to submit to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. An inheritance is a gift, a mighty gift. We are encouraged to realize the blessing that God has bestowed on us by giving us such a Helper.

8 – Often Turn

The more often we turn to the Holy Spirit, with a willing mind and heart, the more He can do for us. This does not negate the practical, but turning to Him as a matter of course becomes habitual the farther along the pathway of the Course we go.

9 – Wisdom

“If you have made it a habit to ask for help when and where you can, you can be confident that wisdom will be given you when you need it. Prepare for this each morning, remember God when you can throughout the day, ask the Holy Spirit’s help when it is feasible to do so, and thank Him for His guidance at night. And your confidence will be well founded indeed. (M71)”

10 – Ask

This passage outlines the way in which Jesus would have us respond to the Holy Spirit. Ask in the morning, turn to God during the day, and thank Him at night for His guidance. We will then know the truth of these important words.

11 – More Egotistical

If we become more egotistical, which will happen from time to time, we can gauge our state of mind by how willing we are to be flexible about following the Holy Spirit’s guidance. We will need to be flexible, because sometimes the guidance comes at the immediate point that we have begun to do something different.

12 – Happiness

Following guidance is the way to happiness in this world. And it is also our way Home.

13 – Heart Requests

“Never forget that the Holy Spirit does not depend on your words. He understands the requests of your heart, and answers them. Does this mean that, while attack remains attractive to you, He will respond with evil? Hardly! For God has given Him the power to translate your prayers of the heart into His language. He understands that an attack is a call for help. And He responds with help accordingly. (M71)”

14 – Reassuring

A very reassuring passage (as are so many in the Course), these words assure us that the better “thoughts” of our heart will be what the Holy Spirit listens and responds to. We may ask for what may hurt us, but God will protect us from such false dreams. The Holy Spirit knows what the Self really wants, and this Self is the larger life that we have beyond this world.

15 – Attack = Call for Help

This passage repeats the oft-given truth that an attack is a call for help. This explains what we may already realize from other passages: that our brothers and sisters are only asking for help when they attack. The same holds true for ourselves as well. Attack is never what it seems. Attack asks that we rush to the side of the offending party, and give whatever sort of help seems called for. Once we take this truth to heart, we will never view our brothers and sisters the same. We have no reason to become angry when we are the brunt of an attack. Our brothers and sisters always just want our help, however disguised the request comes to us.

16 – Welcome the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit always helps us. He does not intrude, but once we have made Him welcome, He will be there for us. The most important aspect is our flexibility is following His guidance. He does not frequently give advice unsolicited or even too far in advance; that is why we must be ready and even eager to “turn on a dime.” When we follow guidance consistently, we open the way to a glorious world, the real world, that is far beyond anything that this prosaic world seems to offer us.

17 – Cruel?

“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)”

18 – No Answer?

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.

19 – Friend

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.

20 – God

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.

21 – Immediately

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

22 – Helpful

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.

23 – Go Within

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.

24 – Frame of Mind

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,

Help me to give up attack. If I cannot reach this ultimate good, may I reach for love as long as I possibly can. Only love is the way of the saved.

Be with me throughout the day today. I know that I feel better when I have loved rather than attacked. This is evidence that Your way is right for me.

Amen.

How Is the Peace of God Retained?

1 – Anger

“How is the peace of God retained, once it is found? Returning anger, in whatever form, will drop the heavy curtain once again, and the belief that peace cannot exist will certainly return. (M51)”

2 – Expression of Help / Call for Help

The main point that this passage makes is best understood if we realize that elsewhere we learn that all is either help or a call for help. We get angry when we think that we have not been appreciated, or someone has done us wrong, or a million varieties of these two examples. If we reinterpret this attack from another brother or sister as a call for help, then we can see that they are innocent, and we truly have nothing to be angry about.

3 – Returning Anger

It is important to note that this passage says “returning anger, in whatever form”–a pertinent point. We often feel upset without fully realizing that what we are feeling is anger. Suppressing or repressing the anger is not helpful, and this is a mistake that many Course students make. Our right and proper reaction is forgiveness of the attack, because our brothers and sisters are as innocent as are we. We have made mistakes, and they have also, but we are not “sinners.” Calling an attack a “sin” only reinforces it in our minds. We need to overlook the attack, not make it real by dwelling on it (a Course tenet).

4 – Peace

Peace can be with us all the time, but this achievement (and it is an achievement, but not of the ego) may not come to any of us soon. More and more time can be spent in peace, though, if we keep the tenets of the Course in mind. The above paragraph summarizes a good bit of the basic psychology of the Course about attack and anger. For us to be peaceful, we have to have a peaceful psychology, and A Course in Miracles offers this.

5 – The Sword

“Now must you once again lay down your sword, although you do not recognize that you have picked it up again. But you will learn, as you remember even faintly now what happiness was yours without it, that you must have taken it again as your defense. (M51)”

6 – Defenses

We don’t need defenses of any type. God takes care of us without defenses. Elsewhere we are told that defenses make what they try to defend against. And this is true of anger as well. If we take up the sword, metaphorically, we will die by the sword. There is no other outcome.

7 – Relationships

All of us want nourishing relationships. And criticism of our significant others is a way that we show our anger, and it is always barrier-producing. We need to drop the barriers, the defenses, that we have erected to protect ourselves from the harm that we think significant others do to us. They will do nothing that our Self has not allowed. And our Self will show us better times when we are more open and vulnerable.

8 – An Adage

This, obviously, does not mean that we are open to physical violence. But words do not, ultimately, harm us. “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me.” That old adage is good advice in this context.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I retain peace in my life. I know that I cannot retain peace if I allow anger to return to me over and over. I must forgive the mistakes that I make and those that my brothers and sisters make. Then I may retain peace.

Please help me to go about a peaceful day today. I know that Your help is at my right hand always.

Amen.

How Is God’s Peace Recognized?

1 – Everlasting Quiet

“First, how can the peace of God be recognized? God’s peace is recognized at first by just one thing; in every way it is totally unlike all previous experiences. It calls to mind nothing that went before. . .The past just slips away, and in its place is everlasting quiet. Only that. The contrast first perceived has merely gone. Quiet has reached to cover everything. (M51)”

2 – Personal Experience

This morning, a Sunday morning, I am experiencing some of that peace of God told us in this passage. There is no preparation that is for certain; the peace comes out of the blue; prayer doesn’t necessarily precede it.

3 – Personal Experience II

I am sitting on my screen porch while the rain pelts down. The ambiance may have created some of the mood necessary to feel God’s peace.

4 – Surreal Peace

The quiet comes unbidden, but then it stays and stays, if we are lucky. The peace is almost surreal. It truly does feel like nothing experienced before, as the passage says.

5 – Presence of God

I know that this mood of mine, this Presence of God, felt, will not last. But while it is lasting, it is blessing me. And I hope that knowing it comes to anybody else can encourage a hope in you that the peace will descend upon you just as unexpectedly.

6 – Satisfy the Conditions

“How is this quiet found? No one can fail to find it who but seeks out its conditions. God’s peace can never come where anger is, for anger must deny that peace exists. (M51)”

7 – Avoid Anger

I am not angry at all this morning. Perhaps that is one key, as this passage suggests. If we seek out the conditions of this peace, what will we seek? We will strive to stay on an even keel with our moods (though sometimes this may seem impossible). We may pray without ceasing, and this too is calming to the mind and negates the ego’s striving to “get.”

8 – War

“How is the peace of God retained, once it is found? Returning anger, in whatever form, will drop the heavy curtain once again. And the belief that peace cannot exist will certainly return. War is again accepted as the one reality. (M51)”

9 – What to Avoid

The stress in these passages is to avoid anger, but I think that this does not mean that we suppress anger. We use our minds to get us out of the anger. We know that whatever we are experiencing is coming about because we don’t recognize another’s attack as the call for love and the call for help that it truly is. When we answer a call, we are no longer bound by the negative feelings that will come up if we don’t answer, if we just try to suppress.

10 – Mindfulness

Our own mindfulness, really noticing each thing that we do, will create conditions welcoming to the relief of anger. Mindful breathing and mindful walking are two techniques recommended by the well-known Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh. Perhaps today we all need to take a cue from his teachings.

11 – Justified Anger?

“Who sees anger as justified in any way or any circumstance proclaims that peace is meaningless, and must believe that it cannot exist. (M51)”

12 – Call for Help

Anger, it is said elsewhere in the Course, is actually a call for help. It may also be viewed as a call for love. Our task is to run to our brother or sister’s side, and to offer solace–that help or love that is really wanted. We may not do this overtly if the other person is not receptive. We may only pray for our brother or sister, or smile at them, or even just make small talk. Ask for guidance in the thought or action that is needed. We must be sensitive to the plight of our brother or sister, and overt action may not be desirable.

13 – Take Peace to Heart

So we see that anger is never justified. Peace is not meaningless. God’s way is right, and peace can exist. These are wonderful concepts to take to heart.

14 – Retaliation

As long as the ego is in charge, we will be tempted to return attack for attack, but responding in this way is always wrong. Attacks is what Jesus calls a “magic thought,” and anger is thus not justified. We need to the inner quiet and calm that ensures that we will respond to magic thoughts of others (and ourselves) with compassion.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I immediately recognize anger on my own part and that of others to be a call for help, meriting compassion rather than anger. May I offer the help and love that is needed. May I be gentle to myself, and may I be gentle to others.

Peace is what I want above all else. I do not want to do anything that renders peace meaningless. Please help me in this.

Amen.

If the Teacher of God Senses even the Faintest Hint of Irritation in Himself as He Responds to Anyone, Let Him Instantly Realize that He Has Made an Interpretation that Is Not True.

1 – Healing

“In order to heal, it thus becomes essential for the teacher of God to let all his own mistakes be corrected. If he senses even the faintest hint of irritation in himself as he responds to anyone, let him instantly realize that he has made an interpretation that is not true. Then let him turn within to his Eternal Guide, and let Him judge what the response should be. (M48)”

2 – Negativity

This passage succinctly describes what our reaction should be when confronted with negativity. If we become even slightly irritated at a circumstance in the outer world, we are to turn within, to our internal Teacher, the Holy Spirit. He will remind us of what our response should be.

3 – Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit often guides us very specifically, because our problems seem to be specific. He will lead us out of the storm in which we sometimes find ourselves. We will speak with new authority and with wisdom that is beyond us. This is a great blessing, and one of the most important motivators to learning A Course in Miracles.

4 – Irritation

If we are feeling irritation, this is a prime time to let our mistakes be taken from us. We do not need to compound the error by turning to attack. Then the ego will have taken the upper hand. We need to be healed if we are to heal. An unhealed healer is a contradiction (a Course tenet). May we all be led to turn to the inner Guide for the best reactions in such moments of temptation.

5 – Pupils

“So is he healed, and in his healing is his pupil healed with him. The sole responsibility of God’s teacher is to accept the Atonement for himself. (M48)”

6 – Immediate Response

When we turn inward to the Holy Spirit, and, once again, ask for His assistance, then He WILL respond—and immediately. We don’t have to wallow in distress. When we turn inward, we are allowing Atonement to work in ourselves. We are accepting a new way of living, and this is constitutes the atoning value of Jesus’s place in our little world.

7 – A Clear, Grassy Path

If our significant other is healed, if we ourselves are healed, then we walk a clear, grassy path back Home. We only have to accept salvation for ourselves; this is the Atonement principle. But in our acceptance, our “pupil,” whoever he/she may be, is healed as well.

8 – Not Magic

This is not magic, though it may sound that way. This is not irrational thinking. It is the soundest good sense, as stated by Jesus in A Course in Miracles.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Irritation does not seem as bad as anger, but the Course would say that both are equal. May I turn immediately to the Holy Spirit when I sense irritation, and may I let it fall away. The Holy Spirit will guide me.

May I not flare in anger before I realize what is happening. May this be the first step on my pathway to eliminating poor thoughts and behaviors in myself.

Amen.

God’s Teachers’ Major Lesson Is to Learn How to React to Magic Thoughts Wholly without Anger

1 – Witnessing to Reality

“If he [the teacher of God] argues with his pupil about a magic thought, attacks it, tries to establish its error or demonstrate its falsity, he is but witnessing to its reality. Depression is then inevitable, for he has ‘proved,’ both to his pupil and himself, that it is their task to escape from what is real. . . .Magic thoughts are but illusions. (M47)”

Sometimes we think we see that our significant other is just off in left field. Sometimes our significant other is suffering, and as a result is stubborn and angry. The reaction of stubbornness and anger is a reaction borne of magic thoughts, of irrationality. If we truly knew, if our significant other truly knew, how to have a completely loving relationship, then together we would create this lovely thing for each other.

2 – Don’t Give Credence to Magic Thoughts

Our ignorance of how to do that is all that is holding us back. But we ourselves must take care, when faced with stubbornness, anger, and irrationality, not to react in a negative fashion. To do so is to give credence to magic thoughts; it is to make them real in our illusory world. If we focus on these negative traits, they will be harder to overlook (ACIM tenet). May we go gentle into the day, overlooking negativity, seeing only light in this potentially beautiful world of ours.

3 – Irrationality

We must not take a direct assault on a magic thought, a thought expressed of irrationality. If we approach the problem gently, our significant other may soften, for we have not attacked his ego. Attacking his thoughts will always be perceived by his ego as an attack on his/her person. And be met with resistance.

4 – Resistance

We don’t need this resistance. It will never get us what we want, which is a loving relationship. Our significant other, as well, wants a loving relationship—even if he/she is not fully aware of the possibility of curing problems with love.

5 – Wholly without Anger

“God’s teachers’ major lesson is to learn how to react to magic thoughts wholly without anger. Only in this way can they proclaim the truth about themselves. (M47)”

6 – Anger

Our brothers and sisters who are not Course students will have many superstitious ideas (“magic thoughts”) that may arouse anger in us. They may attack us. Unless we are quiet and calm, we will react negatively, thus undoing the good that they might receive from us.

7 – Major Lesson

Note that Jesus says that reacting to magic thoughts wholly without anger is the “major lesson” of God’s teachers. This is a significant statement. He knows that we lose our patience easily, and we must be patient if we are to set a good example, if we are to reach others in the only way that they can accept.

8 – React without Anger

We cannot be identified as God’s teachers until we have mastered this difficult lessons of reacting without anger. This asks a lot of us, because the ego, in most of us, has not yet withered away. The truth about ourselves is that we respond to anger with a desire to help and to express love, not retaliate in kind. When we have mastered this difficult lesson, we will be well on our way to being the teachers of God that Jesus needs.

9 – Correction

“Correction has one answer to all this, and to the world that rests on this:
“You but mistake interpretation for the truth. And you are wrong. But a mistake is not a sin, nor has reality been taken from its throne by your mistakes. God reigns forever, and His laws alone prevail upon you and upon the world. His Love remains the only thing there is. Fear is illusion, for you are like Him. (M47)”

We can never get angry from a fact. It is always an interpretation that gives rise to anger, and we allow anger when we emphasize, in our minds, magic thoughts that we incorrectly perceive as threatening. Magic thoughts are illusion, and so they cannot really threaten, but in our illusion, our dream, they can do so. It is up to us to recognize an illusion when we see it. And overlook it. Overlooking, if we are in danger of any real harm, is crucial.

10 – Don’t Correct “Faults”

If we are confronted with a mistake, let us know that it is not up to us to correct another’s “faults.” The Holy Spirit will do this in His own good time. We are being arrogant, an arrogance of our egos, when we think that it is up to correct the presumed “faults” of another.

11 – Egoic Arrogance

We can recognize a mistake, and we can gently substitute what we see as the truth. If we are rejected in this attempt, perhaps we acted too soon. Perhaps in our egoic arrogance, we thought that we, rather than the Holy Spirit, could effect a change in the relationship that we have with another.

12 – Guidance

We need to take the humbler view. We can sometimes do very little, but that little may be mighty. Don’t stew in wondering what to do or say; just ask of guidance, just ask of the Holy Spirit.

13 – Listen

He will respond immediately, and the more often we listen, the more crystal clear His Answers will be.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to react to my brothers and sisters wholly without anger, especially when they are saying things about which I disagree. Sometimes their thoughts will conflict with the Course, and this will bother me, if I am not careful. Help me not to be bothered, but to react wholly with love.

Help me to stand back if my brothers and sisters are not ready to learn the material of the Course. Help me to give what I can in a good and loving manner, and to know when to stop. Thank you helping me to decide the right time to change my manner of response.

Amen.

Anger in Response to Perceived Magic Thoughts Is a Basic Cause of Fear

1 – Basic Cause of Fear

“Anger in response to perceived magic thoughts is a basic cause of fear. (M45)”

Has someone whom you always considered a very rational individual suddenly started expressing what appear to be irrational thoughts? I think this is because each strong character trait, such as rationality, has a shadow side, as Jung would tell us. The shadow side of rationality is irrationality, and irrationality is very threatening, especially when a significant other seems to be reversing trends of a lifetime.

2 – Irrationality

This irrationality, which we may hear, is what we are perceiving as a magic thought. And this is a prime reason that we fear, if we get angry about the threatening of our world view. If we become afraid, our own better thinking may fall by the wayside, and we ourselves may become irrationally fearful.

3 – Stress

Stress can bring all of this lamentable thinking about. I have come to see stress as a manifestation of the fear vs. love dichotomy in our world. And stress is the manifestation of fear.

4 – Holy Spirit

Let’s do what we can today to walk a smooth pathway. The Holy Spirit, God’s Voice to us, will help. He can keep us calm even if our significant others are not calm. Even if our significant others are caught in irrational thinking.

5 – Irrationality

If we ourselves have ever been irrational (and who of us has not been?), then irrationality in another will become more threatening to us. Let’s pray together today that all such insanity fall from us. Let’s pray today for a good day.

6 – Magic

“A magic thought, by its mere presence, acknowledges a separation from God. (M45)”

We are having magic thoughts also when we let the irrationality of another get to us. This is because when we are attached to God in prayer, we don’t feel fearful of presumed irrationality. We know that God has everything in hand. It is when we ourselves allow ourselves to become fearful (and this will happen when we are threatened by another’s fears) that we are most cognizant of our separation from God.

7 – Prayer

Pray today to mend this separation. Pray today to mend the barrier between you and your brother/sister. Barriers fall down when we get guidance from the Holy Spirit.

8 – Counterproductive

It may be counterproductive to tell someone else that he/she is being irrational, or that we are perceiving that he/she is being irrational. By the very definition of irrationality, if someone else is being irrational, that person will not recognize truth when confronted with it. He/she will see our evaluation as a kind of attack, which indeed it is. It may very well be best to keep one’s interpretations (for they ARE interpretations) to one’s self, and just smooth the troubled waters.

9 – Later On

Later on, when the coast is smoother, we can ask our significant other about those expressed opinions which have upset us. We need to share everything that we possibly can. There are no exceptions to this rule, unless sharing would hurt the other person. Sharing is normally healing.

10 – Sleeping Guilt

“But what will now be your reaction to all magic thoughts? They can but awaken sleeping guilt, which you have hidden but have not let go. Each one says clearly to your frightened mind, ‘You have usurped the place of God. Think not He has forgotten.’ Here we have the fear of God most starkly represented. (M45)”

This passage explains why we are sometimes confronted with magic, or irrational, thoughts in another. We are being shown our “sleeping guilt.” We have become frightened of God. We are fearful of God.

11 – Insanity

This is stark insanity. There is nothing in our relationship to God that, in a sane mind, is fearful. All of us are said, in A Course in Miracles, to be mad, to one extent or another—until we awaken. Let us pray to be healed of our guilt, for it is the guilt that has driven us insane, the guilt of our presumed “sinful” nature. But we have only made mistakes, correctable mistakes. And we don’t need to stay insane. The Holy Spirit will take us by the hand—indeed, Jesus will take us by the hand. And we will be led to freedom of thought, to freedom of thought without fear.

12 – God

Then the irrationality of magic thoughts won’t hurt so much. We will know that God is handling this situation for us.

13 – God’s Teachers

“Into this hopeless situation God sends His teachers. They bring the light of hope from God Himself. There is a way in which escape is possible. It can be learned and taught, but it requires patience and abundant willingness. (M46)”

Here Jesus laments the worsening situation of our world. He knows that we cannot continue to survive, nor to thrive, if those of us who have followed him do not do our part in salvation. But he is optimistic, even as he sounds a cautionary note. We can help ourselves and our brothers and sisters to escape from this impossible situation in which we find ourselves. But we need patience and abundant willingness to do so.

14 – Practicality

What does this mean for us, practically? I think that for those of us who have chosen the Course as “our Way,” then this passage means that we must study and learn ourselves all the time that we are trying to reach others. The Course is long enough and sophisticated enough that we cannot recall all its tenets unless we refresh our memories on virtually a daily basis. This does not mean just doing the workbook, but also dipping into the text and the manual for teachers.

15 – The Course

If we study the Course, our own lives will go better. We will then be in a much better situation to reach our brothers and sisters. We will be in the right frame of mind to want to share the good news. We will not be resistant. Remember that Jesus is there to help us always. He promises this. And our guidance from the Holy Spirit is a sure thing. With Helpers like these, how can we fail?

16 – Anger

“If anger comes from an interpretation and not a fact, it is never justified. Once this is even dimly grasped, the way is open. (M46)”

We are interpreting the magic thoughts of another. And if we get angry about being confronted with irrationality, we are not feeling something that is justified. We get angry when we are threatened in our world view. We don’t want our boat rocked. But sometimes, in our troubled world, this happens.

17 – Facts vs. Interpretation

But we never get angry at a fact; it is always an interpretation that gives rise to anger (ACIM tenets). And our anger at irrationality may be so subtle as not to be felt very keenly.

18 – Hidden Anger

This hidden anger is especially insidious, for it subjects us to fear, to stress manifested in ourselves. If we are not careful with our emotions, this stress will have an outlet, and that outlet will be an expression of anger.

19 – Brothers/Sisters

Our brother/sister deserves better than this from us. Let us pray to have our own magic thoughts, our own irrationality, healed around these concepts. We are safe, and when we fear another’s irrationality, we think that we are not safe. And, on some level, this makes us angry.

20 – Calm Mind

There are rules by which this will not occur, but first and foremost, we need a calm mind.

21 – Madness

“Madness but seems terrible. In truth it has no power to make anything. (M46)”

Madness can do nothing, for it is illusion. Be calm, be not overwhelmed by another’s irrationality. It is only madness, and madness has nothing that can cause fear in a mind (ours) that is steeped in comfort given us by God’s holy Presence.

22 – Fleeting

So the irrationality of another cannot ultimately hurt us. The fact that irrationality is mostly fleeting is a blessing. We don’t have to dwell on these magic thoughts. We can set them aside as insanity. And we can know that the expression of magic thoughts, the expression of madness, is “distress that rests on error” (from the ACIM Text).

23 – Walk a Green Earth

Pray today to do your part to assuage that distress. Then you, as well as your significant other, will walk a green earth again.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I have the patience and willingness to function rightly as a teacher of God. May, indeed, I be a teacher of God. May I never lead anyone astray.

I know that not all of my brothers and sisters are ready to receive direct teaching. May I be sensitive to what they are ready for, and may I offer only this in confidence that I am making the right decision in reaching them.

Amen.

If a Magic Thought Arouses Anger in Any Form, God’s Teacher Can Be Sure that He Is Strengthening His Own Belief in Sin and Has Condemned Himself.

1 – Major Lesson

“How to deal with magic thus becomes a major lesson for the teacher of God to master. His first responsibility in this is not to attack it. (M44)”

2 – Jesus’s Definition of “Magic”

As mentioned previously in this blog, Jesus gives the term “magic” a very specific interpretation. It is the form given magic by psychology, which is to equate magical thinking with irrationality. We need to set aside our airy, fairy ideas about “magic” being something good, at least for the moment.

3 – Irrational Thinking

We don’t want to attack irrational thoughts of another, even when this irrationality is an attack on us. If we are doing what is right, we will get quiet within, maybe distance ourselves for the moment from the perpetrator, and talk to God. His Holy Spirit will guide us. And we will feel more compassionate, for our significant other is suffering, even in the attack.

4 – Thich Nhat Hanh

Thich Nhat Hanh has a wonderful book called simply Anger, in which he describes the best way to be mindful and to respond to attack with compassion. He says that we ought to speak out when we are suffering from attack, but certainly not from an attack of our own. We need to realize that the ego has taken control of us in those moments of confusion and disarray, those moments of anger. If we tell the other that we are suffering, that we are trying to be mindful and to heal, then the way may very well be open to better communication.

5 – Courage

Of course, sometimes to speak out takes great courage, for we don’t want to do anything that will exacerbate the conflict. Soft words do a lot to unhinge anger, though. Slow and quiet words of compassion are healing, and our significant other will recognize this—unless the ego has a very, very strong hold. Sometimes the only thing that we can do if the ego in another is very strong is to pray for a miracle. The miracle will come. Healing will arrive. Only believe this, try to make yourself believe this, and the blessing will arrive right on schedule.

6 – Ego

We ourselves have to have to right attitude, though, and we cannot have the right attitude if we have not mindfully rid ourselves of the ego’s hold on us. If our suffering is overwhelming, we may still blame the other, though this is not the right way to think. In such cases, a little time apart, but in the same house, may be necessary.

There is always a way.

7 – Anger

“If a magic thought arouses anger in any form, God’s teacher can be sure that he is strengthening his own belief in sin and has condemned himself. He can be sure as well that he has asked for depression, pain, fear and disaster to come to him. (M44)”

8 – Heal

This is when the attacks of another really get to us; we fail to regroup and heal, something that God only can do for us. If we get angry, we are not offering compassion. And it is compassion that will eliminate the anger.

9 – God Only?

Is it only God who can do this for ourselves? Are we really that helpless? Perhaps not. Perhaps I overstated. But it is sure that if we don’t go within and heal quietly, we will not heal at all. Venting, as Thich Nhat Hanh makes clear, is not ultimately healing. We are making the seed of the anger grow. We may think that we get rid of our anger, because after beating a pillow we are tired, but when the tiredness has dissipated, and another occasion of anger arises, we will find our anger that much accentuated. Nothing works other than to go within, quietly, where God resides.

10 – Outcome

“Nor should it be forgotten that the outcome that results will always come to teacher and to pupil alike. (M44)”

11 – Rhonda Byrne

Teacher and pupil are equals. So we experience the same. Rhonda Byrne’s books (The Secret; The Magic; The Power) say the same. What we give, we receive, and there are no exceptions to this rule. It is unclear from Rhonda’s writings if she has been influenced by A Course in Miracles.

12 – The Good

If we want something good to come to us, we must give our good things. It is that simple.

13 – Attack

“Attack can enter only if perception of separate goals has entered. And this must indeed have been the case if the result is anything but joy. (M44)”

14 – Anger

This is an important passage because it is about attack, am emphasis in ACIM. Under what conditions do we feel anger rising? Under what conditions do we attack others (and ourselves)? If we perceive that we want something different from the other, then we are prone to attack to preserve what WE want. While this is not self-evident upon first reading, if we reflect on it, we will realize that it is true. We think that we have separate goals from our brother, that we are at odds with him. And if we are not joyous, then we have perceived that he/she and we want different things.

15 – Joy

If joy is our canary in the mine, then we know when we are diving off the deep end. If we know unhappiness, we are diving off the deep end.

16 – God’s Wish

See how often Jesus mentions joy as a harbinger of better times ahead? He says that God wants only happiness for us, that happiness is our function (one of several, including salvation and forgiveness as well). Happiness is not a minor goal. We can do for others much better when we ourselves are happy. We fell like reaching out, something that doesn’t happen when we are in the throes of our neurosis.

17 – Single Aim

“The single aim of the teacher turns the divided goal of the pupil into one direction, with the call for help becoming his one appeal. This then is easily responded to with just one answer, and this answer will enter the teacher’s mind unfailingly. From there it shines into his pupil’s mind, making it one with his. (M44)”

18 – Guidance

This passage echoes the reflections in this blog, so often recurring, of the primacy of following guidance from the Holy Spirit. This passage indicates that the answer will enter the teacher’s mind (that’s our minds) unfailingly. So we do get responses from the Holy Spirit when we engaged in his business, our function of salvation.

19 – Overwrought Emotions

The guidance is never slight. If it seems slight, our emotions may be too overwrought to hear what the Holy Spirit is trying to say to us. Go within, get quiet, and see if with calm emotions you do not get guidance as to what to do.

20 – Calm

Be calm in daily life. Our days flow more smoothly, and we live the word of A Course in Miracles that has come to mean so much to us.

21 – Facts and Interpretations

“Perhaps it will be helpful to remember that no one can be angry at a fact. It is always an interpretation that gives rise to negative emotions, regardless of their seeming justification by what appears as facts. (M44 – M45)”

22 – Angry

We will learn, as we study the Course, that wrong interpretations always happen when we are angry. And vice-versus. If we become really, really angry, it is certainly a misrepresentation that we are seeing. We have made an interpretation that is false (a Course concept).

23 – Negative Emotions

When we learn the part that we play in negative emotions, that we have interpreted facts, then we are encouraged to drop this maladaptive behavior. Facts are neutral, and it is only when we judge our brothers and sisters that we become so very angry at their behavior. If we learn that everything is either an expression of love or a call for love (a Course interpretation), then we will be ready to forgive their negative behavior and to run to their side with help. Sometimes we cannot give this help overtly, because our brothers and sisters are angry, too, and would not welcome our intervention. Then we wait for a better time. In the meantime, though, we are at peace. We have forgiven.

24 – Blessings

What a blessing it is to give up negative emotions! This will not happen all at once, at least not usually, but happen it will as we progress in our study of the Course. We are not perfect, but we will become a little more evolved, which will lighten our load and give us the joy and peace and calm that we desire.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I reinterpret my anger today, knowing that I have made an interpretation that is false. I know that my brothers and sisters are innocent, that they are only calling for help–and love.

Help me always to control my temper. Help me not to fly off the handle at the slightest sign of anger. Thank you for helping me to stay calm and quiet in all circumstances.

Amen.

There Is a Place for Helpers in Healing

“False healing rests upon the body’s cure, leaving the cause of illness still unchanged, ready to strike again until it brings a cruel death in seeming victory. (S-3.II.6)”

1 – False Healing

This “false healing” is the “body’s cure,” which ignores the mind’s powerful importance to healing. The body’s cure would be physical healing. Physical healing sometimes does not last, though there may be a respite. And, frequently, the body adopts some new symptom of yet another illness, and the cycle starts all over again.

2 – Healing of the Mind

The healing of the mind is different, and A Course in Miracles says that healing that lasts is always of the mind. When we have chosen a symptom in the body, the body will choose another symptom if the mind has not been healed, “ready to strike again.”

3 – Forgiveness

So the cause of the illness has not been eradicated. We are told elsewhere that only forgiveness can heal the mind and thus heal sickness of the mind. The mind is always the healing place to begin.

4 – Healing-to-Separate

“Healing-to-separate may seem to be a strange idea. And yet it can be said of any form of healing that is based on inequality of any kind. (S-3.III.2)”

5 – Difficult Passage

This is a bit obtuse. We do not want to see inequality between our brother and ourselves. We want not to experience “healing-to-separate.” If we think that we have walked further along the path to God than our brother, and therefore think that we are better than he/she, then we are much mistaken. Only time separates us from our brother, and time does not really exist; it is an illusion.

6 – Equality

Let us resolve to bring equality into all of our relationships. The sooner we see everyone as inherently equal, the sooner we will experience healing of the mind, and often of the body as well.

7 – Physicians

“Someone knows better; this the magic phrase by which the body seems to be the aim of healing as the world conceives of it. And to this wiser one another goes to profit by his learning and his skill; to find in him the remedy for pain. (S-3.III.3)”

8 – Esteem

This passage explains our propensity to elevate physicians to a higher plane, to go to them, always, for cure. Now Jesus never denigrates physicians or the medications that they give. He says that pills, though a form of magic, may be a compromise cure. We may increase our anxiety if we try to heal without pills, and we are already in a compromised state of mind, and so anything that raises anxiety is not good.

9 – Patient’s Mind

But the mind of the patient only is the way that healing progresses. The mind decides if healing will be allowed. If healing is not allowed, then illness may progress even unto death (and most choose some illness as the way to exit from this life to the Other Side). “Special agents” seem to be ministering to us, but actually they are not always needed. Yet do not see this statement as a choice not to go to physicians, for Jesus never says this. The mind of the patient makes the decisions about illness or healing. (These are tenets from the Manual of A Course in Miracles)

10 – Helpers

“Is there a role for healing, then, that one can use to offer help for someone else? In arrogance the answer must be ‘no.’ But in humility there is indeed a place for helpers. (S-3.III.4)”

11 – Helpers = Physicians

These helpers are often physicians. And in humility there is a place for helpers. And we ourselves can be helpers as well. We do not have to alone and lonely when we are sick. We can reach out, and in the reaching out, often we find solace and healing. Our minds may have made the decision, but we may be too weak to heal ourselves alone. We do need help, and often this comes by way of orthodox medicine and/or other people who heal by alternative methods. We decide, though not sometimes as the conscious mind. The Self makes these decisions, the inner Self which we do not always consciously access.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I have a healing today. I know that I don’t need a physician today; the healing I need is emotional. Help me to react peaceably to all that I encounter. Help me to be less stressed, for it is only stress that brings out the anger in me. I would be tranquil and calm, in love with You and all of Your creation today.

Help me to know when to go to physicians. They have their place, and Jesus never denies this. Help me to know the difference between healing with You only and healing with others.

Be with me as I walk through this day. May it turn out better than I fear right now.

Amen.

The Ego Becomes Strong in Strife. If You Believe There Is Strife You Will React Viciously. The Idea of Danger Has Entered Your Mind.

1 – Anger

We know that when we get angry, the ego is responsible. Without the ego, we would remain perfectly calm and quiet all the time (from the ACIM Text). While many of us think that we want to continue to have some drama in our lives, we will not want drama when we have Awakened. We will be glad for the quiet.

2 – Strong in Strife

And so when we are arguing with our significant others, the ego is strong, for this is strife. And we may even react viciously, because we feel threatened; the idea of danger has entered our minds:

“The ego becomes strong in strife. If you believe there is strife you will react viciously, because the idea of danger has entered your mind. (T80)”

3 – Separation

When we separated from God (in illusion, making a world that is illusion), we developed a split mind—one part of God, one part of the false persona, the ego. We can heal this split by choosing God; but we can never heal this split by choosing the ego. God does not give up on us that easily. He is always in our Mind, and so it is impossible to choose the ego be ascendant. There is actually no conflict, no danger that the devil ego can win. This ought to give us comfort as we seek to incorporate the teachings of A Course in Miracles:

“The separation is merely another term for a split mind. (T80)”

4 – Ego

“The ego is the symbol of separation, just as the Holy Spirit is the symbol of peace. What you perceive in others you are strengthening in yourself. You may let your mind misperceive, but the Holy Spirit lets your mind reinterpret its own misperceptions. (T80)”

This passage is ever more substantiation that the ego and the Holy Spirit, part of the triune God, are at odds. And only one is going to be the victor—always the Holy Spirit. But we do have free will, and our timing for relinquishment of the ego is respected by God. He and His Voice, the Holy Spirit, do not force themselves upon us. We choose. And then God chooses—when He deems that we are ripe for Awakening.

5 – Internally

This passage shows us a way to know what is really going on internally with ourselves. Whatever we perceive in others, we have, usually unconsciously, looked within and found (ACIM concept).

6 – Perception

This truth of perceiving in others what we really hold within is a powerful teacher. The “sins” that we perceive in others are, first of all, within ourselves. Seeing this, we can see what needs to be changed. And it is not our brother. It is something within ourselves.

7 – Loving

Our brother will seem much more loving as our own thoughts become loving. “Projection makes perception” is an ACIM concept. May we learn from our brother, even as we sometimes note lamentable emotions in him or her. These emotions (and often actions) have first been within ourselves.

8 – Holy Spirit

“The Holy Spirit can deal with a reluctant learner without going counter to his mind, because part of it is still for God. Despite the ego’s attempts to conceal this part, it is still much stronger than the ego. . . .(T80)”

Our Mind always chooses God. We don’t always realize this, but if we consider in contemplation, we will know the truth of this passage.

9 – Peace

“You who are part of God are not at home except in His peace. If peace is eternal, you are at home only in eternity. (T80)”

May we recognize that we want to be at home only in eternity. Time is an illusion, and therefore we only need it for practical purposes. We can ignore time far more often than we do, and then eternity will burst upon our insight.

Affirmation: “perceive in others. . .strengthen in yourself”

Prayer:

Dear Father,

May I learn from others: What I see in them is actually something that is within myself. May I use this knowledge to improve my disposition, my mind and spirit, and my behavior.

As my thoughts become more loving, my brothers and sisters will be perceived as more loving. This is a great boon for us. May we realize the truth that projection makes perception, as we learned in the Course.

Amen.

Salvation Does Not Lie in Being Asked to Make Unnatural Responses which Are Inappropriate to What Is Real

1 – Forgiveness

Many of us who are long-time students of A Course in Miracles carry around a very earthbound idea about forgiveness. We forgive, maybe for years, our significant others, and then we think that they are not changing enough to suit us. We think that we have been setting a good example, and still they show anger and attack us verbally when we don’t perceive a good cause. Then we are stuck, because we think that we have forgiven them for anything and everything, but this lack of what is perceived to be little meaningful change for the better draws us up, and we begin to blame them. This is the “forgiveness to destroy” that the pamphlet on psychotherapy channeled by Helen makes so clear. And all of us have a little of the tendency to “forgive to destroy.”

2 – The Answer

What can we do? How can we see differently? Note the following:

“Salvation does not lie in being asked to make unnatural responses which are inappropriate to what is real. . .[Y]ou are merely asked to see forgiveness as the natural reaction to distress that rests on error, and thus calls for help. Forgiveness is the only sane response. (T-30.VI.2)”

If we can see that someone else’s progress or lack of it is not our concern, that it is only up to us to live with them peaceably, then we can say, over and over if need be, “distress that rests on error.” Most of us live with individuals who are not ACIM students. Very few of our significant others are. And we get weary of forgiving, don’t we? We think that others ought to think as we do.

3 – Anger and Attack

But have we actually made as much progress as we think? How many times do we “lose it,” falling into attack and anger when things do not go our way? The brother, the significant other, may not have our frame of reference, and yet we see in him or her the tendency to forgive us for these lapses. We see this because we are not where we are in life by accident. We are placed with the ones who can be the best mirrors for ourselves.

4 – Responses

But we do not have to make unnatural responses. We are living an illusion, and as such the anger and attack do not really matter. They are transient. Of course, anger and attack do matter on some level for the one who is so emoting; karma takes its toll (not an ACIM tenet). But we can see that we are living a dream, and that it is our dream; we are not figures in somebody else’s dream (ACIM tenets). So regardless of how hateful or vicious someone might be, we can still realize that there is a reason that we are seeing this. We do not have to remain with this person if the drama is too negative for us. We can ask, “Am I better with or without this person?,” and let our answer dictate what we do. And we can know that regardless of how alone we might feel in this world, we do have guidance about what to say and do.

5 – The World’s Forgiveness

“Unjustified forgiveness is attack. And this is all the world can ever give. It pardons ‘sinners’ sometimes, but remains aware that they have sinned. And so they do not merit the forgiveness that it gives. (T-30.VI.3)”

This four-sentence explanation is “forgiveness to destroy” in a capsule form. We think, in our lowest moments, that others do not deserve the forgiveness that ACIM seems bound to make us offer, if we are to live our salvation.

6 – Healing

“Look on your brother with this hope in you, and you will understand he could not make an error that could change the truth in him. It is not difficult to overlook mistakes that have been given no effects. But what you see as having power to make an idol of the Son of God you will not pardon. For he has become to you a graven image and a sign of death. Is this your savior? Is his Father wrong about His Son? Or have you been deceived in him who has been given you to heal, for your salvation and deliverance? (T-30.VI.10)”

Our brother has been given us to love and to heal. Our most significant other is a gift. While not all of us will live a lifetime with one person, there are many who do. And forgiveness makes that road much easier. He/she is the one who has been given us to heal, and we are well-advised to take this command as a command.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I wish to be very certain today that I don’t “forgive to destroy.” Help me to know in the depth of my being that all is well. That the one given me to love is the one given me to heal. That one also must forgive me, even if lacking the understanding that ACIM gives. I realize that this may make forgiveness harder.

Help me to live a good life, a relaxed life in Your presence. I take life too seriously sometimes, and I would be done with that attitude.

Help me to come to You for rest and renewal, when the burdens of life seem too great. And may I never forget to thank You for my brothers and sisters, who challenge me even as they love me.

Amen.

True Denial. . .You Can and Should Deny Any Belief that Error Can Hurt You

“True denial is a powerful protective device. You can and should deny any belief that error can hurt you. (T199)”

Affirmation: “True denial is protective.”

Reflections:

1 – The Self

True denial refers only to our real self–the Self that cannot be hurt. We aren’t usually very aware of this Self, but this Self influences us constantly. Whether or not we listen is our own decision, but this Self can and does influence what happens to us.

2 – A Course of Love

This Self is the inner Christ that A Course of Love discusses, and some view A Course of Love as a sequel to A Course in Miracles. We become much more aware of this Christ Self, who guides our actions, the farther along on the pathway to Awakening (Christ-consciousness) we have walked.

3 – We Live a Dream

We have been told that we live a dream, our dream. And that as long as we recognize that it is our dream, that dream figures can be as hateful and vicious as they may, but it can have no effect upon us unless we fail to recognize that it is our dream. Can we always do that, can we always recognize the dream and therefore feel no hurt? This way of perceiving is an ideal, and most of us cannot live an ideal all the time. But we can make progress. We can remind ourselves that we live a dream, and that what other dream figures do need have no effect upon us.

4 – Error

Error can actually accomplish nothing that is ultimately hurtful, because the Self is beyond being hurt. The Course does not use the word “soul,” but in common language this is what is meant. (ACIM usually uses the word “spirit.”)

5 – Pain

When we are caught in the midst of suffering, of feeling our pain, in our own lives, or when we see suffering in others (whether our significant others or the world at large), we can affirm that the pain is illusory. Certainly it is felt; this is not what is meant by “illusory.” The pain actually accomplishes nothing permanent except, upon occasion, bringing us closer to God and thus to ultimate release. This understanding will eliminate any tendency to project the blame for our pain onto God, thus removing one of the main reasons that we reject faith as being beyond our comprehension.

6 – Unhurt

We aren’t hurt in our essence. But pain can soften our hearts and bring us closer to God. It is better, though, to learn through rewards, because the effect of pain is only temporary (ACIM tenets). We do not have to learn through pain! (ACIM tenet.)

7 – Hearts Full and Heads High

Let us go forward today with hearts full and heads high. We don’t have to cringe when another treats us badly. It is their problem. We can pray for them, and send them along to a better attitude. This better attitude will come when we use forbearance not to retaliate with anger or attack.

Prayer:

Dear Father,

May I learn the power of true denial, and use it only rightly. May I truly know in the depths of my being that error–error in myself or error in others–cannot hurt my real Self.

May I forgive error in myself and in others. May the error that does occur be an occasion to practice forgiveness, and may I turn to the Holy Spirit for guidance in how to forgive.

Amen.

If You Attack Error in Another, You Will Hurt Yourself. You Cannot Know Your Brother when You Attack Him.

“If you attack error in another, you will hurt yourself. You cannot know your brother when you attack him. Attack is always made upon a stranger. (T41)”

Affirmation: “Attack is always made upon a stranger.”

Reflections:

1 – Very Little Rightmindedness

It takes very little rightmindedness to see the truth of the quoted passage. How often have we responded in anger to another’s words, felt a surge of self-righteousness, and then sunk into a depressed spirit? Why did you fall into a depressed spirit? Why did the moment of “triumph” not last? We thought that we had gotten the guilt out (an interpretation by Ken Wapnick). But the guilt resurges, because even when in the ego, we are misled, and we know it, somewhere in our minds. The ego, in fact, always oscillates between triumph and depressed spirit, because the ego is constantly being undone. That is the way of salvation, so that we will eventually see that the boons that the ego holds out to us are mirages.

2 – Seeing the Unholy

When we attack, we are not seeing the holy in our brother. We are not seeing his (or her) innocence. So we are not seeing truly. We have made of him (or her) a stranger. But do we want our nearest and dearest to be a stranger to us? Of course not. So we must reevaluate, and in the reevaluation, we come to see that making a stranger of our brother or sister is not going to lead us to salvation. It is our joining in relationship to our brother or sister that we know God, that we walk the pathway to Awakening–for this is the way of A Course in Miracles. Once one has known even once the joy of a heartfelt kinship, in a holy relationship one to another, we will never be satisfied with less than this best. We are ruined for any other kind of unholy alliance.

3 – Feeling

When we attack, we may feel momentarily better, but then the insanity of guilt will overcome us. We will feel worse than before, and this comes from knowing that we have betrayed both our brother and ourselves. Attack is rarely physical, but often verbal. And it is in response to anger borne of stress. The world we live in is a very stressful place, and so anger and attack dog our steps.

4 – Anger and Attack

Yet would we have it so? Would we have anger and attack as our constant companions? I think not. We recognize, however dimly, the insanity of such a defense against the truth of the holiness of our brothers and sisters. We know that we have done them a disservice when we attack them or respond in anger. Their own anger may have sparked the lamentable exchange, but we need to recognize, then, that the anger was distress based on error (from the Text of ACIM). Many times our significant others will bait us when in a low mood. And always we can respond by remembering the distress that is at the heart of this response. Remembering this will pave the way for our forgiveness, for momentarily the “pain-body” (a concept of Eckhart Tolle) is in ascendancy. Our brother or sister wants to experience pain at such times, but we do not have to oblige. We can fill our bodies with presence, and the pain-body will dissipate, sooner rather than later.

5 – Innocence

Recognizing the innocence in our brother even if he (or she) has attacked us first, is to know the evidence of insanity in our world. A special relationship is usually filled with attack, once the bloom of infatuation is off the relationship. A holy relationship, however, has moved beyond the specialness (which was always a lie), and knows one’s brother as the loving Self that he (or she) truly is.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I make no brother or sister a stranger by attacking that person. May I realize that I have always made him or her a stranger when I have attacked.

May I see the innocence even in attack received from another. Attack is a form of insanity–nothing more. May I forgive and walk into the light.

Amen.

Anger Is Never Justified. Attack Has No Foundation.

“Anger is never justified. Attack has no foundation. It is here escape from fear begins, and will be made complete. Here is the real world given in exchange for dreams of terror. For it is on this forgiveness rests, and is but natural. (T-30.VI.1)”

1 – Personally, Single Most Important Point

I have found the title to this post, the quotation that it embodies, the single most important point for me to apply in daily life throughout my more than 30 years of studying A Course in Miracles. The assertion flies in the face of conventional psychology, which fears suppression and even repression of negative feelings, believing that this suppression and repression are but a ticking time bomb if left in the psyche. So we are implored to get out anger out by telling it to our significant others. Explaining where we are coming from. Venting.

2 – Suppression

Do these means of handling anger—expressing, explaining, venting—really speak to the problem? It is probably very true that we risk our own mental health when we force downward, in our interior, the negative feelings that are tempted to bubble out. But ACIM does not ask this. It explains, in other passages, the essential innocence of our brother/sister. And the fact that nothing has actually happened in the illusion in which we live. He/she has not hurt our essence, which is beyond his/her reach. We are safe, once we have given up all grievances (from the Workbook). And we know that we are safe.

3 – Innocence

We are asked to forgive what has not happened, not to pardon real occurrences.

“But first, lift up your eyes and look on your brother in innocence born of complete forgiveness of his illusions, and through the eyes of faith that sees them not. (T-19.IV.D.8)

4 – Concrete Reasons, Not Blind Faith

We are not often asked to see things in the light of faith in ACIM. We are given concrete reasons for our beliefs, rather than to fall back on mysteries of faith, things that we cannot understand. But here we are to appeal to faith in the complete forgiveness of our brother, to see that he has retained his innocence and has merely made mistakes—not committed sins against us.

5 – Forgiveness

Jesus knows that when we look around us and see the consequences of “sin,” we will have a hard time in this matter of forgiveness. Yet we need not have such a hard time. When we realize that our brother’s inner Self is Christ Himself, we will esteem him rather than denounce him (from A Course of Love). And all will be well with us, for we will forgive ourselves as well.

6 – Trapped

We are trapped when we don’t forgive another for the presumed wrongs that he/she has committed against us. For in our essence, the Self within, the Christ we too are innocent, a truth that we cannot believe as long as we are holding something against another. Forgiveness is, after all, a two-way street. And that which we give, we will receive. We will hold our brother’s or sister’s sins against ourselves when we fail to forgive him/her. There can be no other dynamic going on here, for in our depths we know that he/she is innocent.

7 – Anger

We don’t need anger to satisfy the overwrought emotions of our egoic mind. We don’t need attack to keep from burying down negative emotions that will come to haunt us later on. Jesus has shown us the way out: forgiveness. We overlook the error; we simply forgive. We don’t make real the error by dwelling on it, for who can forgive what he has made real in his/her own thinking?

“The ego’s plan is to have you see error clearly first, and then overlook it. Yet how can you overlook what you have made real? By seeing it clearly, you have made it real and cannot overlook it. This is where the ego is forced to appeal to ‘mysteries,’ insisting that you must accept the meaningless to save yourself. (T-9.IV.4)”

8 – Foolishness

Let us drop this foolishness from now on. We don’t dwell on error and then overlook it. We release on it right away, and then the mistake is not compounded in our own mind. We forgive what has not occurred in reality.

9 – Smooth Walk

And then our walk is made smooth in front of us.

Affirmation: “I will turn aside from anger and attack today.”

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I have long known that I never get angry unless I am stressed. But this knowledge has not kept me from getting angry and verbally attacking from time to time. I am shamed by this behavior, and I ask You to change me. I know that You can, and immediately. I ask for that miracle now, right now.

May I do nothing to reflect discredit upon You. And when I get angry, I am witnessing wrongly. May I witness well for You. You deserve this, of course. What more can I say?

Amen.

This Is What You Are Now Called to Do

“This is what you are now called to do:

“Be aware that the love of God lives within you. Live within the peace of God. Live by the truth.

“This could be restated as you are love, you live in peace, you live by or in accord with truth. (Treatises of A Course of Love: Treatise on the Personal Self, 11.7 – 11.9)”

Affirmation: “I will live in love today.”

Reflections:

1 – Jesus

The instructions that Jesus gives today, in this passage from A Course of Love, are not new by any means. But he has an authority that defies explanation, except that he is our chosen leader. He speaks with the authority that he did in the New Testament, when he spoke not as the scribes and Pharisees. It does behoove us to listen to what he tells us in this new century, this time of Christ.

2 – God Is Love

We are to live by the truth that God is love, that we are to live within His peace. Such simple words, but so hard to do! We live in such complicated times, and it would be better if we simplified our lives to reject the complexity, the complexity which is often of the ego.

3 – Live in Love

What does it mean to live in love? As A Course in Miracles tells us, we live in love when we overlook anger and attack from ourselves and others, and by the overlooking, we do not make real, and we are led to forgive the errors made by ourselves and others. This also is easy to say but so hard to do. If we can just remember that we are living in illusion, at least until we have reached the real world that Christ-consciousness shows us, we will be well on our way to a better world, a better experience.

4 – Communicate with God

We find such joy in life when we communicate with God. In the early pages of the Text of ACIM, Jesus tells us that God is lonely when He recognizes that His channels to His children are closed, that we sleep, that we do not communicate with Him. We can change this. The handle to the door of our heart is on our side of the door. God is always ready to accept us; it is ourselves that get preoccupied with the things of this world that take us from Him.

5 – Prayer without Ceasing

Let us give up this spurious living. Let us return to frequent prayer, prayer without ceasing. Is this possible? It is possible to take God as a partner in daily life, to turn to Him as we would to any trusted ally, and to ask, internally, questions about our day with its many problems. We will get answers, so much so that we will wonder why we neglected Him for so long. Why did we not learn years ago that Christianity is eminently practical? Maybe we just have not yet recollected what has been within all along. We do know, and now is the time to bring forth that knowledge again.

6 – Talk to God

So seek to love today. We will fail if we don’t communicate with God throughout the day. Resolve now to talk, internally, to God as we walk through the day. He will be there. And we will know miracles that will warm our heart.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to remember You today. May I walk through this day in close consultation with You. May I do absolutely nothing without knowing, internally, that You are in agreement with what I do. May I reach out to You, metaphorically, though I know that You are really within me. Be with me today.

Amen.

Meaningful Existence

“The only thing within the human experience that made you incapable of representing who you are in truth was the ego. The only thing within the human experience that deprived the human experience of meaning was the ego. With the ego gone, you are perfectly capable of representing the truth of who you are and returning to an existence that is meaningful. (Treatises of A Course of Love: Treatise on the Personal Self, 7.5)”

Affirmation: “I would choose a meaningful existence today.”

Reflections:

1 – The Ego Is Gone

This passage says, once again, that for those of us who have read this far in A Course of Love, and taken its tenets unto ourselves, the ego is gone. We are The Accomplished. If we find this hard to believe, we are only being human. And we can always backslide. So the ego remains a temptation best left alone, and that follows for all the eternity that we have ahead of us.

2 – Ego Constantly Being Undone

The ego never meant us well. The ego was always a mad idea. And the ego was always being undone. If we were especially egoistic, we knew flights of joy that were undone by tears of pain that often turned to suffering. We paid for all the joy that we beheld.

3 – Living, Not Existing

Now we would live a meaningful life, and it would be an existence that is truly “living.” We would be rid of the ego by turning aside from it gently, for to resist the ego is to make it strong. The ego, according to ACIM, is strong in strife.

4 – Truth

Jesus says a great deal in A Course of Love about the “truth.” We would do well to remember, though, that we are fallible beings who may not recognize the truth when we see it. Likewise, we may think that we are viewing truth when we are actually seeing falsity. So it behooves us to contemplate our decisions well, to let guidance form our decisions. We would always mess things up, if left to our own devices without divine guidance.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I know intellectually that I am better off without the ego, but still I fear that it rears its ugly head. Help me to be through with all this foolishness today. I would not do egotistic things, and I would not make decisions from an egoistic foundation. I would follow Your way, which substitutes love in every situation.

I would live a meaningful existence today, an existence that is truly “living” rather than merely “existing.” Help me to do this. I am so dependent upon You these days. I have chosen that way of living, and You have responded. I know that Your presence sustains me, even when I am saying affirmations that keep my temper under control. I would be rid of temper today. I would say “gentle,” and “What would Mary do?” I would stop and take a timeout if I am overwrought. There is no better way to come unto Your presence.

Thank You for being there for me. Thank You for giving me the blessing of a happy life, and may I serve You in ways that You would direct. This does not mean slavish obedience, because my real will is always Yours. We are not separate, and I thank You that, through Your help, I have come to know this.

May I reach out to others today who cross my path. May I be a blessing in Your world.

Amen.

Fill the Emptiness Within

“While few of you have ever before reached the emptiness caused by the complete absence of the ego, just as few of you have never felt some sort of absence. All the lessons you have drawn to yourself in your lifetime have worked toward this absence in the hopes of filling the emptiness with the fullness of the truth. (Treatises of A Course of Love: Treatise on the Personal Self, 5.1)”

Affirmation: “I would fill my emptiness with truth.”

Reflections:

1 – Truth

Truth is a slippery concept, but when we follow the truth that Jesus sets forth, we are on solid ground. So many of us think that we have the ultimate truth, so many in our world. And others of us think that the truth expounded by others is actually a pack of lies. Let us try to do better today.

2 – Wait to Be Filled

We are not suffering when we are empty. We are simply waiting to be filled, and filled with the truth as we perceive it. This must include doing no harm to others or to our personal self, however much we may think we perceive that we are right in retaliating for wrongs committed against ourselves.

3 – No Retaliation

We are not right in retaliating, in any sense or at any time. This is something that we must incorporate into our very being, for Jesus says in A Course in Miracles that attack and anger are never justified. This assertion has been much misunderstood, for we have often felt that we must repress and suppress to follow this dictate. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We do sublimate, in that we replace the attack and anger with a higher value. And that higher value always partakes of love, a loving attitude.

4 – Anger and Stress

I never get angry unless I am stressed, and that may be the situation for you as well. So the way to return to a stasis is to calm down, and the way to calm down is frequently prayer. We get quiet, and settle down our overwrought emotions, and we walk a green earth again. There is no better way.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would walk calmly today. I am all too prone to get keyed up when doing many things in this busy world. But quietness gives You to me, and I would have You today.

Guide me to help others in any way that would be good today. Let me love with my whole heart. May my mind settle down and my overwrought emotions grow calm. May my heart speak to my mind, and may my Self speak to both.

Thank You for your help as I walk through this day.

Amen.

Struggle Alerts to the Presence of the Ego

“It will seem all but impossible to live in relationship when those around you are still convinced of their separation and still seeking to glorify it. You will still perceive of the world as operating under the laws of man and as long as you perceive of the world in such a way you will be forced to live by its laws. This will cause struggle and as you now know that struggle of any kind alerts you to the presence of ego, you will continue to do battle with the ego rather than leaving it forever behind. (Treatises of A Course of Love: Treatise on the Nature of Unity and Its Recognition, 11.2)”

Affirmation: “I give up struggle today.”

Reflections:

1 – No More Struggle

Oh, to give up struggle! This would be a blessing that all of us would welcome. And here it is held out to us–when we give up the ego. The way of the ego is hard indeed, though perhaps for a long time we have not realized this. A Course in Miracles says that we pay for our flights of joy by tears of pain, when we are caught in egoic thinking. There is always this oscillation. But there is a way to stop the oscillation.

2 – Anger and Attack

It does seem all but impossible to stay true to our ideals when we are confronted, especially in our significant others, with anger and attack as well as judgment from them about us. But regardless of how long we live, this is the way of the world. And we are often surrounded by such individuals because they have been given to us as students. We are currently their teachers of salvation, though teaching and learning are actually inseparable (an interpretation from ACIM). There is a way to live peacefully amid the strife, because we are no longer so interested in the goals of this world, the goals which are usually egoic in nature

3 – Ego

Decide to battle your own ego no longer. Turn aside from saying and doing egotistical things, and you will come to recognize when the ego has intruded upon your peace. A little lilt in your demeanor will frequently signal the coming of the ego. You look back with pleasure on an occasion from yesterday. But know that when you seek to experience the pleasure, there will be occasions in the future when you rue your behavior. And the occasions will be similar except for your subsequent reaction to them.

4 – Sigh of Relief

So let us give up struggle with a sigh of relief. There is no reason to rue our relationships, either. We are here for a purpose, and while we do not actively proselytize (in line with ACIM and ACOL), we do make ourselves available to share when the people around us are ready to hear. You will know when that time arrives. In the meantime, turn inward for consolation. The Self/Christ is much better suited to giving us solace than anything external to ourselves.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would forego struggle henceforth. When I get ahead of myself, help me to pull back. Let me take the relaxed and easy way through this world. Your way is the way of happiness, and happiness does not include struggle. May I remember struggle is not necessary and is actually undesirable.

Be with me as I seek to follow Your path today. Your path is one of joy and tranquility, not pain. I would cease to experience suffering, even when pain does rear its head through my own egoic leanings. Help me to forsake the ego forthwith.

Amen

Slight Twinge of Annoyance / Intense Fury

“You will become increasingly aware that a slight twinge of annoyance is nothing but a veil drawn over intense fury. (W-21)”

Affirmation: “May I be angry with no one today.”

Reflections:

1 – Nighttime Dreams

This assertion, one of the more well-known from A Course in Miracles, does not seem credible on first reading. But actually our egoic minds delude us. We may dream at night far more hostilely than we think in the daytime. And so nighttime dreams of anger can clue us to the fact that we can be intensely furious when we think that we are mildly upset.

2 – No Gradations in Emotions

Why would this passage be true? Jesus does not give credence to gradations in emotions. In some ways, he thinks in black and white. And we may be used to this from his reactions in the New Testament. So what he says here has a certain ring of authenticity.

3 – Why?

Why would we really be furious when we think that we are only mildly annoyed? The ego wants it all for itself. The ego doesn’t really think in gradations, but it knows that we won’t accept extreme anger for ourselves, and so, in its wily way, the ego softens its attitudes. If this makes the ego sound independent, it does indeed function in this way quite often. But it is merely a part of our belief about ourselves, and we can choose to let it wither away. Indeed, we must choose this.

4 – Fury

How do we “lose it”? Do we lose it often? This shows that Jesus’s statement is indeed true. When we are tired, we are likely to express more fury than at any other time. Or if something else has already upset us (something that is never the “real thing” that is upsetting–an ACIM tenet). We can recognize, when we contemplate, that intense fury is actually veiled when we get upset. And we are the worst for it.

5 – Love

May all of us turn to the love within, the love that will eliminate these bouts of fury.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I learned in my maturity that I never get angry unless I am stressed. Many others are surely like this as well. But isn’t stress with me, still? And don’t I try to veil the anger that sometimes visits at inopportune times? I would be finished with this expression of the ego. No more.

May I invite the serenity that displaces the ego and put Your love in the center of my life. Then and only then will I no longer feel or show extravagant displays of negative emotion. Be with me as I seek to leave all this foolishness behind. I would not do this to myself, as I would not do it to my closest companions.

Amen.

Does God See Suffering?

“This is what has been meant by the many references that have been made to God not seeing suffering. God exists with you in peace. When you feel peace, you feel the Peace of God. There is no other peace. There is no other God. Whether you believe it now or not, I assure you, within the Peace of God is all the joy of what you have known as the human experience and none of the sorrow. (Treatises of A Course of Love: Treatise on the Art of Thought, 10.8)”

Affirmation: “God is with me in peace.”

Reflections

1 – Personal Interpretation

My interpretation to the assertion that God does not see suffering is that, to Him, what He sees he reinterprets, seeing the pain not as suffering, but as a call for help. I think that he always recognizes a call for help. There is a difference of opinion among students/teachers of A Course in Miracles in whether or not God is outside the illusion in which we are immersed, and thus does not know about us. This idea would say that God has sent us out to play, as children, and He does not care what games we play, because He knows that all our the games that we play are dreams, maya, or illusions.

2 – God

I feel, based on what I have experienced, that God is right here, knowing about every part of our experience. He does not become perturbed (for that is a perception) about our trials; he just acts to give us comfort in the midst of them. I have felt such peace, in my better moments of prayer, that I have no doubt that I have touched the edge of God’s garment (a metaphor). To live without thinking that God counts the very hairs of our head would be a demoralizing way for me, personally, to live. And we are promised in the New Testament that the very hairs of our head are numbered.

3 – Part of God

Of course, A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love are non-dualistic systems of thought, and so we are recognized as a part of God. He is within all of creation, but all is One, and so this is not really a pantheistic belief, one in which there are gods in everything. The fact of the One, and the belief that the One is totally in each part, is to my mind best exemplified by a hologram. From within, we project the world without. There is nothing outside of us (from the Text of ACIM).

4 – Theology

These are mostly theological studies, and I hasten to add that Jesus fears that theology will divide us. He says in ACIM that there can never be a universal theology, but a universal experience is not only possible but necessary. Take nothing unto yourself in these ideas, the ideas not specified in ACIM and ACOL, unless they find a place in your heart.

5 – A Comfort

Let however you view God be a comfort to you.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You for Your reassurance to me that You are right here with us. This is my personal belief, and I realize that others may view You differently. But I feel Your presence as an almost constant, and so I do not have, ever, to feel alone.

Be with me for me to turn aside from attack and anger always. I do not need to make my significant others pained by my reactions. May I live the peaceful life that leaves out stress, for I never become angry unless I am stressed.

May I live with You in harmony today. And may I make this resolution for each day in my future.

Amen.

When in Conflict

“To live in relationship is to live in harmony even with conflict.  It is an understanding that if conflict arises in your present there is something to be learned from your relationship with conflict.  (A Course of Love, 27.14)”

Affirmation:  “I would live in harmony today.”

Reflections:

1 – Learn from Conflict

We do learn from conflict, though we might not like to do so.  When we remain in harmony within ourselves, though, extending this outward to displaying no anger nor attack with others, we can view the conflict dispassionately.  We can remain harmonious, even though those around us are not.

2 – Retain Harmony

What are we learning?  We are learning the benefits of retaining harmony in any situation, even though that push our buttons.  We are learning that anger and attack have no foundation in truth (from A Course in Miracles), and that they are not justified in us as children of God (and all of  us are children of God).  We can make the best of a bad situation, though, when others misbehave.  We do not have to assume a “holier than thou” attitude, either (and this attitude would be most inappropriate).

4 – Conflict in This World

Today’s passage indicates that wherever there is conflict in this world (and that place is almost universal), we can stay true to our understandings, gleaned from ACIM and A Course of Love, and yet still learn from the conflict.  We did not create the conflict, but we can learn from it.  And we choose not to exacerbate the conflict.  We remain in harmony with all.

5 = When Baited

Others may try to bait us.  But we do not have to rise to the bait.  This may be easier said than done.  Some ways to react:  Take a timeout.  Simply excuse yourself from the room.  Listen quietly and tolerantly.  Ask internally what to say or do in response.  Remain calm and collected.  Above all, do not become emotionally heated.  Chill out.

6 – Personal Interpretations

None of these suggestions are found in ACIM or ACOL, but are personal interpretations, based on my own living experiences.  You will have other solutions, and, if so, I would welcome your comments to this posting.  Thank you.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I recognize that I am my own worst enemy, making conflict within my own personal self when I would do well to turn to You.  I make the conflict all too often, second guessing myself and doubting the intuitions that rise to the surface.  I would end this reaction today.  I would live in harmony whenever possible.  Whenever it is not possible to live in harmony in my relationships with others, I would learn from the experience.  Then I can leave the conflict behind, knowing that I have gleaned all that can be gleaned from what has happened.

Be with us today.  Thank You for the beginning of a good day.  Whatever happens, may I be prepared, with Your help, to handle it.  Life is not always easy, but it can always be good when I am enfolded by Your love.

Amen.

Believe that You Can, and You Can

“See you now why those who judge cannot enter heaven?  Judgment proceeds from the belief in sin and the irreversibility of all errors.  If you do not believe you can reverse or ‘turn back’ to the state in which you existed before the original error, then you never shall.  (A Course of Love, 17.12)”

Affirmation:  “May my beliefs dovetail with the good.”

Reflections:

1 – God Protects Us

There is subtle intrusion here, from Jesus, of the importance of belief in living our lives.  If we don’t believe that something is possible, then it will not find a place in our experience.  If we do believe (turning the statement on its head), then we will experience that for which we ask, provided that it is good and right for ourselves.  For God protects us still.

2 – Three Prohibitions

In A Course in Miracles, we are bade to avoid attack, avoid judgment, and avoid making plans against contingencies to come (unless prompted by the Holy Spirit).  To avoid these things is to invite heaven (an interpretation, not stated in ACIM).  Surely to do these things is to fall away from salvation, and our lives, likewise, will start falling apart.

3 – Judgment

In the passage for today, Jesus especially points out the dangers of judgment.  And, in doing so, he echoes the New Testament, as many of us know.

4 – Original Error

The original error was the presumed separation from God, the rise of the ego, and the loss of that sense of joining with God and all others.  This, according to ACIM, was a “tiny, mad idea” at which the children of God forgot to laugh.  And in the forgetting did it become possible for the impossible to seem to happen.

5 – Erase the Evil

We do need to realize that all of this misfortune can be erased.  We do not have to presume a separated state any longer.  When we allow God to speak to us from within (or the Holy Spirit, as described in ACIM), then the Christ/Self can rise to the forefront of our lives.  And our lives will get immeasurably better.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Please be with me today as I seek to implement the law of attraction, which is what this passage for today is saying.  I do choose to hope only for those things that You would have for me, because You see the whole picture, and I see in part.  Be with me to implement–not to “effort” to have, for this would be thinking amiss.  If my heart tells me that I am to have something, then I am more likely to be on the right beam.

If I do not feel internally that I can manifest something, then trying to manifest that thing (whatever it might be) is wrong.  I would not go wrong today.  Help me to follow You, as always.  And may my words help others who might chance to read this blog.

Amen.

How to Stop a Bad Day

“An unreturned phone call, a bit of traffic, a harsh word spoken, an unremembered errand–all can be resentments you hold to yourself and refuse to let go.  By the time you begin your day you may hold several of these in your mind, and there you build them into reasons for even further withholding.  Now you have an excuse–or several excuses–for a bad day.  Why should you give anything to anyone when your day has already treated you so badly?  You withhold even a smile, because you have chosen grievances over love.  (A Course of Love, 7.11)”

Affirmation:  “May I have a good day today.”

Reflections:

1 – Personal Experience

We know when our day has gotten off to a bad start.  Last night I had had stress in the day, and then I got home and found more stress, for stress had impacted my home life as well, in my absence.  I needed just to get quiet.  But I allowed my ego to take over my life momentarily, and I did not act well, the way that I know is best.

2 – Stress

This morning I awoke with a fresh start.  At first I did not even remember what had happened last night that was bad.  But, regrettably, I searched my memory until I did remember the stress of the previous evening.  Bad mistake!  This was enough to start the day off badly.  A day that I was about to rue.

3 – Begin the Day Again

But now I have settled down to write about A Course of Love, and, lest I feel like a hypocrite, I must put aside the stress and, yes, the grievances, that arose last night, and, to a lesser extent, this morning.  I must begin the day again, as Jesus encourages us to do in A Course in Miracles.  I do not like the way that I am feeling, and so I will start afresh.  And then, as promised, all will be well.

4 – Guilt

Why would any of us cling to a bad day, except out of guilt, a form of madness?  There is no other reason.  Thinking of reasons to be unhappy does not turn around unhappiness, nor does it ensure that we will make amends for our poor thoughts and behavior.

5 – Start Over

The only way to get around a bad day is to start over, a feat that can happen at any time.  And Jesus has recommended this practice in ACIM.  Surely the same technique will work, now that we are considering A Course of Love.

6 – A Good Day without Guilt

Be quiet.  Be tranquil.  Pray.  Even meditate, if this helps.  The only thing standing between us and a good day is our sense of guilt.  And we are not perfect, nor, we find later on in A Course of Love, is perfection required of us.  We are human and divine; let us look to the divine within to solve our dilemmas.  And then just let the grievances drop away.  Forgiveness of ourselves and others was our function in A Course in Miracles.  Let us return to those statements, and live a better day from now on out.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

If I begin each morning with the affirmation, spoken to You, “I turn myself over to You,” then I am well prepared for anything that might happen, anything that might seem to give me a bad day.  Even the so-called “bad” things do not faze me as they would if I had not said to You, “I belong to You.”

We have plenty of helpers on the Other Side, and plenty of helpers in this world, as well.  Try to keep a good mood going, and the day will seem much, much better.  How to keep a good mood going?  I need to lighten up before You.  And then I know that You will handle everything else.

Amen.

Grievances

“A grievance is something you have chosen for yourself, a piece of a relationship separated off and held in contempt and righteousness.  You are unaware that you choose this form of withholding, sometimes dozens or even hundreds of times a day.  (A Course of Love, 7.11)”

Affirmation:  “May my grievances disappear in the light today.”

Reflections:

1 – We Are Guilty of Grievances

We do still hold grievances against our brothers and sisters.  And we do not always recognize this.

2 – When Not Angry

Surely we do recognize our grievances when we are angry, and when anger leads to attack.  But this outcome is not always present, and with milder reactions, we may not even recognize that at the heart of our discontent is a persistent grievance.  We hold things against others, and they against us, and, all in all, this makes for a mess.

3 – When Mood Drops

We would not live such constricted lives today.  We need to ask for help all through the day, anytime that our mood drops.  It is very likely that the depressed feeling is because we are holding something against somebody, even against ourselves.  Our guilt has taken over in this cases.  And even when the guilt is not evident, it is there.

4 – Ask for Help

We would not live this way.  Ask God for help, ask your Self for help, for the Christ within can solve all such interpersonal problems.  We do not ever need to hold tightly to grievances.  To do so is to invite the strength of the disreputable ego to return.

And we would not have that.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I sometimes feel down when it is not apparent to me why this is so.  Maybe it is, as today’s passage indicates, because I am unconsciously holding a grievance against someone.  Even when I am not angry.  This unconscious “down” feeling is evidence that I am withholding love from someone, perhaps even myself, and perhaps my significant others.  May I turn aside from this poor behavior.  May I love with a depth that I have never experienced before.

I would invite loving feelings only today.  I would pray for help to You in solving any problems that arise, wait in patience for Your answer (which will not be long in coming), and then walk a green earth again.

I long for the depth of loving feeling that only You give me.  Be with me today as I sense Your felt Presence.

Amen.

This World Can Be Heaven

“You think that to come in contact with violence is to have a relationship with it.  This is not so.  If this were so, you would be joined to all you come in contact with and the world would be heaven indeed, as all you see became blessed by your holiness.  That you move through your world without relating to it in any way is what causes your alienation from the heaven it can be.  (A Course of Love, 5.31)”

Affirmation:  “I would see heaven in this world today.”

Reflections:

1 – Violent World Overcome

We who try to live good lives would make a difference in this violent world if we were truly in relationship to all of it.  This is not a grandiose belief, unless this belief is viewed through the ego’s eyes.  We can make a difference, but we at this point are not in relationship to all.  And that is what is causing the problem.

2 – Make a Different World

If we truly turned aside from violence of any kind, we would make a different kind of world, a heaven in this world.  That is what the passage is saying.  And we would be blessed, along with all the world.

3 – Extend Love

But we turn aside from having any relationship with those who perpetrate violence, by denouncing violence in them.  We do not extend our love to fellow human beings who are struggling, trying to do the best they can, even though we don’t think what they are doing is very good.  We must see other people as the brothers and sisters that they are.  And then we will see real change happening on earth.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would reconsider my attitude toward those in this world who do violent things.  I have so often wanted to turn off the radio when the news is on, for the violence being reported is overwhelming and, oh, so disturbing.  This is a way that I denounce violence, by refusing to listen to it.  

Instead, I would send a prayer abroad and in this country, that violence might be dispelled.  In my own life, I would turn aside from any kind of verbal violence or verbal attack, because, just like the ones who perpetuate real violence in the world, at such times that I verbally attack, I am feeling anger–just as they are.

I would not directly resist, for I am not in the military service.  But I would gently, very gently, just turn aside from violence that I hear about, giving it no credence.  Misguided people need our understanding.  If religious people do not offer understanding, to whom can the misguided turn?

Amen.

How Is Quiet Found?

“How is this quiet found?  No one can fail to find it who but seeks out its conditions.  God’s peace can never come where anger is, for anger must deny that peace exists.  (M-20.3)”

Affirmation:  “peace only today”

Reflections:

1 – Quiet

We will not fail in our endeavors when we are seeking out the conditions that lead to quiet.  When we have forsaken anger, we are making progress.  But doing so, forsaking anger, may be hard for us, as human beings, to accomplish.  That is why we need help.  And the Holy Spirit is always there to help.  Jesus is there to help if we ask him (“one unequivocal call,” a quotation from A Course in Miracles).

2 – Eliminate Anger

May we find this quiet today.  And when anger threatens to engulf us, let us seek out the conditions that will eliminate the anger.  How might we do this?  We must remember that anger is always of the ego, and we have willed the ego to leave us.  Anger is also brought on, in my experience, by stress (though not stated in ACIM).  Anger and attack have no justification, according to the Text.  We live in an insane world, and anger and attack are part of this insanity.  We would leave behind the insanity by choosing quiet over anger.

3 – God’s Peace

We will not have God’s peace as long as anger is a part of our experience.  It is certainly true that we don’t make this transition all at once.  Anger may rear its ugly head repeatedly (and A Course of Love makes this clear).  But as we experience the peace that passeth understanding (from the Bible), we realize that anger is not what we want.  We want the peace of God.

4 – Invite Peace

May we find peace today.  May we do the things that invite peace, and we have not come this far in A Course in Miracles without making some decisions about what to do and how to act.  We will continue to fall down from time to time, but we need to just pick ourselves up and try again.  And the Holy Spirit will always help.  It is His role.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would fall in line with the Holy Spirit’s guidance today, and in His guidance is found peace.  I will seek out the conditions of peace, which involve finding time for quiet reflection.  I know that You are found in quiet and in silence  You speak to us in silence through the Holy Spirit, our Universal Inspiration.  May I find some of His Inspiration today.

I would not be anger over anything, for I know that anger is an interpretation.  Nobody gets angry at facts; it is always an interpretation that gives us the emotion of anger.  Jesus tells me this in A Course in Miracles, and I believe his words.  May all whom I see today gain something from the peaceful countenance that I mean to present to the world.  Especially I ask for help in bringing peace to my significant others, especially my most significant brother.

Be with all of us today, on this, the first day of the rest of the eternity that we will live.

Amen

Forsake Anger / Guilt Forgiven = Overlooked Completely

“And now is guilt forgiven, overlooked completely in His sight and in God’s Word.

“Anger but screeches, ‘Guilt is real!’ Reality is blotted out as this insane belief is taken as replacement for God’s Word.  (M-18.2 – M-18.3)”

Affirmation:  “guilt forgiven”

Reflections:

1 – Varying Definitions of the Ego

Anger is empowered by the ego when it screeches at us, “Guilt is real!”  This is a tenet of A Course in Miracles which differs from traditional Christianity.  But then the ego was not known about, in the sense that we know about it now.  Freud changed all that, though Freud’s definition of the ego is not the same as that of Jesus.  Freud thought that we all needed a strong ego to mediate between the superego and the id.  Jesus’s definition of the ego as a part of our belief about ourselves, but not a necessary thing to secure a central place in our psyche.  Jesus would have the ego wither away (though he does not use the term “wither”).

2 – The Ego Becomes Strong in Strife

We cannot let the ego wither by trying to overcome it with drastic measures.  We cannot launch a frontal assault.  The ego becomes strong in strife (a Text tenet).  That is why anger is so real when the ego is in the ascendancy.

3 – Jesus Corrects Errors that Are Beyond Us

But we have only made correctable mistakes.  And Jesus stands at the end to correct all errors that we ourselves cannot correct (an ACIM tenet).  This suggests that he is our friend, as traditional Christianity tells us.  He is always there for us, taking our hand, if we wish to so imagine.  He says that this is no “idle fantasy” (a quotation from ACIM).

4 – Mistakes / Not Sins

Because our mistakes are correctable, they are not “sins,” which would seem to be forever uncorrectable without a sacrifice made by Jesus on the cross.  And Jesus in A Course in Miracles asks us to look beyond the cross to the resurrection.  He says that we make a mistake when we “cling to the old rugged cross.”

5 – Theology May Delay Us

These ideas are definitely a step beyond the New Testament, and Christianity as taught in most of our churches.  If we are not yet ready to entertain these concepts, do cling to the practical nature of A Course in Miracles.  Theology will only delay us, and we do not need to be controversial.

6 – Guilt Recedes when Anger Recedes

See if the idea of guilt does not recede when anger recedes.  That is really all that we need to test.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would let the ego wither; I would not accentuate the ego through anger, for the ego is strong in strife.  I would feel no strike today.  And that becomes easy when I am having a good day.  Thank You for this good day today.  And may the same occur tomorrow.  We need Your help to be happy, for many of us have not always thought that happiness is a laudable goal.  But it is one of our functions, along with salvation and forgiveness, and I believe that when we reach for salvation and forgiveness, we find ourselves, unaccountably, happy.  We grow from the days spent in pain, but we do not have to learn through pain, as Jesus says in A Course in Miracles.  We can learn through rewards, which give us a lasting learning experience.

Be with me as the day closes.  And help me to remember to express gratitude to You tomorrow morning, first thing, for another day in which to enjoy this world.  We are not meant to yearn only for a hereafter.  We are meant to be happy with this world as well, and the Holy Spirit will see that we have happy dreams in this illusory world.  Healing may occur for us, emotional and/or physical, and we would do well to remember that we are making the illusion that we live in.

Amen.

React Wholly without Anger

“God’s teachers’ major lesson is to learn how to react to magic thoughts wholly without anger.  Only in this way can they proclaim the truth about themselves.  (M-18.2)”

Affirmation:  “no anger today”

Reflections:

1 – An Interpretation that Is Not True

When one of our significant others says something that angers us, we can be sure that we have made an interpretation that is not true (based on ACIM).  If we feel that the statement is patently false, we may feel anger surging upward.  And we may react badly.  Is this how we would represent God’s Way to the individuals in our lives?

2 – Egoic Tantrums

If the thought stated by another is magical in thinking, then we especially need to be conscious to not responding with anger.  We will make the statement true for both of us.  We will lose ourselves in an egoic tantrum.  And it is not this that we would do.

3 – Major Lesson

The passage for today indicates that we have these ideas as a “major lesson”:  God’s teachers’ major lesson is to learn how to react to magic thoughts wholly without anger.”  This is a strong statement from Jesus.  How much better can we witness for God if we do not fly off the handle so often and so easily?  Yes, there is a major lesson here for us.

4 – How to Handle Anger

I have found that leaving the room, if our significant others react angrily to us, is an effective way not to verbally attack in response.  I have not found that “counting to ten” works very well.  There are always things that are on the tip of the tongue, ready to be said.  But a moment of quiet in another room is effective.  I welcome your comments to this posting, giving your ideas for avoiding verbal (or physical) attack when anger appears in our environment.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would choose to react in a lovely fashion when something seems to set me off.  You would have it thus.  Of this I am sure.  Help me to listen to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, the encouragement not to lose my cool.

We need to think carefully about ways to react when we are struck by anger.  Attacking verbally, and certainly physically, are not good ideas.  We will alienate those closest to us, the ones with whom we have the holiest of relationships.

Be with us today as we walk through the day.  Help me to consider how to respond if I am provoked, and may that response be as gentle as You would wish, and that would be very gentle indeed.

Amen

Anger Recognizes an Illusory Reality

“Can nothing give rise to anger?  Hardly so.  Remember, then, teacher of God, that anger recognizes a reality that is not there; yet is the anger certain witness that you do believe in it as fact.  Now is escape impossible, until you see you have responded to your own interpretation, which you have projected on an outside world.  (M-17.9)”

Affirmation:  “I would not believe in the things that anger shows me.”

Reflections:

1 – “Nothing”

The “nothing” is the illusion.  And this passage for today also indicates that projection leads to perception.  We project outward what we are seeing and feeling internally.  We project an illusion, a dream.

2 – Anger at Interpretations

Remember that nobody can be angry at a fact.  It is always an interpretation that gives rise to anger.  (Paraphrases from ACIM.)  And the interpretation is always false, if it brings forth any emotion akin to anger or any action akin to attack.

3 – Projection Makes Perception

“Projection makes perception” is part of the theology of A Course in Miracles, and Jesus would not have us delayed by theology.  He is concerned with only what everyone can accept.  Theology may only delay us.  And we do so like to engage in debate!  Yet, for those who are ready to accept the theology, it is there for us in ACIM.  There is nothing without (from the Text).  There is nothing outside of ourselves (also from the Text).  When we come to see this, it will be a revelation that has shown the truth of it to us.  And we cannot convey revelation from God to another, because it is intensely personal to ourselves.  God knows how to speak to each of us in a manner that we can understand.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would not be angry today.  I would not be agitated today, for stress leads, for me, inexorably toward anger.  Anger is not justified, because we are always interpreting, and we are interpreting illusions.  Why would we get mad at an illusion?

Thank You for these statements from Jesus in A Course in Miracles.  I am grateful everyday for the magnificence of ACIM, for what a blessing it is!  Be with me as I seek, everyday, to understand this channeled work of Jesus all the more.

Amen.

Anger Leads to Fear

“Anger in response to perceived magic thoughts is a basic cause of fear. . . . A magic thought, by its mere presence acknowledges a separation from God.  (M-17.5)”

Affirmation:  “I choose harmony over anger.”

Reflections:

1 – Anger and Fear

Anger and fear are closely related.  Somewhere in our deepest mind we know that we are seeing amiss, that we are not recognizing that the anger that we feel toward ourselves or others is a misperception.  We feel guilty, and fear is not far beyond.  We are caught in the ego.

2 – Magic Thoughts

The “magic thoughts” are never defined in A Course in Miracles.  But we know that magical thoughts, as defined by secular psychology, is a thought brought on by some form (major or minor) of mental illness.  It seems plausible that Jesus is using the term “magic” in the same sense.  We do not want to encourage our own insanity.  We are all insane, to one degree or another, in this world.  And it is when the insanity is particularly predominant that the magic thoughts appear in our psyche.

3 – Love

May we come to see that love is the answer to fear brought on my magic thoughts.  Love is always the answer, although we are not always in a mind slant that can see this.

4 – Superstition

I would surmise that magical thoughts are particularly prevalent when superstition reigns in our mind.  And it does, for some of us, a good bit.  It is particularly prevalent in sports, when we believe that wearing a particular shirt, for example, will enhance our team’s chance of winning.  There are similar ideas out there.  If we look further within, we know that this is, in fact, superstition.  If one is close to an athlete, perhaps knowing that we are pulling for him/her is sufficient to make the superstition seem warranted.  And the superstition may make a difference in the play on any given day.  But not always.  And that is the downfall of superstition.

5 – Harmony

May we choose to live in harmony today, not in anger of any kind.  And may we drop any and all magical thoughts, which we recognize, from our minds.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Although anxiety has dogged my steps all of my life, I would sooner rather than later let this trait drop from my psyche.  Anxiety and fear are closely aligned.  And any tendency still in me in regard to anger will accentuate the anxiety and fear.  Let me drop these negative emotions immediately.

Thank You for leading me ever closer to You on this day.  Thank You for the glorious day that is occurring.  May I not forget this blessing on days that are less good.  But You want my happiness, and so You would lead me to follow Your pathway all the time.  And that is my desire as well.

If anger intrudes today, help me to calm down.  I have found, over the years, that I never get angry unless I am stressed.  And so I would look to the removal of stress by You as a blessing to be sought.  Be with me as I seek to reduce the negative stress in my life.  The positive stress is actually good, and sometimes I forget this.  Positive stress does not lead to anger in my experience.  Thank You for being there as I seek to improve my reactions to my brothers and sisters, and also to myself.

Amen

Joy = Avoid Attack

“Attack can enter only if perception of separate goals has entered.  And this must indeed have been the case if the result is anything but joy.  (M-17.3)”

Affirmation:  “I would know joy today.”

Reflections:

1 – We All Want Love

Our brothers and sisters, and you and I, truly have no separate goals.  We may want different things, but we really, at the base, want only love in all its manifestations.  If we think that we want something else, we are deluding ourselves.  And this is always a form of insanity.

2 – Insanity in ACIM

A Course in Miracles says that virtually all of us are insane to one degree or another.  Only when we have experienced Awakening can we feel surely that we are at least partially sane.  And the experience of Awakening can come and go, not being sustained because our ego has not yet withered away.  We are very human in this world, and we make many mistakes.  The Holy Spirit can eliminate these repeated mistakes, if we will only give him a “little willingness” (quotations from ACIM).

3 – No Attack / Only Joy

I would not entertain attack in any form today, because I would know joy.  This is ample motivation!  If I am tempted to want to attack, then I will take a timeout, exit the room, and quiet myself down.  Sometimes the only thing that works in anger is a sudden removal from the temptation to attack.  Counting to ten in the same room as the one with whom we are angry will not always work.  Walking to another room, and stilling the emotions, is far more effective.  Many of us only get angry when we are stressed.  We need to get quiet, and the stress will dissipate.  (These ideas are not discussed in ACIM.)

4 – Joy = Our Inheritance

Joy is our inheritance.  We would do well to accommodate ourselves to this lofty blessing, and to do so we must relinquish anger and attack in all its forms.  Anger and attack have no foundation in truth (a paraphrase from the Text).  We are always angry at nothing, at an illusion.  If we recognize that our brother or sister is actually part of our illusion, we will not get angry regardless of what happens in the dream (i.e., the illusion).  We would not get angry at someone who was certifiably insane.  We might regret their behavior, but we would know that these individuals have reduced accountability.  And when they are once again in a sane mind, they will act more responsibly.  It is the same for all of us, because we all have insanity (an ACIM tenet).

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May all of us leave insanity behind today.  When our egos are in charge, we insane to one degree or another.  We would not let our egos drive us around today.

May we know the joy of find You in all our dealings.  May we stay calm and serene, at peace with whatever happens.  May we just let the ego disappear, wither away faster rather than slower, embrace the love that is our inheritance.

If we fall on our faces today in any way, may this anger/attack leave us as suddenly as it arrived.  We do want to stay peaceful, in the extreme.  No other way is Your way, and we would follow Your way always.  Help us to stay true to this determination.

Thank You.

Amen.

Illusory Split from God Experienced in Attack

“[The Word of God] is denied if you attack any brother for anything.  For it is here the split with God occurs.  A split that is impossible.  A split that cannot happen.  Yet a split in which you surely will believe, because you have set up a situation that is impossible.  And in this situation the impossible can seem to happen.  It seems to happen at the ‘sacrifice’ of truth.  (M-13.7)”

Affirmation:  “I will not attack under any circumstances.”

Reflections:

1 – Sword over our Heads

We are told elsewhere in A Course in Miracles that when we are tempted to be angry (and to attack), it is as though we hold a sword over our heads.  And it will fall or be averted as we choose to ask for peace and turn aside from the reverse, the anger and attack.

2 – We Are Human

We are human, and we have human frailties.  We will still, sometimes, get angry.

3 – Insanity

If we can, when tempted by anger, to assert that what we are being baited with is just insanity, we will easily (sometimes easily) turn aside.   And what we are viewing is insanity, but it is also a call for help and for love.  The Holy Spirit will teach us this, if we will let Him.  And nobody responds to a call for help with anger.  A call for help is a piteous call, and deserves our sympathy.

4 – Our World Will Smooth Out

If we do well with these ideas, our world will smooth out.  It is when we attack in response that the trouble starts, for we have set up a situation in which baiting happens between ourselves, and our brothers and sisters.

5 – Do Not Respond to a Bait

We would respond to no bait today.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

If we believe in the split or separation from God only when we are in attack mode, then it does behoove us to get out of that mode.  Forgive me if irritation arises today, or if a significant other tempts me to attack, or if I am just in a bad mood and feel like venting.  None of this is in Your Will, and I would live Your Will, though I am human and will always make mistakes that You can lead me to correct.

Be with me to stay in harmony and calm–and joy!–today.  If the individuals I see are having a bad day, help me to stay serene and to do what I can to make that day better.  My own attack, added to theirs, would lead us all down the thorns of the egoistic pathway.  Nobody needs that.

Be with me as this day plays out.  Help me to get enough rest so that I am not as likely to fall into poor ways of behaving.  Keep me in Your care, and lead me to the sure pathway that is happiness in You.

Amen.

Only My Own Forgiveness Sets Me Free

ACIM Workbook Lesson 198 – for Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Affirmation:  “Only my condemnation injures me.”

“Only my condemnation injures me.
Only my own forgiveness sets me free.

“Do not forget today that there can be no form of suffering that fails to hide an unforgiving thought.  Nor can there be a form of pain forgiveness cannot heal.  (WB380)”

Reflections:

1 – Assertion of Great Importance

Here is an assertion of great importance, but particularly easy to overlook within the scope of A Course in Miracles:  no form of suffering or pain that the lack of forgiveness has not caused and that a gesture of forgiveness cannot heal.  Here we are indeed set free from our moments of suffering and pain!  What a glorious affirmation this is!

2 – Be Willing to Forgive

It does not mean that we will forever be free of suffering and pain, for we are human and we still make mistakes.  But we have in our power the will to reduce those moments by quite a bit with our willingness to forgive, and our unwillingness to indulge our ego’s bent toward unforgiving thoughts.

3 – We Have Chosen

Our ego would have us to blame others, and in so doing to find things that seem unforgivable, for have not we been hurt by the words and actions of others?  But ACIM says that we are responsible for what we see, that we have chosen what we experience.  This is an definite statement in ACIM that brooks no exceptions.  We find it hard to believe only because we are still caught in ego games.

4 – Our Will to Forgive

Think for a moment what power our will to forgive has in it!  We can choose to forgive, and, if this comes hard, we can commune with God until it comes easy.  We are not pawns in some cosmic joke; we can effect chance in the world that we experience.  May we change that world for the better today.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would forgive easily today, if You help me.  I would not engage in any attack, for I love the people who surround me.  May I see that anger is a ploy of the ego.  May I know that my forgiveness will free me.

If anger arises, may I just leave the room.  A short timeout is all that may be needed.  I ask You to help me if the day turns tense, if stress enters.  And does stress not enter, from time to time, for all of us?

Be with me closely today.  I feel vulnerable to anger, because yesterday was a very busy day.

Thank You.

Amen.

Forsake Attack / Find Gratitude

ACIM Workbook Lesson 197 – for Monday, July 16, 2012

 

Affirmation:  “It can be but my gratitude I earn.”

“God blesses every gift you give to Him, and every gift is given Him, because it can be given only to yourself.  And what belongs to God must be His Own.  Yet you will never realize His gifts are sure, eternal, changeless, limitless, forever giving out, extending love and adding to your never-ending joy while you forgive but to attack again.  (WB377)”

Reflections:

1 – Attack / Forgiveness

As long as attack is attractive to us, we will need to turn again and again to forgiveness so that we get back on the right track.  And who among us can say that we never have the urge to attack (usually verbally), or that we never feel anger?  These are very human characteristics.  After all, think of Jesus in the temple with the moneychangers, as depicted in the New Testament.

2 – God Does Not Condemn

When we have made progress toward leaving attack behind, we will know the love that is described in today’s Workbook lesson.  We will know that God does not condemn, and we will know that our best action is also not to condemn–even when we don’t recognize that there has just been a mistake that can be rectified by forgiveness.  Remember the illusion in which we live.  The Self is never hurt–only the “little,” personal self.  And we would not take offense at a brother or sister who is having a hard time and takes it out on us.  We need to be bigger than that.

3 – Very Human Traits

All of this is not easy.  We carry these human traits, many from childhood and brought on by the insane ego.  Most of us have not completely relinquished the ego, and so we are more prone to take offense easily.

4 – Harmony

We need to do what we can to bring more love into our lives.  Do we not sense the harmony that can be ours when we choose the word or deed that comes from love rather than attack?

5 – God = Love

Let us today ask for the grace to live our lives in love, or in Love.  For God is Love, as the Scriptures tell us, and now as borne out by A Course in Miracles.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You for reminding me that attack has no place in the group of reactions that we would have in this world.  Attack always blinds us to the Holy Spirit’s prompting, and attack also hurts our brothers and sisters.  We need the harmony that Love (God) and love (Awakening or Christ-consciousness) can effect in our lives.  May I ask for that harmony to be mine today.  I realize that this may be a daily prayer, for I do not know when I will be ready for You to reach down and awaken me.

Thank You for being here for me.  The day has been good so far, and always a day goes better when the morning is good.  You know that I am not a morning person, though I get up and start the day at a relatively early hour.  You know that I need structure to my day, to make that day be devoted to the pathway that You point out to me.  Thank You for guiding my decisions, so that the little decisions that the Holy Spirit gives me, moment-by-moment, are heeded.

I am grateful for the blessing of Your Love.  May I never forget my indebtedness to You.  And may I never forget how much You love me.

Amen.

Stab of Anger

ACIM Workbook Lesson 192 – for Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Affirmation:  “I have a function God would have me fill.”

 

“Therefore, hold no one prisoner.  Release instead of bind, for thus are you made free.  The way is simple.  Every time you feel a stab of anger, realize you hold a sword above your head.  And it will fall or be averted as you choose to be condemned or free.  Thus does each one who seems to tempt you to be angry represent your savior from the prison house of death.  And so you owe him thanks instead of pain.  (WB366)”

Reflections:

1 – See the Sword Averted

A very important passage, this lesson for today is telling us what we must do when we feel a stab of anger.  And who among us does not still feel anger, even if one believes himself/herself to be enlightened?

2 – Stress and the “Pain Body”

We are likely to be stressed at the time that we seem most out of control.  As Eckhart Tolle would say, our “pain body” is in the ascendancy, and we want pain at any and all costs.  We are not in our right mind; we are even more insane than the usual.

3 – The Ego = Strong in Conflict

If we can realize that averting the sword above one’s head actually makes us free, we might be more inclined to follow this passage when the daily pathway turns grim.  We want to be free, but we cannot be free if we are caught by anger and attack, for the ego is strong in conflict (paraphrase from ACIM).

4 – Temptations to Anger

Our brothers and sisters who tempt us to anger are actually doing us a favor, for without their input, we would not be inclined to choose the good more often than the bad.  They, in turn, are merely asking for help at such times.  A brother or sister who attacks is calling for help, and the only sane response is to rush to his/her side with that help.  We must be reasonable, and ACIM does not counsel doing anything that will escalate the conflict.  If we are in danger, bodily or mentally, it would be wise to act later on, when the heat is out of the moment.  (These are interpretations, not stated in ACIM.)

5 – Venting and Our Anger

Do we really owe our brother or sister thanks for the stab of anger that his/her venting has elicited?  According to ACIM, we do.  We can recognize that we will not likely ever be free of moments of being tempted into anger, but we can fly into a great calm rather than into a great fury.

6 – This Lesson for Today

Making that choice is what today’s Workbook lesson is all about.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would choose today to be free of stabs of anger.  If my brother or sister tempts me to anger, help me to turn aside from attacking verbally.  Help me to realize that in all likelihood, this brother or sister is stressed, and I have been there, throughout my lifetime, many times.  I would want someone to forgive me when I am letting Eckhart’s “pain body” rise to ascendancy.  May we all pray today that our pain bodies will be released, and that we will enjoy the peace and harmony that You want for us above all else.

Be with me as I walk the pathway to You today.

May I take a timeout, leaving the room temporarily, if my temper is threatening to get the best of me.  It is actually the “worst” of me.  And I would not indulge my ego today by venting when I am stressed.  And I don’t get angry unless I am stressed.

May my brothers and sisters adopt what coping mechanisms they find most useful in avoiding anger and attack.

Thank You.

Amen.

Finding Our Way to Peace

“Peace is impossible to those who look on war.  Peace is inevitable to those who offer peace.  (M-11.4)”

Affirmation:  “I choose peace today.”

Reflections:

1 – A Long Time Ago

Early on in my study of A Course in Miracles I selected this passage as an affirmation.  I typed it out and posted it at my office desk, just in front of my eyes on my bulletin board.  And such peace the passage gave me.  I was in a work environment that was not well-suited to me because there were political battles raging daily.  Perhaps you too have found yourself in such a place.  I determined that I would seek to carry out the advice in this passage at work, to my very best ability.  And, while the environment did not appreciably change, I found a way to find a more congenial environment.  The higher administration wrote to me, when I resigned, that I had been a “positive force” in the workplace.  This in itself seemed to be evidence that these two statements in the passage for the day really do work when worked.  We can effect change, even when we are not aware that anybody is noticing.

2 – A Summary

So the passage becomes as follows:

Look on war = peace impossible
Offer peace = peace inevitable

3 – Serene and Untroubled Mind

So this passage becomes motivation to live out our days with a serene and untroubled mind.  We are not so perfect, though, that we will never get upset.  But we will not entertain anger and attack.  We will entertain peace.  And the difference that this change of attitude will bring to our lives is incalculable.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You for the ease with which this day has gone.  I do know that I want to offer peace to those I encounter.  And so conflict and “war” do not have to be my fate.  Help me to remain true to this determination, this will to follow Your dictates.

Thank You for being with me today.  The stress that all of us encounter has ended, for me, today, and for that I am especially grateful.

Amen.