“The choice to represent your Self in form was a choice for separation but not because separation itself was desired as you have assumed. This is the assumption you have accepted in much the same way you have accepted your free will as that which allows you to be separate from and independent of God. Once this assumption was accepted, the duality of your existence became paramount, became the only means (Treatises of A Course of Love: Treatise on the Personal Self, 2.3)”
Affirmation: “There is a good way to view the separation, and I seek to find that way today.”
Reflections:
1 – ACIM vs. ACOL
We have, most all of us, been taught that the separation from God was a bad thing. We were also taught, in A Course in Miracles, that this separation was an illusion, that we could not separate from God because we are part of Him. Now Jesus is expanding upon ACIM to let us know in A Course of Love that a separate form and the independence that it implies do not always mean that we leave out God.
2 – Gnostic Influence
In ACOL, the physical form is championed much more than it was in ACIM. There was much Gnostic influence in A Course in Miracles, and the maya (illusion) in which we are caught seemed to imply that we would be better off without physical form at all. But A Course of Love ends, in the Dialogues, with a new being for us: an elevated Self of form. And this is seen as desirable, a new experience for humankind. The Self is the Christ Self, the Self who has been lurking inwardly, waiting for emergence at our new being.
3 – No Dualism
We do not actually live in a dualistic universe. What does that mean? That there are boundaries among various worlds and concepts, including most precisely the body and the mind. But repeatedly in ACOL we are told that unity is our way, that everything is One, and that that One exists in disparate parts with which we are to be in relationship. And that One is God. There are not gods everywhere, but one God immanent throughout all that exists, whether seen or unseen.
4 – Separation
So we ought to seek to make our separation meaningful, and that sense of meaning comes from knowing that we can be as independent as we wish, but that the best life is one in which we accept guidance from the Unseen, God. Our judgments pale in comparison to knowing what to say or do next. Our inspired ways become the way that life becomes joyful to us.
5 – One = All
And then separation loses its negative aspects. We are One in relationship to All.
Prayer:
Dear Father/Mother,
I would realize today that my personal self is part of the whole, part of You. And this monism is a cause for rejoicing. Thank You that You are here for me, and thank You that You have always been here for me, even when I didn’t recognize the blessing that this is.
May I enjoy my physical body in this world. I do not have to lament that I live on this earth. There is a way to find You even here. And I ask to find You today and every day.
Amen.
MIRACLES EACH DAY 