Little Edges of Light / Great Rays

“You will begin to understand it [image making or seeing] when you have seen little edges of light around the same familiar objects which you see now. That is the beginning of real vision. You can be certain that real vision will come quickly when this has occurred.

“As we go along, you may have many ‘light episodes.’ They may take many different forms, some of them quite unexpected. Do not be afraid of them. They are signs that you are opening your eyes at last. They will not persist, because they merely symbolize true perception, and they are not related to knowledge. (W-15)

Affirmation: “Thank You for the moments when I saw little edges of light.”

Reflections:

1 – Intriguing Passage

A previous posting on this subject has been revisited many times. But what do the “little edges of light,” the light episodes, really mean?

2 – Personal Experience

We are in a heightened emotional state when we see these lights around familiar objects. In my case, when I saw them, colors also seemed brighter than usual. I was amazed by what my eyes were showing me. In a famous garden, the experience has remained with me most of my adult life. A Course in Miracles had not yet been published, and I had no guidance.

3 – One-Time Experience

It is true that this experience came, for me, only once and did not persist. Because seeing the edges of light seemed so significant to me at the time, when I discovered ACIM more than ten years later, I was enthralled to find my experience detailed therein.

4 – Great Rays

I also once felt the Great Rays, but this was when I was reading A Course in Miracles for the first time. I was walking outside in my parents’ back yard, and suddenly the bright sun seemed to be pouring down rays upon me. I was frightened and returned to the house, and called a friend whom I knew to be religious and thought would be sympathetic. Because he had not read ACIM, he had no ready explanation. But by that time I did, for I was, as I said, reading ACIM at the time.

5 – Perceptual Experiences

These episodes did not last, and they do not have to be clung to for reasons of faith. They are perceptual, and Jesus says that perception does not last. Even miracles do not last, for they too are perceptual. And perhaps these two episodes in my life were examples of miracles. I have thought so.

6 – True Vision

Do not be frightened if something similar happens to you. And also don’t be hung up on “understanding” what has transpired. Jesus has told us all that we need to know in today’s passage. These light episodes are the sign that we are coming to true vision.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You for the explanations that Jesus gives us for light experiences. These intriguing passages from A Course in Miracles are obviously something that we want to understand. But maybe on earth we can’t understand completely. There is a mystery there. Thank You for that mystery.

I thank You for these experiences in my own life. May others also have similar experiences that will bring them closer to You.

Amen.

Fear Disappears when Love Comes

ACIM Workbook Lesson 302 – for Saturday, October 29, 2011

Affirmation:  “Where darkness was I look upon the light.”

“Father, our eyes are opening at last.  Your holy world awaits us, as our sight is finally restored and we can see.  We thought we suffered.  But we had forgot the Son whom You created.  Now we see that darkness is our own imagining, and light is there for us to look upon.  Christ’s vision changes darkness into light, for fear must disappear when love has come.  Let me forgive Your holy world today, that I may look upon its holiness and understand it but reflects my own.  (WB450)”

Reflections:

1 – Out Eyes Are Now Open

This lovely prayer summarizes much from A Course in Miracles.  We see when our eyes are open, and we do not “see” at all when we have sightless eyes that see an illusory world.  Jesus is preparing us to see the real world, the reality that God would have us see.  When we have seen little edges of light around familiar objects, and perhaps the Great Rays have visited us, we will know that we are following along the right pathway.  It may be years before the real world arises before our eyes, but arise it will.  The certainty of our right direction, under the Holy Spirit’s guidance, assures this.

2 – Fear Has Disappeared

When fear has disappeared, we will know that we are on the way home.  This too may take a long time, but as we have noted in previous blogs, the pace and timing of the universe is different from our own.  We don’t know how long a “day” is in God’s time.

3 – Forgive = Doing Our Part

If we forgive, we are doing our part.  We do not have, even, to forgive totally, because Jesus stands at the end of the road to correct the errors that we have not been able to correct.  Just a little willingness is all ACIM asks of us.  But it is enough.  The work of the Holy Spirit is infinitely more than what we do, and we are blessed that this is true.  We would in all likelihood mess everything up, if left to our own devices.  (Much of the above are paraphrases from ACIM.)

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would walk with open eyes, seeing with vision, today.  I would not believe that this world is real, that my eyes show me a real world, but I will believe that when I see love, I am seeing reality.  May I experience love today wherever I go.  May I do my part to have this experience be mine.  Thank You for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Who will lead me in the right way to look without error.

May I forgive if I believe myself wronged today.  May I know that even this experience is one that, on some level, I have chosen.  We are always living the world that we have made.  May I choose today to make that world a loving, peaceful, joyous place, and may I confront my brothers and sisters with only goodness in my heart.

Thank You for the guidance that will enable me to have a good day.

Amen.

The Great Rays / Little Edges of Light

ACIM Workbook Lesson 208 – for Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Affirmation:  “I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.”

“The peace of God is shining in me now.  (WB391)”

Reflections:

The passage selected for today is a reason to pause and be thankful.  If we can feel the peace of God shining in us, we can walk a glorious pathway today.  Let us open our hearts to gratitude and accept all that God holds out for us.  We will not be disappointed.

There are a number of instances, early in the Text, in which Jesus explains “light” moments.  Notably these are the Great Rays and the tiny edges of light that surround objects when we have newly found the Way.  Why “light” experiences?  I think that the answer lies in the New Testament, where we are told that we are the light of the world.  The Great Rays beam down upon us when we have accepted the pathway of A Course in Miracles, and this experience, mystical that it is, can be frightening.  The little edges of light  around objects is a perceptual experience, a miracle, and will not last.  We ought not to be afraid of it.  It is simply a harbinger of better things to come.

Little more is said about light in A Course in Miracles about either the Great Rays or the edges of light around familiar objects.  Why not?  Likely it is because we are not to place great emphasis on this type of miracle.  Displays of miracles are not Jesus’s way.  He causes shifts in our perception, which are the real miracles.  When these shifts happen, we have an “aha” moment, but we do not dwell on it.  There are no coincidences in salvation (a Manual tenet), and we will find our way to home by following the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You for the time that I experienced the Great Rays.  Thank You also for the earlier time in which I experienced the little edges of light around familiar objects.  Neither of these experiences lasted, but I understand that the miracles that they were would not last, were not meant to last.  The experience, the memory of the experience, has stayed with me.  For that I thank You.

May I walk through this day attuned to the miracle readiness of my brothers and sisters.  May I perform a miracle, if Jesus would have it so.  I ask that he guide me in what I do in regard to the miracles that he wants performed.

Amen.

Being Blessed by Miracles of Light

ACIM Workbook Lesson 61 – for Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Affirmation:  “I am the light of the world.”

Selected Passage:

“This is a beginning step in accepting your real function on earth. . . .It is a positive assertion of your right to be saved, and an acknowledgment of the power that is given you to save others.  (WB102)”

Reflections:

1 – Visions of Lamps – A Personal Experience

Once I saw visions of normal, everyday lamps repeatedly in the middle of the night when I awoke out of a sound sleep.  The lamps seemed to be painted on my eyelids.  I believed that this meant not to “hide one’s light” (a biblical concept).  But ACIM says more.  I was actually beginning my pathway (“beginning step”).  This passage reflects the fact that ACIM is in a continuity with the New Testament, not in all respects, but in many.

2 – Little Edges of Light

This incident happened many years ago, when I was 25 years old, near the start of my pathway through life and into a greater knowledge of God.  It was before A Course in Miracles had been published.  Light plays a large part in ACIM.  At one point we are told in the Text of “little edges of light” that we will see around the same familiar objects with which we are normally surrounded.  These lights around objects, Jesus says, are the beginning of real vision

3 – The Great Rays

After this experience, real vision will come quickly.  Another instance of light in A Course in Miracles is the explanation of the Great Rays.  The explanation is not complete, because this is a miracle that must be experienced to be understood.  It may appear that the sun’s rays are coming directly down upon one’s head, and this mystical experience may be scary.  But it is meant to be beatific.

4 – Miracles Come when We Are Ready

All of this phenomena are examples of miracles that come when we are ready.  Perhaps ACIM is the only spiritual literature to write of such miracles, and, if so, it is no wonder that students/teachers of ACIM are puzzled by these practical examples of the presence of light.  But the Bible is filled with references to light, and we can see both from the Bible as well as ACIM that light is a metaphor for salvation, and, moreover, a metaphor for the sharing of salvation to others.  We are not called to share our beliefs with others who are not ready, but, if they show any interest, we will probably share.  A Course of Love, viewed by some to be a sequel to ACIM,  carries the idea of sharing our faith a step farther, in that we are told that we are not meant to spread our understanding to anyone not yet ready for it.  We are not to impose our beliefs on those who have not yet walked far enough on their own pathways that they can comprehend what is being said.

4 – The Light = Powerful Metaphor

The light is a powerful metaphor.  May we ask today, as we go about our normal routines, to learn more about what Jesus means by this metaphor.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May Your light go with me today.  If I have not yet seen edges of light around familiar objects, or I have not yet experienced the Great Rays, may I come closer to these experiences today.  May I have my own experiences of light as a way of salvation for myself and others.  May I fulfill my function of salvation through forgiveness.

I realize that I cannot fully understand what Jesus means by the light.  But may I come to comprehend enough today that I can live as You would have me live.  In the light.

Amen.

A GODSEND: DISCOVERING “A COURSE IN MIRACLES”

by Celia Hales

It was July of 1981.  I had finished a disappointing year as a lecturer in library science at a university in North Carolina.  I did not yet know the right direction for the rest of my life.  And I had not found in my readings a faith that could see me through.  Then my copy of A Course in Miracles arrived in the mail.  Once I read those volumes, nothing was ever the same again.

In the spring of 1981, Psychology Today carried a feature about A Course in Miracles.  William Thetford and Helen Schucman were still maintaining their privacy as the individuals chosen to bring forth the Course, but Bill was tentatively beginning to speak out.  After reading the article,  I immediately ordered the volumes.  They arrived very shortly, and then, inexplicably, so did a letter from a friend in another city.

“Be sure to order A Course in Miracles!” Mike insisted, and then told me how.

When I wrote back that I already had them in hand, he was astounded.  “How did you learn of them at the same time I did?” he asked in wonder.

“Celestial timing,” I thought.  Mike and I had been seekers for some time, reading Ruth Montgomery and Jane Roberts, early writers of what would become known as New Age.

I devoured A Course in Miracles, all three volumes,  in less than a week.  Repeatedly throughout the reading, I would have a question arise in my mind, only to have it answered in the next paragraph.  One sentence followed smoothly into the next, and then one paragraph just as smoothly into the one after it.  The writing was more fascinating and more real than anything I had ever found.

One pivotal day during the week I took a walk in the backyard.  The sun was blazing.  Very suddenly, I felt as though the sun’s rays were coming down directly on my head.  I was terrified, and I ran to the house and the phone to call an old friend who had once told me how much prayer meant to him.

I told Bob what had happened in the backyard.  He listened respectfully, but he did not know that I was experiencing those Great Rays about which the Course speaks so eloquently.  (T322)

Desperate for help, I called Bob several more times in the course of a day.

“This is the Awakening,” he concluded.  “I’m not sure you will know what that means.”

I did know what it meant.

As it turned out, I was one of those called upon to change my life situation almost immediately.  (M26)  I felt led to go to Texas, where I quickly secured a position in a public library.  For six months I walked around in a daze.  I was tuned into another reality, and, as the Course warns about the partially innocent, quite foolish at times.  (T38)  But in the midst of it all, I knew intimately  the “happy dreams the Holy Spirit brings.”  (WB270)   Then this particular dream passed,  and I left Texas to return to North Carolina.

I was blessed to continue to know happy dreams,  as my study of the Course continued, but the Awakening did not last.  I have concluded that I was not saintly enough.  More charitably, the Course maintains that revelation may occasionally reveal the end to us, but to get there the means are needed.  (T16)

When I wed my husband Paul in 1986, the Course emerged as a tremendous asset to our new marriage.  From the Course:  Our minds hold only two orders of thought–  love and a call for love.  (T295)   Attack and anger are never justified.   (T638)  I have not always been able to live up to these lofty ideals,  but they have been the bedrock on which our marriage has rested.

“You are reading your ‘happiness’ book,” Paul observed one day early on.

I sat comfortably and contentedly reading the Course.

“Yes,” I replied.  “It is that.”

I have found it a lot easier to share my life when I have stayed close to my reading.

Five years ago Paul and I made the transition into an early retirement.  We partially remodeled our house in Minnesota, to ready it for the market, and we completely remodeled our new house in Mississippi.  There was a lot of stress, and in the midst of  this busy life, I did not stay close to the Course.  Finally I returned to it, clinging to its many reassurances as I had done before in happier times.  Life gradually returned to normal.  Now we live peacefully, the stress blissfully gone.

Before 1981, I knew something about guidance from the Holy Spirit, but the Course has taught me much more.  Most days, I follow the prompting that it describes so well.  When I do,  I know joy.  As time has passed, this joy has increasingly become a bedrock and beyond anything that I could imagine.  A Course in Miracles has been my lodestone, my godsend.