Choosing Only Love

“Choosing only love is that for which you have come to this universe.  Nothing else.  Showing the way for others to make this choice consciously is the highest form of sharing because it is the way to share God.”  Choose Only Love bk. 6, 1:II

This quotation explains powerfully why the title for this series was chosen: Choose only love is why we are here in this universe.

This statement implies that there are other realms in the cosmos where we have lived before, although we know that time is an illusion and so all time is actually simultaneous. Time on earth is spread out so that we can experience it. There would be no other way.

We need to make the choice for love consciously. A Way of Mastery, also channeled by Jesus, lets us know that we need to draw up from the subconscious all that is there that can hinder our progress back to God in any way. When we have healed the subconscious, we are ready for Awakening–but not before. And then we do make the choice for love consciously, for the information in the subconscious has been brought to light.

All of this takes time. But remember that time is an illusion, and so we can skip over large chunks of time with Jesus as our leader. A Course in Miracles says this (though in slightly different words with the same meaning).

We need to share love with others, and then we are on the right path. Nothing else will do. Nothing else is good enough.

God Let Go

“When you decided to forsake the arms of love, your Heavenly Mother had no choice but to let you go.  She did what every loving mother does in those circumstances:  made sure that you had everything you needed to be safe and sound, and that you could return without complication when you wished.”  Choose Only Love bk.4, 2:III

God is given to the feminine in this quotation, an emphasis that He is the All, though He does not have gender at all. By using the “Heavenly Mother,” this quotation lets us know that “She” let go, she did so out of love. We can and we do return to God’s way, and this can be “without complication,” which I think means that we will not be judged for our lapse.

A Course of Love makes the same statements. When we rebelled, thinking we would make a world that we liked better than staying One with God, He “let go.” (In A Course of Love, the masculine pronouns are used.) What difficulty has emerged in our lives! And now we want, like the Prodigal Son, to return–which means to heal the separation. And the separation is a separation from God.

How do we heal this division? We turn aside, ever so gently, from fear. And we stop judging, ourselves as well as others, our brothers and sisters on this journey. According to A Course of Love, these two aspects of our life–fear and judgment–are all that are keeping us from Christ-consciousness.

If we love enough, dropping the fear and judgment is easy. When enthralled by love, and Love from God, we can see this.

May our day go smoothly as we seek to love ever more deeply. May the mellow feeling of Christ-consciousness enfold us today.

Our Memory Enters the Father’s House

[A]ll that you are in your humanity will be reunited seamlessly with the eternal reality of your holiness.  Your mind has already healed.  Already your heart has been restored to Heaven.  Today, on this day of Divine grace, your memory enters the Father’s house.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 9:II

In truth, we are all living in the Now, for time is an illusion that cannot circumvent eternity. This “present moment” thinking is reflected in the quotation for today. Past and future do not exist in the timeless Now. And this is why we can read in Choose Only Love that all of us have healed memories–today.

We learned from The Way of Mastery (also called The Christ-Mind Trilogy) that our subconscious mind must be healed to awake in Christ. As ideas from the subconscious flood our mind, and our heart responds, we are healed when we accept what is transpiring. We don’t have to “do” anything, but simply “be” in the eternity of Love that God bestows on us. This is what I think Choose Only Love is saying about our memories in the passage. As our memories are healed, we walk in the light of God’s great Love. We know, in a way that we did not know before, what we need to do for salvation. And Awakening is but a moment away.

Allow our healed minds to be informed by our hearts today. When memories are healed, we will walk forward with happiness every day. Our lackluster lives will take on new responsibilities that were hidden to us when we had “good” and “bad” days, never knowing what was wrong or how to fix it.

Let the light of Divinity shine on us today. Let us live with gratitude for all that the miracle of healed memories have given us.

Blessing in Uncomfortable Situations

“Eventually, the soul that is truly committed to awakening does not flee uncomfortable situations until it believes it has fully extracted all the wisdom that it can. . .In short, when there is just a quiet sense of peace, and you can look upon the players in the experiences you have had with perfect equanimity and see them as perfectly innocent, and you detect that there is nothing in the body that is not at peace—the heart is not racing, the shoulders are not tight—you truly understand that you are not in fear, then it is time to move on.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 17, Page 213)

If we are in an uncomfortable situation, this passage says that we ought to just stay there—not try to distract ourselves, not try to flee or to escape—for this uncomfortable situation has something to teach us.  Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, if the uncomfortable situation is truly dangerous, we ought to remove ourselves from it.

But if the uncomfortable situation is not dangerous, but merely uncomfortable, we ought to ask “Why?”  Why do we feel uncomfortable, perhaps anxious, perhaps fearful?  Be very honest with ourselves about this.

If we can extract the kernel of truth in what is transpiring before us, we will have made great strides toward awakening.  And awakening is where we all want to head.  Reread the last part of the quotation, and see when we have indeed extracted all the good from the uncomfortable situation that we can.  We are no longer blaming anyone, but seeing innocence in their words or actions.  They too are doing the best that they can.

When we have let the fear of the uncomfortable situation go, then we have done all we can to make another giant step toward awakening.  Our heart is not racing, our shoulders are not tight.  And we are at peace.

This is evidence that one more difficult spot in our subconscious has been healed.

Healing

“Grieve your dark days only to awaken from them with greater depths of compassion, with greater awareness of love’s many expressions, and let them rise from you, and with you, into time free of the concreteness of the past.”  Mirari

We all need to let the past go as we walk through life’s onward passages.  But all too often we don’t do this; we cling to what has been the past, often clinging even to what pained us the most.

Yet when we walk farther along, living in love, we find that we can relinquish the past.  Our love has healed us.  And we are happy.

Let the past go.  We will hold in our subconscious the teachings of the past that have healed.  But let the healing of the present proceed unencumbered by our past pain.

Heaven Is Where We Are Living Now

“Within your self is a place where you can read God’s purpose for you.  There, in the sacred precinct of your holy will, resides truth, love, and Heaven.  It is where we are living now.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 7:III

We often wonder what we are here for.  This quotation tells us that we simply must look within to find the answer.  Of course, we can still get ourselves all tangled up with superficial answers that are coming from either the ego or (later) the patterns of the ego.  We can still confuse ourselves.

The way to be certain that we are reading our purpose correctly is, in my opinion, to look back over our life and see what we have been doing that seemed “right.”  When we have really been on the beam, we have known it.  Our joy has been full, for joy is an indication that all is well.  God intends us to be joyous, even in the midst of living in a difficult world.  God’s joy is an indication that we are in our purpose.

I think we have an overall purpose, all of us, to heal ourselves, and our brothers and sisters.  This purpose obviously takes many forms, and it is these many forms that we need to focus upon—to know what is the particular form that healing takes in our lives.  A Course in Miracles has a good affirmation, “I am here only to be truly helpful.”  And in the healing that we will do, we will be truly helpful.  We don’t impose on another our own will, though.  We let healing occur through our connection with God.

Heaven resides in this inner place that we are accessing today.  As the quotation says, “It is where we are living now.”

Enjoy heaven today.

Return to Loving Consciousness

“You return to the Father’s house, that is, to the loving consciousness that you are, whenever anything that arises from your being is embraced in it [i.e., in our being].”  COL bk.2, 19:II

If we embrace all that arises in us, arises from our being, then we metaphorically return to the Father’s house.  We don’t need to reject any part of ourselves; resistance just makes the negativity cling to us.  If we embrace, we are enfolded by God Himself, Who teaches us that all things are either from Him, or allowed by Him.

We do have a loving consciousness, but we are often unaware of it.  Yet love is the great panacea of all that ails us.  And being conscious of love will cure the negativity that rejection of that negativity does not.

I would embrace my being today, my being as a loving consciousness.  Tell me, dear God, how to do this.  Don’t let me get lost in my own little mind, a little mind that doesn’t know which way to turn.

If I turn to You, You will guide me to embrace all parts of my being, and this action will always heal me.

Sign of True Hope

“Observe how the world seems submerged in panic.  The state of terror to which many are subjected is a visible manifestation of the arrival of the time of light and truth, and that everything is being healed.  It is a sign of true hope.”  Choose Only Love:  Let Yourself Be Loved (COL bk.2, 14:I)

This quotation exemplifies a paradox.  How can we see hope, when all around us things seem to be falling down?  Our world seems in chaos.  We seem in chaos.

But this quotation says that actually this is a “sign of true hope.”  And that “everything is being healed.”  If we listen to these words, perhaps we will have peace.  The chaos won’t seem unsolvable any longer.  It will not be unsolvable any longer.

We can let our panic and our terror go.  If it is darkest just before the dawn, maybe the dawn is even now on the horizon.  We want to see the arrival of the time of light and truth, and if we stand steadfast in our faith, this quotation is saying to us that light and truth will be what we will experience.  Not a long way off, but very soon.  Delay is only of the ego, and the ego is gone from many of us now.  A Course of Love says this.

Let us take this passage to heart, sure of our God, sure of His promises.  It truly is darkest just before the dawn.

I think I can see a ribbon of light on the horizon even now.

Healing from God

“Embed yourself in the solace of perfect grace.”  Choose Only Love:  Let Yourself Be Loved (COL bk.2, 10:I)

This wonderful sentence gives comfort whenever and wherever comfort is needed.  Each word is meaningful, but particularly “solace” and “grace.”  In these hard times, we need to know that God is near, living through us.  We can have this reassurance, for it is true and can be shown to us.  We feel a warmth in our very bodies, which is the presence of God making Himself known.  If we doubt God, we may feel that the warmth is just the balmy air of our heated room.  But if we venture to let go of doubts, we can open to the possibility that something else is going on, that God is with us, and He is making Himself known.

God abides with us and in us, and His presence ensures us that we are being blessed, even while we may have our doubts. 

If we “embed” the solace, it is then a part of us.  We are then the recipients of the grace of God.  This word, “grace,” means that He is favoring us with His healing Presence.  We know that we are blessed.  We feel it in our bodies, our minds, our hearts. 

His warmth assures us.  We know that we are never alone, with a Presence such as this.

Relinquish What No Longer Serves

“That book is the depth of your consciousness in which all things are already written. And that depth finds its source in your heart. You enter it through forgiveness, through the process of relinquishing the world—not hating the world, not despising the world, but simply relinquishing it. You allow your time to serve you in the process of relinquishing what does not serve you any longer, and what only disturbs your peace.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 10, Page 125)

“That book” is actually our minds and hearts, what dwells within and can free us of all impediments. We need to allow our subconscious to surface, and in the surfacing our mind will be healed. It is just that simple, but just that difficult.

When we contemplate, letting our minds go over the past, and we dedicate this time to God, we are on the right track. When we allow ourselves to feel forgiveness for that dramatic past, we are really on the right track.

Most of us have had drama in our past, and we will have drama again if we don’t forgive ourselves as well as others whom we have known. This drama needs to step aside so that the better value of peace can give our mind and heart some rest, some respite.

Ask for help in cleansing the subconscious. In numerous places The Way of Mastery tells us that this cleansing is a necessity for enlightenment.

Let’s get on with it.

Jesus: “Father, One that Has Birthed Me, Why Am I? Where Am I? Who Am I?”

“I began to learn to ask of that Source, that mystery, ‘Father, One that has birthed me, why am I? Where am I? Who am I?’ My desire increasingly became to know the truth that could set all mankind free. I discovered that unless that freedom became fully manifest in me, it made no sense to talk about it with others. So I sought out the greatest of minds, the best of teachers. And yes, I was blessed by a family structure already dedicated to understanding the mysteries of what they knew as God. They led me to many such teachers.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 10, Page 121)

Here, in The Way of Mastery, Jesus is talking about his experiences while a young man on earth. He sought to understand what he did not understand. He sought direction. But he turned inward also, as other passages around this one make clear. He knew that there was ultimately only inward divine help, that others could not map out a way for him.

So it is for all of us. We turn to our heart, and then we come to know what has eluded us until now. God speaks through the heart more often than any other way, though he can speak through teachers, companions, significant others. Divine revelation knows no timetable, and we must be patient, on earth, for the unfolding of that which we do not yet know.

An unhealed healer cannot help others very much; that way is limited. Jesus wanted his own freedom made manifest, before he sought to have a ministry. He sought to set all humankind free. And he succeeded beyond anyone’s dreams.

Jesus is our leader in The Way of Mastery, A Course in Miracles, A Course of Love. He is reaching many who don’t talk about it in their everyday life. But he is succeeding in turning around the world that was heading in the wrong directions. His “celestial speedup” (as called by A Course in Miracles) is working.

And we can be very, very glad that it is.

Healed in Mind, Body, Spirit

Healing requires the willingness to feel desire, to see it as good and to see it as holy. (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Chapter 4, Page 46)

We are in charge. We can listen to guidance, and thereby give up at least some of the control. But we remain in the driver’s seat. What we say goes, for we are creating our reality.

Of course, it is best if we open to guidance, the Holy Spirit, the Christ Self, the Higher Self, God. We simply are not aware enough, in our finite minds, of all that we need to do to create the best reality. We are limited that way.

We know too much to let the ego rule, and that is why we no longer seek guidance of this false persona. True, we can lapse into egoic thinking, and thereby lose our way, but do we really want to risk this? I think not. We want to be healed in mind, body, spirit. And our desire to be healed fuels the changes that we need to make in order to be healed.

Healing is, ultimately, Awakening, enlightenment, Christ-consciousness. Before we reach that milestone, we will see glimpses of what that mellow, heartwarming state of being really is. We will be led, ever so gently. It isn’t as though we will be hurled into reality, and this is something that A Course in Miracles makes plain. Our pathway will be gentle, though of course, because we are fallible, there will be some bumps along the way. Nobody, well, almost nobody, escapes the ego in one fait accompli. Escaping the ego is a gradual process.

Ask for healing today. Know that when we ask, the healing is already on the way. God has just been waiting for this opening.

Jesus’ Example

We must never forget that we and our brother are always “in this together.” If we imagine that we can be treated unfairly, we are trying to combine our innocence and his attack. The world doesn’t work that way. Because projection makes perception, it is our own attack thoughts that have prompted the cry of “unfair.” Attack is simply a mad reaction, and the notion even if a “fair attack” is without meaning. Moreover, we do our brother an injustice when we blame him for what we perceive as unfair attacks upon ourselves. We see him as guilty, and thus damn him, figuratively, to a hell of our own making. We have consented to this attack, for whatever reason, good or bad. A Course in Miracles says, “Walk you the gentle way, and you will fear no evil and no shadows in the night.” (T-27.I.1:3)

Even Jesus’s own suffering is an example of this dynamic. He did not share his tormentors’ view of attack (that it was “fair”) nor of his friends and apostles (that it was “unfair”). Thus he did not strengthen the attack in any way whatsoever. And a short while later he demonstrated that resurrection (for all of us, not just him) always follows death, showing that death is essentially an illusion of this time and place only. Jesus made no defense at all, the posture that he recommends for us as well, for to react defensively is to acknowledge that there is some evil therein to be defensive about.

So in the days following death and entombment, Jesus appeared in a body that could manifest itself among the apostles behind shut doors, and could walk along a road and almost not be recognized, and could “break bread” and eat. Surely he had entered a realm of living about which the rest of us know nothing. But the most important point was that the cross had not hurt him in any lasting way at all. By this truth we see an example of defenseless living wholly without reproach. Jesus says, “Let it [the body] receive the power to represent endless life, forever unattacked.” (T-27.I.10:6) In order for this picture to be true, we must not let the past intrude, much as we must not let the picture of Jesus’s crucifixion intrude on the glorified body that he occupied in the 40 days on earth following his resurrection.

Yet healing is to many a threatening idea. We cling fast to our sickness, even unto death, for we still blame our brother for the suffering that we, in actual fact, have allowed ourselves to endure. Withdraw the blame, and part of the reason for sickness (i.e., the reproach) is gone as well. Only the healed can truly pardon, because their (formerly) sick bodies do not stand in mute testimony that a brother is guilty of attack upon one’s self. And because only now is eternal and real, the illusory past has vanished, taking its causeless suffering with it.

Our Healing

It is part of the worldview of A Course in Miracles that we are all One, and this One is God. Ideas (and we are all at base an idea) leave not their Source, and so we are created creatures, extensions of God Himself. Our mistake in wanting to be apart and separate can never satisfy, because we are meant both to have and to be everything. Our egos would want a little separate treasure, apart from what our brother has, but all this false belief can ever give us is isolation, loneliness, and fear. And God has protected Himself and us by seeing that this separation happens only in illusion, in dreams. And thus it does not happen in Reality at all.

This explanation can only be understood metaphorically in this world, because we are not yet back Home in God. But miracles can and do happen without a fuller understanding. We can be healed of our guilt over separation (and the illusory effects that it has brought) without sacrifice and without pain. All we need are open hands to accept the miracle.

Specifically, what we have to give up to be free of pain is fear. Jesus sums up how in one concise sentence, “Being wholly without attack, it [love] cannot be afraid.” (T-19.IV.A.10:7) Without attack, there is no fuel with the pain that it brings. The pain may, and frequently does, visit ourselves or others in the form of sickness. This, Jesus explains, is the faulty problem solving mechanism meant to illustrate the frailty of the ego’s home, the body.

In these few sentences is a summation of what Jesus tells us about the origin of pain. Is it understandable? Not at its introduction, because once ego defenses immediately activate to suggest a thousand reasons why this simple answer cannot be the whole of it. Give the ideas a while to prove their validity.

More of Christ Can Be Lived

“When you find yourself in a situation that you believe is too big, rest assured, it is because something big ha finally come to the surface to be healed within you so that more power can shine forth through you. Why? You have reached the place where you are ready for it. More of Christ can be lived.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Chapter 3, Page 38)

If the something that we recognize in another seems particularly significant (here Jesus says “big”), then rest assured we are ready to heal something big in ourselves. It is NOT too big to be healed, but we do need help. Nobody heals themselves. We ask for help from God, and then the Holy Spirit moves to fulfill our need. We always ask for help, whether it be of the ego or of the spirit. And the spirit heals, whereas the ego drives us deeper into the morass.

We want more of Christ to be lived. And so we ought to be grateful for the big things that are shown to us, even the things that seem to overwhelm us. These overwhelming things assure us that we can’t, of our own, come back to stasis. We don’t have to imagine that we can handle it, because we know that we can’t. We are primed for reaching out, not for being independent and autonomous.

This is as it should be. We are meant to be creatures, children, of God, who live in a large world with many other beings who can help us. We are meant to be interdependent. And if a human being can’t help, if the thing is beyond human help, then the Holy Spirit will act on behalf of God.

These are reassuring steps in the path back to God. We are always helped at the point of need. We only need to turn inward, where the Christ-Self and the Holy Spirit reside, to know Who really helps us. We will sense what to do, if there is something that we need to do.

Thus is healing brought home to us.

Mirrors to Each Other

“Rest assured, you will continue to project upon others what remains unhealed and unforgiven within yourself. Each time you react to another, you are being given a sign that there is some kind of energy that has been presented to your awareness that you have not forgiven within yourself. If someone is critical and you react every time they are critical, rest assured, you have not healed that part of your own being—that part of your own experience of being critical of others.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Chapter 3, Page 35)

Jesus is here describing how projection works. We see in others what we really have within ourselves. If there are unhealed parts of the self (and there always are), and we see something negative in another, rest assured that we are seeing it because we can identify with it. We are seeing as if in a mirror.

This is how we can heal. What presents itself in another, and we deplore, is something that we secretly deplore in ourselves. We do then immediately identify what needs “fixing” in us. The mirror has saved us from ourselves.

We would not respond at all unless there were something in us that recognized the deed, or word, in another. We see that deep within, we are guilty of the same.

This is actually a magnificent way for the cosmos to work. It is the way that we heal, sooner rather than later. We see something in another, and then we are moved (if we are smart about it), to heal that “bad” thing in ourselves.

Ask for help in this, for truly we are never alone in our agony.

Tend Our Gardens

“Be you therefore, a wise gardener. Cultivate a deep love and respect for yourself, for you are not here to ‘fix’ the world. You are not here to ‘fix’ your brother or sister. It is only love that heals. And until you have loved yourself wholly by having purified the mind of every erroneous thought you have ever held—until you have loved yourself—you do not, in truth, love anyone or anything. Save in those brief moments when you let your guard down and the Love of God shines forth through you so quickly you do not even know what happened! The wise gardener cultivates a state of consciousness in which the Love of God is unimpeded.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Chapter 1, Page 8)

What a lovely passage! We must tend our gardens, a concept that is developed by Jesus in A Course of Love. And this tending prepares our heart to love. We are not here to solve problems for others; these brothers and sisters have their own pathway, being pointed out by the Holy Spirit or the Christ-Self. When we love, we mesh with others, but we don’t try to “fix” them, as Jesus says. We just calmly do the best we can, to love, and love deeply.

Cultivate our gardens today. Let the love of God shine in everything that we do, say, and even think.

The Father Heals the Subconscious Mind

“I give you this thought, and I would ask that you consider it well. What if the very life you are living, and each and every experience that is coming to you now since the moment you decided ‘I have got to awaken her,’ was being directly sent to you of your Father because your Father knows what is necessary to unravel within your consciousness to allow you to awaken? What if the very things you are resisting are the very stepping stones to your homecoming? What if you achieved a maturity along this pathway in which you were finally willing to let things be just as they are?” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Chapter 1, Page 7)

“Sent” by the Father does mean that the Holy Spirit or the Christ-Self is in control of everything that is being sent to us.

We don’t know what will heal us. But we need to bring up the layers of the subconscious mind that have been lost in egoistic thought for eons. These layers are just that—layers. So the different layers will come up, over time, differently. And the layers of the subconscious are different for everyone, so the schooling by a Higher Power is very precise, unique to each of us.

It is true that we can depart from this schooling. We can go off on tangents, forgetting what we are about, and what we are about is a return to God. We function best, though, when, in the flow, we listen to guidance.

The guidance takes us home in God. Let us listen and discover.

Healing of the Mind

“The First Coming of Christ is just another name for the creation, because Christ is the Son of God. The Second Coming of Christ means nothing more than the end of the ego’s rule over part of the minds of men, and the healing of the mind. I was created like you in the First, and I am reminding you that I have called you to join with me in the Second.” (ACIM, COA ed., T-4.VI.14:1-3)

Here Jesus is explaining the new reality, the fact that when he came 2,000 years ago, he was embodying the Christ, the Awakened Son of God. Now, he says the Second Coming is a healing of OUR minds, that we too will recognize that we too are Christ, Sons and Daughters of God. This, being a healing of our mind, is the end of the ego’s rule.

The only thing that needs to happen is that we rest in God’s love, let the barriers to love’s rule dissipate, and wait, patiently, for our Awakening—by God Himself. This means, obviously, that we take measured paces to relinquish the ego. We don’t do anything to reinforce it; we stay away from egoic notions, for they will only derail us.

Does Jesus come in the Second Coming? Is there a physical manifestation? He never says, in any of his channeled courses (A Course in Miracles, A Course of Love, The Way of Mastery Platform). It wouldn’t be wise for us to speculate about something that has been so divisive in our religions.

If he comes in physical manifestation, we will see great glories on earth. If not, perhaps he intends for us to manifest those great glories, in a new world that we will create. This latter point is made very plain in A Course of Love.

“I Think; therefore I Am”

“Descartes engaged in a very interesting teaching procedure, and one from which he himself learned a great deal. He began with doubting the existence of everything except himself. He insisted that his own existence was not open to doubt and rebuilt his entire thought system on the one premise, ‘I think, therefore I am.’ It is noteworthy that he arrived at accepting the entire system he originally doubted, solely on the basis of this one piece of knowledge. There was, however, a distinct shift in his own perception. He no longer questioned the reality of what he perceived, because he knew he was there.” (ACIM, COA ed., T-3.XI.11:1-6)

This piece about Descartes is new to the complete edition of A Course in Miracles. On one piece of knowledge, Descartes based his whole system of thought. He believed, basically, that he existed. This is even more fundamental than the aspect of thinking that is a part of his great revelation. “He knew he was there.”

We also know that we are here. We can extrapolate this understanding to greater knowledge if we realize that just one piece of information can set us free. This piece will differ from person to person, because our pasts are different, and so the healing of the unconscious that needs to happen will also differ. But when you come upon a piece of knowledge—and it will be knowledge—that is unassailable, then we must hang our hat on that. It will be enough.

Pray for the gleaning upon the mind of that piece of knowledge that will save. And then go out and teach it. Others will learn from our own revelation.

A Final Healing

“The Last Judgment is generally thought of as a procedure undertaken by God. Actually, it will be undertaken solely by the Sonship with my help. It is a final healing rather than a meting out of punishment, however much you may think punishment is deserved. Punishment as a concept is in total opposition to right-mindedness. The aim of the Final Judgment is to restore right-mindedness to you.” (ACIM, COA ed., T-2.XIII.4:1-5)

This is the purpose of the Last Judgment: to restore right-mindedness to God’s children. We can’t bring ourselves out of insanity; it is far beyond what we can do. We must simply surrender, turn ourselves—body and soul—over to God, and let Him work the miracle.

We do think that we deserve punishment, but this is just a ploy by the ego to make us fear God, and thus turn to it for protection. But the insane ego doesn’t mean us well. Wholly insane, it represents the very best that we could devise apart from God. And a sorry solution it was! When we tried, in vain, to make a world apart from God, and experiences apart from Him, we only lost ourselves. We only hurt. And this is not God’s will for us.

The Last Judgment will be meted out by the Sonship, the brothers of Jesus. We will know when this procedure is happening. We will be led, ever so gently, to reassess our bearings, to reconsider our choices. And then we will have tasks to complete to take us back to God. Some of the Last Judgment may occur in an altered state of mind.

We can look forward to this healing. And it is indeed true that some of us have already experienced it, though our minds may have been protected from the brunt of it for a time. Hypnosis sometimes provides this elixir.

Welcome the Last Judgment, for it is healing indeed.

Be Tenderhearted / Be Healed

“So what we are attempting to do is to open the mind to the wisdom of the heart with these dialogues. As the mind opens and accepts the new, the art of thought will become your new means of thinking. What has been learned will become an ability to think wholeheartedly, or with mind and heart in union, and then that ability will transcend ability and wholehearted will become what you are, and wholeheartedness your sole means of expression.” (ACOL, D:8.9)

Earlier we learned (and “learned” is the correct word) that the mind needed to listen to the heart in order to find out way back to God. The mind had been high-jacked by the ego, and our lives were spent in fruitless quest for little of real value. The ego made a mess of our lives, though we were ever intent on finding our way back to God. Now Jesus has come upon a new idea: an idea of listening to our heart.

And we know what this means intuitively. When the mind listens to the heart, we are finally making some headway back to God. Ultimately, the mind will unite with the heart, and Jesus is calling this in A Course of Love, “wholeheartedness.” This term just means a united mind and heart, for we still do need the intellect (mind) as well as the emotions (heart).

The tenderhearted aspect to A Course of Love can be very painful as we open to emotions that we have kept suppressed. Rereading ACOL will bring up this tenderheartedness again and again. And each time a little more healing is found.

The art of thought is miracle-mindedness, and we do need miracles as we make our confused way clear and understandable. This Jesus will do for us. Conflict will recede, and we will know, finally, that all is well.

Ask for a miracle anytime that conflict looms large. It will be forthcoming. And our belief that it is so will make it so.

Prayer

I ask for a miracle today to resolve my dilemmas. These dilemmas go back a long way, but it is time for resolution. Thank You. I will look for the miracle.

Amen.

Healing for the Subconscious Mind

“Only you can leave these conditions behind. The only way to do so is to, for a short while, be vigilant of your thought patterns so that you eradicate the idea of learning in separation and replace it with the idea of sharing in unity. Learning is a condition of the separated self, which is why it is no longer needed. You will not fully realize unity while you continue to hang on to this condition of the separation.” (ACOL, T4:12.10)

This quotation for today holds a strong warning to us. If we persist in the notion that learning is desirable, and adapt ourselves to methods that best served us in the days of separation, we won’t realize the great blessing of unity with God, the great blessing of Christ-consciousness. While nobody can give us a roadmap that will culminate in Christ-consciousness, we can know what we do that will hinder its coming. And learning is here set forth as one of those impediments.

We also know that removing the blocks to the awareness of love is the single most important aspect of what we can do to hurry Christ-consciousness. These blocks are the egotistical aspects of our persona, our personal self, those patterns of the ego that will persist if not deliberately turned from. The way back to God is not difficult, but it is just that no two paths are the same, for we are going into the subconscious and reversing long years of conditioning that have kept us locked in an illusory separation from God, but a separation that has tied us to misery.

These subconscious wishes and feelings need to be met head-on, not denied. And because they differ for each of us, nobody can dictate what any one person must consider. Contemplation and meditation, prayer and silence, will allow these subconscious imaginings to surface, and so time spent in silence is time well spent. Aside from this, there is little that one can advise.

But take heart. Jesus is working with our subconscious. God is taking us by the hand and taking us home. We have nothing to fear. Once this journey homeward is begun, the end is certain. And all of us are on the pathway back. Remembrance of what was true eons ago will surface, and sooner rather than later. We need merely drop judgment and fear, and leaving these behind will pave the way for a brighter future, a future of Christ-consciousness.

Let the subconscious rise to the surface and be healed. Spend time today in contemplation, and see if echoes of the past don’t come up. These echoes are what need to be healed. And once contemplated, the healing is already accomplished.

Prayer

Allow me to dwell, with You, in silence today, in an effort to clear my mind of foggy notions. I would heal my subconscious mind. I know that I will drop judgment and fear when I realize that they are notions that only hold me back from You. I wish today for a new beginning. Guide me to that end.

Thank You for another bright and sunny day. Help me to be appreciative for all that You have given me, for gratitude is a great healer. Ingratitude ties me to the past and its mistakes, and I would be free of past mistakes today.

Amen.

Welcome Wholehearted Healing

“As it dawns upon your once slumbering mind that change on a grand scale awaits you, you will grow fearful if you do not realize that what is being proposed to you here is something completely new, something you have not even dreamed of. This state you have not even dared to dream of is a state in which only God’s laws of love exist even within the realm of physicality. What this means is that all that in this human experience has come of love will be retained. All that will be lost is what has come of fear.” (ACOL, T3:12.7)

What a glorious description of the new world! The world that we will create right on this earth, even as we lament the tragedies of our current world. We are heading into something new, for love has to be experienced if we are to survive, and Jesus is nothing if not optimistic. He does say that he doesn’t predict the future, though. This new world that he so much wants us to create is a world of transformed individuals occupying the elevated Self of form, a Self Whom we all share. We are One, we are in unity when we have walked the whole pathway, but we are still differentiated, or individuated, in separate bodies. So we have something to be in relationship TO.

Unity and relationship will characterize the new world, the newly created world of an elevated Self. This is our hope, this is our destiny. We do not, though, seek to evangelize others to this new world—until they see how different we have become, and they begin to ask questions. As Jesus says, ordinary people living extraordinary lives will be the attraction to this new world that we will create.

This new world offers hope above all else, and hope is healing. First we must change internally, for what is within controls what is without.

When we love, we can and must turn away from fear. Fear is dividing, and of course there is much in our current world to elicit fear. But when we cling to an inner will, the willingness to change ourselves, we will move into peace. Already many of us know a greater peace, even before we have walked the whole pathway back to God and our Christ Self.

Let us continue on the way that has been pointed out to us in A Course of Love. Let the mellowness of love transform our psyches as our mind and heart joins in wholehearted healing. And with this will come the new world.

Prayer

When we give up our fears, we walk a green earth. And giving up our fears is mandatory, must happen before we can create a new world. I will start small, just with myself. And just for one day. I will give up my fears today, and walk into a green earth, our beautiful world. And it is beautiful, despite its many problems. But with a hope that things will and must get better, I will seek to allow transformation to envelop me.

Be with me for a good and better day. I have prayed to You, and You have told me that You will keep me safe—and happy. What more could I ask today?

Amen.

Jesus Offers His Aid to Us

“This is what we now leave behind as we seek to become involved with life. I say we because I am with you and will not leave your side. I say we because your first involvement is involvement with Christ, an involvement that links us in oneness and glory once again. I say we because we are life. I say we because we cannot live love apart from one another.” (ACOL, C:26.8)

Jesus, later on, will ask us to “accept” him (from the Dialogues, Day 1). For those of us who look now to A Course of Love as our roadmap, he is the only way to salvation. But he also says that he is not forbidding other religions, other Gods in whom we may believe. So one, by inference, does not have to be Christian to accept Jesus as the one who is telling us how to get out of our morass. He is leading us by the hand, with specific instructions in both A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love, to a better life, to salvation in all its fullness. For those who choose other religions, he has no quarrel. But if we want to read ACIM and ACOL, and follow its instructions to a fuller life, we can best do this is we fully accept Jesus and what he tells us.

We are linked to Jesus and to all other people by the inner Christ Self. This is the Self we have heretofore not known; we have been too afraid to look within, too afraid of the God within. We have feared God, and so for 2,000 years we looked to the Holy Spirit as an intermediary. Jesus tells us now that we are in the time of Christ, the second coming of Christ—and this means a direct knowledge of God, for our fears are rapidly dropping away. We know that God is a God of love, that He means us no ill, that He never punishes us. We bring our pain and suffering upon ourselves, and of course there is mystery to this. But we don’t blame ourselves or other people when we are ill; we don’t blame the victim, for Jesus makes this clear in A Course of Love. Nobody is to blame for the illness that may overcome us. And we offer compassion to ourselves, if we are sick, or to others, if they are sick. We don’t think, even internally, that they did this to themselves.

There is a paradox here, for we have also been told that we create our own reality. Indeed, we are encouraged in ACOL to create a new world. And sometimes sickness encroaches on this world. It may simply be that there are microbes that infect us and breakdowns in the physical over which we have no control. Nothing happens by accident, we are told in both ACIM and ACOL; there are no accidents in salvation. So it behooves us to keep an open mind when we are faced with incomprehensibles that lay us, or those we love, low. We are also told that while pain may overtake us, we do not have to let pain escalate into suffering. Our minds and hearts can remain free, even if our physical bodies are infirm.

Jesus, he says, is always here for us. His cloned essence follows us around in our daily rounds, if we want this, for we do have some say in what transpire in daily life. Jesus loves us with a depth of love that we cannot fathom, for we are as yet quite limited in our understanding of what “living in love” really means. When we set our minds and hearts to a higher plane, we can rise above the physical limitations of this world. And we can, however imperfectly, live in love.

Dear Father/Mother,

We feel the physical, though we know that it is not real. We have bodies that break down sometimes and suffer ills that render us in pain, and if we are not careful, in suffering as well. These are the facts of our world today.

But we can rise above emotionally. Sooner or later we all learn this, whether from our reading or from our observation of this world. The way to a new day in a new world is fast approaching. And our hearts hold the answers to emotional stability that our minds cannot fathom.

Thank You for the bonanzas that we reap when we turn to You alone. Others can and do help, but our stable core is of You. Help us to remember always that You are our hope and our salvation.

Amen.

Comfort in a World of Sorrow

“Have you never felt as if you would wrap your arms around the world and bring it comfort if you could? This you can do. Not with physical arms, but with the arms of love. Have you never cried for the state of the world as you would for one small child in need of love?” (ACOL, C:20.19)

Indeed, we do not blame victims for their plight; this is said elsewhere in A Course of Love. And our hearts go out to the world and all people in it, for we too have lived through some difficult times. Because we too have known some suffering, we know where the problems are coming from. We don’t understand all things, all reasons for suffering, but we understand enough to draw the world around us and comfort it and its people.

Love IS the answer. Elsewhere we are told that if love were described as some new discovery that science had made, we might be more likely to sit up and take notice. But because we have heard that Love is the answer from all of our religious traditions, we tend to downplay its efficacy.

This we need not to do. Of course, we say to ourselves. But do we really understand that reaching out, in imagination, will cure all ills? We cannot solve all problems, but we can solve some of them. And the suffering that these problems lead us into can be risen above by a simple expediency: Love changes our attitude. We no longer feel sorry for ourselves. And with this change in attitude, our suffering ceases to be suffering and becomes simply pain.

This may not sound like much of a change, but it is gigantic in implication. Yes, we must transmute our pain, also, but, first things first. If we love God and one another, we will walk in the path illumined by light. And this light will make all the difference.

Prayer

Dear Father/Mother,

Sometimes when we are feeling low, “just do it,” when it comes to a given action, is best. You taught me this just this morning, when my attitude needed to be changed. And you changed it! Thank You so much.

May all of our problems that lead to suffering be lightened by the power of a changed attitude. May we not only transmute suffering, but pain itself. And may we hug the world to us as we would one small child in need of comfort.

Be with us today as we walk in a difficult world. The way will become easy with You at the helm.

Amen.

Know Healing in Stillness

“This going back is the journey without distance. You need not go in search of it, and in truth, cannot, for the past does not abide in you. What you need rather do is strive for a place of stillness from which what needs review can arise as if it were a reflection arising from a deep pool. Here what is in need of healing will but briefly come to the surface and leave the hidden depths where light could not reach it and healing could not come. What comes forth for healing needs but a nod of love from your heart, a passing glance of compassion, the merest moment of reflection, before it will dissi¬pate and show a new reflection.” (ACOL, C:19.21)

We are trying to heal the depths within. If we cultivate stillness, including mellowness, we are going in the right direction. Then the subconscious relaxes, and intuitions, with thoughts, rise to the surface to be prayed away. This prepares us for enlightenment. And this is truly a journey without distance, for the self is not going anywhere.

These ideas in A Course of Love are also reflected in a similar work, The Way of Mastery. We need to get still enough to allow our innermost thoughts to rise to the surface; we are inviting the subconscious to come forth and thereby be healed. This idea was not expressed so succinctly in A Course in Miracles, but Jesus’s later writings indicate that he is aware that this procedure works. And his whole thrust is to get us to Christ-consciousness, and thereby we can move into a new world, one that the Self will create. This is truly a new reality, a true reality, and we need to do what we can to woo it.

Prayer

Dear Father/Mother,

May I be still today, this time of quiet, so that my innermost thoughts and feelings can surface. This will promote mellowness, and I feel so close to You when I am mellow. Thank You for giving me the support that I need to move closer to You, not in fear any longer, but in love.

Be with all whom I encounter today. May I do something to make a difference in their lives. May my significant other know that my heart is in the right place. Grant that today will go well, as I seek to spread Your good will with my every step.

Amen.

The Inner Self Can & Does Heal

“Having no one to receive and reject feelings of pain and replace them with feelings of love causes all your distress. Think not that you react to pain of any kind with the love from your real Self that would dispel it. The Self you have taken out of the learning loop is the Self of love.” (ACOL, C:18.24)

The Self of love is fundamentally important in our journey home. In this quotation, we learn that referring to our real Self, the inner Christ Self, will eliminate pain. What an assertion! Our Self receives this pain, replaces this pain with love, and then the pain disappears.

Can we take this assertion literally, at face value? Many times we can, because our pain is often made by our minds, and when we let go, turning to the deeper Self, we give our little, or personal, minds a break.

Questions about healing are always difficult to handle, for often there is an emotional healing when there is still physical pain. Sometimes this emotional healing is all that happens, and we think that Jesus (or God) has failed us. But has the universe failed us? Or have we failed it?

We need to recognize that whatever pain we feel is real to us, though actually illusory in these physical bodies. The fact that it is real to us will prompt Jesus to come to our aid, even though he knows that the form is an illusion. The form does have a reality, though, just not in the sense that we usually think that it does. And this form can know healing, a fact that may incline us toward wondering if illusion is really illusion.

Turn to the Self today if any pain rears its ugly head. Certainly don’t let pain escalate into suffering. Our Self will heal, and if all the healing we get is emotional healing, this is still OK. The mind and heart, together, can rise above much that in our physical plane seems to keep us down.

Turn to the Self today, and see if your response to that Self doesn’t provide a healing that you have not expected. Expect to be healed, and see if the expectation becomes a reality. I am betting that the healing will become a reality.

Prayer

Dear Father/Mother,

Our various aches and pains get us down. Some is emotional, some physical. Help me to turn to the Self today when I am threatened with some illusion of illness. Be with me as I turn to the Self to heal the emotions and the body.

Thank you for the guidance of A Course of Love. Its heartfelt message is manna for my spirit, and I am much buoyed by its words.

Amen.

Join with the Christ in Us to Be Healed

“Where two are joined together can be used rightly here as well as in regard to relationship. Your choice to separate from God is but a separation from your own Self, and this is truly the separation that needs to be healed to return you to God.” (ACOL, C:17.2)

We are seeking to join our heart and our mind, our personal self (the one without the ego) and our Self, and we are seeking to join with God internally. These are the “two” that are mentioned, and they mean different things in A Course of Love at different times. But since all is One, these changes in terminology do not really matter much. We are seeking to join with our Self, the inner Christ, and when this happens, we have healed the split between God and us; we have healed the separation.

We have truly separated from our true Self. And to get back, earlier we needed the Holy Spirit, for by separating from our Self, we had come to fear God, and we needed an intermediary Who would help us return. Now the era of the Holy Spirit has been superseded by the time of Christ, and we approach God directly, this time without fear.

What a lovely truth—that we can approach God directly, without fear! This may still seem foreign to our ears, for we have felt twinges of fear around the concept of God for so long that we have not known how to seek Him without any fear. Now we do know, for our reading of A Course of Love has paved the way. We seek God in silence, expecting that He will answer us, also in silence.

Prayer

Dear Father/Mother,

I would be thankful today of all that You have given me, more blessings than I can count. May I revel in gratitude, for this mellow feeling accomplishes much to lead me to be The Accomplished, as A Course of Love points out.

Help this day to go well. I expect it to go well, and while expectations are not always good, this one has a good feel about it. Help my brothers and sisters to know You. May we all know You. You are here for us in every situation in which we find ourselves, and when we join with our Self, we will know this.

Thank You for being with me, keeping me mellow. Your peace is with me now, and for that I give thanks to You.

Amen.

Heal the Illusory Separation

“If the body is the surface aspect of your existence and fear lies beneath the surface, see the advantage of this exercise: Place your body out in front of yourself where you can be its silent observer. As you watch your hands go about their work or the shadow form on the ground as you walk to and fro, you will be learning the only separation that can be useful to you.” (ACOL, C:10.23)

This exercise is one of the few in A Course of Love (unlike A Course in Miracles, which has a whole workbook of exercises). We will imagine that our bodies are separate from us, that we are not our bodies. And this is separation that is useful.

Most thoughts of separation are decidedly not useful. We get lost in separation and in thoughts of separation. We think that there is nothing better for us, that we are the created, and that the Creator is separate and apart from us.

This is not true. We are one with the Creator, with God. We are a part of Him. The earth is not God’s handicraft, with Himself being separate and apart. Everything is “God stuff.” And, knowing this, we can realize that God is experiencing everything with us. We live and move in His Being.

We have also thought ourselves separate from God in another sense, in the “fall from grace” sense. We think that we have sinned so badly (or our forebears sinned so badly), that there is no hope for us. That it took Jesus’s death on the cross to propitiate an angry God.

This is so very wrong, and unfortunately it has been a part of almost all of us, because of Christian doctrine. But the Christine doctrine that we heard as children was flawed. Yes, flawed. And we need to forgive the past for the misconceptions that it gave it us.

Now we know that God is One with us. That we never actually separated from Him at all, except in illusion. And this illusion can be overcome. We can know the peace, love, harmony, joy, that life in God really gives to us. These states of being are our inheritance.

And it will be no wonder that we are healed.

Retaining Hope of Healing

“Learn this lesson well, for herein lies the cure to all disease and the hope of all healing. While the body seems to tell you what you feel and bid you act in accordance with its feelings, how can this be so? The body by itself is neutral. But as long as you attribute the body with bringing you pleasure, the body will bring you pain as well. You cannot choose one without the other, because the choice is the same. The body is a tool made for your use in maintaining the illusion of your separation.” (ACOL, C:10.1)

In reality, the body is a communication device. In illusion, it is the home of our (illusory) separation from God. The body is neutral, in that it is not supposed to feel well or ill, just to exist as communication in our world of other bodies. A Course in Miracles says that we will know that we have succeeded when the body doesn’t feel well or ill, that is simply IS. A Course of Love, in this passage, says the same thing. We can have healing of our aches and pains whenever we want, once we heal the separation by opening up to the Christ within. Our real Self.

We don’t really believe these assertions of A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love, because the illusory body seems very real to us. We prick our finger, and we bleed (and we hurt). Does this mean anything? The illusion is very vivid to us; that is all. We are living in the illusion, and so feeling well or ill just exists in that illusion. But feeling well or ill, in the body, doesn’t exist in true reality. And so the aches and pains that we experience mean nothing in the end. They are nothingness itself.

If we want healing from our suffering, we must welcome the Self from deep within us. We must walk into true reality as our real Selves, our Christ Selves. We must not ask for complete understanding of this miracle, for we cannot comprehend all that will await us when we know Christ-consciousness. We probably can’t believe that healing will always occur in every situation, even then. But there will be healing, even if there are lingering symptoms. Sometimes it is an emotional healing, sometimes a physical. But healing is certain. The body remains a communication device only.

Will the body be only a communication device when we occupy the elevated Self of form? That truly remains to be seen, because this would require that we predict the future, and not even Jesus in A Course of Love will do that. We will be in a new era when there are many of us who inhabiting elevated forms. And we will write a new and different future.

For now, while in separation, we feel the hurts. For the future, healed of separation, we will recognize that the body is neutral, and we won’t ask that it save us from a stubbed toe or a hurting knee. We will understand that these things just do not matter. Our body remains a communication device only, until that great day when we have walked into the elevated Self of form. Then all bets are off as to what will happen.

Finding the Relationship that Heals

“Use, in any form, leads to bondage, and so to perceive a world based on use is to see a world where freedom is impossible.” (ACOL, C:9.43)

When we use another for our own ends, we do ourselves and them a great disservice. We, this passage would tell us, are in bondage as well as they. And freedom is impossible.

We need to be of service to each other, of course, but this is different from “using” another. We have often, in egoic terms, looked out on our world and tried to imagine what we might gain from another. Our special relationships are virtually always based on this fallacious way of thinking.

In special relationships, we look around for people who have exceptional traits, traits that will complement our own. Often these traits are superficial attractions, often physical appearance. As the special relationship proceeds, we are caught in more and more ways by our ego. We seek to have what our special other has, to consume rather than to give. And this never works very well.

The fact that special relationships are meant for “use” rather than “service” is often not noticed by the individuals involved. But we notice the great drama that occurs in the context of these relationships, the highs and the lows. The highs entrap us, so that we don’t want to let go, and, importantly, we often do not want either to transform the relationship into something better. That something better is a holy relationship with service at is center. Service to the other, which also gives to ourselves, for giving and receiving, as I have noted, is described in A Course of Love as being equal.

We want to fall into expressions of love, and this in itself will transform the special in our relationships into holy. This is not simply saying “I love you” at the right times. This is a fundamental change of outlook. A choice of the selfless in which the Self is truly found. And the Self is the Christ in us.

So don’t look for the ways that we can use each other. This will never work well, and it won’t work at all for very long. The way to a lasting and transformed relationship is to love without any thought of what we can get in return. And this takes “use” out of the equation.

Ask today, in prayer, what we might do to transform all of our special relationships into holy ones. That is the aim for all, ALL, of our relationships.

And it will be no surprise that we are healed.

God’s Is a Warmth Not of This World

“A warmth not of this world, given freely, with no work involved, causes you to shake your head. How can it be for you if you cannot put in effort to attain it?” (ACOL, C:6.10)

A comforting passage, this passage gives us something to think about that will calm our days, and is this not what we all want? The warmth is of God, for His blessing upon us is a love that comes with warmth, feeling that seems not of this world. And indeed it isn’t. It is of the heaven that we seek to inhabit, even while we live in this world. These are foretastes of what lie ahead. And well we can anticipate a surcease of unhappy times, a surcease of suffering and pain. Our days will improve when we learn to follow God’s rules for a happy day.

Surprisingly, perhaps, things do not have to be perfect for us to have good days. For us to feel this warmth that the passage tells us about. And we have all this warmth without effort of any kind. An effortlessness that is lasting. What a blessing this is indeed!

We are so used to working our way in this world, working, trying to make things better. But we have been working at cross purposes with God, Who does not want us efforting at all. Of course, we will still get things done, we will go on “busy doings,” but the strain will be gone. Our new way of living will ensure that we are in league with God’s way of working in the world.

Don’t let disappointment at not being perfect in feeling the warmth of God get you down. Dark nights of the soul may still await us. But they won’t last forever, and we know that they are simply a way station on the road to heaven.

Be still today for a while, for God’s warmth is felt in stillness. He would have us sit with Him; He would sometimes shut us up to Him alone.

The blessings of the new way of life advocated by A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love are manifold. We do not have to wait long. Keep the faith, turn over our concerns to God Himself, and see if the future that is promised does not unfold before our astonished eyes.

PART 2: WHAT IS TRUE REALITY? WHAT REALITY IS NOT

Illness Is Evidence of Unreality

“He [god of sickness] is the belief that you can choose which god is real. Although it is clear this has nothing to do with reality, it is equally clear that it has everything to do with reality as you perceive it.” (ACIM, T-10.III.11)

A Course in Miracles sees sickness as unreal, as an illusion, as evidence that we are not “in reality.” Most importantly, ACIM does not “blame the victim,” though. We are to have compassion for ourselves as well as others when we or they are under the weather. If we can just see this evidence of illusion as illusion, we will not be so likely to exacerbate pain into suffering.

Not all of us can avoid this exacerbation all the time. Doing so is the “ideal” reading of A Course in Miracles, and on the practical level, we see plenty of evidence that many of us do get sick, and on a regular basis. In addition, sainthood is no preserver of good health. We see no evidence in ACIM that those who are “closer” to God have an immunity from the ills of the human condition.

Knowing that even good people have illnesses can help us to see that we are in no position to blame the victim. We can’t see the whole picture; that is because of our finite minds. The Christ Self within each of us is not omniscient. The Christ Self is just following true reality as far as this Self can muster.

So, seeing illnesses as unreal, as lacking true reality, means that our real Self has not suffered. Nothing awry has gone wrong with the inner Self. We are still safe. But, as long as live on earth, we will be subject to its ills. And we need compassion to get us through the rough spots.

Don’t be tempted to blame the victim, because we “create our own reality,” as is said in New Age circles. This type of mentality avoids the hard issues of suffering that nobody has an answer for. The best we can do is simply to see this suffering as not touching the real Self. The illusory “little” self can get into all kinds of trouble, though. And when this happens (and it will happen, inevitably, to many of us) we need to ask for the patience to endure, and, most importantly, not to be tempted to turn our pains into suffering. To do so adds an emotional component to the pain that can be avoided, and ought to be, whenever we can muster the impetus to avoid this emotional component.

HEALING IN A COURSE IN MIRACLES: A Review of Ken Wapnick’s Healing the Unhealed Mind

Published in Miracles magazine, March – April 2015

Review by Celia Hales

Ken Wapnick considers in Healing the Unhealed Mind the one chapter of A Course in Miracles that is unlike ACIM’s usual focus on forgiveness. He considers Chapter 9 in the Text, the theme of mind and body, basing this book on his 2009 seminar entitled “The Unhealed Healer.” He makes the point that this chapter in the Text goes to the heart of the entire Course.

Repeatedly throughout Healing the Unhealed Mind, Ken asserts that A Course in Miracles is about the mind, not the body. He contrasts this focus with the New Testament, which he says is about the body. He asserts that what has to be healed is the mind’s belief in the ego, not the ego per se.

In Healing the Unhealed Healer, Ken asserts as a main focus that we need to feel peace as we seek to help others. If we feel anything but peace, we have made a bodily identification, and we are just as sick as the person we are seeking to help. We must simply let healing be, and learning to do that is how we are healed. Here is a cogent summary of what Ken’s book emphasizes:

“The process of healing our minds consists of asking for help to choose to undo the ego: our belief in anger, guilt, anxiety, depression, loss, triumph; the belief that using other people to satisfy our own needs is good.” (Page 89)
Those of us who have read Ken know that he writes on two levels when he interprets A Course in Miracles, a level of taking literally what Jesus said (believing him to be the one who channeled the Course); and a level in which he views what Jesus says metaphorically (meaning not taking literally the specific words).

Ken does not make the mistake of fundamentalism, but we must read him carefully in deciding if we agree with his interpretations of what is metaphor and what is literal. He is the most recognized scholar for the Course (though there are other scholars, too, to whom we listen, especially now that Ken has made his transition from this world). Ken writes as one who has a great familiarity with Jesus. This humanizes this particular book and at the same time lets us know that he did enjoy a distinct relationship to Jesus, especially when he and Helen were working together on editing the Course, that is unique. This fact in itself gives great authority to what Ken says.

There is a course for every teacher of God, as the Manual of ACIM says (M-1.3:1), and in Healing the Unhealed Mind, we find one excellent example of Ken’s course. His extensive body of work is a truly one-of-a-kind contribution to our own study of A Course in Miracles.

Benevolence & Abundance in A Course of Love, by Ivor Sowton

A beautiful conclusion happened at our meditation group recently, which is led by dear friends we have known for many years now. The context was the healing prayers we do at the end of the meditation. One attendee had brought a list of serious concerns both personal and familial, and I was starting to feel a little overwhelmed. But one of the leaders suddenly seemed to drop into a deep place and said “and we know that at the deepest level, all is well. All is well!”

I am reminded of the many places in A Course of Love in which Jesus encourages us to establish our identity in the House of Truth rather than in the house of illusion. In the House of Truth, we and everyone else truly are well, not only now, but always.

“Because you now are translating the thought system of the ego into the thought system of the truth, you will begin to believe in such things as benevolence and abundance. What this means is that you will slowly translate all ideas of scarcity into ideas of abundance, all ideas of blame into ideas of benevolence.” (Third Treatise of ACOL, 14.2)

This new found belief in divine benevolence and abundance as our actual birthright as children of God must then be backed up by an attitude of self-responsibility when we are not feeling in touch with these Divine attributes. Jesus reminds us that at such times we are actually choosing the old thought system again out of habit, because the scarcity and blame ego scenarios have had their way with all of us for a long time, and in a perverse way have even become somewhat of a comfort zone for us.

Now, to really live in and express in our being that benevolence and abundance consciously, a great aid is to observe those same qualities in others–even if they are not feeling them:

“If you observe health rather than disease, abundance rather than poverty, peace rather than conflict, happiness rather than sadness, then disease, poverty, conflict, and sadness will be no more real to your brothers and sisters than it is to you.” (Ibid., 18.6)

My sense here is that this is a high goal for us, and that we need to be patient with ourselves as well as those we are trying to observe in such a positive way, for sure. But as we keep at it our very eyes begin to change, actually allowing us to see in a new way. Jesus says that the body is neutral, simply there to do the bidding of the thought system our minds and hearts are adhering to at the time:

“If (the body) is no longer instructed by the thought system of illusion, it is natural that it will now be instructed by the thought system of truth. Thus your eyes will learn to observe only the truth, even unto seeing what before but seemed unobservable.” (Ibid., 18.9)

So let us all try to observe that benevolence and abundance in ourselves and others, thereby doing our bit to bring in the New Way that Jesus is leading us into. Let us try not to judge ourselves or others when we can’t yet hold that vision, but instead be as patient and kind as we can.

Undoing in Atonement, Once Begun, Is Unstoppable

“In order to remember unity you must, in a sense, travel back to it, undoing as you go all you have learned since last you knew it, so all that remains is love. This undoing, or atonement, has begun – and once begun is unstoppable and thus already inevitably accomplished.” (C:19.19)

We are said to travel backward in time, rolling up a metaphorical long carpet, until we arrive at the place where separation occurred (or seemed to occur). Each part on our journey without distance must be undone–each individual part. And then we will be back to Oneness, Oneness with God, Oneness with our Christ Self, awake in Christ-consciousness, occupying the elevated Self of form.

The ending is certain, and the atonement, or undoing, has begun for all of us reading this now, for we would not still be reading if we had not asked for the journey to begin. When we go backward in time, we are returning to love, and in that return is the everything that we have wanted. Love gives us all that we really want, and the closer we get to the end of journey, the better we will understand the truth of this. Atonement is unstoppable, and for this we ought to be grateful. Though we are prone to endless procrastination, and we may wander from the path, we will inevitably return, for free will sets the limits on miscreation. We cannot forever stay apart from God, for this would actually counter our real will, which in truth is one with His Will.

The undoing does not have to be complex, though it is usually so experienced, especially before the elevated Self of form is sustained. We have gotten ourselves so tangled up in our minds, perplexed by egoic notions of separation, that miracles are needed to save us. And those miracles are forthcoming. We can walk into the light at any time, though God Himself decides the exact moment. If we love completely, we are, in a sense, already there; we are having a glimpse of Christ-consciousness, and this glimpse, this satori, will sustain us until sustainability is actually achieved.

Correct False Thinking and Reach Enlightenment

“Miracles are thoughts and I am the corrector of false thinking. You have been made ready for this correction and your belief in correction, or atonement, is the final belief that must be put into practice.” (ACOL, T2:12.1)

This definition of atonement is only slightly different from “undoing”—correction. Here Jesus is emphasizing that when we accept atonement for ourselves (and also offer it to others), we will be freed of false thinking. Think what a great promise this indeed is! To have our false thinking corrected is to have the ego wear away. The ego is no more! Now we can get someplace.

Jesus encourages us to have a miracle-minded frame of mind. Perhaps we don’t fully understand what this means, but it is simply that we live in the best reality that we can imagine. Life works out, and when it seems not to do so, we call upon a miracle to right things. The miracle is always there for us. Our perception of that miracle may take a while in the working out, but the miracle will always heal, always set us right. We need only ask, because we are definitely asking in God’s Will.

So atonement is correction of the way that we have previously thought, the falsity that has engulfed us. Let us be grateful today that there is a way out of the separation, that the elevated Self of form awaits, that Christ-consciousness awaits.

When our minds are right, we will no longer project illusions, but will experience the real world by our projections, projections that make our perceptions of this world. We cannot know what this means until we experience Christ-consciousness, but then the miracle happens, and we know that we are seeing for the first time.

Mind and Heart Can Heal Just as the Body Can

“Atonement, or correction, is not of you but of God. You might think of this in terms of nature and look upon nature’s ability to correct itself. You are a part of nature. Your body can correct or heal itself, and so can your mind and heart. . .if they are allowed to do so.” (T3:14.12)

We can heal much as nature heals. This is a new idea from A Course of Love, not given in A Course in Miracles. But, like, ACIM, this message from A Course of Love emphasizes that atonement, correction, is of God. In a sense, we have to get ourselves out of the way. We have to let God do His work in us.

We already know that our physical body can heal itself. Here we learn that our mind and heart can heal as well. And we get out of ourselves, and into God, and then the healing occurs.

We will not have to wait long. One good thing about both A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love is that Jesus never tells us that we have to wait to experience blessings from God. Even if the healing of the separation will take millions of years (which he says in ACIM), still they can be happy years for us, living the elevated Self of form, and ministering to others who are coming to know what we have come to know.

The future looks bright for us. Once begun, the ending is sure. We will experience atonement, and we will experience Christ-consciousness, and we only need a small willingness to walk into those experiences.

Let us give the Self that small willingness today.

The Atonement Is Healing of All Forms of Sickness

“The offer of Atonement is universal. It is equally applicable to all individuals in all circumstances. And in it is the power to heal all individuals of all forms of sickness. (M-22.6)”

This quotation may seem hard to believe, because we have known saintly people who had emotional or physical illnesses that were never cured, regardless of their saintliness. Jesus says elsewhere in the Manual that to doubt healing because of the presence of continuing symptoms is not the way to go. The healing will be received when one is ready. In the meantime, we don’t try to repeat healing ceremonies or to imagine that the healing has not occurred because we see these lingering symptoms. The all-inclusive nature of healing is a healing that Jesus sees as inevitable. And God would brook no compromise in this pristine view of healing. We ask for healing, and it comes—despite physical evidence to the contrary. Only time separates, now, the request for healing and its culmination in a healed mind and body.

Perhaps an individual chooses now to leave this world. Most lay down the body through some illness. Is this a problem? Not as Jesus sees it. We give up the body when its usefulness is done, nothing more. We do not lose; we step into eternity.
All individuals have access to Atonement. It is a universal call. And it applies to all. God’s ways may seem mysterious, but they are that only in our own limited understanding. The truth of Atonement, a call to everybody, everywhere, stands over and above any doubts that we might have about its all-inclusiveness.

Jesus’s statements about Atonement and healing are in what might be termed the “ideal” interpretation of A Course in Miracles. We are not yet ready to see all forms of sickness disappear, including but not limited to physical healings. Sometimes we are not yet ready to see emotional healing. But we can know, on some level, that when we accept Atonement, this healing has come to us.

These are not easy statements. Jesus, though, accepts no compromise. Let us walk as far along into his interpretation as we can. We have not “failed” if we remain ill. We have just, so far, walked as far as we can. Jesus is concerned about our minds, and our minds may be healed even though our illusory bodies still show symptoms.

This is not a contradiction.

CHAPTER 4: ATONEMENT AND HEALING

Jesus Is in Charge of the Atonement

“I have said before that I am in charge of the Atonement. This is only because I completed my part in it as a man, and can now complete it through others. My chosen channels cannot fail, because I will lend them my strength as long as theirs is wanting. (T-4.VI.6)”

This is an exact statement from Jesus that he is in charge of the Atonement, that he is our leader. God has so chosen him, we have so chosen him, and he accepts that designation.

When we falter, he will right our posture. We will do it right, with the guidance that Jesus sends to us. We don’t have to question our abilities; we need perhaps to question our dedication. When dedication is strong, and motivation is strong, with Jesus’s help we cannot fail.

Jesus says elsewhere that his part in the Atonement 2,000 years ago was the resurrection, not the crucifixion. This statement is in direct contrast to what traditional Christianity has long taught. But he wasn’t “punished” because we “were bad”! He actually says this in ACIM! He asserts that the wholly benign view of his part is lost when we cling to the rugged cross.

The cross, according to Jesus, just displayed his defenselessness, the fact that he made no move to attack his betrayers overtly. This, he says, is a benign lesson. But we get lost when we think that a savage God required sacrifice of a good man, of a perfect man. We get lost, and we blame God for such a travesty. We cannot imagine requiring such of our children, and that is the only reference that we have.

Jesus says, in other words, that the theology that we have been taught has it all wrong. He proved eternal life by his resurrection, though nowhere does he say how his resurrection actually happened. He does not say if it was a physical resurrection or an ethereal one. And we can only guess, or something more if guidance leads us to a different answer.

We need to follow Jesus’s lead. He says that we can imagine that he is holding our hand, and that this imagery will be no “idle fantasy.”

He is right here, with us. We can’t understand how this is true, but we can believe that someone who had it so right about so much (as exemplified by A Course in Miracles, our lodestone) must have it right again.

Atonement Was Planned Eons Ago, at the Point of Need

“It was only after the separation that the Atonement and the conditions necessary for its fulfillment were planned. (T-2.II.4)”

We thought that we separated from God, and the separation itself, for the myriad of us, happened over millions of years (according to A Course in Miracles). The return will happen, similarly, over millions of years—or maybe longer (as we are also told). But in that moment when the first entities (that’s us) separated from God, had the “tiny, mad idea” about which we “forgot to laugh,” in that instant did God provide the Answer. We can imagine that entities got involved in the planning for Atonement and the conditions necessary for its fulfillment. But we cannot know. Divine guidance led the way, of that we can be sure.

So we move into healing, finally healing, after we have separated. And the Atonement, and Jesus’s leadership in it, were planned. We are just now making our way back. The conditions for Awakening have not been propitious for the 2,000 years since Jesus walked the earth. But things are improving now. We are very weary of this weary world. And, like Helen and Bill, who scribed ACIM, we know that there is another way. We know that this other way is better.

And so we sign on to it.

We can’t know if the conditions will be ripe for each of us to experience Awakening this time around, this lifetime. And we are encouraged in ACIM not to speculate about reincarnation, because this would be a separating factor between us—some who believe in reincarnation would turn off those who don’t, and vice versus. We are told that we live in the Now, the present, and so reincarnation cannot be the issue, now or in the future. It would only divide us theologically, and Jesus doesn’t want that. So we are to focus on this moment in time. And we are to do our part, whatever we are led to understand, for salvation. Each of us does have a part, however great or however small, and it behooves us to ask God’s Voice, the Holy Spirit, what that part is. He will answer, and He will answer as soon as we are ready to hear. He is presumably just as eager for us to ask as we are to hear the Answer.

So we move into healing the separation. And we don’t dwell on how long it might take, though “millions” of years sounds depressing, on first hearing of it. But we can, each of us, only live one moment at a time, and Jesus encourages us to be happy in that moment. Happiness is one of the several functions that he attributes to us. (The others are forgiveness and salvation.)

Ask for healing today. We can do more for others when we ourselves have gotten right with God. Indeed, we can do little until we have gotten this fundamental issue of our relationship to God, settled. The Divine is within and surrounding us, according to A Course in Miracles. He is not distant. He is nearer than our heartbeat; we are part of Him. And in this understanding do we know a serenity that may elude us previously.

Healing is always for today. The Now is our point of entry, according to Eckhart Tolle, enlightened spiritual teacher of our time.

Accept Atonement and Find Healing

“Partial Atonement is a meaningless idea, just as special areas of hell in Heaven are inconceivable. Accept Atonement and you are healed. Atonement is the Word of God. Accept His Word and what remains to make sickness possible? Accept His Word and every miracle has been accomplished. (M-22.1)”

“Accept Atonement and you are healed.” A glorious statement, but do we really believe it?

This healing is, of course, healing of the mind, for the body is an outgrowth of the mind and is illusory (as are its sicknesses). We cannot choose this healing just a little bit, a partial Atonement, for this makes no sense, and it is sense that we are after now.

We are in Heaven now, but we often don’t recognize this, and so we make hell for ourselves. But this hell is illusory, along with this world that gave such an idea birth.

If we accept God at His Word, we will know that our healing is immediate, not a matter of time at all. We are well, we have rescued minds, and we are now following God’s way. What more could we really ask?

Accept Atonement, Choose Miracles, & Offer Healing

“This [being a teacher of God as a channel for healing] is what is really meant by the statement that the one responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself. (M-7.3)”

We cannot heal if we have not accepted the Atonement for ourselves. Any healing that might occur will be temporary, lacking in staying power. But we can invite miracles as one who accepts Atonement. And these miracles are forever, with healing often being an aspect of the miracle.

So we have to do only one thing if we wish to be miracle workers. Do we so wish? I think all of us do, and certain all of us who have read this far. We have no choice. We must accept Atonement for ourselves. We must have expressed the willingness to have all our mistakes undone for us—and this will come about through the grace of the Holy Spirit, whose guidance we now follow.

We need more healing in our lamentable world. So sorrowful, so downhearted, so violent. This world needs our help, needs a healing.

Let’s do what we can today by first vowing to be willing to have all our mistakes corrected.

Become a Miracle Worker

“The sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself. (T-2.V.5)”

This sets up reality for us. Our sole responsibility is to accept Atonement. And then we will become miracle workers by definition. What more could we ask?

We often think that we have to say and do many things to be “justified” in God’s sight. This is the idea that faith without works is dead, an idea from the New Testament. We will want to do the good works, when we have accepted Atonement, but we are not obligated to scurry about and seek to be do-gooders. The obligation that we have is somewhat milder; we seek to do good because we have seen the light. We know that this world needs us, and we seek to do for the people in it everything that we reasonably can.

It simplifies our lives to think that we have a “sole” responsibility. What joy! Just one thing to do! Would we want reality to be any different?

I think not. We get confused when we see too many “should’s” and “ought’s” before us. We don’t know which way to turn.

Turn only one way today: toward Atonement. Let the meaning of “undoing” wash over us. We need to undo the egoic notions that have preoccupied us in this life and for eons previously. This is not wishful thinking; it can happen, once and for all, today.

And we will be all the better for it, the best. This is not perfection as the world views perfection, but a loving gentleness that will embrace us and allow us to give unceasingly to this world.

The world calls to us. But we need do only one thing to prepare for this calling: Accept the Atonement.

And all will be well.

Atonement Cures the Sick by Taking Away the Guilt

“Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not a cure. It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. And that is cure indeed. (WB-140)”

Atonement takes away guilt, and A Course in Miracles indicates that it is our guilt that causes our sicknesses. This does not mean that if we get rid of all the guilt, we will necessarily be healed of all afflictions; this would be magical thinking. Some illnesses persist, and we need not blame our sicknesses on our “failure” to achieve a guilt-free existence. That would be very close to blaming the victim, which is an inaccurate way of reading ACIM.

When we take away the guilt, though, we are less likely to experience new sicknesses. And what we have may decline and eventually disappear. This will seem a miracle, and indeed it is. Jesus speaks in an ideal mode when making these assertions; we are very fallible, and we may not be able to rise to his ideal.

The cure comes when we do get rid of the guilt. Our minds are cured, and that is cure indeed. Physical symptoms may persist; indeed, may never go away. But with a healed mind, we can deal with anything. Our way is clear; we live successfully even in the face of debilitations and handicaps.

Atonement Restores Heaven to Us

“The Atonement was established as the means of restoring guiltlessness to minds that have denied it, and thus denied Heaven to themselves. (T-14.IV.9)”

We think that we have done a lot of bad things, things unforgivable. We have done bad things, but not in the real world. We have made those mistakes in an illusory world, and thus they have no more substance than a dream. They are a form of dream, in fact; that is the other way that Jesus talks about our walk in this world.

The Atonement restores guiltlessness by letting us realize that we have never sinned. Our mistakes in illusion are just mistakes. And so we are not damned in any sense at all, other than our own insanity of guilt.

We would enjoy Heaven on earth. This is indeed possible when we refuse to deny Heaven any longer. Heaven is awaiting our response.

Let us make that better response today.

Atonement Dispels Illusions

“The purpose of Atonement is to dispel illusions, not to establish them as real and then forgive them. (T-13.X.6)”

When we dwell on what our brother has done that seemed to harm us, we are failing to overlook his mistakes; we are making the illusory, real. And this failure to overlook is our mistake. If we make something real by dwelling on it, it becomes harder to overlook. It is, of course, still illusory, but it doesn’t feel like this to us. And so we have trapped ourselves.

Don’t make this mistake today. Turn to correction in the form of the Atonement to dispel illusions. Don’t obsess about anything bad that has ever supposedly been done to us. Don’t make real that which is an illusory concept.

We cannot be hurt. We need to show our brothers that we cannot be hurt. If we show a wounded face to them, then they will feel guilt (meaning more insanity) for what they have “done” to us. And we are failing to be a genuinely good witness for the Atonement.

Turn to what is truly real today. Don’t get lost in illusion. The way back is easy when we realize that we have been living illusions for all of our days. The way back becomes a joyous walk when we follow guidance of the Holy Spirit in making our choices the joyous ones.

The Atonement Is the Final Lesson We Need Learn

“The Atonement is the final lesson he need learn, for it teaches him that, never having sinned, he has no need of salvation. (T-13.in.4)”

The “he” is an individual, a person, who believes in separation from God and wants a remedy that will take away all guilt and offer absolution from mistakes. This is the extreme reading in A Course in Miracles, in which we know that all the wrong that we have ever done, out of allegiance to the ego, was simply an illusion. Being an illusion, it is not unforgivable, and, importantly, Jesus asserts that it is only a mistake, not a sin. Being a mistake, it can often (though not always) be rectified by later action on our part. We have pardon.

To have no need for salvation is to understand the true meaning of the well-known phrase of a “journey without distance.” We find our way back from what we never left, but thought we did. That place is in God’s Arms, fully in communication with Him, fully in the joy of His Presence.
And this “final lesson” of the Atonement does pave the way for Awakening, which is our ultimate end in A Course in Miracles. We may not all reach it, but we all have the potential to reach it. We need realize that we need do nothing, that it is all done for us, when we leave off the guilt that has taken us into insanity. We leave off the egoic notions, and we find our way home in peace.

This is our journey without distance. May we all takes steps toward the joyous end of Awakening today.

Acceptance of Atonement Is the End of Separation from God

“The acceptance of guilt into the mind of God’s Son was the beginning of the separation, as the acceptance of the Atonement is its end. (T-13.in.2)”

We need to avoid guilt, but we cannot do this until we have accepted the Atonement. Guilt is what has driven us insane, and until we find a way—the Atonement—to silence guilt’s nasty comments in our minds, we will forever be in a state of unrest.

We thought that we had done the unforgivable in God’s sight: We had left Him. And this prompted our guilt. Only when we know that we are in communication with Him, as our Self, will we know peace. And we will return to communication with God when we have accepted the Atonement wholeheartedly.

The correction of the Atonement puts us back where we have really been all along, in God’s Arms, in grace that has never actually left us. That is why A Course in Miracles says that the way back is a “journey without distance.” There is no distance between God and us; we are a part of Him, as we need to really understand. Only our communion with our depths has been disrupted, and this only in illusion—when we took our place in making an illusory world where we thought that God could not follow. We thought to make a world that we would like better than what God had created, but we quickly found pain in that world. And no wonder. We had taught ourselves the very unnatural way of failing to communicate with our Creator. We were undone. And so a way back had to be created by God.

And it was: the Atonement. Jesus proved to us that we are eternal beings living part of an eternal life. We die only to resurrect, and so we really do not die at all. That is part of the illusion, part of the pain. We suffer when we fear our presumed end in death. Such foolishness! Death is like walking through an open door.

Commune with our Maker today. Ask the Holy Spirit how to do this. And He will answer. God Himself, we are told in ACIM, is lonely when the minds He created do not communicate with Him. This is probably a metaphorical way of speaking, but it is nevertheless instructive to us, for we can understand the concept.

Don’t delay. Commune with God.