Tag: Heaven on earth

The Heaven on Earth that We All Seek

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

“And yet all you need do is turn back. Being an observer of your body has prepared you for this. Step back now to the place that has been held for you. You have not lost “your place in line” because you wandered. It has been held for you by the most loving of brothers, a brother united with your own Self.” (ACOL, C:17.12 – 17.13)

This “most loving of brothers” is Jesus himself, who, many believed, channeled A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love. So our place has been held by one who is united with us in our Self, a Self we share with all others. We never have to feel alone and lonely again, for we have a universe of beings with whom we are One.

Judgment is forbidden us, because it keeps us from entering heaven. We need to return to what we were before the original error, or the detour into separation from God. And if we judge, we think that there is sin and that errors cannot be reversed. So we damn ourselves.

God would not have it so. His loving son has prepared the way for us, and prepares the way still. We do not understand how we share a Self with all sentient beings, but in ACOL we are told that we do. And there is much in ACOL that rings true to me, this assertion included.

Enter the fold again today. This fold will ensure that we turn aside from judgment, that we welcome the fact that our Self is One with all others, and that we know that Jesus is holding our place for us in the grand scheme of things.

What more would we ask? Ask that we take this knowledge unto ourselves today, that we still our doubts, and that we open our hearts just a crack. The mellowness that we will feel will assure us that we are onto something. Something grand. And Jesus himself will take our hand, leading us to the heaven on earth that we all would love to see.

Heaven Looks to Our True Identity to Give Light

“My true Identity is so secure, so lofty, sinless, glorious and great, wholly beneficent and free from guilt, that Heaven looks to It to give it light. It lights the world as well. It is the gift my Father gave to me; the one as well I give the world. There is no gift but this that can be either given or received. This is reality, and only this. This is illusion’s end. It is the truth.” (ACIM, W-224)

This quotation equates our true identity with what is true reality. And the quotation praises our true identity. We are blessed! God has blessed us, and we are actually a light in this world. We are seeing, with true identity, the end of illusion in our world.
Of course, not until or after Awakening, do we cease to see the end of illusion. But this quotation does categorically say that when we recognize our true identity, we have reached illusion’s end. And so we wonder what is ahead. Nobody can tell us this; it is something that must be experienced to be believed. It is a change in consciousness that fulfills our total being, our true reality, our true identity as Sons (and Daughters) of God. We are at last home free, Heaven on earth is at hand, and we are, of course, at peace for the first time ever.

Our true identity is a return to the innocence that we have always had but could not see as long as we were lost in illusions. We are “free of guilt,” as the quotation says, and we finally know this through and through. We have no reason to doubt God’s goodness. Of course, we have never had any good reason, but as long as we were lost in illusions, we felt guilty and we projected that blame on God, Whom we feared. Now we can leave all this foolishness behind. God is good, He has always been good, and now we can affirm this from the bottom of our hearts.

We Can Choose What We Wish to Create

“The only guarantee I can offer you is the guarantee that you are who I say you are and that I speak the truth concerning your identity and inheritance. What you choose to do with this knowledge is still up to you. What you choose to create with this knowledge is still up to you. (The Treatises of A Course of Love: ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 6.2)”

1 – The Future

The fact of our responsibility in the matter of choosing our future can be daunting, but should not be, because we do not have to choose alone. We have helpers, including Jesus, and, if we have listened internally, we have our inner direction.

2 – Freeing Concept

This concept is a very freeing one, even though it may frighten us as we think of the implications. Reality is not scary as long as the ego has been relinquished. Pray that this is so for us today.

3 – Heaven on Earth

We will choose to create a heaven on earth. I am confident of this, because we have seen evidences of those who reach for Jesus’s word and abide in it. Today let us pray for what our parts should be in creating this heaven on earth.

4 – Jesus

Jesus says in this quotation that he has led us surely to understand both our identity and our inheritance. Our identity is the Son/Daughter of God. Our inheritance is the living out of Christ-consciousness as the elevated Self of form. We can choose what we will create in this elevated Self, but if we are to remain in God’s Will as elevated beings, we will choose aright, knowing that we have left the ego behind forever. This, according to Jesus, is a new choice, a choice to be physical, yet to be in God’s Will. Our detour into fear via the false self of the ego is finished, gone for good. Now we have a new destiny to walk into, and even Jesus does not know how this will look, for he says that he will not predict the future; the future is yet to be written—by us.

5 – Ultimate Reality

This new way of looking at ultimate reality is a blessing indeed. In A Course of Love, Jesus indicates that the physical form is not to be denigrated, that it has value as a holy manifestation of a part of God—us, as the elevated physical Selves. It is a glorious and exciting future that awaits us as we work out our destiny in a newly restored world. Let us walk surely to God today, as we seek this new destiny, freed from the restrictions of an imprisoned will that the ego had forced upon us. Our wills are now free, for we know that we share with each other. There is never any need to return to an idea that we would want to be separate. We were not made for separation. And now we know this.

6 – Part of the Whole

We are freed to be part of the Whole, part of God, but also part of each other and every living thing. Let us walk serenely down the pathway that these ideas from A Course of Love take us.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I know my part in helping to create Heaven on earth. May I understand the knowledge that is imparted to me by You. May I neither overestimate or underestimate what my part can be in making a better world for myself, and my brothers and sisters in this world.

My inheritance is sure. I have long realized this truth. Help it to become ever more real to me today.

I have long been interested in the concept of inheritance, feeling certain years ago that that word meant something more than inheriting from my family. Thank You for what I feel was a psychic flash that would eventually be explained. Thank You for the explanation. And may my brothers and sisters comes to know that we share and share alike in this inheritance from You.

Be with me for the rest of this day, and may tomorrow be dedicated to following Your Way as best I can see it. Thank You for showing me how to slow down and be with Your Presence in everyday life. May I rest in Your goodness always, never turning back to an egoic interpretation of my life.

Amen.

Heaven on Earth in Our Physical Forms

“. . .[T]he nature, even of form, once returned to its natural state of love, is one of unity and everlasting life. (The Treatises of A Course of Love: ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 3.13)

1 – No Need to Die to Experience Heaven

This passage comes very close, in my opinion, to a promise that we can know “Heaven on earth.” We do not have to die to experience the joys that previously were believed by our forebears as reserved for the afterlife.

2 – Everlasting Life

The “everlasting life” is a phrase that has heretofore been reserved for the afterlife, although traditional Christianity does teach that one joins into this life once one has been “saved,” in the old-fashioned sense. But it does seem that A Course of Love goes a bit farther in its promises than anything that has appeared previously, even in other New Age thought. The term “unity,” used so often in ACOL, appears in this context. This unity always refers to unity with God, inside and outside, and in particular the unity that we share with our brothers and sisters in this world. This makes us all One, and One with God (a tenet of ACOL).

3 – Love

How can we know the joy that everlasting life holds out to us, even in this sometimes troubled world? And even in our sometimes troubled personal world? We must remember that in our better moments, we realize that we love and are loved. This twin concept, loving and being loved, is not new, but it is newly emphasized and interpreted in A Course of Love. We have been told repeatedly that at this point, we have left the ego behind. And so, we have actually left fear behind, leaving only the love that we have longed to have.

We may still know fear from time to time. Christ-consciousness does not always come suddenly and completely, with a complete break with the past. Awakening does not either, and the two concepts are so often linked that they may be seen as one and the same. That puts ACIM and ACOL on the same wave length, because Christ-consciousness is trumpeted in the latter, and Awakening in the former.
And we can know this joy in physical form. That is a basic tenet of ACOL, and in this ACOL emphasizes something that is not made firm in ACIM.

4 – Celebration

That we can champion the physical form may well be cause for rejoicing, maybe because we are so used to this form—not remembering any other. But if we are to encourage salvation (and this is our function as the light of the world), we will need to have a communication device to do so, and that communication device is the body (ACIM tenet).

5 – The Best

It is reassuring that we can have the best that God intends for us while still in the physical body. We don’t have to die to experience great joy, to experience Heaven on earth. Our Heaven on earth is here waiting for us, here and now.

6 – Join with Heaven

Let’s join with this Heaven today.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I love and, if it is Your will, experience love today. May I know that any lack of love that I perceive is simply a disguised call for help (and love) on the part of the other person. Surely I will know Your love today, in my mind and spirit, even if not always in my emotions.

May Christ-consciousness descend upon me today. I do not know this state on a continuing basis, but may I catch glimpses of this glorious state today.

What part is my decision in coming into Christ-consciousness? I ask for an answer to this question today. I wish to do my part, but I also wish to wait patiently for Your timing. May this day go well, with my following Your guidance to be and know all that You would have for me.

Amen.

Time of Heaven on Earth

1 – Now

“Could it [what has been activated now] have been activated hundreds or thousands of years ago, by countless souls more worthy than you, and ushered in the time of heaven on earth and the end of suffering long ago? (The Treatises of A Course of Love: “A Treatise on the New,” 1.13)”

2 – Goal

This may be our goal, but first we must understand it. We must, I think, recognize that a certain humility is asked of all of us. Simply because we are seekers, we are not better than others who have come before us.

3 – Not Ready

Previously, most of us as a people in this world were not yet ready for Christ-consciousness. Since the time of Jesus in his physical life over 2,000 years ago, and at his instigation, we have been living in the time of the Holy Spirit. This is what Pentecost was all about.

4 – Old Testament/Hebrew Bible

Certain prophets from earlier times were gifted with guidance in what appear to be supernatural ways. These occurrences are resplendent in the Old Testament. So there has been a natural progression for humankind.

5 – Time of Christ

But now, in the Twenty First Century, we are ready to move into the time of Christ. This new era is upon us, though not all of our brothers and sisters know it yet. Their understanding will come in time. In the meantime, we are not to judge them in any way because we believe that we have been led farther along the pathway, to a way of knowing by observation and not by learning.

6 – Past

“It is in this way that time is not real and will no longer be real to you as you come to live by the truth. It is in this way that the truth of the past still lives and that the illusion of the past never was. (The Treatises of A Course of Love: A Treatise on the New, 1:16)”

7 – Time

This quotation talks, in a somewhat difficult way, about time. It suggests that time is an illusion, like this world in which time holds sway.

8 – All Time

The past does not really exist; neither does the future. All time is currently present, but is spread out, from past to present to future, so that we can experience what is going on around us, and so we can experience ourselves. Without time, we would be sent into eternity, where we really are anyway. We are in eternity, the ever-present Now.

9 – New Era

Since the past does not really exist, we can understand that the time in which we live is different from that illusory past. We are living in a new era, Jesus says in A Course of Love: We are living in the “time of Christ.”

10 – Joyous

Is this not joyous news? What does it mean? It is up to us to write the meaning upon the world, for Jesus tells us elsewhere that he doesn’t predict the future, and that he doesn’t have the knowledge that will map out for us what we are to say and do. We are all saying and doing together. And what we make of this world in the time of Christ has yet to be written.

11 – Difference

“The difference between this time and the time that has been but seemed to have gone before has already been stated as the difference between the time of the Holy Spirit and the time of Christ. This has also been restated as the difference between the time of learning through contrast and the time of learning through observation. (The Treatises of A Course of Love: A Treatise on the New, 1:17)

12 – ACIM / ACOL

A Course in Miracles was written for the time of the Holy Spirit, and A Course of Love was written for the time of Christ. Of course, we can continue to study each. Many of us are caught in different times, especially since time has no reality anyway.

13 – Observation

But as we move forward in the time of Christ, we will earn through observation, not intense study of readings past and present that seek to tell us what to do. This blog is one such study tool, and perhaps the time will come when the blog will not answer your needs anymore. Then the time is ripe to look around and observe. Just observe.

14 – God

“That you have chosen God and chosen a new means of coming to know the truth—the means of Christ-consciousness, is what has ushered in the new time. (The Treatises of A Course of Love: A Treatise on the New, 1:17)”

15 – Studying

In Christ-consciousness, we do not need to laboriously study any readings. In Christ-consciousness, we are creating our reality as it forms out in front of us. And “creating” is the right word—not “making,” which is what our minds enthralled by the ego, did. What we made was but illusion, dreams, but what we do not has more value than illusions. It is the real world, reality. We are living with the Mind of God is full sway, as we create our reality. We are no longer caught by an image of ourselves, a fantasy that has no meaning outside of our own minds.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I know “heaven on earth” today. I claim this promise now. I know that I do not have to wait until I die to experience a paradise. Even in the midst of this troubled world, I can be at peace and even joyous.

Thank You for your guidance always. May I come into Christ-consciousness on a continuous basis.

Amen.

There Is Nothing Outside You. It Is the Realization that the Kingdom of Heaven Is Restored to You.

1 – Theology

The passages of today are theological construct, but they are quite helpful, I find, to what we are trying to learn in A Course in Miracles. The title of this posting is emphasizing, in the quotation, that projection makes perception. And we are projecting illusion. The world does not exist! Elsewhere in ACIM Jesus says this, and he says that we must ultimately come to understand this. Not all are yet ready, but for those who are, we can recognize many blessings.

In short, this absolves others of responsibility in hurting us. We don’t have to feel hurt in any way, because nothing has really happened outside of illusion. Of course, we can imagine that this does give us (or them) free rein to do just anything. Morals are still important, and Christian ethics are still important. But we have a genuine basis for forgiveness now. We don’t pardon real “sins,” only mistakes made in illusion. And such mistakes are easily correctable.

2 – Nothing Outside of You

“There is nothing outside you. That is what you must ultimately learn, for it is the realization that the Kingdom of Heaven is restored to you. (T-18.VI.1)”

Is the Kingdom of Heaven really restored to us? The answer lies in how we feel, for feelings are of the heart, and, as A Course of Love, says, the heart is the way that we will come to know now. (Ultimately, we combine mind and heart to form “wholeheartedness.”)

3 – Heaven on Earth

Can we experience Heaven on earth? Indeed, I believe that we can. Jesus implies as much in the Gospels, when he is enjoying camaraderie with his disciples. And Edgar Cayce once channeled the Last Supper in such a way as to suggest that Jesus was totally at ease and enjoying his disciples’ company at this final meal.

4 – How So?

What would it take to experience Heaven on earth? Very little change, if we look to peace and joy and harmony—letting conflict, anger, and attack go out the window. All of us have known the flights of joy that the ego has brought to us, but the ego gives only to take back. And we paid for those flights of joy by tears of pain and suffering. There was no high without a low.

5 – Let the Ego Loosen

Things are different when we have let the ego loosen. When we no longer look to things of this world for satisfaction, for, as Jesus suggests, there are no satisfactions in this world. That may seem extreme, but in the context of material satisfactions most of us can see how it is true. We do need certain material goods, and God knows this and will provide, if we do not stand in our way by the world that we make, the poverty that we make by the law of attraction.

6 – Heaven

“Heaven is not a place nor a condition. It is merely an awareness of perfect oneness, and the knowledge that there is nothing else; nothing outside this oneness, and nothing else within. (T-18.VI.1)”

The definition of Heaven in this passage suggests the need for much reflection. We have traditionally thought of Heaven as a place, especially to which we hoped to go after death. But not a place, Jesus tells us. And not a condition. This latter is harder, for we tend to think that if we live harmoniously, we will have the condition of Heaven on earth. But if we are aware of the perfect oneness that we share will all others, indeed, the All which is, we will know Heaven. This Oneness will give us the forgiveness that we all need to extend and that we all need to receive.

7 – A More Tangible Heaven

How might we conceive of Heaven more tangibly? I think that we need to relax “into” Heaven, not become agitated at the slightest provocation, not to invite anger or attack, and not to feel envy, malice, jealousy, and the other negative emotions. How do we do all these “nots”? We don’t focus on the “nots,” but instead look to the positive side of all of this. We cultivate tolerance, patience; we look for reasons to be joyous. And, maybe most of all, we accept the past with all its mistakes. God has forgiven us. Why is it so hard for us to forgive ourselves?

8 – Mind Reached to Itself

“Mind reaches to itself. It is not made up of different parts, which reach each other. It does not go out. Within itself it has no limits, and there is nothing outside it. It encompasses everything. It encompasses you entirely; you within it and it within you. There is nothing else, anywhere or ever. (T-18.VI.8)”

This is the fullest explanation of projection makes perception that we find in ACIM. We are seeing mind in its entirety, and there is nothing outside that. Of course, we do not mean the brain, which is only a tool on earth, a lodging place for the mind. Mind is composed of ideas, and we are an idea (from the Text of ACIM). God is an idea as well, and we are part of Him. There is no other theological concept in ACIM that is so important as this. We must understand this. And then we will walk a peaceful walk home to God.

Affirmation: “The Kingdom of Heaven is restored to me today.”

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I feel that my trying to understand “there is nothing outside you” is finally becoming possible. We live in a hologram; the universe is a hologram. Each part is the whole; the whole is in each part. And that is God, the One, the All. That is You.

Be with me today as I seek to live a harmonious life. May today be the start of a glorious year of harmony. May I reach out to my significant others with peace and comfort. May our days be long and good.

Be with my brothers and sisters. We need each other so very much. May I know better how to interact socially in the coming year. May my interactions with others be satisfactory.

Amen.

Heaven on Earth

pennsylvania impressionists
“You who have followed me beyond the walls of the house of illusion are now called to begin the act of revealing and creating anew the life of heaven on earth. (Treatises of A Course of Love: Treatise on the Personal Self, 9.6)”

Affirmation: “I would seek to help create heaven on earth.”

Reflections:

1 – The Future

What a delightful future! Jesus says in this passage that we are beyond the walls of the house of illusion, and so now is the time to work together to create heaven on earth. Could we ask for anything more in this world? I think not. This is the ultimate promise.

2 – Inner Guide Reveals Our Part

What would we do to reveal and to create heaven on earth? Only our inner Guide, our inner Christ Self, can answer this question, because I think that the answer is different for each of us. We have a common goal, but the means to reach that common goal—heaven on earth—are different for each of us, because our talents differ, our personalities differ, our gifts differ. We are unique, each of us, and that uniqueness means that there is no single answer available.

3 – Contributions to This World

If we had to predict our course in this lifetime, our way to contribute to this world, what would it be? I think that we ought to spend some time contemplating this important question. Of course, our answer will differ as we move through life, because we grow and develop, we change, and we move into different probabilities (from the writings of Jane Roberts, who channeled an entity known as Seth). As times change, we must change with them. And so if the way that we first seek to walk becomes closed to us, if a door is closed, we walk onward, and find an open window. God never leaves us with a closed pathway. Many have so said.

4 – Missions

We are called to a mission, and it is up to each of us to find that mission, though it differs from person to person. Certainly we do not proselytize others to the way of A Course of Love, or of A Course in Miracles, if those others are not ready. Those channeled books are our way, but there are many courses in this world (from ACIM), and each individual interprets from his/her own perspective. Even our teaching of ACOL and ACIM will differ, because the words give different insights to people with varying experiences. This is why no universal theology is possible (from ACIM).

5 – Universal Experience

But a universal experience is not only possible, but necessary (from ACIM). And the universal experience now includes a call to reveal and to create heaven on earth.

6 – Now

May we begin now.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would try to create heaven on earth. I would try to do my small part, guided by You. I will surely try to make amiss if I barge ahead without consulting You. You know the way; I do not. Help me to walk the right pathway, making turns as You indicate, today.

I need to be able to turn on a dime. I need to change my course whenever You indicate that I am traveling along a road that is a dead end. May I walk only sure pathways today.

I would live in this heaven on earth that I wish to help create. And so would my brothers and sisters. Let us go forward today, together, seeking Your way to create heaven on earth always.

May today be truly recognized as the first day of the rest of our lives.

Amen.

Miracle-Mindedness

impressionism- manet

“[W]hat happens when this oneness is accomplished is that divine memories arise to replace perception.  This is miracle-mindedness.  The accomplishment of this state of being is what you are here for.  It is your return to your Self.  It heralds the return of heaven through the second coming of Christ, the energy that will bridge the two worlds.  (Treatises of A Course of Love:  Treatise on the Art of Thought, 6.9)”

Affirmation:  “I seek oneness today.”

Reflections:

1 – Divine Memories

There is much of importance summarized in this short passage for today.  We do want divine memories to replace perception, for divine memories include memories of the real world, and the real world is not one seen through perception.  Perception is always inaccurate, to one degree or another.  It is true that miracles themselves are perceptual (from A Course in Miracles), but they are the highest form of perception.  And when we have reached miracle-mindedness as a constant state, we will know our Self/Christ.  And we will embody the elevated Self of form.  We will have reached Christ-consciousness.  And heaven will be with us, for which we do not have to die.

2 – Promises

These are genuine promises made in the Treatises of A Course of Love.  And when believed, these promises are enormously liberating.  We know that we can experience heaven on earth, even before we in fact do experience it.  We also see snatches, glimpses, of heaven on earth before this state is continuously experienced.

3 – Time of Christ

We are, according to the trilogy of ACOL, in the time of the second coming of Christ.  The books never identify if there is to be a physical embodiment of Jesus again.  The spiritual entity of Jesus is with us, though, for certain.  He comes in response to one unequivocal call, a statement from A Course in Miracles that I have often quoted in this blog.  I have found it to be true.  Not that I have seen a vision, but that I have experienced the calm that comes from imagining that Jesus is near.  And does he not immediately calm the heart as the first step to all healing?  Distraught people do not usually believe that healing is possible, and belief in healing is necessary, if we can believe the New Testament, and I believe that we can.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would replace my perceptual memories today with divine memories.  This is a step toward the sustaining of Christ-consciousness.  And You are there for me, as is Jesus.  Never let doubts come to me.  May I have no dark night of the soul.  And, if trouble comes, may I always know to Whom to turn–You.

We are living in the time of Christ.  This is a great blessing.  This world does not seem yet to recognize this, for this world is very troubled.  But the healing of our world will come, and I believe sooner than we think.

Be with us today for a good day.  I ask this so often, because a string of pearls, like good days, is a beauty to behold.  Help me to know Your guidance today, and to follow it unflinchingly.

Amen.

You Are Home

images -impressionist“Thus we end this Course with love given and love received in truth.  You are the learner here until you realize that you are Love.  You then become the teacher of what you are.  Your mind and heart join in wholeheartedness in the embrace.  You are home, and there you will forever stay.  (A Course of Love, 32.3)”

Affirmation:  “I am home.”

Reflections:

1 – Comfort

What a glorious statement of our place in this world!  Being “home” is a comforting thought, and it the place toward which we have longed to come for such a long, long time.  Eons have been spent in searching for what can only be found within, the God within.  And to find God, we must give up the version of our personal self that is the ego.

2 – Definition of the Ego

This assertion does not mean that we will fall apart on the inside.  The ego, as defined in A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love, is a false view of self, having no basis in reality.  It is not as Freud thought, the integrator of the essence of ourselves.  Instead, while a part of our belief about ourselves, it is the home of lies about our real Self.

3 – Elevated Self of Form

When we have truly integrated, we will become the elevated Self of form, and we will know what Jesus is talking about.  This is the Christ-consciousness that so often we have longed to experience.

4 – Soon

May the day be soon for all of us.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I am eager today to be completely at home with You, not that I want to die but that I want to live in Your blessing always, as the best that You can make of me.  “Home” is heaven on earth, and that I long for with all my heart.

Be with us as we seek to do Your bidding.  Your bidding is actually what we ourselves would always choose, because Your will is our real will.

May my brothers and sisters find You today, even as I too seek.

Amen.

Typical Fears No More Arise

L'Estaque - cezanne2

“Living in relationship provides a constant knowing of this sort, a simple knowing of a way things are meant to be.  It is a knowing felt within the heart for which there still will be no proof, but for which there will be the certainty you heretofore have lacked.  The typical fears you have experienced in the past will not arise within this knowing.  (A Course of Love, 27.19)”

Affirmation:  “May no fears arise in me today.”

Reflections:

1 – Knowing

When we live in relationship to God and ourselves, our deepest Selves, plus with others, we are living as Jesus recommends in this passage for today.  We will feel a “knowing” in our heart that we are on the right pathway.

2 – Relationships

This is the pathway recommended initially in A Course of Miracles, but then the emphasis was on relationships, holy relationships with others, especially our most significant brother (or sister).  In A Course of Love, Jesus expands the concept of relationship to mean a relationship not only to God, but to the Self/Christ within.  When we reach deep, deep, inwardly, we are reassured, in a way that nothing else can, that all is well.

3 – Home

This is the certainty of which Jesus speaks in this passage.  This is the assurance that we are on the way home, and not to the Other Side, but the heaven on earth that we can actually know here.

4 – Listen

Be with Jesus’s words today.  See if they don’t make a huge difference.

5 – Certainty

The certainty that we are on the right pathway comes when we lift ourselves up mentally and in a heartfelt way, and we do the best that we know how.  We don’t allow ourselves to get downhearted, if there is any way that we can avoid it.  We are cheery, we are upbeat.  We are not discouraged, for Jesus is with us always.

6 – A Promise

He has promised this.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would know certainty of true knowledge today.  I would not press to know, but I would rest in the certainty that this is what You want for me.  I would not fall into a too-strong desire for Christ-consciousness, for You make that decision.  You are always with me, inside of me, for I am part of You.  Thank You for this knowledge.

Be with all of my brothers and sisters today.  May we let typical fears that arise with just living to fall away.  We need be fearful no more.  Thank You.

Amen.

revised

Where Is Heaven?

“Think about this now–for how could heaven be a separate place?  A piece of geography distinct from all the rest?  How could it not encompass everything and still be what it is:  home to God’s beloved son and dwelling place of God Himself?  It is because God is not separate from anything that you cannot be.  It is because God is not separate from anything that heaven is where you are.  It is because God is love that all your relationships are holy, and from them you can find the way to Him and to your holy Self.  (A Course of Love, 6.19)”

Affirmation:  “Heaven is here, when I choose for it to be.”

Reflections:

1 – Heaven = Here / Now = Choose God’s Peace

Heaven is not a piece of real estate off somewhere in the skies.  Heaven is here and now, when we choose God’s peace.  A Course in Miracles says that here in this world we will not be without limitations, but with the help of the Holy Spirit, we will rise above misfortune and know heaven on earth.  A Course of Love makes the same point here, except that in back of the statement is the idea that Christ-consciousness will grant us knowledge of the right way to go to create heaven.  God is here with us, and we would do well to remember this throughout the day.  How can one fume and fret, when he/she knows that God is within, righting all the wrong that we look upon?  And we know also that that wrong will be created anew when we seek Christ in the faces of all of our brothers and sisters.  This Christ is the unifying Self, the one that can see both human and divine (an ACOL tenet).

2 – Relationships

As with ACIM, A Course of Love indicates, declares, that our relationships are meant to be holy, and it is through our relationships that we will find our way home.  Pray today for the grace to belief this reassurance.

3 – Holy Day

And see if the day does not turn holy indeed.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I do what You would have me do to create heaven on earth today.  May I love my brothers and sisters with an ever-deeper love, and may I not forget that I too must love myself, to have anything to give to others.  May my sense of self-esteem partake not of the ego, but of the spirit.  And when self-esteem is of the spirit, all is well.

Be with me today as I walk through this day in peace and joy.  If there are challenges to my day, let me realize that there are no challenges when we are trying to be teachers of God.  And all of us are teachers as well as students of God.

May today be good.  May I do for others what they need, especially those who are my significant others.  And may Your peace fill my heart with joy.

Amen.

This World Can Be Heaven

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

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

Reflections:

1 – Violent World Overcome

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

2 – Make a Different World

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

3 – Extend Love

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

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

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

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

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

Amen.

Solace for Our Hearts

“Into this battlefield you have bravely marched.  The war rages by day and by night and you have grown weary.  Your heart cries out for solace and does not go unheard.  Help is here.  (A Course of Love, 2.20)”

Affirmation:  “Help is here.”

Reflections:

1 – “Help Is Here”

In this “help,” Jesus is referring to himself.  In some senses, he is a much more present help in A Course of Love than we found in A Course in Miracles.  In the latter, ACIM, he was appealing to our minds in an intellectual sense (especially in the Text and Manual, and less so in the Workbook).  He was dislodging the ego, which is a concept of the mind.  But here, in ACOL, Jesus is stressing the heart, a concept which we all can understand and which does need the empathy that Jesus offers to us.  We need to know that we are supported when we delve into heart-related matters.  And Jesus offers us that support.

2 – We Need Comfort

Our hearts want solace; we want to know that we are loved.  And we are, far more than we can return the love.  Our emotions are blunted from too many long years of pain and sometimes suffering.  We need the comfort that only someone like Jesus can provide.

3 – Battlefield

Jesus sees this world as a “battlefield,” and we might do the same.  If we have not voiced the word, “battlefield,” we have surely thought it without verbal identity.  Maybe we just called this world a “hell,” which is the vernacular that is more commonly used.  We have made of this world a “hell,” but, if we follow Jesus’s message in ACIM and ACOL, we can, quite literally, turn this world into a heaven.  What more could we ask?

4 – We Are Weary

We are very weary of the trials of this world.  We are weary of our own trials, which have come to us to allow a better choice to be made this time around (an ACIM tenet).  May we spend today seeking ways to go beyond our trials, to turn a situation around for the better not far off in the distance, but immediately, now.  And may we turn this world into a heaven.  Grant us the understanding and belief that such a turnabout is not only possible, but probable.  If we follow Jesus’s word.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Today is a time for comfort.  Today is a time for solace for our hearts.  

We are weary of this world and its battles, this hell that we have sometimes made for ourselves.  May we turn today to both Jesus and to You, for with the turning to an elder brother, and with the turning inward to the Divine, we are finally taking steps that will turn our world into the heaven that we have been led to understand that this world can be.

Be with me today as I seek to live a better way.  May I choose “another way,” as the co-scribes of A Course in Miracles, Helen and Bill, learned together.  And may my good feeling not be long in coming, for I am impatient to know the way that You would show, in all your graciousness, to me.  Thanking You in advance, I am Yours.

Amen.

Power of Heaven to Earth

“Jesus accepted his power and so brought the power of heaven to earth.  This is what the Christ in you can teach you to do.  This is miracle-mindedness.  This is love.  (A Course of Love, P.37)”

Affirmation:  “May I learn how to bring heaven to earth.”

Reflections:

1 – Brothers to Jesus

We are once again, in this passage as throughout A Course of Love, to recognize ourselves as brothers to Jesus, he an elder brother (as in A Course in Miracles).  But, as he said more than once in A Course in Miracles, he does not have anything that we cannot have.  This early in A Course of Love he is still teaching us.

2 – The Time of Christ-Consciousness

Would we not want to learn how to bring heaven to earth?  To say that we can learn this is a bold statement, but one foreshadowed by A Course in Miracles.  Here A Course of Love indicates that it is the Christ in us that will teach us.  So we are herein moving farther along; we are no longer in the time of the Holy Spirit, but in the time of Christ-consciousness.

3 – The Way Takes Patience and Willingness to Learn

Of course, I do not believe that this shift is made easily.  We are taught in A Course in Miracles that the way may be taught, but it takes great patience and great willingness to learn (a paraphrase).  Not all of us have experienced Christ-consciousness at all, but there is the truth that before Christ-consciousness is sustained (something very, very rare), we see glimpses of the truth, the Christ-consciousness.  And we can take back to our everyday living, our minds and spirit, the truths of what we experienced in that altered consciousness.

4 – Miracle-Mindedness

Miracle-mindedness means love, and when we love enough, we will experience Christ-consciousness more and more of our time (not stated in A Course of Love, but interpreted by me).

5 – Our Daily Walk

Let us ask God today to grant us this blessing our normal walk through life, a daily walk.  And may He know that we are ready for experience.  Being ready does include not being afraid of the experience, and A Course in Miracles has shined a light into our minds that will eliminate much if not all of the fear.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

We would know You more and more, as we would open our hearts to the realization of the Christ within who is our Self.  We may not understand this, but if we ponder these thoughts, perhaps the Way will become clearer.

We ask for Awakening, Christ-consciousness.  May You prepare us as far as our willingness will allow.  And, before this greatest of blessings, may we see glimpses that do not frighten us.

Amen.

All God Would Have You Do You Can Do

“To turn hell into Heaven is the function of God’s teachers, for what they teach are lessons in which Heaven is reflected.  And now sit down in true humility, and realize that all God would have you do you can do (M-14.5)”

Affirmation:  “I would turn hell into Heaven.”

Reflections:

1 – Students/Teachers

All of us are students/teachers of God.  Time is an illusion, and only time separates students from teachers.  We will all be teachers, and many sooner rather than later.  We are actually already teaching and learning at the same time.  As soon as we have answered the Call, the individuals whom we can serve best will begin looking for us, and finding us.  There are no accidents in salvation.  Who we are to meet, we will meet.  The lives we are to touch, we will touch.  And in this plan of the teachers is found much joy.

2 – Plan of the Teachers

Jesus says elsewhere that without the plan of the teachers, there would be no way for all of our brothers and sisters to find their way home again.  The detour into fear has been long and burdensome, troubling in the extreme.  Let us ask today to be free of the fear in whatever form the fear manifests.  Often it is simply a low-grade anxiety, from which our jobs and our relationships seem to offer no respite.

3 – Bill and Helen

But there is a better way, and Helen and Bill (co-scribes of ACIM) found it, perhaps Bill more than Helen.  As Vahle points out in his biography (see review in this blog), and as Ken Wapnick has made so clear, the peace that Helen gave to others eluded her.  Ken’s biography of Helen Schucman is entitled, Absence from Felicity.  And it was only in death, when Jesus came to claim his own, that her face was at peace.  Bill, on the other hands, moved to California and there, amid friends of ACIM, lived a much more peaceful conclusion to his life.

4 – Let’s Do Our Part Today

May we do our part today to turn this hell on earth into Heaven on earth.  Ask the Holy Spirit what small thing you might do today to effect this reversal.  And He will respond.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Helen’s experience has led me to understand that there are no guarantees in this life.  I know from my reading that she understood A Course in Miracles very well, but still she was without the peace that ACIM had brought so many others.  May all of us realize that we must depend on the Holy Spirit in this world, and that, even then, we may not always have happy dreams.

Be with me today as I seek, once again, to understand Your guidance.  My nighttime dreams seem to give me indications, as well as my intuitive, inner sense.  I have not put it all together yet.  Be with me, and be with other whom I touch today, in whatever way.  We are not to be without limits in this world, but we are to seek to overcome the limitations, with the guidance that we receive.  May that guidance come in Your own Way, in Your own time.

Amen.

Power, Fame, Money, Physical Pleasure = Meaningful to Body

“It takes great learning both to realize and to accept the fact that the world has nothing to give.  What can the sacrifice of nothing mean?  It cannot mean that you have less because of it.  There is no sacrifice in the world’s terms that does not involve the body.  Think a while about what the world calls sacrifice.  Power, fame, money, physical pleasure; who is the ‘hero’ to whom all these things belong?  Could they mean anything except to a body?  (M-13.2)”

 

Affirmation:  “I need sacrifice nothing.”

Reflections:

1 – The World Has Nothing to Offer

Most of us do not really yet believe that the world has nothing to offer.  We are still that much caught up in the ego.  As long as we are egocentric, we will seek for power, fame, physical pleasure.  But when the ego has withered, at least a little, we will instead seek the intangibles of God–the love, joy, peace, tranquility, calm, quiet.  And we can be happy in this world, so long as we are not chasing rainbows of materialism.  God wants our material needs satisfied also, but if we devote ourselves only to the material, we lose out on so much more.

2 – Happy Dreams the Holy Spirit Brings

And we do find in this world the “happy dreams the Holy Spirit brings” (from the Workbook).  The reason for the happy dreams is that we would be too terrified by the sudden appearance of Awakening.  A gentler dream needs to precede Awakening.  And so we are prepared carefully for the great blessing of Awakening.

3 – Patience

It does take great learning to accept these ideas.  And it takes patience to assimilate them.  Teachers must repeat their lessons until they are learned, and Jesus himself has set the precedent for this in the Text, when he said that nothing that we do or make, etc., creates our worth.  Our worth is given us by God.

4 – Heaven on Earth

So do we write off the world and escape into some otherworldly heaven?  I think not.  We can experience heaven on earth, but we have to meet the conditions, which involve an egoless experience.  So long as we are fueled by the ego, we will know vicissitudes of joy and sorrow in an alternating fashion.  And the guilt that the ego would drive us to would be hell indeed.  (Elsewhere the Text affirms that guilt is hell.)

5 – Values Will Change

We seek to enjoy God’s intangibles and to love our brothers and sisters (as well as ourselves, which is necessary for all love to proceed from us).  We do not need to sacrifice anything that is truly good.  Our values will change as we walk farther along the pathway to God.  And we will not seek the inferior values that all too often are present in this world.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I am extremely grateful that, after studying A Course in Miracles for a long time, I can honestly say to You that the pleasures of this world do not mean as much to me as they once did.  I am not above wanting pleasures of this world, but it is more important to me to know Your peace, joy, harmony, and calm.  Thank You for walking with me far enough along the pathway to You that I have made this shift in my values.

May I be understanding if others do not share this concept.  It takes a long while to understand that this world does not really offer anything that is lasting, and only the lasting is the eternity that we all seek, whether we know it or not.  May my walk into eternity today include my brothers and sisters, and may I not make demands upon them that they are not yet ready to accommodate.

Amen.

Why Wait for Heaven?

ACIM Workbook Lesson 188 – for Saturday, July 7, 2012

Affirmation:  “The peace of God is shining in me now.”

“Why wait for Heaven?  Those who seek the light are merely covering their eyes.  The light is in them now.  Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all.  Light is not of the world, yet you who bear the light in you are alien here as well.  The light came with you from your native home, and stayed with you because it is your own.  It is the only thing you bring with you from Him Who is your source.  It shines in you because it lights your home, and leads you back to where it came from and you are at home.  (WB357)”

Reflections:

1 – Are Our Present Lives Unreal?

The most welcome opening sentences of the passage for today lend an unreal aspect to our mundane lives.  Can it truly be that we are missing out on Heaven on earth because we are covering our eyes from the light that would show us Heaven?

2 – Enlightenment

Importantly, we see the way to Enlightenment (also called Awakening in ACIM) pointed out in this passage as well.  We “recognize,” but we are not miraculously changed.  Our personalities remain the same.  And A Course of Love (perhaps a sequel to A Course in Miracles) says that we do not have to be perfect to experience this change.  We need only to make the decision for those imperfect things (or things that we deem to be imperfect) be eliminated from our emotional make-up, and they will be gone.  Throughout ACIM we are told that our minds make our experience of this world.  In A Course of Love, we are told that wholeheartedness is the aim toward which we are now ready to point.  This is a blend of mind and heart, for the heart knows blessings and understands concepts (intuitively) that the mind can never know.

3 – End of the Journey

When we have taken the steps outlined in both A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love, we will be at home in God.  The end of the journey that never began is at hand.  May this blessing come sooner rather than later.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would walk ever closer to You and ever-closer to Christ-consciousness.  I would not do so in arrogance, but in true humility and with the Authority that You give me.  You are the Source.  May I never forget that.

Be with me today through the sometimes lonely road that we all walk.  May I find my friends there for me today, and especially may I find my significant others there for me.

Help us to help each other, as Jesus would certainly proscribe.

Amen.

Turn Hell to Heaven

“Peace now belongs here, because a Thought of God has entered.  What else but a Thought of God turns hell to Heaven merely by being what it is?. . .It is no longer, ‘Can peace be possible in this world?’ but instead, ‘Is it not impossible that peace be absent here?’  (M-11.4)”

 

Affirmation:  “May I see peace today.”

Reflections:

1 – Heaven on Earth

We are well-informed in A Course in Miracles that we can know Heaven on earth.  We do not deny the reverse that our physical eyes show us, but we recognize what is real and what is not.  We know that the intangibles of God, the Thought of God, is real.  The peace, the joy, the patience, the contentment. . . .Everything that is not a synonym of peace is an illusion, because we are living a dream (ACIM tenets).

2 – Peace

When we experience a Thought of God, we know that peace is meant to follow our footsteps wherever we go.  We can be mistaken in thinking a given thought is actually a Thought of God, but mistakes can be corrected.  We do not arrogantly determine that we are understanding God’s Mind, for we are not ready for this.  We humbly take what we are given, and we give thanks for it.  Then we realize that peace is indeed home in our world.

3 – Pain and Suffering

What of the pain and suffering, the terrors and war, that engulf our world?  We can make a difference, and when we pray for guidance, we will be directed what difference it is that we are to make–what our particular part in the cosmic drama is meant to be.  Until we know that much, we walk a dimly lit path.

4 – Save This World

Ask today for your part in God’s plan to save the world.  The Holy Spirit will respond, and, we can imagine, in our anthropomorphic way, that He is glad that we asked.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would do today what I can best do to help the individuals around live a good life.  I know that I do not experience Heaven on earth consistently, but this blessing happens more frequently than it did when I was in my early adult years.  I knew when to be contented with what I had, because I had gone “without” for so long.  I thank You now that I discovered ACIM so early, in my mid-thirties, and that its tenets have guided me to happiness many times over.

Be with all of us as we seek to learn A Course in Miracles.  When we fill our minds with ACIM‘s glorious words, we edge out defeatism, and we find ourselves attracting better and better things.  These things do not have to be materialistic only; they certainly can be emotional joys that provide us with a gentle happiness that no bad occurrence in our world can long overcome.  Thank You for leading me to this understanding.

If we attract Jesus’s blessings, we do so because we have accepted the non-dualism of his world.  We no longer seek for what will actually harm, seeking in ignorance precipitated by egoistic thinking.  I would let the ego wither even more today, leading me ever closer to Awakening on a consistent basis.

Be with me as I seek to do for the significant others in my life the things that they need me to do.  This has been a hard week, for personal reasons, but You know those personal reasons.  And I wish to continue to see improvement in the individuals with whom I share my life.

Amen.

Revelation May Reveal the End

“Healing is of God in the end.  The means are being carefully explained to you.  Revelation may occasionally reveal the end to you, but to reach it the means are needed.  (T16)”

Affirmation:  “Revelation may occasionally reveal the end”

 

Reflections:

1 – Awakening

We may know revelation, the revelation of Awakening, several times before it is permanent.  This is not a Course concept, but one that we can observe in our brothers and ourselves.  To have known Awakening, even briefly, is a very wonderful blessing; it shows us what is possible.  We really do live in the present, and we live without anxiety in the present.  It is a time of great joy and freedom from fear.

2 – The Means to Awakening

The “means,” in this passage, are found in A Course in Miracles.  When we follow the way pointed out in its lovely writing, we will ultimately know the end of the Awakening that does not leave us.

3 – Personal Experience

I once lived in a state of mystic awareness for a little more than six months.  I knew a love for others that was all-encompassing, even toward people who were heretofore strangers to me.  I did not feel any fear (that I can recall) in the entire period of months, and anxiety had previously dogged my steps for many years.  I followed guidance as I perceived it, and, as ACIM warns, this sometimes led me into situations that were extremely embarrassing to me.  (ACIM, in the Manual, says that my embarrassment was borne of a “shabby self-image,” and thus not worthy of even the feeling of embarrassment.  The shabby self-image is best dropped.)  I did feel calmly joyous nearly all the time.  I  liked to sit as I waited for someone, secure in the certainty that the encounter I was about to have would be alright.  I was not nervous ahead of time in regard to any anticipated experience.

4 – A Return Soon?

Obviously, I would like for such awakened feelings to return.  They sometimes do, fleetingly.  I wait patiently (as possible) for the Awakening of which all long-time students of A Course in Miracles clamor.  But patience must be the watchword, even as we avoid the judgment of ourselves and  our brothers and sisters that will make impossible the boon of Awakening.  If we judge not, we are told in ACIM, we will awaken.  How hard a dictate to practice, even when we have learned a good bit about the ego’s wily ways.

4 – Revelation from God

It is comforting to know that we are, at any time, subject to revelation.  This is not quite the same as miracles.  We cannot easily explain revelation, as it sounds truthful only to ourselves, being intensely personal–from God to us, always.  He knows us as nobody in this world can.  An inner awareness of God will go a long way toward recognizing that He and we are not separate at all.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank you for the times in my life that revelation has revealed Awakening to me.  It was not sustained, but that it happened at all is grounds for hope that one day Awakening will be permanent.

May all of us know this great joy of experiencing Awakening.  A Course in Miracles explains the healing that leads us to it.

Amen.

“I Need Do Nothing”

“When peace comes at last to those who wrestle with temptation and fight against the giving in to sin; when the light comes at last into the mind given to contemplation; or when the goal is finally achieved by anyone, it always comes with just one happy realization; ‘I need do nothing.’  (T389)”

Affirmation:  “I need do nothing.”

Reflections:

1 – Difficult to Believe?

Perhaps we find this a difficult passage to believe.  And perhaps it is difficult to believe.

2 – Heaven

The passage is saying that we don’t have to achieve our way into heaven.  “I need do nothing.”  What a comforting thought!  How consoling to believe that we will believe and even understand this passage when the Awakening has happened to us.

3 – Forgiveness

There are various ways to achieve Awakening.  But the A Course in Miracles says that our brother is our way–forgiveness of our brother (and sister).  That is the way that we reach the goal.  And then we know that we need do nothing.

4 – Effortlessness

The way to Heaven on earth is meant to be effortless.  This does not mean that we will never “achieve.”  It only means that we do not have to achieve to merit Heaven.  God will send us on many errands for our brothers and sisters, but they will not seem a burden, for they are chosen for us by the One who knows us inside and out.

5 – Guidance

We need to let the Holy Spirit guide our days.  They may be busy days, but there will be an effortlessness about them that will prove the point of the chosen passage for today.  We do not have to struggle.  We are not without help from unseen companions.  Let God speak the truth of such musings to your heart today.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to glimpse the full meaning of this passage and this important sentence, “I need do nothing.”  I realize that this does not mean that I will do nothing, because we are often send on busy errands.  But my salvation is not dependent on good works.  We forgive our brothers and sisters, and then we, gradually, come to understand more.  And Awakening stands at the end, once we have lived through the means to that end.

Be with me today.  I would not lead anybody astray, because this passage is not a prescription for laziness.  But it is a prescription for effortlessness, for all comes easy to us when we have come to understand how to follow You.  Be with me as I seek to listen and to discern accurately what the Holy Spirit is telling me.  I need You today.

Amen.

Walk into the Garden

“You have reached the end of an ancient journey, not realizing yet that it is over.  You are still worn and tired, and the desert’s dust still seems to cloud your eyes and keep you sightless. . . .Only a little wall of dust still stands between you and your brother.  Blow on it lightly and with happy laughter, and it will fall away.  And walk into the garden love has prepared for both of you.  (T393)”

Affirmation:  “I would walk in the garden today.”

Reflections:

1 – Succinct ACIM

A beautiful passage, this paragraph incorporates the whole of A Course in Miracles in succinct form.  We are meant to learn through our relationship to our brother (and sister), and through this relationship to be brought to Awakening.  Long periods of contemplation are not “our” way, though many ACIM students incorporate meditation as part of the workbook exercises.  (Indeed, the workbook exercises seem to encourage meditation, especially at the close of the year.)

2 – Special Relationships Turned Holy

This passage encourages the way of salvation for ACIM students/teachers.  This way lies in our transition from special relationships to holy relationships with our brothers and sisters.  We are “still worn and tired,” and it is in our forgiveness of others that our safety lies.  When we have let our grievances go, we will know that we are perfectly safe (from the Workbook).  We may become somewhat disjoined in our relationships as they move from specialness to holiness.  The purpose is different, when the holy relationship is seen as part of our salvation.  We are reassured that the Holy Spirit will not thrust our special relationships apart from us, but will be there for us as we transform them to what is truly beatific.  And when we are surrounded by holy relationships, what is this but Heaven on earth?

2 – Heaven on Earth

Jesus is very gentle with us, understanding that our way in this world is frequently hard, and indicating that he understands our pain.  The image of the “garden” perhaps indicates that Heaven on earth can yet be ours.  Certainly that is a hope in line with the teachings of ACIM.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You for this beautiful passage, so comforting and encouraging so much peace in me.  I am drawn to its beauty over and over, and the promises that it makes are profound.  May I spend part of this day in repeating these profound words over and over to myself, as affirmations.

May all of my special relationships, one-by-one, turn holy.  I realize that this is why we are here in this world.  May I say and do my part in making this come about.  But may I lean on You in making the decisions that I need to make to effect these changes in my relationships.

Be with us today as we seek to live peaceably with one another.  It is not right to try to isolate ourselves behind a computer or a print book.  Help me to reach out to others when You lead me to extend a helping hand.  But never let me overreach to those who are not ready or who are uninterested in what I might say or do.

Amen.

You Have Never Left Heaven

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

Affirmation:  “May I recognize my Helpers.”

Reflections:

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

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

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

Dear Father/Mother,

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

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

Amen.

Workbook Lesson for Day 86:

These ideas are for review today:

Only God’s plan for salvation will work.

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