Calm Center of Our Being

“Being always what you are means not to disconnect from anything that happens within yourself.”  COL bk.2, 19:I

We don’t need to judge ourselves harshly when thoughts arise from the depths, where all is peace.  This is what is actually happening “within” ourselves.  We do need to turn aside from negativity, analyzing our conflicts, getting ourselves overwrought by frightening ourselves with our own thoughts.  Much of these last attitudes are either the ego or egoic patterns that have not yet left us.

But the ego will leave when we invite his demise, and the egoic patterns will also, eventually, cease.  We must have patience with ourselves.  We didn’t get all tangled up in an instant, and it will take more than an instant to start out on a better pathway.

When we look within, we see an equanimity that stands us in good stead regardless of what is happening external to ourselves.  Or what we perceive as happening outside ourselves.  Actually, A Course in Miracles says that projection makes perception, and so we are still projecting our outside world, what we are experiencing.  When we don’t like what we see, we need simply to delve more deeply within our mind and heart, to the calm center of our being.  This allows us to be who we really are.

Turn inward for a while today, connecting with our inner being.  We may not yet be able to sustain this stable look at our real Self, but we can form new habits that will allow us to live as this real Self.

And then we are home free.  Safe in the arms of God.

To Separate or to Remain Whole

“You have been told there are but two emotions, love and fear. What this is really saying is that there are but two ways to respond to what you feel—with love or with fear. If you respond with fear you expel, project, and separate. If you respond with love you remain whole.” (ACOL, D:Day16.10)

What is the difference in reacting between these two emotions?

Fear is always separating, removing us farther from the sense of God’s Presence within us. Love allows us to be whole, at one with God, with others, and with ourselves.

When we are caught in the egoic fear that has engulfed us for so long, we project a fearful world. We project that which we believe to be true about our world. But this projection is all coming from within a fearful self-concept, and so this projection is really a nothing, dressed up in clothes that make it seem something important and right. But it is never right, and most of us are tired of the same old world of fear. We need a new attitude, a new projection, a projection of love. And this we can have, when we follow the guidance of Jesus in these examples of channeling.

So let us decide, once and for all, that we will respond to what we see with love. This decision changes everything for us. Not only do we forgive, but we see with the eyes of love. And our little world changes accordingly, for (as A Course in Miracles makes clear) projection makes perception.

Visions

It is a fundamental tenet of the Course that we are making the world that we see: projection from within causes our perception. This is a particularly difficult concept for “rational” beings to accept, because it requires that we entertain the notion, foreign to ourselves, that we are engaged in mass hallucination with our brothers. Those who have actually seen hallucinations (or visions) will find it easier to accept. Those who have been psychotic have stepped, momentarily, out of the mass hallucination into one seen only by themselves. For these people, the world they normally see will never again seem so real.

Projection Makes Perception

Never tell someone who has lived through a full-blown psychosis that projection does not make perception. He knows it does. The whispered voices (so real at the time), the images “out there” that appear but are not really there–all these become his own, and more.

I once had a friend who saw his mother enter a room wearing a black dress. My friend knew at the time that his mother was not “really” wearing a black dress, but the day was filled with the surprises of psychosis, and he went with the flow. Much later, with perceptions part of the mass hallucination once again, my friend confirmed with his mother that the image had been false.

Because my friend dislodged himself from the mass hallucination, he is better prepared to see that he is, normally, hallucinating on a grand scale, along with everyone else currently in his “sane” mind. Of course, students of A Course in Miracles know it is not really sanity that we all experience, but madness, in seeing a chaotic world. (T-25.VII.3:2) The Course says, “If you behold disaster and catastrophe, you tried to crucify him [the Son of God, your real Self]. If you see holiness and hope, you joined the Will of God to set him free.” (T-21.in.2:3-4)

Think about this a moment. When you are at peace with the world, experiencing a “holy instant” of love and hope, is there really anything that can upset you? However fierce the perception appears, you know that the world and all beings in it are in God’s hands. How wonderful it would be to extend this thought to all our waking moments!

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.

Projection Makes Perception

“What is projection? Projection occurs when there has first been denial within yourself. Projection is an act in which you psychically try to throw out of your ownership everything that you have judged as being despicable or unworthy or you—something you do not want. So you project it. You will throw it up and out and let it land on whomever happens to be nearby. Projection is the effect of the denial of the first axiom that I have given you. It is the denial of the truth that:

“Nothing you experience has been caused by anything outside of you.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Chapter 3, Page 28)

We are in the driver’s seat. We create what happens to us, though not in our personality but in our soul.
We project when we feel unable to handle life in any other way. A Course in Miracles says, “Projection makes perception,” and this truth also applies here. We essentially see what we want to see. We are, in fact, projecting our illusory world. And we see what we imagine in our depths.

If we listen to intuition, we are less likely to create reality in a way that disturbs us. If we know that we take a risk in sharing something close to our heart with a less-than-sympathetic listener, then we are foolish to take a risk like that. We have here been the cause of our friend’s lack of sympathy, and we would have been saved from experiencing this if we had just listened to guidance. We have, in effect, projected what we are experiencing. The perception will hurt us if we are not attuned to intuition and avoid saying the troubling thing.

We see in others what we don’t want to acknowledge in ourselves; that is why we have projected it. If it is “out there,” we feel less responsible for it.

But this is a chimera, an image that has no truth. We are no less responsible because we project. We have bound ourselves to it. And until we get our mind straightened out, a mind informed by the heart, we will not walk a green earth.

Project only what will not hurt. Don’t take unwise risks. Our intuition will, in fact, guide us in every situation, at every time.

The Best Experiences Avoid the Ego

“You do not exist outside of relationship, just as your mind does not exist outside of oneness. Your experience here is but an extension of mind into a realm in which experience can occur. Your ego has made of this some¬thing different than it is. Rather than extension of mind, your experience has become a projection of ego. This can change.” (ACOL, C:31.35)

We are in relationship to all that exists, and this makes for the oneness that Jesus is extolling in this passage for today. Because we are not isolated, we need each other. Our experience in this world, with others, is an extension of mind that allows us to have experience in a physical world. We are not making a world out of ego projection any longer, and this explains why A Course of Love looks on the outer world differently from the way that A Course in Miracles explains. ACIM said that projection makes perception, and this was projection of the ego, for we were still trapped in the ego at that time, at that part of reading in ACIM. But extension of mind, what we are doing now, is a step forward, a better way, in which we join with others in relationship, and we have experiences that are much better. We are no longer isolated.

In the separation, we wanted to be isolated and alone, independent, with allies only but no companions. But we were not set up this way. We were not created this way. The center will not hold. And the ego, in its madness, probably does know this. It probably knows that it is living on borrowed time. And becomes vicious because it is threatened. This leads to nightmares in a living hell that this world can so easily become.

All of this can change, and will change, when we allow salvation to do its holy work. Salvation means many different things to different people, but in ACIM and ACOL, salvation, ultimately, means Awakening or Christ-consciousness. If we allow the glimpses of Awakening to lengthen, by a mental choice to live peaceably, we will know a tranquility that will automatically allow the glimpses to lengthen. We know many things about enlightenment, and these many things can help us now. Leave off anger and attack, judgment and needless planning, and let guidance of the inner Christ Self tell us what to do and say. This is the only way to live well.

And it will be no secret that we are healed.

Dear Father/Mother,

I would see the glimpses of enlightenment that come to me lengthen and spread out upon my world. I would reach out to others in holy relationship, and in this act, I would find You. You are my fortress from a bad world, when it is bad. You are my most important relationship, the model for all other relationships. Help me to enlarge on glimpses of enlightenment through a wholehearted welcome to You and Your children, the others with whom I am in relationship.

Be with me today to watch my steps along the road that I travel.

Thank You.

Abiding Separate from God Is Unnatural

“To abide in a state of separation is to abide in an unnatural state from which you eventually will seek release. (The Treatises of A Course of Love: ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 4.15)”

1 – ACIM

ACIM says that we have taught ourselves the unnatural fact of not communicating with our Creator. We are meant to turn to God often, the internal God known to all of us.

2 – Talking to God

There is much truth in the reassurance that we are meant to talk to God frequently. He is often the only solace that we have in a troubled world, and especially when our own little world is difficult. Friends and family may desert us, but God never does.

3 – Love

Love is ever-present in ways that we can experience. This in itself is a great comfort in times of trial. And never forget that times of trial, according to ACIM, are the way that we make a better choice this time–a choice that we made wrongly previously.

4 – ACOL

A Course of Love, just as ACIM, talks about natural and unnatural states. To “talk” to God frequently (sometimes, it is seems, even “all” the time) is to come closer to overcoming the unnatural sense of a separation from Him. God is internal and external; God is the All. When we turn inward, we are coming as close as we can to a true, natural end to the separation from God that we have taught ourselves.

5 – Projection Makes Perception

We project the perceived world. When we see the real world, we will know this. And we will see the real world when we have learned (for learning it is) to communicate freely, once more, with God. We have spent eons in the experiment that was separation from God, seeing as our god the ego. Let us be done with this idea. It is a bad idea to see the ego as our god. This god always, without fail, lets us down.

6 – Inner Self

Turn to the inner Self often today. This is what communing with God is really like. Our days will go much better when we start, once again, to communicate with our Creator. His Universal Inspiration, the Holy Spirit, will guide us until we are ready to listen to our inner Christ Self.

7 – Strong Choice

Be assured today that turning to God is not weak, but strong. All have a need to communicate with Him. When all do, once again, communicate with Him, our world will set on a higher, better path.

8 – Saved

And we will be ultimately saved from disasters.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I realize that I do not have to feel separation from You. You are closer than my breath. You are the Within.

I know that I may not “feel” anything on a constant basis. May I not depend on feelings to know that You is helping me. May today be a good day, sensing Your love of me, as well as Your love for my brothers and sisters–sent by You for me to be their healer.

Help me to talk to You almost constantly, to pray without ceasing. This sort of activity gives me great peace, and I would have peace today. Help me to realize that it is natural to carry on an internal monologue with You. The rightness of my day, when I do this, is powerful evidence that I am on the right path. Thank You for being there always for me. This is not illusion, though I do not know how to describe the state that prayer puts me in. I am heard; that I know for sure.

Amen.

Turn Inward

1 – No Turning Outward

“Again let me repeat and reemphasized my statements: where once you turned outward in your seeking and saw within what you perceived without, now you turn inward and reflect what you discover within outward. (The Treatises of A Course of Love: A Treatise on the New, 2:2)”

2 – Projection

This is a reversal, but it is not the reversal described in A Course in Miracles of “projection makes perception.” This “projection makes perception” indicates that what we see without has first been seen within—then projected into illusions, dreams. So what is being talked about here is different.

3 – Inner-Directed

We do know that we are mightily influenced by what we see outside ourselves, not recognizing that it is coming from within. We think it is without, and it is this that Jesus is addressing. Don’t be so concerned about what you see without, in the outside world. We need to be inner-directed, and it is this that Jesus is saying. Even secular psychologists in our world recommend the same.

4 – The Way

“There was no Way or path or process back to God and Self before me. It was the time of man wandering in the wilderness. I came as a representation or demonstration of The Way. This I why I have been called, ‘The Way, The Truth and The Light.’ (The Treatises of A Course of Love: A Treatise on the New, 2:4)

5 – Edgar Cayce

This is describing Jesus as those of us who follow him, see him. Edgar Cayce, the psychic from the last century, said that Jesus was the leader of souls who came to earth to rescue trapped individuals who could not find their way out alone, so trapped were they by the material world. The light of God had just about gone out in the “daughters of men,” and so the “Sons of God” came. Of course, gender does not matter; these are just expressions.

6 – Jesus

Is Jesus the only way? Is this what he is saying? I think not. He knows that those of us who are taking unto ourselves A Course of Love are looking to him for guidance. And those of us who look to A Course of Love find solace in Jesus’s comforting words. He is speaking as the Jesus of 2,000 years ago, when he walked the earth as the Jesus whom we love from the New Testament.

7 – Other Teachers

Jesus says in A Course in Miracles that for some there are other teachers, that God would not have left anyone bereft of a way back to Him. So those who are not ready to accept Jesus will probably not be drawn to A Course of Love. But for those of us who are so drawn, the message is one of infinite peace.

8 – Fear

“Although God never abandoned the humans who seeded the Earth, the humans, in the state of the forgotten self, could not know God because of their fear. (The Treatises of A Course of Love: “A Treatise on the New,” 2.4)”

9 – Fear and Love

This passage amplifies upon the oft-stated words in A Course in Miracles that fear and love are the only two emotions. The ego has ruled fear, and we have been caught by the ego for eons. Now, in both books, the hope is that we will relinquish the ego and move into love as our single emotion.

10 – Negative Emotions

Having love as a single emotion does not mean that we will never feel negative emotions. Elsewhere in A Course of Love, we learn that we may continue to experience anger, but if we don’t like this, we can (as A Course in Miracles says), see this as a mistake and drop the emotion from our list.

11 – Channels to God

Our channels to God’s love had been closed to Him (an ACIM concept). Now we must, once again, realize that God is a loving God, and that His will does not include the visitation of pain and suffering upon ourselves. We have done this (an ACIM concept), and we can choose to undo it. May we choose to undo it today.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

As we revisit the passage for today, may we realize that we could not know God as long as we allowed fear to rule. May we drop fear from our repertoire of emotions. May we know only love. And if this is too much for us to assimilate today, may we make inroads on this accomplishment.

I wish for a good day of love with no fear. May I recognize that if I find attack, I have in some way chosen a fearful state of experience. May I drop fear from my perception, and because projection makes perception, may I now and always move closer to the love that is Yours.

Amen.

A Course in Miracles – What It Says, Part 1

1 – The Real vs. the Unreal

“Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God”

This is how A Course in Miracles begins. It makes a fundamental distinction between the real and the unreal; between knowledge and perception. Knowledge is truth, under one law, the law of love or God. . . .The world of perception, on the other hand, is the world of time, of change, of beginnings and endings. It is based on interpretation, not on facts.

To read the epigraph is awe-inspiring, a proper approach to God Himself. The epigraph makes a sharp contrast between illusion and reality, between illusion as perceived, and the real world as a result of the coming knowledge. And what we know in this world is illusion.

2 – Jerry Jampolsky and Hugh Prather

Shortly after his death, Hugh Prather spoke to a friend, Jerry Jampolsky, in which he declared that A Course in Miracles is absolutely true. We live in illusion. Hugh said that we need not to worry so much. His message suggested that he himself regretted the worry that he had given some of the events and happenings of his just-lived life.

3 – Worry

We all need to cast worry aside. Worry dissipate when fear has been rejected in favor of love. And A Course in Miracles counsels forgiveness of our brother, and through our relationship to him, we come prepared for Awakening.

4 – Dream

“When you have been caught in the world of perception you are caught in a dream.”

ACIM uses the term “dream” more than “illusion.” There are some very beautiful passages in which we learn that Awakening is as though a light has come on in our dream. But we will not awaken with fear and a scream of mortal terror, because A Course in Miracles has given us the means to awaken without fear (from ACIM).

5 – Perception

We are perceiving with our minds. And perception always partakes of ourselves.

“’Projection makes perception.’ (ACIM Text) We look inside first, decide the kind of world we want to see and then project that world outside, making it the truth as we see it. We make it true by our interpretations of what it is we are seeing.”

This oft-quoted statement, “Projection makes perception,” means further that we not only project the world, but that it is therefore not really there! There is no world, we are told, though we are also told that not everybody is ready to accept this startling statement by Jesus.

6 – Sins vs. Mistakes

“Sin is defined as ‘lack of love’ (from ACIM Text). Since love is all there is, sin in the sight of the Holy Spirit is a mistake to be corrected, rather than an evil to be punished.”

Sin is described in ACIM as an attracting concept, one that will be repeated because of an attraction. Mistakes, a simple change of word, in our language simply denote something that we want to change, to correct. There is no attracting characteristic to mistakes. And sin suggests something that is unforgivable, whereas mistakes are always forgivable. We need to see all that our brothers says to us or does to us as forgivable, though we will not always stay in his vicinity if the situation becomes untenable.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You for the calm that these messages of A Course in Miracles induce in me. I have learned much. My only regret is that I sometimes forget when stress is present in my life. And that is when I need to remember most.

Help me to be a non-controversial, congenial writer about ACIM. I would focus on the ways that we are similar, not the ways that we differ in our attitudes and beliefs. Help me to stay true in my interpretations to what ACIM really says. May I interpret what ACIM says in a way that is open to all individuals who study the volumes.

Please be with me.

Amen.

I Am Not the Victim of the World I See. I Have Invented the World I See.

1 – There Is No World!

A Course in Miracles stresses repeatedly that we live in a dream, that this world is illusory. And in support of this idea comes the assertion that projection makes perception. So all that we experience comes from within ourselves. There is no world! (This is an ACIM declaration.) Now the following passage repeats this idea in slightly different words:

“You will escape from both [the inner and the outer world] together, for the inner is the cause of the outer. (WB31)”

2 – Projection Makes Perception

If our inner world makes our outer (what we have been learning), then it behooves us to transform our inner to loving concepts. Fear in the inner world will make the outer world seem fearful to us. And when the ego is reigning within, we have little choice but to view an outer world that scares us.

3 – ACIM’s Purpose
We would not have it thus. Nobody would, if they knew what to do to change things. And with ACIM, we are learning the means to Awakening the transformative experience that will make all the difference.

4 – Useful Idea

“The idea for today [“I am not the victim of the world I see”] is also a particularly useful one to use as a response to any form of temptation that may arise. It is a declaration that you will not yield to it, and put yourself in bondage. (WB31)”

We are in control of our destinies. Our world is what we want it to be, once we have taken conscious control. Otherwise, we may be living with an imprisoned will, made that way because of the “tiny, mad idea” that changed us, that made the illusory separation from God. But many New Age writers have declared that we create our own reality. And ACIM says the same, though in this world ACIM uses the word “make” rather than “create.” We are not ready for true creation as long as we are in egoic clutches.

5 – We Invented This World

“Today we are continuing to develop the theme of cause and effect. You are not the victim of the world you see because you invented it. You can give it up as easily as you made it up. You will see it or not see it, as you wish. While you want it you will see it; when you no longer want, it will not be there for you to see. (WB32)”

6 – Cause and Effect

Cause and effect can be a hard concept to wrap one’s mind around. But it is really very simple. It says that like creates like, and when we live in egotism, we make egotism in our outside world. Again, projection makes perception.

7 – Avoidance of This World

We do not want to see the world in which we have been living. But it is things of the spirit that will save us, not materialistic goods. Our reality is one that cannot be viewed by the seeing eyes. Our reality is the intangibles of God, his blessings of joy, peace, harmony, serenity, love.

8 – The Secret

The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne, has given me personally much room for thought. In this book and DVD, she and others say that we attract the world that we want. The first book in the series, The Secret does focus quite a bit on the material. But the second and third books in the series, The Power and The Magic, look to spiritual concepts of gratitude and love far more.

9 – Spiritual Concepts

It is to these spiritual concepts that I want to take our attention. We will never be satisfied for long with material goods. We will always want more, as long as those goods are coming to us to satisfy egoistic wants. But when we are grateful for the world in which we live, and when we love mightily, we have it in our power to transform the world that we see. And transformation is what we are after, if the truth be told.

10 – Apply Today’s Idea

“The idea for today [‘I have invented the world I see.’] should also be applied immediately to any situation that may distress you. Apply the idea by telling yourself: I have invented this situation as I see it. WB32)”

All of the passages from this Workbook lesson say much the same as what Rhonda Byrne is saying, and she has gotten a great deal of press in recent years. The concepts are making their way into the mainstream, much as have the concepts of ACIM. (Frequently entire books are written which set forth the philosophy of ACIM without ever crediting where the ideas have originated.)

11 – Change Your World

So, if we are not victims of the world we see, we can change that world. And let us seek to do so today. Let us get started. The world will continue on in its poor, downtrodden ways until we seek to make a change. It is not hard to change a thought that we wish to change. And the world is a thought, an idea.

Affirmation: “I am not the victim of the world I see.”

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May the world that I see today make a dramatic shift. May I see that this world is my own invention, that I am part of a mass hallucination. May I join others in the desire to make a better world that is not dependent on the physical eyes to see.

Be with me today. I long for an anxiety-free day, and I have much on my plate today. Help me to call upon You, to remember to call upon You, when I sense stress. You would not have me stressed. That is not Your way. Show me Your way today.

Amen.

The External World Is but a Reflection of the Internal

“The thought system of the truth realizes that the external world is but a reflection of the internal world. Thus you can observe with your eyes closed as easily as you can observe with your eyes open. You can observe by having an idea of another’s health, abundance, peace, and happiness. You can observe this within yourself because it exists within your Self. (Treatises of A Course of Love: Treatise on the Personal Self, 18.10)”

Affirmation: “I would know that my external world is a reflection of my internal world.”

Reflections:

1 – Projection Makes Perception

The passage for today paraphrases what was said, but perhaps not always understood, from A Course in Miracles: “Projection makes perception.” What this means is that the external world which we see is but a reflection of the internal world that we experience. We can observe the outer with eyes open or closed; it makes no difference. We see what we feel within, and we perceive without what has first found a home within our minds and hearts, the internal.

2 – How Many Angels?

This is the reason that the medieval question, “How many angels can be on the point of a needle?,” is so far beyond its time. There is no world! Jesus says in ACIM that this is what we must ultimately comprehend. We are projecting what we have made real within, and this projection causes us to use our perception (though informed by the ego) to see what we see in the external world.

3 – Hallucination

We are part of a mass hallucination. This is a theological point, but one that will help many to understand what ACIM and A Course of Love are trying to tell us. Certainly all is illusion before we let go of the egoic mind, but whether or not the real world is truly “real” is a question of theological debate. Is anything outside our minds? If God is the All, and we are part of a hologram (another concept that may be useful), then it means that each part is part of the Whole, and that the Whole is present in each part.

4 – Health, Abundance, Peace, Happiness

We can see health, abundance, peace, and happiness. Maybe not exclusively, but more and more as time passes, and our minds and hearts work in tandem. We first see these positive experiences when we listen to the Holy Spirit, and He brings happy dreams to us. The dreams expand so that even tough times often lose their sting. We can be sure that a lovely God watches over us, just as we learned long ago in Sunday school. We may have moved away from our childhood understanding of God, but the germ of an idea may never leave us. And traditional Christianity still is there for us, expanded and enlarged by Jesus’s channeled writings for our era.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would not worry so much about how many angels can balance on the point of a needle, but how many are watching over me now. I would hope that there are a few doing just that. My life does not work well without help—help from others on this plane, in this world, and help from an unseen world. Thank You for giving me the assurance that I do have assistance, and that this assistance is with me always.

Amen.

We Cry Out for Healing Today

“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.  (A Course of Love, 17.2)”

Affirmation:  “May I join with my Self today.”

Reflections:

1 – Personal Self

We are often moody.  Why?  We are living in the personal self, the little self that is still occupied with and identified with the ego.  The ego does not wish us well.  It welcomes conflict, because conflict keeps the ego alive and thriving.

2 – Relax into Our Hearts

There is a better way to live.  We can relax into our hearts, when we are down, and still the mind.  The final pages of the Workbook of A Course in Miracles are filled with reflections that some view as meditation.  These reflections, as well as the trilogy of A Course of Love, are particularly appropriate to consider our Self, the real inner being that is the Christ.  And when we turn to the inner being, we are reconciled to ourselves and to God at once.

3 – Glimpses of Revelation

We will sometimes fail to make this transition, for the glimpses of revelation are brief in the beginning.  But gradually, as we continue our pathway, the glimpses lengthen, and our time with the Self expands.  Then we are truly being returned to God, and posthaste.  We are not alone with the ego any longer.

4 – Ineffable Peace

When we have returned to our Self, we will know peace, an ineffable peace, far more often than we will experience any other emotion.  Indeed, Jesus says in A Course in Miracles that we will be “perfectly calm and quiet” all the time.  Drama of the ego will have faded away, and we will be glad of the fading.

5 – Listen Quietly

May we return to the Self today.  We cannot do this alone.  But we can ask for help, and, if we listen quietly, we will hear.  Invite God’s peace into your heart today.  He will not disappoint.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would do whatever I can today to return to my Self, the Christ in me.  I cannot do this without help, and I ask for Your help.  May the glimpses of revelation that I have known come again today, and may those glimpses lengthen in time.  I can eventually look forward to living in the Self all the time.  I welcome that day, though I know that the decision is Yours, and I respect this from the bottom of my heart.

Be with me today.  Keep me from anxiety.  If I am truly living as separated from You, I will have anxiety.  I will not have anxiety when I choose to heal the separation, the separation that has never been real anyway.  You have always been there for me, deep within me–as well as outwardly.  May my perceptions be cleansed into knowledge, Your true knowledge.  May I project outwardly only the harmony and peace that You encompass within me.

Be with me today as I sort out these complexities.  Salvation is simple, and when I get too much into complexities, I am speaking from my ego.  Correct this in me today.  Thank You.

Amen.

Transformation

“The beginning of all transformation is at the source, and this is as true of illusion as of the truth.  You see your body as your self, and your self as source of all that you have done and felt in all your days upon this earth.  Yet your real source is at the center of yourself, the altar to your creator, the Self you share in unity with Christ.  Christ is the ‘part’ of God that resides in you, not in separation but in the eternal wholeness in which God and you together exist in truth.  (A Course of Love, 10.4)”

Affirmation:  “God is within.”

Reflections:

1 – ACIM

There are some ideas from A Course in Miracles that need to be explored before we take up the passage for today.  When we say (as the passage says, in other words) that God is within, we must also realize that projection makes perception.  And I believe that the earthly concept of the hologram is a correct analogy, that each part contains the whole.  Of course, this bottom line is that All is One, and that is the why that God is within, and we can also project a world outside of ourselves.  We perceive other people, and so they are, but they are also “us.”

2 – Follow Your Heart

Do not let theology delay you.  If the thoughts in the paragraph above do not resonate with you, then instead set them aside, and take only what feels right in your heart.  We are not too concerned with bodies now, but with the center of our being (not the physical organ).  And this center is the heart.

3 – Real Beauty

We would know that the body deceives.  The body deceives by letting us think that if we just make it pretty or handsome enough, we will attract other bodies who want to be with us.  And so we may.  But will this superficial value last?  I think now.  Aging comes to all of us, though the real beauty is within.  And the holy relationship recognizes that the real beauty is within.

4 – A Summary

The passage for today encapsulates a good bit of the good news of A Course of Love.  God is our Source, and we are heart-centered beings who also use our minds as need be.  But we must not let the ego-oriented mind take over.  We must ask that this ego be dislodged, and then we must replace it with something better. ACOL‘s answer is wholeheartedness–a melding of mind and heart to make one, or One.  The One that is God, as well as all things.  Illusion has no place in this concept.  Behind the illusion is the real, and we would peek behind the illusion to see that real today.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I long for this transformation that is described today in the passage selected.  Help me to be patient, as I am not ready, or the revelation would already have occurred.  This transformation is the Awakening or the Christ-consciousness that is the birthright of all of us.  But we may need to wait for this blessing.

Help me to realize that to beautify the body is not enough.  It is good to look good, but even better is to have inner beauty.  And as one ages, the inner beauty becomes more and more apparent.  May we all walk safely along the pathway from birth to old age, and then beyond.  May nothing keep us from You at all times.  Thank You for the guidance that You give me, especially when the guidance comes in unexpected ways and at unexpected times.  You make the decisions.  I will follow.

Amen.

Anger Recognizes an Illusory Reality

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

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

Reflections:

1 – “Nothing”

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

2 – Anger at Interpretations

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

3 – Projection Makes Perception

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

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

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

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

Amen.

What You Feel Within = What You See Without

ACIM Workbook Lesson 189 – for Sunday, July 8, 2012

Affirmation:  “I feel the Love of God within me now.”

 

“What would you see?  The choice is given you.  But learn and do not let your mind forget this law of seeing:  You will look upon that which you feel within.  If hatred finds a place within your heart, you will perceive a fearful world, held cruelly in death’s sharp-pointed, bony fingers.  If you feel the Love of God within you, you will look out on a world of mercy and of love.  (WB359)”

Reflections:

1 – A Lovely Passage

What a lovely passage from the Workbook!  And the images are so profound.

2 – Fear = Hatred

If we have ever lived in fear, perhaps we have not realized that hatred has found a place within our heart.  Perhaps this seems too harsh.  But Jesus frequently equates attack with hate (in other places in ACIM); he goes the whole distance in categorizing our emotions.  Jesus does not see lukewarm emotions, indicating to us elsewhere that a hint of irritation is the same as intense fury (separated from us only by a veil).

3 – Not Always Fearful

We do not always see a fearful world.  So we are not always caught by the hatred (and attack) that the ego would foster.

4 – The Love of God Within

We see a world of mercy and of love, perhaps increasingly so as our study of A Course in Miracles proceeds.  According to the passage for today, this sight means that we are feeling the Love of God within.  What a blessing this is!

5 – A World of Mercy and of Love

We would not view “death’s sharp-pointed, bony fingers.”  We would see a world of mercy and of love.  Let us go forth today to see Love wherever we are, and if someone else seems to attack us, let us remember that he or she is really calling for help (an ACIM tenet), and may we give help accordingly.  This is the way that Love works.  And it is our holy relationships that will carry us home to God.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would see a world today of mercy and of love.  I would feel within the love that You wish for me to feel.  And I know that when I feel that inward love, then the world that is externally is very different, very much better.  Thank You for helping me to reach this understanding.

This workbook lesson teaches me what is repeatedly said in A Course in Miracles:  projection makes perceptions.  May I project from a mind and heart that is rooted in love, and by so doing to see a world that is beautiful.  I know that the suffering in this world is actually illusory, but let this understanding in no way detract from the compassion that I would feel for others.

Be wtih me today as I walk through my world.  May my words be sweet, my demeanor graceful.  I would be the person today that You wish for me to be.  May I reach out to my brothers and sisters with the help that You know that I am suited to give.  But may I never try to overreach, to help when I am being an unhealed healer.

Amen.

Living in the Flow

“What you perceive in others you are strengthening in yourself.  (T80)”

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

Reflections:

1 – Without Reflects Within

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

2 – The Prathers

Hugh Prather and his wife Gayle once wrote that they were aware that when everyone that they encountered seemed to need “fixing” in some way, it was their own perception guiding them to take a look internally.  (Note:  This is a paraphrase of their writing.)  Certainly we can easily see the truth of this assertion.  If we are living “in the flow,” and all seems right in our little world, then it is likely that we are at peace and that we are not trying to change anybody.  A Course in Miracles does not emphasize changing our brothers and sisters.  Repeatedly we are encouraged to take a look at a brother or sister, and to try to determine what, if anything, they are ready to accept by way of salvation.  We are not meant to be aggressive (an interpretation of ACIM, not stated directly therein).

3 – How Do We Live in the Flow?

How do we easily live in the flow?  We do not hold such strong, stubborn attitudes in our daily lives.  We are flexible, and we guide our lives by the guidance that the Holy Spirit so often gives to us when we are receptive.  If we are having a good day, it is very likely that we are, consciously or unconsciously, giving up our self-will and living in the flow of the Holy Spirit.  What would it take for us to do this, to follow His guidance, all the time?  It takes the flexibility that I alluded to, just above.  We need to stop being so certain that we are right in the plans that seem necessary for our day.  We may have first decided that something is so, when actually the truth is far from us.  We need to ask that the truth about what we need to do with our day be shown to us, as the day unfolds.  The day is not often shown far in advance.  (This is personal interpretation, not stated in ACIM.)

4 – Changing What Is Within

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

5 – Projection Makes Perception

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

Prayer:

Dear Father,

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

When I am in a critical mood, I am not happy.  In fact, I would say that a critical mood is the primary factor if I run into a rough patch in which I seem to experience unhappiness.  Take this habit from me, dear God.  I would be tolerant of my brothers and sisters, and I would reap the benefit of a more benign attitude toward all of them.

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

Amen.

Overcoming Grievances, Hate, and Resentment

ACIM Workbook Lesson 85 – for Monday, March 26, 2012

Affirmation:  “My grievances hide the light of the world in me.”

 

Selected Passage:

“To see, I must lay grievances aside.  I want to see, and this will be the means by which I will succeed.  (WB150)”

Reflections:

To see is to have vision, the understanding that is afforded us by the Holy Spirit.  And to see aright, we must leave our grievances behind.  Other words (not stated in ACIM, but suggested by a close reading) that would be akin to “grievances” would be resentment and hate.  These dark emotions will preclude our seeing aright.  And we must see aright if we are to bring salvation to our brothers and sisters in this world.

Affirmation:  “My salvation comes from me.”

Selected Passage:

“Today I will recognize where my salvation is.  It is in me because its Source is there.  It has not left its Source, and so it cannot have left my mind.  I will not look for it outside myself.  It is not found outside and then brought in.  But from within me it will reach beyond, and everything I see will but reflect the light that shines in me and in itself.  (WB150)”

Reflections:

The passage quoted above is a theoretical look at one of the more practical aspects of A Course in Miracles.  For those of us who are drawn to the theoretical, we will find much to ponder in this passage.  God is within.  There is nothing outside ourselves (a Text tenet).  We project, and then we perceive the external to ourselves.  But when we recognize that God speaks to us from within, we can know what is meant by the lesson for today.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would leave all my grievances, even the tiny ones, behind me today.  When I don’t collect grievances, I am not prone to attack verbally.  Thank You for this insight.  It is akin to the insight, also given by you, that I am not prone to attack unless I am stressed.  I would live in Your peace today, and I would not collect grievances nor invite stress.

Help me today when the stress seems to be too much.  All manner of problems will develop unless I take a time-out and pray.  Help me to remember You when it counts most.  I would live in Your peace.  That is all that I really need to think about as the day unfolds.

Thank You for being there for me.  I know that You are within, and that nothing is without–that I am projecting the world, just as are my brothers and sisters in this world.  May we find each other a help in our journey back to You, never a hindrance.  If anybody attempts to bait me today, let me know that I am seeing amiss, and a few moments of quiet, solitary time will set my perceptions aright again.

Amen.

An Ancient Truth

“The world but demonstrates an ancient truth; you will believe that others do to you exactly what you think you did to them.  But once deluded into blaming them you will not see the cause of what they do, because you want the guilt to rest on them. (T587)”

 

Affirmation:  “I believe that others do to me what I think I did to them.”

Reflections:

1 – Definition of Blaming

This passage sounds hard to understand at first glance.  Do we, we ask ourselves, really want the guilt to rest on others?  If we reflect a moment, we will realize that we do.  This is what “blaming” is all about.

2 – The Problem with Blaming Others

Some of us almost make a career out of blaming others for our misfortunes.  We automatically shift the blame to the outside, if we are outwardly directed.  But does this make a friend of our brother or sister?  We know not.  Our brothers and sisters have a hard time, often, forgiving us when we have blamed them for our plight, even when we might objectively think that they had some part in bringing that plight upon us.

3 – We See a Projected World

The philosophical basis of the Course is hinted at in this passage.  Our perceptions determine what we see, because what we see is a projected dream.  This means that our brothers and sisters are not in any way to blame when something terrible happens (or more likely, when we perceive something terrible has happened).  There are many bad things in this world, and Jesus in ACIM does not counsel that we close our eyes to the obvious.  But our projections do determine how those bad things affect us.  We are at home in God when we have a peaceful heart, mindful always that we are living in illusion.  The real Self of another has not been hurt, however bad the outer circumstances may become (an interpretation, not stated in ACIM directly).

4 – The Wishes of Others

We believe that others do not always wish kindness upon us, and therefore we see that.  And we think that we have been guilty of unkindness.  The “we” comes first.  We project the dream that we are bad people, guilty of much “sin,” and then we see others doing bad things to us.  This is the way that we learn.  This is a reason for the world’s existence in its present form.  When we realize that we need this world to correct our own errors, we will be well on our way to our real  home.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would not rely on the false premise that others have harmed me and that I am right in blaming them for any misfortunes that come.  I am projecting this dream, and I am responsible for what happens.  I know that this does not mean that I myself am “to blame,” either.   I would not see myself as a victim, either of myself or of others.

Be with me as I seek to understand these theological undertones of A Course in Miracles.  There is much that we do not understand, but may I take the little that I do understand and make the most of it.  Thank You for the blessing of A Course in Miracles.  These volumes do explain much that previously could only be given over to sometimes blind faith.  Thank You for knowing that we were ready for this knowledge.

May my own projections not create a difficult world for myself.  It is up to me in some measure to choose the life that I would have.  Help me to choose always to serve You without reserve.

Be with me as I go through this day.  May no stress pique my temper, and may I be guided by the love that You would have me show not only to others, but also to myself.

Amen.

Belief

“Belief produces the acceptance of existence.  That is why you can believe what no one else thinks is true.  It is true for you because it was made by you.  (T14)”

Affirmation:  “May I believe only what is true.”

Reflections:

1 – No One Else Agrees with You

The second sentence in this passage is the pertinent one.  Many of us become lost in illusions of our own making, and those around us know the mistake that we are making.  They may try to tell us, but we may not listen.  Usually we don’t listen, to our regret later on.

2 – Pioneers?

It might be helpful, if we find ourselves in a position in which we are alone, the only one believing as we do, if we are pioneers of some sort or are we simply mistaken?

3 – We Have Projected our Perception

We have made the world which we perceive.  That is why we believe what no one else thinks is true.

4 – An Ego-Inspired World

What a sad commentary on the ego-inspired world!  Surely we lead confused lives until we let go of our misconceptions.  Then and only then can we turn to a better way.  And the Course is the better way that many of us have accepted as our truth.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I have been guilty of believing what nobody else thought was true.  Most of us have.  

May we leave these misconceptions behind as we enter a new world lit by your love.

Amen.

An Ancient Truth

“The world but demonstrates an ancient truth; you will believe that others do to you exactly what you think you did to them.  But once deluded into blaming them you will not see the cause of what they do, because you want the guilt to rest on them. (T587)”

Affirmation:  “I think that others do to me what I think I did to them.”

 

Reflections:

1 – Blaming

This passage sounds hard to understand at first glance.  Do we, we ask ourselves, really want the guilt to rest on others?  If we reflect a moment, we will realize that we do.  This is what “blaming” is all about.

2 – Projections Makes Perception

The philosophical basis of the Course is hinted at in this passage.  Our perceptions determine what we see, because what we see is a projected dream.

3 – The World Prompts Us

We believe that others do not always wish kindness upon us, and therefore we see that.  And we think that we have been guilty of unkindness.  The “we” comes first.  We project the dream that we are bad people, guilty of much “sin,” and then we see others doing bad things to us.  This is the way that we learn.  This is a reason for the world’s existence in its present form.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would see only kindness today.  I would not blame another if, during the day, I am feeling down.  This is just a continuation of the dream, the illusion.  I would escape from fantasies of attack by not attacking myself, not attacking myself or others at all.

Guide me today to the way of right living in this world.  I long to be at home in You, hour by hour and even minute by minute.

Amen.

Christ = the Self We Are Meant to Share

ACIM Workbook Lesson 354 – for Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Affirmation:  “We stand together, Christ and I, in peace

And certainty of purpose.  And in Him
Is His Creator, as He is in me.”

“For who is Christ except Your Son as You created Him?  And what am I except the Christ in me?  (WB481)”

Reflections:

1 – Definition of the Christ

Here is a further amplification of what “Christ” actually means.  He is the Self that we all embody in our essence.  We are still as God created us.  We only think that we ever separated from Him.  And in the lack of separation, we find the Christ/Self whom we are.

2 – Be at Peace

We are at peace when we have remembered these truths.  We do not have to rely only upon the personal self, the little self which has all too often been informed by the ego.  We can rely on the Voice that God gave in Answer to the separation, the Holy Spirit.  And we have one purpose with the fullest understanding of the term “Christ.”  We have certainty of purpose in furthering salvation.

3 – Projection Makes Perception

Our Creator is within.  We project the world that we see.  There is nothing outside of us, and that is what we must ultimately learn (Text tenets).  May we turn to our Creator, our God, within, whenever we are perplexed.  We do not have to remain in doubts.  The solution is always with the problem.  Not ultimately, but right now.  It, practically, may take awhile for the truth of  a solution to dawn upon our deluded minds.  But dawn it will, and all will be well.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would turn inward today, constantly listening to the guidance of the Guide that You gave me.  I would have a good day, knowing that my intention does make some difference in the way things turn out.  Be with me today as I share my day with my brothers and sisters.  Help me to know when to reach out and when to refrain.  May I make no overtures that are unwelcome, but may I not hesitate to make overtures that I sense may be welcome.

Help me to understand what my real Self, the Christ within, really means.  I know that my little personal self may not comprehend fully, but guide me gently to a fuller understanding of all that You intend us to know on this plane.  

Be with my significant others, those nearby and those at a distance, those I have contacted recently and those I wish to contact but hesitate to do so.  May all I have ever encountered be aware of the love that surrounds all of us when we turn inwardly to You.

Amen.

Miracles Mirror God’s Eternal Love

ACIM Workbook Lesson 350 – for Friday, December 16, 2011

Affirmation:  “Miracles mirror God’s eternal Love.
To offer them is to remember Him,
And through His memory to save the world.”

“What we forgive becomes a part of us, as we perceive ourselves.  The Son of God incorporates all things within himself as You created him.  Your memory depends on his forgiveness.  What he is, is unaffected by his thoughts.  But what he looks upon is their direct result.  (WB478)”

Reflections:

1 – Miracles in This World

We would “save the world,” and the way that we can do this is through miracles.  We do not, as we have noted many times in this blog, choose which miracles to perform.  Jesus guides us in this decision.  And no miracle will be unaccepted forever.  If it does not seem to have effects now, we need only wait, and the results will become evident.  Time does not have any meaning, for only eternity exists.  When we remember God, we do save the world.

2 – Projection Makes Perception

Our thoughts determine what we will see with our body’s eyes.  And this the truth of projection making perception.  We are not determine by our thoughts, for we have not changed in essence.  But what we see is so determined, and if we would see aright, we need to think aright.

3 – At Home in God

These final lessons are guidance in how to worship rightly (an interpretation, not stated in ACIM).  Words become unnecessary, as we are  at home in God.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May the miracles that You would have us perform arise easily and peacefully before our eyes.  May we not arrogantly choose what miracles we will perform, but let ourselves be guided, sometimes almost imperceptibly.  May we do Your will in this world.

I would, in these final weeks of the year that we have spent together, be reassured that the end of the Workbook is not an end to our communion.  Nor is it the reassurance that we have learned all that we need to know.  We await Your word on when our learning is at an end.  In the meantime, may we be patient students, eager and willing to learn Your way.  And may we help our brothers and sisters as we continue to learn.

Amen.

Find the Way to Heaven and to God

ACIM Workbook Lesson 325 – for Monday, November 21, 2011

Affirmation:  “All things I think I see reflect ideas.”

“This is salvation’s keynote:  What I see reflects a process in my mind, which starts with my idea of what I want. . . .And from forgiving thoughts a gentle world comes forth, with mercy for the holy Son of God, to offer him a kindly home where he can rest a while before he journeys on, and help his brothers walk ahead with him, and find the way to Heaven and to God.  (WB464)”

Reflections:

1 – Projection Makes Perception

Salvation’s keynote, given above, is a statement of the fact the projection makes perception:  The process begins in the mind, with what I want, and then I see (outwardly).  When we are in a forgiving mood, it is inevitable that we will look upon a forgiving world.  When we are seeing people who need “fixing,” then it is our own mind that is in need of an attitude adjustment.

2 – Forgiveness / Love

When we want to see Heaven, we must meet the conditions of seeing Heaven.  And this is an attitude of forgiveness, most importantly, and an attitude of love rather than fear.  There is no other way.  We will see the dreams of a benign world, where we will rest awhile, before journeying on to Awakening.  The dreams of a kindly home prepare us for the shock of the ultimate Awakening, which we will not fear, but will welcome.  ACIM tells us that without the kindly dream, offered by the Holy Spirit, we would be too fearful to welcome Awakening.  We need the gentleness of forgiveness and the strength of love.  We need to be at peace.

3 – We Travel with Others

We go with our brothers and sisters toward home.  We do not have to travel alone, and indeed we cannot.  Only in the return of all of us are we freed to be at home in God.  Until that time, which may be millions of years from now, we have work to do.  But if we can believe ACIM (and we can), it is an effortless work and a joyful work.  We will not choose amiss when we choose as the Holy Spirit bids.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I begin this day with a forgiving attitude and a loving attitude.  If I can begin rightly, then all else will fall into place.  If I slip, may I simply pick myself up and begin again–all with Your Guide to steady me.  May I come to understand that my mind makes the way that I view the world.  And may I look with kind eyes on my world today.

Be with me as I seek to have a good day, a better day than yesterday.  May I always remember that it is not Your will that I seek to travel in solitude.  You put me in a world with Your other children so that we might help each other along the way.  May we walk together in peace and joy today.

Amen.

Judgment by Us Is Always Faulty

ACIM Workbook Lesson 311 – for Monday, November 7, 2011

Affirmation:  “I judge all things as I would have them be.”

“Judgment was made to be a weapon used against the truth.  It separates what it is being used against, and sets it off as if it were a thing apart.  And then it makes of it what you would have it be.  It judges what it cannot understand, because it cannot see totality and therefore judges falsely.  (WB456)”

Reflections:

1 – We Do Not Know All the Circumstances

This passage reflects something that I said in this blog a few days ago.  We cannot judge rightly, because, unlike the Holy Spirit, we do not know all the circumstances surrounding us in our world in the past, present, and future.  Only the Holy Spirit, the Universal Inspiration, can lead us rightly.

2 – Projection Makes Perception

The affirmation points to yet another point, not made the well-known Manual passage on judgment.  We make things as we would have them be in our own judging.  This is because projection makes perception, and we will think we see what we want.  We see bad things sometimes, even when we do not think we want to see these things.  But somewhere in our consciousness is the germ of an idea that manifests.

3 – Bad Things Happen in Our World

Of course, we are part of a mass hallucination (an interpretation, not stated in ACIM), and many bad things happen in our world that we do not think we have any control over.  We do not have direct control in many instances, but we can control–with guidance and the help of God–how we react.  The only proviso that I would make is that we can be so overcome with negative emotions that we are out of control and cannot effectively moderate our temperament.  Then we can reach out to others at the same time that we ask for help from God.  God can speak through another person when He seems (but is not actually) inaccessible to us.  We are not meant to walk our way alone.

4 – Ask for Divine Guidance

We would know the truth today.  We would not judge.  If we are tempted to indulge in judgment, let us pull ourselves up short and try again.  We ask for divine guidance in such ties.  We cannot see the truth of ourselves and others if we are caught in judgment.  This in itself is reason enough to let judgment,  like the ego, wither away from lack of support.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would not judge today, because not only do I know that it is wrong, but also that I know that it is always inaccurate.  I would not live in the world that I would judge, for as projection makes perception, I make a world that is not worthy of God’s Daughter/Son.  And we are the Self, in our highest essence, that is a Daughter/Son.  Thank You for leading me to understand this, and may the ego not intrude in this characterization.  It is nothing that I have ever done that has given me this designation.  I would have stayed lost if it had not been for Your Guide, the Holy Spirit.  May I not fall into error today, which can still happen.  May I walk the narrow way to salvation.

Be with me as I seek to love, not to judge, my brothers and sisters.  It is true that we all try as hard as we can, and if we had lived the life of another, we would make the decisions that he/she is making.  May I live a life in Your shadow only.  May I live the peaceful, joyous approach that is so carefully pointed out to me in A Course in Miracles.

Thank You for Jesus’s role in bringing these understandings to our world.  May we reach out to others, as they are ready, with the message of ACIM.

Amen.

Perception = A Mirror = Not a Fact

ACIM Workbook Lesson 304 – for Monday, October 31, 2011

Affirmation:  “Let not my world obscure the sight of Christ.”

“Perception is a mirror, not a fact.  and what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward.  I would bless the world by looking on it through the eyes of Christ.  And I will look upon the certain signs that all my sins have been forgiven me.  (WB451)”

Reflections:

1 – Projection Makes Perceptions

This is a repetition of the oft-repeated “projection makes perception.”  It is the way in which we create our own reality.  There is no other answer.  The Holy Spirit will give the Answer when we are ready, and we can pray that this blessing will come soon.

2 – May We See with the Eyes of Christ

If perception is a mirror of our state of mind, it behooves to be careful what we entertain in our minds.  This would encourage us to seek out uplifting reading, good entertainment, happy experiences.  We can do much to effect this.  When we see with the eyes of Christ, we will see a new and joyful world.  The old will no longer attract us, the old with its egoistic notions–notions which led only to pain.  May we find the way today.  May we delay no longer.

3 – Our Forgiven “Sins”

When we know that our “sins” have been forgiven, we will realize that we are still as God created us.  We are innocent, though this may be one of the most difficult tenets of the Text to incorporate into our worldview.  We will bless ourselves and others.  We will know love intimately for the first time.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I see with the eyes of Christ today, and may I not be tempted to attach any egotism to this.  It is Your Will that I have vision.  May my projections make a perception that is good and true, loving and peaceful.  Be with me today as I attempt to make changes that will influence my world to be a better place.

May we come to understand what it means to say, “projection makes perception.”  We do not often understand fully what this means.  I would keep its meaning, that this world is simply an illusion that I have projected, close to my heart today.

Amen.

How Fierce My Sins Seemed!

ACIM Workbook Lesson  265 – for Thursday, September 22, 2011

Affirmation:  “Creation’s gentleness is all I see.”

“I have indeed misunderstood the world, because I laid my sins on it and saw them looking back at me.  How fierce they seemed!  And how deceived was I to think that what I feared was in the world, instead of in my mind alone.

“In quiet would I look upon the world, which but reflects Your Thoughts, and mine as well.  Let me remember that they are the same, and I will see creation’s gentleness.  (WB428)”

Reflections:

1 – Projection Makes Perception

We are told in A Course in Miracles that “projection makes perception.”  This is the ultimate truth, I believe, but we find it difficult to understand, and our faith seems to fail us when the perception is especially upsetting.  The theological underpinnings of this quotation is that God is within, and that this world is an illusion that we are projecting from the egoic part of our minds.  What we perceive is thus the mass hallucination in which this world is caught.  Once we are Awakened, we do in fact perceive differently.  And even before Awakening, our dreams (our illusions that we perceive outwardly) become gentler.  The Holy Spirit offers happy dreams to us, to prepare us for Awakening.  We need these gentle dreams, or we would be much too terrified by the light of Awakening that we would be in terror from the glimpses that revelation may give us.

2 – No Need to Live Fearful Dreams

So our minds make the perception of this world.  And our brothers and sisters are caught in the same perception, making us each guilty of reinforcing the fear in each other.  We would not reinforce fear in ourselves or in others today.  We would recognize that by our guilt we are making a hell for ourselves.  We would ask that we forgive ourselves, that we see that we are actually guilty only in illusion.  Our real Self is still as God created us.  We do not have to live fearful dreams.  We can look past the fear in our brothers and sisters to see Christ in them.  To perceive Christ in others is a step toward Awakening (an interpretation, not stated in ACIM).

3 – Mighty Companions Walk with Us

Surely if we knew who walked beside us, we would be fearful no more–regardless of what the world might do to us.  Mighty companions go with us, according to ACIM.  We often pretend, in our scripts, that we are lost and alone, but this is never true.  We need to ask, seriously, why we are writing such scripts.  And we need to pray for guidance to write a better script.  (The “fearful script” paraphrases are from the Text.)

4 – May We Walk Gently

May we walk gently through the world today.  And may we see God’s light shine upon us, calming our minds and returning them to sanity, a bit at the time.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I experience the joy of knowing today that mighty companions accompany me on my journey.  I am never alone, even though when I am depressed, I think that I am very alone indeed.  I feel unloved at such times.  Yet I know that I am misperceiving.  You love me, even when nobody else seems to feel anything special for me.  And I know that more than just You love me.  Help me to overcome depression, when it hits out of the blue, and may I come to understand the projection makes perception.

May I choose to have a cleansed perception today.  This cleansed perception will encourage me to realize that I am loved, not only by You, but by the people who are closest to me in this world.  And, I am promised by You, mighty companions from the Other Side accompany me also.

Thank You.

Amen.

Projection Makes Perception

ACIM Workbook Lesson 130 – for Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Affirmation:  “It is impossible to see two worlds.”

Selected Passage:

“Perception is consistent.  What you see reflects your thinking.  And your thinking but reflects your choice of what you want to see.  Your values are determiners of this, for what you value you must want to see, believing what you see is really there.  No one can see a world his mind has not accorded value.  And no one can fail to look upon what he believes he wants.  (WB237)”

Reflections:

1 – We “Make”–Not “Create”

We must watch our minds carefully, because we “make” (not “create”) those things that we dwell upon.  God creates, we make.  And our projections will create the perceptions that we see in this world (a Text tenet).  We are making the world that we see every moment.

2 – Illusions vs. the Real

Does this mean that if we have positive thoughts we will never see anything bad?  This is not practical, and, as the Text says, it is with the practical that A Course in Miracles is most concerned.  But the bad things will be recognized as the illusions of this world.  It is with the real that we are to be most concerned, and the real includes the emotions of love, kindness, consideration, peace, joy, and happiness.  The real is what God wants us to dwell upon.

3 – Dwell upon the Real

How do we dwell upon the real?  Mostly we commune with God.  Some believe that God does not even know about us, but my personal interpretation of ACIM differs from this dismal prospect.  God is within and without, though in the final analysis all is One.  When we value the love, the peace, the quiet, and the serene, we draw these values to ourselves.  We do not then have to live in a world that is dangerous in the extreme.  Even if bad things happen to us (and they may), we can live above the fray by recognizing that the bad is not sent by God and may be risen above by our own communion with Him.

Prayer:

Dear Mother/Father,

I would rise above the fray of this world today.  I would value only the beautiful, and what I make with my thinking does become reflected in the world that I perceive.  This does mean that I am placed in the center of what I wish to have in my world.

Help me to understand these concepts that I have prayed about.   When bad things happen to good people, let me realize that You are there, ready to bail us out.  Help me to recognize that I can choose the life that I will lead, and that I am not buffeted about by alien forces.

Amen.

The World Mirrors What Is Within

ACIM Workbook Lesson 73 – for Monday, March 14, 2011

Affirmation:  “I will there be light.”

Selected Passage:

“Your picture of the world can only mirror what is within.  The source of neither light nor darkness can be found without.  Grievances darken your mind, and you look out on a darkened world.  Forgiveness lifts the darkness, reasserts your will, and lets you look upon a world of light.  We have repeatedly emphasized that the barrier of grievances is easily passed, and cannot stand between you and your salvation.  The reason is very simple.  Do you really want to be in hell?  Do you really want to weep and suffer and die?  (WB127-128)”

Reflections:

This is a significant passage, showing us the way to avoid the hell that we make for ourselves in this world.  We need only give up grievances and choose forgiveness, and we will have the salvation that we fervently want.  How easy this sounds, and yet how difficult it can be in life!  The difficulty is because a part of our belief about ourselves, our ego, does not really believe in the innocence of our Self and the Selves of our brothers and sisters.  Yes, there is an element of faith needed for this belief to take hold.  We are helped when we realize that all of us have made mistakes, but these are not “sins,” which can remain attractive to the mind (an ACIM tenet).  Every attack, which may prompt anger, is actually a call for help.  And would we not want to help, given this understanding?

We may not help overtly, if our brother or sister is not open to receiving a loving gesture from us.  We may silently commune with God, or we may smile at him or her, or we may simply leave–if we are causing the upset.  The Holy Spirit will guide us to the right decision, the right way to help.

Everything is either an expression of love or a call for love.  This is not an exact quote from ACIM, but there are many passages that hint at this concise way of putting the matter.  We help those whom we love, though we do not do so to their detriment.  We need to allow as much autonomy as will allow that person to find his or her own pathway back to God.  May we do so today.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I want my picture of the world to be benign.  So I want to be benign on the inside, loving and caring.  Then I will not picture a world that puts me in hell, metaphorically.  Be with me today as I seek to find You in this sometimes troubled world in which we live.

Thank You for always being there when I call.  Help me to call more often.  Life would be so much easier if I turned to You constantly throughout my day.  Help me to remember to reach inward for You all day today.

Amen.

Perception vs. Knowledge

ACIM Workbook Lesson 43 – for Saturday, February 12, 2011

Affirmation:  “God is my Source.  I cannot see apart from Him.”

Selected Passage:

“Perception is not an attribute of God.  His is the realm of knowledge.  Yet He has created the Holy Spirit as the Mediator between perception and knowledge.  Without this link with God, perception would have replaced knowledge forever in your mind.  With this  link with God, perception will become so changed and purified that it will lead to knowledge.  This is its function as the Holy Spirit sees it.  Therefore, that is its function in truth.  (WB67)”

Reflections:

This passage explains better than anywhere in ACIM the difference between perception and knowledge.  In our little minds, we perceive; when God has informed our Self, we know.

Perception is relative, and it is subject to the mistakes of the ego.  Knowledge is always right on target.  And knowledge is always something coming from the Holy Spirit, part of the three-in-One God that is described biblically.  We do not always know when our perceptions are inaccurate, because we are caught in the throes of the ego.  But we do have an inkling about knowledge.  Its main characteristic is that it is always loving.  If our thoughts about a given situation partake of anything but love, we are lost in perception.

We are close here to the concept of “projection makes perception,” an oft-repeated tenet of the Text.  But knowledge comes quietly, and it comes surely.  It is a harbinger of the real world, also a tenet of the Text.  What is the real world?  It is seen only for instances from time to time, when we have had a moment of Awakening through revelation from God.  Then, when Awakening has been sustained (a tenet of A Course of Love), we know rather than perceive on an ongoing basis.

We need not to be impatient for knowledge to overtake us.  As is often stressed, once our journey without distance has begun, the end is certain.  And the end is always accompanied by knowledge, a surety that what we see and recognize is true.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

When I am going about my daily round, I am normally perceiving rather than knowing.  I ask today that I know more often than I have in the past.  This knowing is Your gift, and it comes straight from you.  I know when I have left the ego behind, at least temporarily.  I would leave the ego behind more and more, especially beginning today.

I am not interested in what I project if it leads to perceiving things that are ego-inspired.  Let me fully understand the promptings of the Holy Spirit, so that I will be led to follow them more often.  Guidance is always true.  I would follow Your Holy Spirit today.

Amen.

Our Self Image = Not True

ACIM Workbook Lesson 35 – for Friday, February 4, 2011

Affirmation:  “My mind is part of God’s.  I am very holy.”

Selected Passage:

“You will believe that you are part of where you think you are.  That is because you surround yourself with the environment you want.  And you want it to protect the image of yourself that you have made. The image is part of this environment.  What you see while you believe you are in it is seen through the eyes of the image.  This is not vision.  Images cannot see.  (WB53)”

Reflections:

This lesson gets into some of the metaphysical tenets of the Course.  Its basis is still the oft-repeated “projection makes perception.”  The “image” of ourselves is actually another word for a persona (an interpretation, not stated in ACIM).  We make personae up for ourselves and everyone in our world.  That does not mean that these personas are correct.  Certainly if they are informed by the ego, the personae are not correct.

We need to turn to guidance through the Holy Spirit to determine how to see ourselves and our brothers and sisters.

Another facet of this passage is that we surround ourselves with the environment that we want–even when we are distressed and overwrought by that environment (and perhaps especially when this is the case).  The ego loves strife (a Text tenet), and it will act to keep our environment (this world) in turmoil.  Our personal worlds will be in turmoil, and the larger world as well.

We must do what we can to bring peace to this world–whether it is the small world in which we reside, or the larger world where there are so many tragedies.  Let us pray today to have the foresight to walk away from turmoil, once we have done all that we can to bring peace to it.  May we walk in peace.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I have an image of myself that I want to be true; it is my persona.  But ACIM says that images cannot see, that they are part of the environment and that they are made up.

Help me to realize that my image is informed by my ego, which I would be done with, once and for all.  An ego is not necessary to function in this world.  I would, instead, follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit and assume the Self that He would have me be.

Amen.

Being Upset II

ACIM Workbook Lesson 12 – for Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Affirmation:  “I am upset because I see a meaningless world.”

Selected Passage:

“The importance of this idea lies in the fact that it contains a correction for a major perceptual distortion.  You think that what upsets you is a frightening world, or a sad world, or a violent world, or an insane world.  All these attributes are given it by you.  The world is meaningless in itself.  (WB19)”

Reflections:

This passage is a further elucidation of the fact that projection makes perception.  Even if we are new students to A Course in Miracles, we can understand that when we feel good, we are more tolerant of our brothers and sisters.  When we are feeling down, we are more likely to welcome attack of them, an attack brought on by our anger.  And stress or depression may be the underlying emotion that is fueling the upset.

We bring to this world all that it is really is, as long as we are lost in the dream.  The dream will turn happier as we turn our lives over to the Holy Spirit for guidance, and we will dream the “happy dreams the Holy Spirit brings” (a quotation from the Text).  This new way of seeing can follow us quite awhile, until some external event triggers doubt, and we are led to understand that we do not fully understand that even happy dreams are not the culmination of what is desirable.  The real world is, and this God grants when we are ready.  This is at the point of Awakening.  Jesus provides through ACIM the means to get to that end, and revelation may occasionally reveal the end to us in advance (a Text tenet).

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to recognize why I see a meaningless world.  It is brought on by my attraction to egoistic thinking.  I do not have to view insane thoughts or attack thoughts as anything but illusion.  And then I have nothing to fear, because illusion does not accomplish anything (though we may allow it to make us absolutely miserable).

Help me today to turn aside attacks or insanity (not legal, but simply meaning that we are seeing amiss).  May I have Your help in living a sane life today.

Amen.

The Untrained Mind

ACIM Workbook Lesson 9 – for Sunday, January 9, 2011

Affirmation:  “I see nothing as it is now.”

Selected Passage:

“It is difficult for the untrained mind to believe that what it seems to picture is not there.  This idea can be quite disturbing, and may meet with active resistance in any number of forms.  (WB15)”

Reflections:

This passage, as well as the lesson in which it is embedded, is a sound statement that what we are seeing is maya, or illusion.  What we project from within, we see outwardly by our perception.

This tenet of A Course in Miracles is explained succinctly in the introduction to the Text, much of which was scribed by Helen Schucman in the same manner as the rest of A Course in Miracles.  “Projection makes perception,” is the succinct statement.

Perception is not, importantly, the whole picture.  God Himself grants us “knowledge,” which is not related to perception except in the truth that as we perceive more and more truly, we can ascend to knowledge.  Knowledge is the inner knowing that becomes ours when Awakening has dawned upon our sight (our inward sight).  A Course of Love calls this Awakening “Christ-consciousness.”  Either way, the thrust of where we are heading is clear.  We are not meant to be lost in illusion, in dreams that have only the meaning that our little selves subscribe to them.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I not be lost in illusions today.  May I move ever closer to the knowledge that God grants.  When I project, and this makes for perception that is informed by the ego, I am lost in dreams.  Whether these are happy dreams sent by the Holy Spirit (to prepare us for Awakening), or whether they are nightmares, is not ultimately important.  The most important part of salvation is to awaken, and in the Text, the means to awaken are being explained to us.  Thank You.

May I study diligently today all the parts of ACIM that call to me.  May the comforting words found therein lead me ever closer to a new beginning, the kind of new beginning that is explained in the Text.  Thank You for this blessing.

Amen.

Preoccupied with Past Thoughts

ACIM Workbook Lesson 8 – for Saturday, January 8, 2011

Affirmation:  “My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.”

Selected Passage:

“This idea is, of course, the reason why you see only the past.  No one really sees anything.  He sees only his thoughts projected outward.  (WB13)”

Reflections:

This passage is a major statement on a basic tenet of A Course in Miracles.  We see our thoughts projected outward.  We create our reality.  When we see suffering, we must come to realize that it is a dream, that it is not real.  Likewise, the happy dreams that we project and see through our perception are just as unreal.  But the happy dreams come as we change our minds about our purpose in this world.  We are being prepared for Awakening, the means of which are explained in ACIM.

“Projection makes perception,” a refrain in the Text, is explained here.  We do not have actually an outer world at all; we are living a dream, a mass dream that is shared by our brothers and sisters and all of the material world.  “There is nothing outside you” is stated in the Text also.  And Jesus continues that this is what we must ultimately come to understand.  Not everybody is ready to accept this metaphysical tenet.  And the practical ACIM does not ask us to accept that for which we are not ready.

We do not wish our minds to be preoccupied with past thoughts.  The past is over; let us move into the present and ultimately into the future.  But we can only live in one reality at a time, and that ought to be the present.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I live in the present today; may I leave the past behind, and may I understand that what I see are my thoughts projected outward.  If this seems strange to me (and it does), may I rest in the surety that Jesus is trustworthy.  He will take me where I am, and then lead me gently to understand the metaphysics of what he is saying.  I do not have to struggle to understand anything that is presently difficult for me to accept.

Thank You for Your presence in my life.  I love you.  And I will try to live in the present today.

Amen.

Any Meaning in Nothingness?

ACIM Workbook Lesson 1 – for Saturday, January 1, 2011

Affirmation:  “Nothing I see in this room means anything.”

Selected Passage:

“Notice that the statements [in the lesson] are not arranged in any order, and make no allowance for differences in the kinds of things to which they are applied.  (WB3)”

Reflections:

This is the initial step in the Workbook for Students, though it is stressed elsewhere that only time separates the student from the teacher.  Here we do not, upon first reading A Course in Miracles, understand this lesson.  Later on we find out that projection makes perception (what we project outward from ourselves determines the “dream” of our perception).  And in the beginning we are not projecting reality at all, but a misguided and confused dream that often frightens us.

So nothing that we look at means anything, because it is based on our ego’s (the ego is still strong in us) misperceptions.  We do not yet have vision, which will only come as we are guided by the Holy Spirit into more pleasant dreams (“the happy dreams the Holy Spirit sends,” which come before the real world and God’s reaching down to us and granting us our Awakening).

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

As I begin again to go through the Workbook, may I make the strides in understanding that only You can accomplish in me.  I cannot make progress on my own, for I am wholly dependent upon You.  May I reach for vision today, in this very first lesson.  May I understand that as long as the ego is in command, my perception is flawed.

Thank You.  Be with me throughout this new year, a year that I envision as one of joy, peace, and holiness–in Your company.

Amen.

The Prayer of the Heart

“It is impossible that the prayer of the heart remain unanswered in the perception of the one who asks.  If he asks for the impossible, if he wants what does not exist or seeks for illusions in his heart, all this becomes his own.  The power of his decision offers it to him as he requests.  Herein lie hell and Heaven.  (M53)”

Affirmation:  “May my prayer of the heart always ask for Heaven.”

Reflections:

Few of us know our hearts well.  We sometimes ask for things that we really don’t want, and yet in our hearts, we do, and then these prayers are answered.  Elsewhere Jesus assures us that God will protect us from danger in prayers that are really bad for us.  So even in the prayer of the heart we are protected..

We may not realize that we are protected, though.  We may, since projection makes perception (a Course tenet), find that erroneously we are in a situation that we didn’t think we asked for.  Yet, we did, on some level.  This is a particularly difficult concept when we are dealing with painful issues in our lives or in the world.

Elsewhere the Course says that we can believe what nobody else believes to be true, because in our perception, we have made it true for ourselves.  Particularly do we find this in emotional matters, but it is true in the physical as well.  This is not a “blame the victim” mentality, because we are not being punished, however much it may appear that we are.  God does not  punish, however much we may think punishment is warranted.  Our own decisions give us hell or Heaven.  That puts us in the driver’s seat, a very good place to be if we are attuned to God’s power and His way.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I know that You protect me always, even when I ask for things that would not be good for me.  Jesus assures me of this.  Yet my own perception can seem to give me bad things.  May my perception of my world be cleansed.

Thank You for helping through the confusions of this world.  I know that You love me always, and in that I will be protected.

Amen.

Heaven vs. Hell

“Pray for God’s justice, and do not confuse His mercy with your own insanity.  Perception can make whatever picture the mind desires to see.  Remember this.  In this lies either Heaven or hell, as you elect.  (M50)”

Affirmation:  “May my perception make only Heaven.”

Reflections:

It is a tenet of the Course that projection makes perception.  This may  be difficult to understand, but this passage clarifies the issue:  “Perception can make whatever picture the mind desires to see.”  Jesus declares that in this lies Heaven or hell, as we elect.

This understanding puts our life situation back in our own hands.  It is how we see the world, how we interpret it, that determines how we will experience it.  Our own insanity has made of this world a hell, and we surely do not wish to stay in this perception.

We are told elsewhere that it is not up to us to judge our brother or sister.  God’s justice is wholly that they are innocent people, as are we, people who are doing the best that they can, given the understanding that they have at any given moment.  Our understanding can help them to follow God’s way.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May my perception be cleansed, so that I elect to see only Heaven.  This does not mean that I deny insane things that I see, but it does mean that I choose to see their unreality.  This world is illusory, as the Course teaches me.

Help me to see Heaven in my everyday world.  Help me not to get lost in dreams that are essentially insane.

Amen.