It Still Is True that Nothing Is Without. Yet upon Nothing Are All Projections Made.

“It still is true that nothing is without.  Yet upon nothing are all projections made.  For it is the projection that gives the ‘nothing’ all the meaning that it holds.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-20.VIII.9)

This quotation is a cogent statement of some of the theology of A Course in Miracles.  It states, without saying so, that everything that we look upon is a hallucination, that there is nothing outside of us.  This is somewhat like the medieval preoccupation with wondering how many angels could balance on the tip of a needle.  Our projections from within make the illusion – dream – hallucination that we see.  And it is only what we are imagining within that makes this outer manifestation.

This interpretation from ACIM of true reality is not understandable to the finite mind.  Not understandable, but we can get a glimmer of the truth, and in that glimmer we can make huge advances.  When our minds change from egoic preoccupation, then we project something better so that the illusion or hallucination loses some of its terror for us.  We have an improved experience in our world.

How can others exist independently of us, if we are projecting the illusion?  The bottom line is that they and we are really One; we are joined as One being, there being no difference between us.  That is the primary reason that forgiveness is so necessary to us; we are really forgiving ourselves, and our projections are being healed.

When we have reached Awakening, will the real world also be a hallucination?  I think not, though I don’t find the metaphysical underpinnings in ACIM that would support that belief.  Mainly I don’t want to think that we are forever lost in illusion, but I want to believe that there is a way to reality, true reality, the real world.  

Perhaps the real world is only the intangible, positive traits of God:  the love, joy, harmony, peace, etc., that comes upon us in good moments in this world, and then depart, mysteriously, when we fall into fear, attack, planning, and judging.  These harmful states of mind keep us from ultimate salvation in Awakening.  We would do well to eliminate all aspects of fear in our world.  Then we stand a chance of sustaining Awakening.

Would We See Ourselves Whole & Complete?

“In the end of all seeking, you must look into the mirror and decide to be the one who heals yourself. You are the one who decides, from infinite freedom, how to use the power of your mind in each moment. Therefore, the only question that a seeker of truth really truly need ask him or her self is this:

“Would I know conflict or peace?

“Would I be right or happy?

“Would I see the complete neutrality of all events in this world as wisps of a dream being birthed and passing away?

“Would I see myself whole and complete?

“For as I look upon the world, I have judged myself.

“And as I look upon myself, I judge the world.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 10, Page 124)

If we listen to these wise words, we see that “flow” in daily life is required. We open up our minds and hearts to the influence of God, moment by moment, and the sometimes frantic outcome of our day transforms. We are happy when we let go and let God, and this is ultimately what flow is all about.

“Would I be right or happy?” This well-known quotation from A Course in Miracles says it all, and here Jesus is saying the very same in The Way of Mastery. (Jesus asked Jayem not to read A Course in Miracles before channeling this new work, and so there is no chance that Jayem was merely quoting ACIM.) The obviously correct Answer is just to fall into happiness. Why do we think we need to raise up conflict with our brothers and sisters so that we are more “right” than they are?

It is hard to imagine that all events in this difficult world are neutral, but they are. We write on these neutral events our own projections. And projection makes perception (another ACIM tenet). The world is doing nothing to us. We are projecting our lives into this world, often invoking the law of attraction to bring about what we experience.

We need to see ourselves a good people, innocent people, people who have only made forgivable mistakes. And these forgiven mistakes will not hold us back.

Choose peace today.

Be in the flow.

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.

Jesus: “It Takes One to Know One”

“You have an interesting saying in your world: ‘It takes one to know one.’ Do you think you would even be able to judge another if there was not something within you being elicited that triggers within you the belief that you know exactly what that other one is up to? That is why you judge them. Sometimes you judge harshly because you fear that energy in yourself. Or you remember how hurtful you have been when you acted from that energy.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Chapter 3, Page 26)

Essentially Jesus is talking about projection here. We dimly recognize in ourselves something that we see in another. We can recognize it in the other, because we have something just like it in ourselves.

This gives pause for thought. If we are judging another for something we deplore, do we not have the characteristic ourselves? This is what he is saying. We can recognize it only because of this: “It takes one to know one.”

Does this not remove all propensity to judge another? Does this not tell us that judgment is a very bad idea indeed?
We must realize that we are aware of something in the outer world because of our own psyche, the thing in us that even allows us to recognize a given trait in another. We have not often taken this idea to its roots, but the bottom line is that we cannot know another unless we have experienced the identical characteristic. The kicker is that we don’t recognize this in ourselves, and so we project on another, where it seems safer.

Let us give up this foolishness now and forever. If we recognize love in ourselves, we will recognize love in another.

And that is where we want to head.

A Carpet of Ease

“But more than this, each time that you judge anything or anyone, you have literally elicited guilt within yourself. Because there is a place within you, yet still, that knows the perfect purity of your brother and sister, and sees quite clearly that all things within the human realm are either the extension of love or a cry for help and healing.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Chapter 3, Page 25)

All things are either love’s extension, an expression of love—or a cry for love. All things. When we fully realize this, our life will get a lot better. We have found various goals in life, but the only meaningful goal is the talent to extend love. That is all that counts.

We judge often when we don’t even realize what we are doing. We imagine that another is judgmental of us, and in that “realization” we are actually projecting, for it is we who have judged and found wanting.

If we realized the extent to which projection damns us, we would withdraw our projections and rest in God’s grace. When we imagine that another has wronged us, we are failing to see their innocence in God’s eyes. If we realize that others do the best they can, given their state of mind and heart, given their understanding, then we can know that “reality” is not the harsh master of our lives that we think. This “reality” is not reality, in fact, at all. We are living in an illusion in which it seems that others have harmed us, but in innocence we forgive them, and then we are set into a true reality of peace, joy, harmony, and grace.

Extension of love will give us all that we could ever want or desire. Extension of love will offer us a carpet of ease on which to walk. Extension of love is our saving grace.

Always and forever.

Forgiveness & Projection

“For to forgive means to choose to release another from the perceptions you have been projecting you have been projecting upon them. It is, therefore, an act of forgiving one’s self of one’s projections. As you begin to forgive—even seventy times seven times—each time you forgive, you take yourself deeper into the purity of your own consciousness. You begin to see how profoundly you have been coloring and, therefore, affecting all of your relationships, through the simple act of not being aware of the power of projection.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Chapter 3, Page 25)

This is the first time that I recall reading in Jesus’ new channeled messages that projection is intimately tied to forgiveness. We have perceptions of another whom we think has wronged us. But it is OUR perception. When we realize that we have been projecting from within, making our perceptions, often with egoic coloring, we are primed to change our minds and hearts. We really that forgiveness begins with us, with changing our perceptions. As soon as we realize that all are doing the best they can, we realize their innocence, however damaging their actions or words have seemed to have been.

Projection, as Jesus cautions us here, is very, very powerful. We see in others what we are hesitant to acknowledge in ourselves. The fact that we can perceive damage at all means that in ourselves we have at least the potential to treat another just as we have been treated. If we didn’t have this inner sense, the outer action or word would wash right over us.

Know that we are home free actually when we forgive ourselves for our projections. And, with this, forgiveness becomes something that is much, much easier.

Jesus: “What You Experience You Have Directly and Deliberately Called to Yourself”

“In each and every moment, you cannot be a victim of what you see, and nothing is outside of you. What you experience you have directly and deliberately called to yourself. If you hold the thought, ‘I do not like what I have called to myself,’ that is perfectly fine. For you have called to yourself the experience of being in judgment of yourself. Merely look with the wonder of a child and see what it feels like and ask yourself, ‘Is this an energy I wish to continue in or would I choose something else?’” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Chapter 1, Page 3)

Jesus echoes A Course in Miracles here when he says, “nothing is outside of you.” This is the idea that we are projecting our illusion, that the mind projects outwardly, and then we perceive. The fact that we are perceiving illusion is germane. How can we be a victim when we are making what we see?

This is a hard point to grasp, but the idea that we live in illusion is central to ACIM, and also central to The Way of Mastery (The Christ Mind Trilogy). Readers of A Course of Love have a divergence of opinion about whether or not the world is ever actually “real.” I really don’t think it matters to Jesus whether or not we think this world is an illusion; thoughts about metaphysics are controversies that may simply divide us from one another. As in the quotation for today, we are encouraged not to sit in judgment of ourselves nor anybody else.

We don’t call judgment to ourselves, and in turning aside from this judgment, we live a better life. We are tolerant. And we continue with energy that builds up ourselves and others.

“What you experience you have directly and deliberately called to yourself.” This is the law of attraction spelled out in an opening page of this first book in WOM (Christ Mind Trilogy), “The Way of the Heart.” It says nothing less but that we are doing this unto ourselves. And A Course in Miracles says the same. (Jayem was instructed by Jesus not to read ACIM before or during his channeling, and so there is no chance that he was merely echoing things that he had read.)

Look with wonder today to the world in which we find ourselves. Even though the world is projection, we can see, in what we see, a harbinger of better things to come.

Praying for Others Lifts Projections of Guilt

“Praying for others, if rightly understood, becomes a means for lifting your projections of guilt from your brother, and enabling you to recognize it is not he who is hurting you. (S-1.III.1)”

When we pray for our brothers and sisters, we are enabled to feel more positively toward them. We begin to feel compassion much more readily, and, if all goes well, we recognize that others deserve the forgiveness that we try to offer.

2 – Projecting Guilt

This passage indicates that what we are doing when we fail to forgive is to project guilt upon our brother. The reason for this projection is that we never hold anything against our brother that we do not first think we ourselves are guilty of (from the ACIM Text). We first denounce and reject ourselves, and then we project that denunciation upon our brother, who is actually as innocent as are we. We ourselves, though, while we can see ourselves as innocent (and normally do see ourselves as innocent), do not automatically, without some guidance from the Holy Spirit or the Self, see our brothers and sisters as innocent. On the contrary, we are wont to blame them for all manner of our troubles. This is projection from our own inner personal self (or “little” self) to others. And it is insane.

3 – Hurt Ourselves?

Our brother is not really hurting us. We are hurting ourselves. Our brother has done nothing to hurt our Self, though he may verbally or physically abuse our minds/bodies. Our Self remains above the fray.

4 – Special to Holy Relationships

We always hurt ourselves by this dynamic of projecting guilt onto our brothers and sisters. We would not have it so. And we must not have it so if we are to see our special relationships turn to holy. Turning to holy relationships prepares us for the Awakening.

5 – Praying in Error

“It is not easy to realize that prayers for things, for status, for human love, for external ‘gifts’ of any kind, are always made to set up jailers and to hide from guilt. These things are used for goals that substitute for God, and therefore distort the purpose of prayer. (S-1.III.6)”

This can be a difficult passage. When we pray for tangible goods, we often mislead our inner personal selves, our little selves. Our Self is not mislead, but this inner Self can become inaccessible to us in our rapaciousness to gather the physical to ourselves.

6 – Intangibles

We need to focus on the intangibles. We need to rise above a constant desire for more material goods, because this is an endless road. We will get one “toy,” only to want another, and then another. There is no end to the desire of the ego for material things.

7 – God as Our Friend

It is hard to realize sometimes that having God as our Friend will ensure that we stay on the right pathway, the pathway to complete and total happiness—even in the absence of material goods. We know that God also wants our material needs satisfied; He is not blind to our creature comforts. But the communion of our spirit with God is the greatest blessing that human beings have on this earth. And this communion, in prayer, assures that more and more good will flow to us. It is an example of the law of attraction, like attracts like. Our desires are in the right place, and God answer us, therefore.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me today to life guilt from my significant others. May I realize that I am always blaming myself when I see guilt in others; it is my own presumed guilt that I see.

Be with me today as I seek to get my projections ended. I would not push onto others my own sense of guilt. And my own sense of guilt is misplaced. To know this is such a blessing!

Help me to have a good day. I haven’t asked for this recently, but this day promises some stress, and I would not buy into that emotion. Help me to offer gratitude to You for the day that has been given. And may I reap the reward of another day in this world, the intangible rewards of communion with You while still on earth.

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.

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.