Heartfelt Remembrance

“While A Course of Love has led you to a state of wholeness of mind and heart, or wholeheartedness, your realization of this state of being requires further guidance.
. . .
“The first instruction I give to you is to seek no more. All that you are in need of knowing has been provided within A Course of Love. That your learning does not feel complete is not a failing of this Course or of your¬self. That your learning does not feel complete is the result of forgetfulness, which is the opposite of mindfulness. Your further learning then is learning based on mindfulness or remembering.” (ACOL, T1:1.2 – 1.3)

It is certainly welcome news to all of us that we have found, that we need seek no more. So many times in the past we have gone from one spiritual teaching to another, never satisfied. This seeking could perhaps go on indefinitely, but Jesus would not have it so. He has counseled us to combine mind and heart into wholeheartedness; this from the first book of A Course of Love. But the further guidance that he would impart to us is the art of thought, the theme of the first treatise, from the second book of A Course of Love. And the art of thought is miracle-mindedness, for which mindfulness is a handy prerequisite. By mindfulness, Jesus does not mean some Eastern philosophy, but the remembrance that he would now encourage. We forget much, but when we turn the art of thought on our remaining memories, we are making headway toward the goal of ACOL.

Remembrance is what we are here for, but not in the sense that we would live in the past. We will bring our memories to the present, with living in the present. And we will not look ahead to the future in fruitless planning that guidance does not ask of us. This living in the present brings a present moment awareness that smooths out our days. A present moment awareness gives us happiness, for not even suffering and pain are present in just a single moment. Nearly all of our perturbed feelings when overwrought are the result of remembering past pain and looking ahead to the dreaded future suffering ahead. In the present there is calm and peace.

We can reread the first book of A Course of Love numerous times, if we feel so led. The learning continues into the second book, the Treatises. But we live behind traditional learning, in traditional ways, in the third book, the Dialogues. We are finally getting somewhere in our seeking. And we know that now seeking further is not needed. ACOL will answer our final questions, take us to the next stage in our unfolding, the Christ-consciousness about which we obsess so much.

Mindfulness aids living in the present. If we pay attention to what we are doing, and why, with full awareness, we will make real progress. And our days will be like a string of pearls, all perfect and perfectly rounded into an experience that is whole. We need not anguish any longer; the way home is shown us as we live wholeheartedly, with A Course of Love (and A Course in Miracles) as our guide.

Dear Father/Mother,

I would live in the present, feeling the warmth of the sunshine, sensing Your Presence. Help me not to dwell in the past, or to look ahead to an uncertain future. Just be here now. And everything will fall into place.

May I find You today as I live in the warm and peaceful Presence that You are. Be with me as I seek to overhaul fruitless ways of living and to make a new beginning. Now is the time; today, the day.

Amen.

Remembrance Sets Us Free

“What you gain in truth is never lost or forgotten again, because it returns remembrance to your mind. What your mind remembers cannot not be shared.” (ACOL, C:31.24)

This passage gives an puzzling truth: How can we not forget again? We have to realize that what Jesus is talking about is a remembrance of ultimate things, of God and the universe. Of Christ-consciousness. And once this knowledge is truly gained, there is no turning back to forgetfulness.

And we will share these truths, for “What the mind remembers cannot not be shared.” We will want to share what we have learned. We would not feel whole unless we shared it.

Isn’t it good to realize that remembrance of ultimate things is returning to us? That the long, sad separation from God is coming to an end? Those of us who have been grateful for our good minds will especially invite the truth that we will remember even better in the future: Remembrance will return our minds to ourselves, allowing the illusory ego no say in the matter. This is really what remembrance means: No ego, and so the mind is once again free.

Jesus says a great deal about truth in A Course of Love. Truth may mean many different things to different people, but certainly here Jesus is speaking of God and His wisdom, the wisdom that He will share with us, and we in turn will share our interpretations with others. This truth does not go away; it is permanent. If we lapse, the knowledge comes back, and so when we gain in truth always. We certainly do not lose this knowledge, nor do we forget it. Our ways become the ways of God, and He leads us surely down the pathways of truth.

Dear Father/Mother,

I would know the truth that will set me free. I would know this truth today. I would not remember, and then lapse into forgetfulness; I would hold steady. Help me to do so.

Truth is a great benefit to the struggling individual. If we ask for the truth, it is given us, for You would leave no one out. With Your truth beckoning to our mind, we need worry no more. The things that we need to know will come to us; this is the remembrance, and I thank You for it.

Amen.

Remembrance Will Save Us Now

“The first step in remembering this holiness is forgetting. Let yourself forget that you do not feel holy and that the world does not appear to be sacred. Let your heart remember that you are holy and that the world is sacred. A thousand things can pull you from your remembrance. Forgetting “things” can free you to remember.” (ACOL, C:20.23)

We are not learning new things as we read A Course of Love, as much as we might think that we are. We are being led back, in forgotten memory, to a remembrance of what we knew many eons previously. This remembrance will save us. Nothing else can.

It is important not to view ACOL as “new doctrine,” because if we do that, we will wonder about everything that we read. Ask ourselves, instead, if this way of viewing the world hits a resonant cord in our hearts. Do we FEEL that what this voice is saying is true? Do we want it to be true—for what we want will come about. This is the truth that we create our own reality.

We need to forget all the notions that say that these ideas are too good to be true. Do they FEEL true? That is the litmus test.

We don’t need to apply our logical brain to this exercise. Our heart knows something that the mind does not. That is why forgetting is so important. We have listened to the egoic mind for eons; now is the time to turn from that to something better—the heart, the heart that doesn’t demand proof, but just knows in a way that the mind does not.

Prayer

Dear Father/Mother,

The best that we can do is follow the guidance that whispers in our ears throughout the day. We don’t need to apply logic to this silent whispering; we just need to trust, and trust is not hard to do, when our egoic thinking has been stilled.

Be with me today so that I don’t act impulsively, and then regret my actions. I need to be stopped in my tracks if I start heading off in the wrong direction. And I ask for this stopping to be done as gently as You can. I know that You know me better than I know myself.

And in Your knowing are all my questions answered.

Amen.

We Remember and Thereby Reclaim Heaven

“This remembering is not of former days spent upon this earth, but of remembering who you really are. It comes forth from the deepest part of you, from the center in which you are joined with Christ. It speaks of no experiences here, wears no faces, and bears no symbols. It is a memory of wholeness, of all to all.” (ACOL, C:8.4)

Being who we are is a prime emphasis in A Course of Love. And here is virtually the first mention of it in the first part, the Course proper. We do not need to brood on what has befallen us in the past; we need to move beyond such obsessions to a better day in the future.

And we can do so. Our way home is actually simply a remembering. We are not creating anew when we seek to reclaim what used to be ours, in our home in heaven. Heaven is not a place nor a condition, as A Course in Miracles tells us. It is the awareness of Oneness, nothing else outside this Oneness, nothing else within. We are sure of just one thing: We want God in all His fullness. And the inner Christ Self is that part of us who remembers Who God is.

The Oneness of which I spoke, above, is the memory of wholeness. We have so often been fragmented and discontented in our everyday lives. We have found ourselves depressed, angry, misunderstood (or so we thought); we have found any number of negative states of mind.

A Course of Love invites us to remember the real wholeness of the Self through listening to what our heart tells us. No more than this is required. No more than this is even recommended.

We cannot fail, for we have a savior who stands by our side, holding our hand along the journey without distance. Jesus is here for us, cloning himself, outside time and space, whenever we make one unequivocal call for him. He is our mainstay, the way that we continue without struggle on the pathway home to God.

Let us be grateful today, as we seek to be more contented, that we have such a companion to speed us along the way.

Heaven Dawns Here and Now in This World

“In Heaven reality is shared and not reflected. By sharing its reflection here, its truth becomes the only perception the Son of God accepts. And thus, remembrance of his Father dawns on him, and he can no longer be satisfied with anything but his own reality.” (ACIM, T-14.X.2)

When we remember God, we are likely to be in a sharing mood with others. We are not likely to be isolated and alone, in a self-centered way with ourselves and others as well. In Heaven, then, reality is shared. We don’t see reality “reflected,” which is an inferior way to experience reality.

And we can have Heaven here and now. This is being said. We have long thought that we had to wait for the afterlife, and maybe eons beyond the immediate afterlife, to reach Heaven. But here and now Heaven awaits us, when we are made ready by our persistence and our love for God and other people, as well as love for ourselves (which is necessary to love God and others).

When we remember God, we are living reality. We don’t have to be made acquainted with God, for He is in our memory. We once knew that, being a part of Him, we could never lose Him. Now we need to realize that this remembrance is always out there, waiting for us.

The ways of this world are obscure at best. The ways of Heaven are transparent to those who ask to see.

Remember from Eons Past What We Know of God

“Give up gladly everything that would stand in the way of your remembering, for God is in your memory. His Voice will tell you that you are part of Him when you are willing to remember Him and know your own reality again. Let nothing in this world delay your remembering of Him, for in this remembering is the knowledge of yourself.” (ACIM, T-10.II.2)

This favorite passage from A Course in Miracles does emphasize that the Voice (the Holy Spirit) will guide us surely into true reality, which is the remembrance of God. We are not, it is important to note, learning something new when we learn of God; instead, we are remembering something forgotten eons ago. The way back has been long and difficult, painful in the extreme, but those days are ending. The way now becomes smooth, there are no pebbles to kick against with our feet, and we are living better than we ever have before. We are learning to trust God again, and this in itself is a cause for great rejoicing.

We need not delay in this world. We want knowledge of ourselves, and in knowledge of God is knowledge of ourselves laid. We will live in great glory when we have put aside our wonderings about reality, and let reality be written upon our world. Then the illusions may very well fall away, and we will see the intangibles—faith, love, joy, harmony, peace—with new eyes.

We are part of God, Who lives deep within us. We project an insane dream, but not from such depths as God lives. He leads us back to Him ever so gently, making sure that we don’t stumble. His way is good and true, and it leads to true reality.
Would we lack for anything when we live in true reality, illusions sought no longer?