Village Square III
In our AcimVillage, we have the plane tree that stands in the central village square. Its enormous branches spread out to cover an area wide enough to provide shade on a warm day for many a traveller or tradesman. Water bubbles and trickles from a stone fountain on the eastern side. It is under the plane tree and by the fountain that wandering sages have traditionally lead conversation with the local people, before setting off again on their way; it is here that the townspeople come to exchange views and thoughts on their beloved spiritual philosophy, learning from each other in kindness and wisdom.
Rules to ponder…
Study of A Course In Miracles benefits greatly from sharing our experiences in its practice. Here you can talk about what works, or doesn’t, for you, taking obvious care not to be ‘preachy’, please. We all learn best when someone talks from their own experience, rather than tries to tell us what we should be doing differently. Let’s take the position that none of us are teachers, we are all at the same point returning on the path Homeward. All of us will still be making mistakes for a while yet, so let’s be particularly humble and caring in how we deal with each other. Please keep in mind that this is a site dedicated to the approach Kenneth Wapnick takes to teaching ACIM. I shall certainly do my best to bring everyone back to the core principles as taught by him.
I would also like to point out that AcimVillage is the place to come to explore our judgments, but not to express them as judgments. If you feel you need to gripe, criticize and vent, even subtly, then contact me privately (at bernard@pauloandthemagician.com) where I will receive you with kindness and understanding. Please do not do so in the forums where I will inevitably moderate out this kind of post. Remember, you will feel better only when you are able to move past the investment in your judgments, not simply by unloading them for everyone to see. This means taking responsibility for your perceptions and acknowledging that ultimately no one has prevented you from feeling completely peaceful and safe, despite what might appear to be the unfortunate conditions of your life at this time. (I know, this is hard. Contact me if you’re struggling.)
So, two basic rules here. One, we avoid mention of other approaches to the study of ACIM (non-Wapnickian) as well as to other philosophies we might be studying. This is purely to achieve a stable, comfortable learning forum where we are all aiming at the same goal, using the same symbols and language to get there. This is not to cast any judgment on any other approaches or philosophies. ACIM is a sufficiently difficult path to undertake without bringing more confusion into our study than our minds already contain! If you have benefited from other paths and would like to share your thoughts, by all means do so. Just please do this in the privacy of your personal emails. It’s also my personal opinion (take it or leave it) that at some point a student of ACIM is much better off sticking with one set of symbols and one teacher, and working with these thoroughly, instead of getting too dispersed. Rule two, we try not to play ‘teacher’ with each other here, reminding ourselves to be humble and always equal with our brother.
Enjoy the discussion!
lovely sharing … simply beautiful
Nina, that was such a consistent seeing of the two different layers. As Peggy says, lovely is the perfect word. In one layer we are the ego’s son, and in the other we are God’s son. Very beautiful trip and return home. So glad the joy surrounded you there in your home, too.
Hi, Annie, here is where i get the regular lessons: acim.org
The Journey text is at (remove the embedded spaces – and you need the .pdf)
askandletgod.com/ docs/ ACIM/ C220. pdf
I hope you are having a fun family beach getaway at gorgeous Huntington Beach.
I, too, am ready for the I am not a body to be over. I know, I KNOW, i will just never know how to really believe it. I believe I am Spirit, child of God, but secretly suspect this pasty pack is part of me too – just not the best part.
The only thing about going onto Part II is that Ken starts out the introduction with a big ol’ 22 page gift of understanding. I may need to take Amery to a playday so I can read that much. Maybe I may need to get a headstart. Maybe I’ll have to just read what J presents and hope for the best I can grok.
It was grand, marvelous, delightful, and heartwarming to hear a few words from you Lawrence. Juggling crazy sounds so intricate. Lay it out for us, and we will silly it up, I’m sure. Bless you so for blessing us all.
Lesson 220
I am not a body. I am free,
For I am still as God created me.
(200) There is no peace except the peace of God.
Let me not wander from the way of peace, for I am lost on
other roads than this. But let me follow Him Who leads me
home, and peace is certain as the Love of God.
I am not a body. I am free.
For I am still as God created me.
Dear Lawrence – seconding Katrina here: “Lay it out for us, and we will silly it up, I’m sure. Bless you so for blessing us all.”
I’d love to silly it up, dear Papa
Lesson 221
PART II
Words will mean little now. We use them but as guides on which we do not now depend. For now we seek direct experience of truth alone. . .
For we wait in quiet expectation for our God and Father. He has promised He will take the final step Himself. And we are sure His promises are kept. We have come far along the road, and now we wait for Him. We will continue spending time with Him each morning and at night, as long as makes us happy. We will not consider time a matter of duration now. . . .
And so we start upon the final part of this one holy year, which we have spent together in the search for truth and God, Who is its one Creator. We have found the way He chose for us, and made the choice to follow it as He would have us go. His Hand has held us up. His Thoughts have lit the darkness of our minds. His Love has called to us unceasingly since time began.
1. What is Forgiveness?
Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred.
Lesson 221
Peace to my mind. Let all my thoughts be still.
Father, I come to You today to seek the peace that You alone can give. I come in silence. In the quiet of my heart, the deep recesses of my mind, I wait and listen for Your Voice. My Father, speak to me today. I come to hear Your Voice in silence and in certainty and love, sure You will hear my call and answer me.
Now do we wait in quiet. God is here, because we wait together. I am sure that He will speak to you, and you will hear. Accept my confidence, for it is yours. Our minds are joined. We wait with one intent; to hear our Father’s answer to our call, to let our thoughts be still and find His peace, to hear Him speak to us of what we are, and to reveal Himself unto His Son.
Nina ~
Those two stories were very beautiful and a great example of how we can choose to apply what learned into everyday life thank you for sharing them with us.
Peggy please give us a report on the hurricane
Lesson 222
God is with me. I move and move in Him.
This refers to the well-known statement of St. Paul from the Acts of the Apostles, to which I referred earlier. It recalls to our minds Lesson 41, “God is with me wherever I go.” Needless to say at this point, the meaning of the words should not to be taken literally.
(1:1-2) God is with me. He is my Source of life, the life within, the air I breathe, the food by which I am sustained, the water which renews and cleanses me.
God is not in our water, food, or air; He is not in the world. These words symbolize God being our life. What sustains us here are water, food, and air, and our bodies cannot live without them. Similarly, our Identity as spirit cannot live without God, for He is our Source and our Life, and our being lies only in Him:
“You can not escape from what you are. For God is merciful, and did not let His Son abandon Him. For what He is be thankful, for in that is your escape from madness and from death. Nowhere but where He is can you be found (T-3 1.IV.11:3-6).”
(1:3-4) He is my home, wherein I live and move; the Spirit which directs my actions, offers me Its Thoughts, and guarantees my safety from all pain. He covers me with kindness and with care, and holds in love the Son He shines upon, who also shines on Him.
We think our home is the body, and thus are tempted to bring God into the world as we seek to take up His home in our bodies. We want Jesus to do likewise, and in an upside-down understanding of his course we distort its message to mean making our bodies happier. In truth, however, we want to make our home in God, which is reflected here in the right-minded love of Jesus. We do not want to bring the light to the darkness, but the darkness of our false identity to the light of Who we truly are as Christ. Only then can we be safe and experience our Father’s kindness, care, and Love – not as a body from a body, but as a mind that is part of Mind. Thus Jesus asks us rhetorically:
“Is He [God] a body, and did He create you as He is not, and where He cannot be? You are surrounded only by Him (T-18.VI.10:5-6).”
(1:5) How still is he who knows the truth of what He speaks today!
When we understand the Holy Spirit’s words to be true, there is no need to do anything. We need no longer frantically try to keep our sanity and our bodies happy. When we understand there is nothing to forgive, we can truly be quiet to the truth.
(2) Father, we have no words except Your Name upon our lips and in our minds, as we come quietly into Your Presence now, and ask to rest with You in peace a while.
Implicit in setting aside the ego’s words is recognizing they were a mistake, as
have been our attempts to understand God, Jesus, and forgiveness. We recognize now these words and concepts are not what we want, for we choose the Holy Spirit’s Atonement instead. It alone leads to the Presence of God, Whose Name reminds us It is ours as well, and in that Fact we find our peace and rest a while.
Journey through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles by Kenneth Wapnick
Lesson 222
God is with me. I live and move in Him.
(Oops, typo)
Hi everyone, just back from a few days camping on the Atlantic coast just north of Bordeaux. We try to go there once a year to spend time in that amazing sense of space you get by the shore. We sit on the edge of the water, walk miles along the water front, collect shells, or bicycle on the many bike paths through the pine woods. It’s quiet and lovely. The beaches are spectacular, about a hundred kilometers or so of pure white sand and that extraordinary clear light blue water typical of the ocean. We found a campsite about 4 miles inland situated on a bike path, which is great for us, just back from all the bustle of the village on the beachfront, a very quiet and green spot.
Only… the weather since we arrived was very November-ish, grey every day, cool, rainy and windy! Not at all the height of summer, camping-weather you look forward to for your annual vacation at the beach. In fact, we are amateur, light-weight campers (we put a mattress in my little work van) and it works for us really only if the weather is warm and dry. So this was a real challenge for us! I can’t say that our mindset was always in the right place, and we started most days by opening the door and looking out from at another grey morning promising more rain with disappointment. But on the whole, I think it was perfect for what we needed to do.
That special place of sunshine we’re all looking for is inside, in that quiet, green place in our minds. It was always there, riding along with us on the bikes even as we pulled our sweaters closer and looked for shelter from the rain. It was at the beachfront with us as we looked out at the wind-blown grey sea, sand hitting our faces, thinking of the sun-cream and our swimsuits in the backback, and the view was lovely and peaceful all the same. Even better, it was a time for looking at our extraordinary fascination with the outside world and how we so want it to conform to our special desires. AS IF the fact that we couldn’t swim (didn’t manage to get in the water once) was going to have some impact on that reservoir of peace that’s in all our minds. Then we sat at a café on the village main-street and looked at everyone else wanting the outside to look better, and all of us making a big deal about the outside when inside all was quiet and green.
We’re such funny creatures. We’ll do whatever we can to make sure we don’t look to that quiet place inside, and will continue to insist that the outside better start looking different real soon! It was a great learning vacation, and I can’t say I’m disappointed. We didn’t arrive home tanned and fatigued from the days at the beach, but quietly calm and somehow better prepared for getting back to work perhaps than we would have been.
Nina, that was a glorious story of you in the train. I felt like I was there in that peaceful, mind-changing moment with you. A beautiful couple of stories, thank you.
Michele – I did laugh!!! Hope you had a good time in Idaho.
Anil, your posts are lovely and profound, as usual.
Annie – I hope your throat tickle is not developing into something worse. I’m sure you’ll be fine for your mini-holiday at the beach, and I pray the weather will be great!
Katrina, so many thanks for your devotion and sharing your wisdom, and Ken’s.
Laurence, thanks, brother, for stopping by and sharing with us.
Hedda, hello, I owe you a mail!
Hi Tex, hope you’re not too hot in Texas.
Hi Zafu, thought of you while at the beach – you always know how to make it a perfect day!
Lesson 223
God is my life. I have no life but His.
From JTTWB
…choose the spirit, and all Heaven bends to touch your eyes ad bless your holy sight, that you may see the world of flesh no more except to heal and comfort and to bless (T-31.VI.1:8).
Glad you’re up as early as me this morning Annie. Hope Huntington Beach was wonderful for both of you this morning is my last morning in Sandpoint this trip.
Deeply enjoyed your description of how you both dealt with the absence of the external sunshine on your beach vacation and I wonder if you’ll be able to have the time to capture one when the weather improves .
I am going to go and finish my packing before my friend wakes up she’s usually up by this time.
Love to all, Michele
Forgot to insert your name Bernard talking about your and Pat’s beach vacation without the sunshine and the addition of rain and wind.
Good Morning! I have a tiny morning interlude today as the sun is rising. Thank you, Annie, for getting in the lesson. That quote from Ken is one of my very favorites. It wraps you in His love. I wish my mornings were reliable. Here is the little prayer with the lesson. I love that the whole lessons are so small for the rest of the year. What did the intro say? It took alot of words to undo our efo’s view, but now very few to establish the Holy Spirit’s way. I won’t go all the way overboard like with yesterdays.
***************************
I was mistaken when I thought I lived apart from God, a separate entity that moved in isolation, unattached, and housed within a body. Now I know my life is God’s, I have no other home, and I do not exist apart from Him. He has no Thoughts that are not part of me, and I have none but those which are of Him.
Our Father, let us see the face of Christ instead of our mistakes. For we who are Your holy Son are sinless. We would look upon our sinlessness, for guilt proclaims that we are not Your Son. And we would not forget You longer. We are lonely here, and long for Heaven, where we are at home. Today we would return. Our Name is Yours, and we acknowledge that we are Your Son.
Dear all – I just read this from Jesus to Paul Tuttle – about asking for the TRUTH about a situation, or the TRUTH about a person we perceive as ill or harmed (or obnoxious)in any way. The point about asking about a full experience of the Truth hit me with enormous power, and here is what i read on Nouk Sanchez’s Facebook group “The End of Death” The text is not Nouks, its only on her site:)
” [Text] “The term “right-mindedness” is properly used as the correction for “wrong-mindedness,” and applies to the state of mind that induces accurate perception.”
Yes. You see right-mindedness is a stepping-stone to the direct experience of Truth, but you have to be able to make the distinction between right-mindedness and wrong-mindedness. And that’s why I encouraged you last week that when you see someone during your day who appears not to be well, don’t just let it pass by and say, “Oh, poor dear, she needs to be home in bed.” Or “Boy, I’m glad I’m not in her shoes today.” Or whatever. Correct it! Recognize immediately that this is illegitimate. It’s not the Truth. That’s right-mindedness.
And then, ask to know what the Truth is. This doesn’t mean that you have to stop in the middle of your activities and take a half hour to listen and wait for the answer and interrupt the flow of your day. But it means, don’t let these little moments, these little opportunities to recognize the call for correction, don’t miss those opportunities. And take advantage of them, because, as I’ve said, every time you do that and express that right-mindedness, it’s the little bit of leaven that leavens the whole. And then as you proceed on with your activities, you can still be listening. Because, ultimately, what you want is not just right-mindedness.
The acknowledgement, “Well, that’s illegitimate about her. I don’t join in the idea that I’m being invited to join with. That’s not the Truth about her.” And then go on to do your things and say, “Father, I would like to experience the Truth about her.” You see?
QUESTION: Raj, is it appropriate also to ask for blessing for that one in travail?
ANSWER: You may, of course.
QUESTION: Well, the reason I’m asking is I encounter, from time to time, accidents along the freeway. And I encountered one the other day that was pretty severe. In other words, the person was on the ground. And as I was approaching it, my thought was to ask for a blessing for whatever was transpiring then.
ANSWER: Certainly. Yes. But I want you all to do more than that. I want you to invite the direct experience–experience within yourself–of what the Truth about that one is. I want you bringing everything that we’re talking about and reading about here into the level of experience, and not just a surface acknowledgment of an idea of Truth. You can say, “Father, please help them.” But then say, “Father, please help me to have a direct experience of the Truth about them.” You see?
QUESTION: Does that mean that you would experience the pain and suffering also that they’re going through? I mean you’re asking…
ANSWER: That’s not the Truth.
QUESTION: Okay. That’s not the Truth. Then what you’re asking for is to experience their wholeness along with your own.
ANSWER: Yes. You are asking for an experience of Truth, with a capital “T” NOT the truth of the human condition.
QUESTION: That’s what I want to be clear about that.
ANSWER: The accident, the injury, the suffering that appears to be going on there is an illusion. It’s an illegitimate imposition on that Christ, that divine One. And you want to know what the Truth is about that divine One. When you ask to know the Truth, you’re never asking to know the truth about the human condition. “Well, what is the condition of my liver? What’s the truth about the condition of…” “Well, you have a perforated liver.” Well, how much help is that?
You don’t want to know what the truth of a thing is according to the well-established mutually-agreed-upon definitions of everything.
You don’t really believe that that’s what I’ve been talking about when I say ask to know what the Truth is here. Because we’re talking about correcting illusion. We’re talking about correcting the un-God-like evidences of a human condition, so that we might know the Truth of the divine condition and have a direct experience of it so that it is a Knowing of the Truth, because Truth known is the conscious experience of nothing present to be corrected. And this is the important part because I hear a lot of students of the Course and of metaphysics and so on saying the truth of the situation is that there’s nothing needing to be corrected. And they leave it there without correction occurring!
When you ask for the Father to provide you with the direct experience of the Truth about that one, your experience of it has the direct effect of causing transformation, regeneration and redemption to actually occur so that you are no longer presented with the evidence of anything needing correction, which means no more blood gushing out of a wound onto the ground, no more opening in the skin, perfect flawless form identifying the Presence of that individuality perfectly, flawlessly.
QUESTION: Then if I’m understanding you’re saying then [that] is healing in the manner in which you did when you were here 2,000 years ago. Now we will be doing the same?
ANSWER: Yes.
QUESTION: This is how it was happening?
ANSWER: This is how it was happening. And it was not, therefore, by virtue of some personal authority I had different from any of you, or any of my disciples, or anyone in the communities we were in. It had to do with the fact that when you’re not joining with the mutually-agreed-upon definitions of the crowd, of the neighborhood, of the community, of those in your synagogue, or your church, or your political group, and you are asking the Father what the Truth is, you are turning to the Altar, relying on something other than even your best knowledge.
The experience is provided because you’re joining with the Father. And there’s an experience to it that you call Knowing the Truth. Not something you do mechanically. “I’m going to the Truth for a while. And the Truth is God is all, and I am His Son, and therefore I must have been created perfect because He is perfect.” And you go through a logical process in your mind. You could call that knowing the Truth. That’s not what I’m talking about.
When you turn toward the Altar and you are willing to abandon your best judgments, your best definitions, when you’re willing to dismember yourself, give up your membership in the group that is making the mutually-agreed-upon definitions, and lean into the Father’s point of view, then you will be infilled with the Father’s point of view. And then you will find that you Know the Truth from the tips of your toes, from the bottom of the depths of your Being, and it’s unalterable and unequivocal, and there’s nothing unlike it. And that is when the transformation, regeneration, redemption occurs.
And remember that the word “redemption” means bringing back to its original form, or its original state. So redemption of a broken limb, redemption of an injury, redemption of a sick body is for it to be brought back into its original state of being the visibility and tangibility of your individuality. And your individuality is God expressed right there as you. And so, the transformation, regeneration and redemption is a way of describing God being glorified in slow motion, as though it were happening in time. Do you see what I’m saying?
~excerpt from ACIM Study Group with Raj/Jesus 5/11/03
Conducted by the Northwest Foundation for ACIM
So – this gives me this beautiful little exercise:
“Hm.This what I see is not the Truth. Father – SHOW me the Truth.”
I am just doing it with my condition now: cold, shivering,hungry,tired,gloomy.
“Father, show me the Truth!”
Waiting
legs start buzzing with energy. Felt like a transformator. Deep yawning. Feels like hundreds of costumes/skins being shed.
I get the perception of a warbled energyform consisting of former agreement on a protection-energy/programming. I place it on the Altar, and ask to have Truth instead.
Now the yawning is massive, and at last warmth is trickling in as I write. Water in mouth and eyes. Breathing fuller. Starting to feel safe. feeling the support from the chair – and the green sunny garden inside, my lovely poetic brother Bernard. It feels like coming alive.
And i hear:
“This is here ALWAYS.Just spot the illusions and ask to be shown the truth. This is how corrections are made.”
Lesson 224
God is my Father, and He loves His Son.
My true Identity is so secure, so lofty, sinless, glorious and great, wholly beneficent and free from guilt, that Heaven looks to It to give it light. It lights the world as well. It is the gift my Father gave to me; the one as well I give the world. There is no gift but this that can be either given or received. This is reality, and only this. This is illusion’s end. It is the truth.
My Name, O Father, still is known to You. I have forgotten It, and do not know where I am going, who I am, or what it is I do. Remind me, Father, now, for I am weary of the world I see. Reveal what You would have me see instead.
Your post Nina re-enforces todays lesson plan perfectly!
Oh yes,Annie:
“Reveal what You would have me see instead.” Oh my do I love these synchronicities.
Anyone else feeling disconnected today? after that “exercise” three lamps upstairs is without electricity ( checked the bulbs and sockets) and new electrical tools are without electricity too –
nothing else to do but hang in there and ask Him what he would have me see instead
hahahaha do you know what He said? check the fuses!!!
my nabour came over with a big flashlight and fixed it
tralala
There is a lot that seems on the mark in Nina’s copied and pasted post about Asking for the truth. However, it does not seem to be quite consistent with the Course, as far as I understand it, that our healed perception would cause any kind of healing of the body. This is going to be quite confusing for a lot of people, I fear. In addition, physical healing does not seem to be the focus of the Course at all, in fact. The last paragraph also would not seem to lead us to better understand the Course, since it suggests that our individuality is a reflection of God, whereas the Course is trying to help us to realize that there is no real individuality at all, and what appears as individuality is actually an attack on God.
Anything we can do to move away from a perception and focus on individuality is constructive and will bring peace, as far as I understand. Some of this article suggests doing just this, by asking for another, higher perception when someone is in pain, and not just settling for our standard thoughts. I think it is always so important to keep the very highest spiritual goal of the Course in mind – the complete undoing of all concepts and thoughts of individuality and individual, self-specific experiences. It is the hardest part of this course, which is why other ideas and thoughts can slip in so easily.
Ultimately, we are being led away from all individual thoughts back into Thought (to be ‘thunk’, as Gloria says). The way we do this, as a part of this article suggests, is by questioning each and every individual perception and experience that crosses our mind during the day. But a part of us is terribly afraid of this process, of losing its ‘identity’. But we learn, very slowly, that we are actually giving up nothing by being willing to see what is everything.
But that ‘everything’ does not, and cannot, include a world that is not actually there. It can temporarily include the illusion of a world that appears to be there (the state of the real world), but even this we learn to let go of at some point, and regain entirely the one perfect mind of God. As a temporary step, attaining the real world is our goal right now, which entails deeply questioning ourselves on the reality and the truth of all our individual thoughts, feelings, perceptions and experiences, of all our ‘reactions’ as Ken has talked about all these years. This article suggests this process, while bringing in some other thoughts that might be confusing. Just wanted to make that clear for everyone.
With regards to physical conditions, personally I find it one of the greatest blessings of this Course to learn that I do not need to have any kind of physical improvement in order to have my mind be perfectly healed, and to regain correct perception of reality. I don’t need to focus on my body at all in any specific way, in fact. It is not my means for healing, nor a reflection of my state of mind. This is enormously helpful, since it brings my attention constantly back to the real source of my experience, which is in my mind, not in my body. My experience of my body is purely the result of the experience in my mind. My body does not ‘feel’ anything as such, since it is a puppet that my mind is telling what to feel. My body is very happy being upright with all its limbs in place, or laying down with its limbs in unfamiliar positions – it does not matter to my body at all. And it does not matter to my mind at all, either, when my mind is entirely focused on that perfect place of peace within us. The two are actually not connected at all, not by any cause-effect relationship.
It is my mind, lost in a dream of individuality, that seeks to make this articifal connection between the two. There is another world of perception, entirely different, where we perceive ourselves as not being the body (the reason for all those boring lessons, remember?). We are entirely free of the need to focus on the body as a means of salvation or of meaning or of personal existence. This is incredibly freeing, a wonderful blessing, but so contrary to everything this world will try to teach us. Because it is a world whose goal is to prove the importance of the body as the source and truth of our experience.
Just imagine for an instant if no one person’s personal physical experience mattered at all, not to that enormous, extraordinary Peace that underlies Reality? That would mean that everything is already perfectly healed, everything, since nothing important is unhealed. The body’s healing is not important – that’s incredible! We all go around all the time, whether we know it or not, bewailingly the suffering of bodies, ours or those of other people. We are all filled with a sense of the suffering of this world, and it weighs on us all the time. What if that suffering where actually nothing, and not even there? Because something Else is there, something utterly amazing. That would be truly spectacular!
That doesn’t mean we are not sensitive to the suffering that others perceive. We meet them in the condition in which they think they are, helping them on the level at which they need to be helped. But it does mean we begin to question the real source of their experience of their pain. We don’t justify or explain the suffering we perceive in the world. And this is what begins to open up a little space in our minds that will allow us to perceive another, incredible truth: none of it is happening in the way we thought. None of it.
” this is what begins to open up a little space in our minds that will allow us to perceive another, incredible truth: none of it is happening in the way we thought. None of it.”
Thanks, B – that’s what interests me so much too: what I seem to see is my warped perception – and as i am willing to change it- saying inside “Give me your blessing, Holy Son of God”, the outer “person” changed. The person i first perceived as wildly paranoid changed within minutes to something of great joy – quite a different “person” – she did not any longer have to carry my wrong-minded projection and was freed to be the Joy she has been created to be.
I see the accident-persons in the same way: when we – as Jesus also did, described in the Bible -refuse to see a “sick” person as sick, and instead pray to see their essence, the projection of sickness disappear – and if they believe us ( like the sick persons Jesus healed in the Bible believed in his power) they have to lose their sickness. Remember, Jesus also says ” whatever I do, you can do too, and more.”
I am reading Nouk Sanchez book “The end of death.” She describes how a person in her grouop fell over and was diagnosed as dead for 20 minutes. The group affirmed life for those 20 minutes – no drama, just resting in God – and he came through and is alive 🙂
Lots of examples i her book about how the body may reflect a healing in the mind – and they are quotes from the Course, of course:)
So maybe it is compatible with the Course – but just not with ken’s way of teaching, which this page is a tribute too. And if you want me to keep this stuff to myself, I will – just tell me so:)
Lesson 225
God is my Father, and His Son loves Him.
Father, I must return Your Love for me, for giving and receiving are the same, and You have given all Your Love to me. I must return it, for I want it mine in full awareness, blazing in my mind and keeping it within its kindly light, inviolate, beloved, with fear behind and only peace ahead. How still the way Your loving Son is led along to You!
Brother, we find that stillness now. The way is open. Now we follow it in peace together. You have reached your hand to me, and I will never leave you. We are one, and it is but this oneness that we seek, as we accomplish these few final steps which end a journey that was not begun.
Dear Nina and Bernard, I have to say that the thoughts in post 570 are more liberating for me: I don’t have to bear guilt because of a failing body. The body is a lifeless puppet following the mind’s orders. Even breathing is not normal, nothing here is normal. A so called healthy body or a sick body or a dead body are the same thing ! An illusion is an illusion…. Thank God for that !!!!
And Nina, when someone has another point of view it forces me to test or analyse my own ideas and opinions. To hear different opinions prevents me from becoming more rigid than I already am.
P.S. My right leg has been swollen for years and I wish it wasn’t but I still stick to my post !!! 🙂
Hi Nina, I think I didn’t express some of my thoughts very clearly, and should perhaps tidy them up a bit. It is quite true that if the mind is healed of its guilt, the body may very well, and is quite likely, to heal perfectly. After all, in most cases (there are the exceptions of the great teachers like Jesus) the body’s illness is the result of keeping the illness of guilt in the mind which requires that the body suffer for one’s ‘sins’. When that guilt is healed, there is no more pressure on the body to conform to the mind’s wishes. But in all cases, there is no cause-effect relationship between the body and one’s peace of mind. It is not the body’s sick condition that causes my upset and distress, and it is not the body’s healed condition that causes my peacefulness. It is the mind’s acceptance of love for itself in the place of guilt that causes the experience of peacefulness, no matter what happens to the body. The body may get better, and it may not. In either case, I can choose a perfect experience of peacefulness because it is an inherent condition and quality within all of us. Perhaps my body will heal, and perhaps it won’t. I guess the reason I wrote so much in that post above is because of the temptation to focus on healing the mind in order to heal the body. We can very sneakily be making the body the center of all our attention again, which is not the purpose of this Course. Its goal is to get us to bring the mind and its choice for love back into center stage. The Course wants us to focus less on the body, no matter how we might manage to do that. What then happens to the body becomes of secondary interest to us, because we’re focusing on what’s really important – where we’re really feeling things, which is in the mind.
I think you had a lovely experience on the train, and I have no doubt that you invited the other person to drop their aggressiveness, an invitation that the other person felt and accepted. It’s a lovely example of what we could all be trying to do every day. On the other hand, if the other person had not accepted your invitation, it would not have meant that you had not healed that person and your relationship. If they had continued to ignore you and be aggressive, your healing was still accomplished.
We can give all the invitations we want, but others must make the step to accept them, which they won’t always do. Imagine how many times we have actually healed others and our relationships with them and have seen no outer change? That is the theme of the question ‘Should healing be repeated?’ in the Manual for Teachers, in which Jesus says, ‘One of the most difficult temptations to recognize is that to doubt a healing because of the appearance of continuing symptoms is a mistake in the form of lack of trust.’
Symptoms can continue, and you will have done your job. I love this Course because it helps me understand that the problem underlying all mankind’s problems and sicknesses has already been healed. We are just a bit slow in recognizing this, which is the cause of the continuing appearance of symptoms. We are all already healed, despite continuing symptoms.
There are also many passages in the Course which help us to become aware that the healing of the body cannot possibly be important since, as it tells us over and over, we are not bodies at all but mind. This certainly does not mean we should not aim at physical healing for ourselves or wish for healing for other people. But it does mean that we should keep in mind that things are not happening exactly in the way we think, and that everything has already been perfectly healed, even if sickness continues.
Lesson 226
My home awaits me. I will hasten there.
If I so choose, I can depart this world entirely. It is not death which makes this possible, but it is change of mind about the purpose of the world. If I believe it has a value as I see it now, so will it still remain for me. But if I see no value in the world as I behold it, nothing that I want to keep as mine or search for as a goal, it will depart from me. For I have not sought for illusions to replace the truth.
Father, my home awaits my glad return. Your Arms are open and I hear Your Voice. What need have I to linger in a place of vain desires and of shattered dreams, when Heaven can so easily be mine?
wonderful post dear Bernard, we do agree in everything here. I love where Jesus writes in “the song of prayer” that the body’s healing will follow because its cause has disappeared. It is this cause that I love to find – and i find it through the symptoms. And when I have found them and let them go, the body’s sign of illness clears off. Sometimes instantly – and sometimes it takes years. And in that journey of exploration into the stuff I have hidden so well and not forgiven, i find a zillion thoughts to let go of – for me, a wonderful healing process that I also do with many clients.
My home awaits me. I will hasten there.
Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz-I have to recognize I’m not in Kansas anymore!
But unlike Dorothy my memories of Home are vague at best.
Still something deep inside is clearly guiding me.
I have to Trust that.
I have to Trust that I too one day will recognize the valuable from the valueless.
Each new day brings with it the opportunity to know without a doubt…
There is no place like Home.
Thanks, Katrina, for keeping us on track with the Workbook. This is really amazing lesson, actually. It is telling us not to pin our hopes on any kind of departure from the body. Death doesn’t change anything, because the body’s life is not the problem. It’s all going on, all the time, purely in the mind. Our choice for pain and separation is not dependant on the body; losing the body will not heal the separation, or heal our minds. Changing our minds is all it takes, that’s all. We don’t need to die in order to awaken!! Changing our minds is all it takes. So, so simple.
Lovely thoughts, Nina. And your words are really beautiful, Annie. “There is no place like Home.”
Vain desires and shattered dreams — my favorite course picture. Here in a desert hiding from our feared punishment at Home, we play serious body games where we make up desires and dreams to have reasons to continue the charade. Occasionally a shred of satisfaction of one of the desires leads us to the next dreaming goal. And it chains on until we awake to the only goal that is real — going Home. Then you can look back at what seemed like disappointments and laugh at the crazy empty mistakenness of them all.
Nina, folks can just google Raj Paul Tuttle Northwest and find all his channelings. But don’t post anything on the chatroom with a reference to Ken or they will launch a tirade of anger and vitriol — (Paul never says anything mean, but his followers are some of the main course feuders.). Paul is having a hard time right now because despite all the years his best friend has listened to the Raj channelings of demanding 100% bodily healing, the friend believes his doctor’s prognosis of no healing. Time will tell.
When i first started reading about spiritual anything it was The Life and Teachings of the Masters of the Far East (Baird Spaulding) — a 12 pt series of little tiny books. Jesus and Buddha and Mohammed and St. Germaine and all these great teachers were happened upon (?) by a group of explorers in the Himalayas. They were shown how they could stay totally young forever through the higher vibration of meditation and these beautiful prayers in the books. So I said the prayers and became a meditator. I wasn’t going to be some dumb fool like the old people. It was right there in front of me, simple and enjoyable to do. Been doing it ever since. I only appear to have aged. (shattered dream of eternal youth and maybe a bit of a vain desire?)
One of the notable things for me about going to the Foundation and listening to Ken was the great number of people who were at terminal stages of their illnesses. They had been to many, many, many natural mode healers and faith healers, both Course like Raj or Chuck Anderson, or even non-course Joel Goldsmith, and in their 70’s or just when the body still appeared sicker and sicker, they came to hear Ken speak about what to do now. He lifted their hearts beyond their bodies. He said that prayer was not about the body. (Raj teaches that we MUST include the body in our demand for perfection – so that is a difference in their interpretation of the course.)
One time at Ken’s lecture my back was really hurting me. On the break he came by and leaned over to hug me. I told him I was hurting too much to stay thru the day, and, of course, where it hurt. He said, “That must be so painful for you, you poor dear. Is there a different chair we can get for you?” I said no, i was going to have to head home. He said, “Well, if you have to, but we will miss you if you need to leave.” Ken demonstrated “normal” and “kind”. As i drove away, i knew no one knowingly missed me, but i felt completely loved and forgiven for leaving. We all try to heal by faith. The important thing is to know we are Christ’s best friend no matter what stuff looks like here is the dreams and desires dimension.
Thank you, Katrina. Wonderful for for thoughts here. I will let it do its work on my mind. Bless you!
I meant to say “wonderful FOOd for thoughts:)”
Thank you Bernard-if you don’t mind-please do correct my typo.
And then delete any mention of its existence.
I suspect that’s how the end of time will be. God will just show up and ask if I would like to come Home. All I have to do is say yes and then all will be erased (past and future).
Thanks Again.
Synchronicity: Yesterday, I decided to quickly look in these two boxes I have on the top shelf of my bedroom closet. They contain the entire collection of books I have purchased prior to a Course in Miracles. I retired everything a number of years back when I knew my search was finished once I committed to ACIM.
The thing is I was looking for a book titled ‘Unbroken’. I had interviewed Mr. Zamperini over the phone a number of years back for a day surgery procedure. Usually, these interviews can be done in 15 minutes or less but he was different. I found myself lost in his zest for life and I had to remind myself there were other patients to call. Like I said he was coming in the next day but because I work every other day I knew I would not have the chance to meet him. He was to start on his book tour with Laura Hillenbrand as soon as he was feeling stronger. I asked him if it would be ok if I brought in a book for him to autograph. He said it would be fine. Well, I bought two books (this was 4 years ago when there were still book stores to be found) and I gave one to my boss and asked her if she would please get them autographed tomorrow.
I haven’t read a book for pleasure in years. Last week on my mini-vacation I had started a book and found that I needed to balance my life and get back to reading stories that I can get lost in. Enough with the metaphysics! That’s what got me hunting for my autographed book by Mr. Zamperini. I’m embarrassed to say that I never started it. My boss just loved it and now I hear Angelina Jolie has finished directing the movie based on the book.
Sorry about the sidetracking but the point I wanted to make was I didn’t think that I placed the book in the boxes at the top of my bedroom closet but I should check just in case. There was no cover on these boxes so the dust was flying when I tilted the boxes to bring them down.
The first thing that caught my eye was this boxed set of books. I never read those either and my heart kinda sank. Oh, I had always intended on reading these:
“Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East.”
So Katrina-needless to say: W H A T A R E T H E C H A N C E S !!!!!! that you would mention that book set. And what is the Universe trying to tell me. And as I was writing this post it dawned on me that I read yesterday a comment by Sean Reagan that he was attracted to “Broken” . Sucks, I guess we all are.
I still haven’t found my book ‘Unbroken’. I will make that the next book I read even if I have to purchase another copy. Mr. Zamperini did pass away – July 2, 2014. He was the be the Grand Marshall for the 2015 Rose Parade. I read that they will not replace the position.
Peace my friends.
Let’s carry On.
Lesson 227
This is my holy instant of release.
Father, it is today that I am free, because my will is Yours. I thought to make another will. Yet nothing that I thought apart from You exists. And I am free because I was mistaken, and did not affect my own reality at all by my illusions. Now I give them up, and lay them down before the feet of truth, to be removed forever from my mind. This is my holy instant of release. Father, I know my will is one with Yours.
And so today we find our glad return to Heaven, which we never really left. The Son of God this day lays down his dreams. The Son of God this day comes home again, released from sin and clad in holiness, with his right mind restored to him at last.
Annie, really, what are the chances??! Utterly impossible in a world that is just what it purports to be. The Masters books are tiny little things, and arguably ‘fiction’. It was definitely over 20 yrs ago when I read them. I even wonder how they would interplay with Zampirini’s story. Probably shine some light on how he soaked in his strength.
“nothing that I thought apart from You exists. And I am free because I was mistaken”. Gosh, that covers alot of mistaken thought, including my comment to Nina! <3. What would it be like to spend a
day not thinking, not feeling any will? just smoothly reacting to God's will as it plays out. Maybe holding Amery up to the light switch she reaches and wails to get to, and hold her there for as long as she wants to flip it on and off? Will God give my arm unlimited strength? Will the fuses hold? Is Amery's will God's will? Oh no, what happened to not thinking?
Annie, that is awesome to read. How blessed we are to have this signs/synchronicities to show us that when we least expect it, Love is there to underline something for us. So much to be grateful for, isn’t it
Love to y’all
Nina
Lesson 228
God has condemned me not. No more do I.
When you find yourself having thoughts of separation, grievances, and specialness, step back a moment and realize that if these thoughts are true, God is not.
A simple litmus test to check if I’m in my right mind or wrong mind.
Everyday is New Years day and I recommit to my one resolution to no longer be unconscious about what thought system I am reinforcing.
“this is what it means to be vigilant , and why you must be attentive to your thoughts, seeing them as shadowy fragments..
My thoughts are very fragmented…I just thought it was my ADD – I use it as Carte Blanc to not even try most days. I’ve done the whole therapy thing where you go and try and see what’s the fear behind that thought and then the next.
And this is my reason why I like ACIM because I’m spared that part of the therapy session where I have to come up with the bottom line – “the underlying thought” and source of all my misery. J gives us the answer because the real work comes in the undoing.
I loved your last line in post #579 Katrina (:
“The important thing is to know we are Christ’s best friend no matter what stuff looks like here in the dreams and desires dimension.”
Joining you Nina in sending Love to ALL ♡
Lesson 229
Love, which created me, is what I am.
I seek my own Identity, and find It in these words: “Love, which created me, is what I am.” Now need I seek no more. Love has prevailed. So still It waited for my coming home, that I will turn away no longer from the holy face of Christ. And what I look upon attests the truth of the Identity I sought to lose, but which my Father has kept safe for me.
Father, my thanks to You for what I am; for keeping my Identity untouched and sinless, in the midst of all the thoughts of sin my foolish mind made up. And thanks to You for saving me from them. Amen.
In other words, I was wrong. My foolish and unwise mind, the source of my seeming life on earth, had no effect on my true life in Heaven. Through His promise of creation, God has kept His Word that our Identity as His Son would forever remain untouched and sinless, eternal and free, as we recall from this familiar statement from the text:
Such is the promise of the living God; His Son have life and every living thing be part of him, and nothing else have life. What you have given “life” is not alive, and symbolizes but your wish to be alive apart from life, alive in death, with death perceived as life, and living, death…. There is no change in immortality… (T-29.1I.6:1-2; 7:4).
I love all the reminders i can get that i have been wrong. It helps stir up my thinkig around in hopes it doesn’t ever gel up again.
Lesson 230
Now will I seek and find the peace of God.
Todays lesson is a few pages long in Journey through the workbook…I woke up late today and will let you Katrina pick a few of your favorite passages by Ken.
xoxo Annie
and Thanks for the Birthday Wishes (:
(2:1-4) Father, I seek the peace You gave as mine in my creation. What was given then must be here now, for my creation was apart from time, and still remains beyond all change. The peace in which Your Son was born into Your Mind is shining there unchanged. I am as You created me.
My Identity is outside time and space, and is therefore not rooted in the world or body. This central theme of the workbook, indeed of the Course itself, reminds me that the truth of Who I am is unchanged and remains within my mind. All I need do is claim it through the miracle:
Reality is changeless. Miracles but show what you have interposed between reality and your awareness is unreal, and does not interfere at all… Because reality is changeless is a miracle already there to heal all things that change, and offer them to you to see in happy form, devoid of fear. It will be given you to look upon your brother thus…. The Christ in him is perfect…. And when He has appeared to you, you will be certain you are like Him, for He is the changeless in your brother and in you (T-30.VIII.4:1-2; 5:1-2, 5, 9).
(2:5-6) I need but call on You to find the peace You gave. It is Your Will that gave it to Your Son.
God’s answer to our call is heard in the special relationship, for when we forgive our special partners the darkened guilt we projected onto them, we remember the light that joins us as one. As Jesus closes the Psychotherapy pamphlet:
Remember the plan of God for the restoration of joy and peace. And do not forget how very simple are the ways of God:
You were lost in the darkness of the world until you asked for light. And then God sent His Son to give it to you (P-3.III.8:10-13).
In this light of forgiveness we have found the peace we sought, for we have remembered that our will and God’s are one.
Aug 19, 2014 （The day after Annie’s birthday）
Lesson 231:Father, I will but to remember you.
What can I seek for, Father, but your Love ? Perhaps I think I seek for something else, something that I have called by many names. Let me remember You. What else could I desire but the truth about myself ?
And preceding todays Lesson, and for the next 9 days, the time to read and reflect on the Theme of Salvation.
What is Salvation ?
Salvation is a promise, made by God, that you would find your way to Him at last.
##########
It was a deep relief to read and allow this to pour into my tired mind today. I will perhaps write some more by the FireSide.
Lesson 232
Be in my mind, my Father, through the day.
Be in my mind, my Father, when I wake, and shine on me throughout the day today. Let every minute be a time in which I dwell with you. And let me not forget my hourly thanksgiving that you have remained with me, and always will be there to hear my call to You and of Your Love. and let me sleep sure of my safety, certain of Your care, and happily aware I am Your Son.
Lesson 233
I give my life to God to guide today.
(1:7) Be You the Guide, and I the follower who questions not the wisdom of the Infinite, nor Love whose tenderness I cannot comprehend, but which is yet Your perfect gift to me>
Lesson 234
God in His mercy wills that I be saved.
And God rejoices as His Son receives what loving justice knows to be his due. For love and justice are not different. Because they are the same does mercy stand at God’s right Hand, and gives the Son of God the power to forgive himself of sin. (T-25.VII.9:9-11).
Or as Ken would say, “Nothing Happened”.
psssst. Mr. Major can you correct the Lesson number in post #593.
It should read 235.
Thank You.
Make it look like nothing happened (:
Lesson 236
I rule my mind, which I alone must rule.
I have a kingdom I must rule. At times, it does not seem I am its king at all. It seems to triumph over me, and tell me what to think, and what to do and feel. And yet it has been given me to serve whatever purpose I perceive in it. My mind can only serve. Today I give its service to the Holy Spirit to employ as He sees fit. I thus direct my mind, which I alone can rule. And thus I set it free to do the Will of God.
Father, my mind is open to Your Thoughts, and closed today to every thought but Yours. I rule my mind, and offer it to You. Accept my gift, for it is Yours to me.
Lesson 237
Now would I be as God created me
The Holy Spirit is the light in which Christ stands revealed. And all who would behold Him can see Him, for they have asked for light… they looked within and saw beyond the darkness the Christ in them, and recognized Him. In the sanity of His vision they looked upon themselves with love, seeing themselves as the Holy Spirit sees them. And with this vision of the truth in them came all the beauty of the world to shine upon them (T-13.V.11:1-2,5-7)
I haven’t read Sean’s latest posting but I did go to see if I could see Jesus.
I’ld like to think it was the light of the Holy Spirit that revealed Christ’s name to me.
I also googled the site Kateri Shrine and the young Indians girl name translated means,
‘she who bumps into things’.
Christ is my eyes today, and He the ears that listen to the Voice for God today. Father I come to You through Him Who is Your Son, and my true Self as well. Amen
There is this one phrase in Ken’s JTTW in the Salvation commentary that I keep going back to read…
“God’s Word is almost always synonymous with some aspect of the Atonement principle. When we fell asleep and dreamed we had separated from God, we carried with us into the dream the memory – the Holy Spirit – of Who we are as His one and indivisible Son.”
It seems to explain a definition between the Holy Spirit and Jesus, or the Christ. I just glow that understanding of the Holy Spirit as my memory of the truth of Christ in me. Jesus, to me, is a personalization of myself as my Friend, the big Brother who can help me see clearly. I once had a clear understanding that the story of Jesus was a myth, a like Joseph Campbell’s archetypal myth of man succeeding in the transformation to his true Being. We, mankind, needed this role model example, and the story unfolded. I recall Ken saying that the Jesus, as the bible tells the story, wasn’t … Well, he was a bit gingerly trodding as he didn’t need to offend anyone, but didn’t see it as historically true.
Oh, what I meant to say about the Holy Spirit being a memory, was that it feels like a glowing field, like an aura that our Father set about us as we trundled into our dream of seriously thinking our imaginings of power and pretext were going to give us that shot to ‘be somebody’. Taking the long way around to find we are.
Lesson 238
On my decision all salvation rests.
Father, Your trust in me has been so great, I must be worthy. You created me, and know me as I am. And yet You placed Your Son’s salvation in my hands, and let it rest on my decision. I must be beloved of You indeed. And I must be steadfast in holiness as well, that You would give Your Son to me in certainty that he is safe Who still is part of You, and yet is mine, because He is my Self.
And so, again today, we pause to think how much our Father loves us. And how dear His Son, created by His Love, remains to Him Whose Love is made complete in him.
Lesson 239
The glory of my Father is my own.
Who in his right mind could ever choose the ego’s world of darkness over this holy vision of love and truth?
I like the visualization Katrina of a glowing field of love protecting us as we awaken to reality.
That gives me so much more peace than the idea we are on a spinning piece of rock hurling thru darkness a million miles an hour.
(: