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!
Dear Anil – just a very short message: there is no way a mother – or anyone else – can make a little child be happy when he sees daddy. They simply have not learned that yet, thank God. Trust the eternal Love between you; You put it there by choice
And what a wonderful insight – to see that you both saw that counseling in different ways.If I were here, I would have loved if you told me that and asked how I had perceived it –
don’t we all love that? that someone admit that they may be wrong, and be interested in how we felt or perceived?
good night all – today has been such a great day: I AM LOVE
Lesson 62. Forgiveness is my function here as the Light of the world.
(On a different note, have written a more detailed message by the Fireside (sorry may not be detailed enough, Michele dear!….. Will write you more later)
Lesson 63. The light of the world brings peace to every mind through my forgiveness.
The last paragraph from JTW states:
“This Self is the Christ in us, the little Child who has seemingly lost His way. Of course the Child is not lost; we are the ones who have lost awareness of His Presence. Acceptance of our happy function of forgiveness is what restores this happy awareness to us.”
So I work on forgiveness with this, my body – my life story, so that I can begin to grasp the concept that I (we) are a mind.
I see my first shift should be to awaken with a sense of reverence each morning that this is what I am attempting to do. A holy function. I should enlisted the help of all of Heaven-those minds already connected to the right mind to be with me each step of the way. I know the words are clumsy. The concept is simple, if I could only remember to choose happy.
Dear Anil – this “Stay with Me” – I find it so simple – if I remember that, I don’t need the Course
In my blog I often share stories about my entrancelight – it is on automatic, that is, it comes on automatically when it gets dark – except that it goes out whenever I loose the light-connection – and I just stand there and look at it and find the fear that I believed in subconsciously – and then I re-connect – and the light ALWAYS – through 2 years now – comes instantly back on 🙂
iithinks is lovely, isn’t he? 🙂
you write “The concept is simple, if I could only remember to choose happy.”
Or just remember to want to choose happy – a little less coulding for me is effective – a little less guiltproducing 🙂
Annie, thank you so much. These next 30 lessons are my lost JTW lessons.
I am enlisting the help of all of Heaven-those minds already connected to the right mind to be with me each step of the way. That means you!
Oh Katrina! I shall try and write out at least one of Ken’s paragraphs from the workbook.
He can be quite wordy as you know…which of course is lovely.
Lesson 64: Let me not forget my function
“In this explicit statement Jesus tells us again that the purpose of the world is to obscure our function. The ego made the world to ensure we retain our individuality and never remember who we truly are, while accepting no responsibility for the separation from God. That is why the world of specifics was made: to keep the separation real, but to project responsibility onto others by seeing the sin in them and not ourselves…
Our function of forgiveness is to become aware that our individuality is an illusion we made up, in our minds. The unholy trinity of sin, guilt, and fear is also an illusion we made up – in our minds.– as a defense against not choosing our individuality, and that is what we want to have undone. The purpose of the world is to protect this unholy trinity, which, in turn, protects our individual existence. The world thus was made as a giant smoke screen that would conceal from us the Holy Spirit’s correction….The ego is continually tempting us to see our guilt in another’s body, rather than in our minds.. Near the end of the text Jesus defines temptation as the wish to see ourselves as a body. …refer to (T-31.VII.14:1-4)
…Consequently, rather than the world being a prison from which we will never escape, it becomes the classroom in which we learn how to escape, realizing what we see outside us is nothing other than the projection of our mind’s decision. By teaching us that happy fact about our happy function, the Holy Spirit enables us to return to our minds, understanding at last that we can make another choice.
and one more
In other words, try not to take too seriously the specific things in your day that you think will make you happy or unhappy. It is their content that is important; i.e., will they serve as means to achieve the mind’s end of happiness or unhappiness? The simplicity of this decision echoes what we mentioned just before about the simplicity of salvation….
OMG there is so much good stuff but I must end it here…maybe TexAnne can add some more.
Ahhh, Annie — thank you, but all that typing would be too much! Just maybe one sentence or thought that strikes you. And maybe only on your days off of work! After all, the book must have been removed from my hands to get me to listen more carefully to the voice within and to the lesson itself. As sort of a practice dropping my resistance. He knows I am weak and can only rely on myself for 30 days. Sort of my Lenten interlude – I’m avoiding the cliche’ of sacrifice! It’s all a temptation to see myself as sacrificing something. When really, it is all a grand opportunity to joyously learn from one another, and trust I will hear what is needed each day.
Ken is like Karate Ken in helping us release our resistance with his full understanding and bringing in corresponding text references. I can just see him blocking and kicking them away from our innocent minds open and receiving each nugget of love and comprehending that we want and deserve it.
Luckily, it will only be for 30 lessons, and then I can go back to my grateful reliance on dear Kenneth.
Lesson 65: My only function is the one God gave me.
Whenever we are tempted to think we have a function other than forgiveness, we should recognize we are involved with a defense. Many of the functions we think we have seem to be very important: to save the world, family, friends, or job, be a teacher of A Course in Miracles, etc. Whatever its form, it is not our function, and God did not give it to us. As we have already discussed, God does not know about specifics, and the function He “gave” me is simply to remember who I am as His Son. Forgiveness makes that possible, and that is this lesson’s theme.
Remember, salvation means being saved from our wrong minds, from believing we are right and Jesus is wrong. It means undoing the belief we are individuals acting on our own, necessitating having everyone else be responsible for the misery we chose for ourselves.
The task of the miracle worker thus becomes to deny the denial of truth
(T-12.II.1:5).
This entails becoming aware of both the manifest and subtle ways in which we have established what we believe to be our function in life: the purpose for which we came. We think, in our grandiosity, we were born for some noble purpose. Not true! We are here to undo the ignoble pupose for which the ego brought us: to blame others for our sin, leaving us free of all responsibility for how we feel. The undoing of that purpose-the meaning of forgiveness-is our function, and nothing else.
We cannot escape our difficulties until we perceive them. The phrase “perceived difficulties” means that we believe we have them, even though they are not real. Thus, we cannot let them go until we first become aware of the ego’s thought system that we have perceived, as a way of denying it in ourselves. this is thus a re-statement of the
first principle of miracles. Looking at our perceived difficulties with Jesus enables us to recognize them all as smoke screens for the only problem we truly have: our belief in the reality of the separation. In this way, our perceived difficulties disappear into the one problem, which the miracle gently corrects.
The Holy spirit will direct you only so as to avoid pain. Surely no one would object to this goal if he recognized it. The problem is not whether what the Holy Spirit says is true, but whether you want to listen to what He says. You no more recognize what is paiful than you know what is joyful, and are, in fact, very apt to confuse the two. The Holy Spirit’s main function is to teach you to tell them apart. What is joyful to you is painful to the ego, and as long as you are in doubt about what you are, you will be confused about joy and pain
(T-7.X.3:1-6
Today was a joyful day, but I’m so tired that I am in pain. I was pretty irritated at someone for seeming so selfish because they offered to help do something and then were resisting what i requested. I can see how I invented the whole situation so they were the guilty one, making me the innocent. Apparently I thought it was my function to be the judge. But it’s not, is it.
Hope you enjoy restful sleep, Katrina !
(My mothers advice for any troubles (:….. I quote her because it appears our mums share a birthday ! (= sept 28th…. Or did I remember wrong ?
G’night (=
Hi Family ! Next time you hear from me on this page I really hope that it is Annie telling you that I’m in California !! I will be thinking of you All during my flight !
Anil; I thought of you ( and myself) when I read this today: …. …” the deeper you go into the blackness of the ego’s foundation, the closer you come to the Love that is hidden there. And it is this that frightens you (T-13.iii.4).”
<3 <3
lesson 66 happiness = function
ok – are we getting to the part where J says my functions to forgive?
Cuz if I could forgive – I would probably already have been happier – and more willing to let stuff go.
Ugh. Just ugh. I feel a “bait and switch” coming on… cuz I want it my way. whatever.
Thank you, Mr Step and Fetch It. Go…. just go
Hmmm, brings the – Would i rather be right or happy – to mind. Rather long lesson, too. Subtle hidden message in there.
With Hedda heading to Ojai, CA it reminds me that i always think of J with that kind, but sly and knowing, John Corbett half smile. (Because he lives in Ojai with Bo Derek. John, not J – well, maybe Hedda will find J living there, too.)
Hedda, thank you for that message. I imagine you are sitting in your plane high above the Canadian Article watching the earth below. May you have a peaceful journey to California.
Your quote was very tinely. I am very scared these days. It is the blackness of the ego thought system indeed. I never thought it could be so black. And I hope J is right when he says that there is Love beyond all loves hidden there.
Will that Love liberate me ? Will it free me from all my black despair ? And do I want it ? Or do I want my life to return back to where it was before it was shattered into a thousand pieces on the morning of Feb 5th ?
I guess I will have the rest of my life to figure it out in solitude. It is clear that I have sought to fill the gaping hole in my heart with a woman’s validation, instead of God. And I guess that is the price I will pay, not because God wants me to suffer, but that as night must follow day, so also the replacement of God with any idol, even one so seemingly normal and one might even say admirable, as the desire to having an unconditionally loving relationship with ones spouse, to make amends, to re-earn their love, all of this must of necessity create suffering, for that is what worshipping false idols does.
Tis blackness, but but the blackness must fade with the coming of light, and the light will come, one way or the other.
I think (=
LESSON 67. Love created me like itself. Yes, I must remind myself of this four to five times an hour…
From the Journey Through the Workbook re: Lesson 67
Thus we remember Who we truly are, we are remembering for all. You may recall
the motto of Dumas’ three musketeers: One for all and all for one”
“…Remember that you are Love”
And Anil re: your post 166 I just listened to Ken’s latest youtube posting …
www. youtube. com/watch?v=FHV1wSYoNsg
mind the spaces
and never forget “Kindness created me Kind”
Another good line:
” I will remind you frequently of who you really are, so you can see you have a choice between the glorious Self of Christ and the shabby one you made as a replacement” It is our awareness of the ability to choose between two mutually exclusive self-concepts that allows us in the end to make the choice that is the end. Bringing us to this awareness is the function of the miracle.”
Thanks, Annie.
I like the way it ends. Perfect ! (=
Katrina I just love how you expressed Karate Ken image “helping us release our resistance with his full understanding and bringing in corresponding text references. I can just see him blocking and kicking them away from our innocent minds open and receiving each nugget of love and comprehending that we want and deserve it.
Nina …appreciate your thoughts on feeling less quilt…out dark spot
Hedda…..so so so thrilling you’re flying thru space and time heading to experiential limitless invitation of lovingly well thought out scrub a dub releasing and embracing.
Annie thank you for this quote…. “” I will remind you frequently of who you really are, so you can see you have a choice between the glorious Self of Christ and the shabby one you made as a replacement” It is our awareness of the ability to choose between two mutually exclusive self-concepts that allows us in the end to make the choice that is the end. Bringing us to this awareness is the function of the miracle.”
Anil…I love what Hedda shared ” ” the deeper you go into the blackness of the ego’s foundation, the closer you come to the Love that is hidden there. And it is this that frightens you (T-13.iii.4).”
I have been using that image I spoke of to you in spotting my attack and judgement thoughts and saying this is not what I would choose seeing myself offering my hand and it being held as his light and love shines. I feel lighter and more love coming in. I see you in that light and everyone here in these pages.
Hedda really excited for you. Lawrence, Tex, Bernard, Richard, Zafu Peggy and all the gang Love to you all.
We must be getting really good at multiplying all the love up in here… I really feel it here!
<3
Hi Villagers!
I come here often to see how you all are doing.
Annie, I tried to email you but it got bounced back. I am so sorry to hear about your father’s passing. I think about you and I hope you are doing okay.
Anil, I decided to write here because of you. I know that you don’t do email, so I decided to be brave and post.
I, too, am going through a divorce. I have been all over the map in my thoughts and emotions. You name it, and I’ve gone there. While we are not completely done with the process of the divorce, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
The thing that has gotten me through is listening carefully. When I listen, that Voice is ALWAYS right and NEVER wrong. It may not look like what I thought, but it ALWAYS sorts itself out in a way that works for all.
The most helpful and potent way that I have learned to listen is to gradually, over time, go more and more deeply into the love that I have for my estranged husband. I have discovered that I truly love him with my whole heart and soul. We can’t live together, but that love is real. Every time stuff comes up in form and I start to get upset, I try to go to the love I have for him. When I do that and just rest in that love, then everything just falls into place in form.
So, that’s my story. I hope it is helpful.
Hello to everyone else here in the Village!
Love,
Lisa
Oh sweet horsey gravatar from Washington-so good to see you here Lisa!
It’s funny but I thought of you when I cut and pasted my Ventura Hwy song…you were the best at the Monastery for adding songs from youtube for our listening pleasure.
And now here you are!
The Loss and Grief theme seem to be coming up Big Time for us Villagers…with Ken’s passing being among the ones I didn’t expect because I was soo caught up in my own grief.
I still haven’t properly extended my condolences to Anil – (I’m so sorry Anil) however, I find it lovely that his open heart allowed you to share your grief…giving it a place of rest and allowing it to help all of us. Allowing the Sonship to strengthen by asking to see only the Truth.
I came across the question and answer collection this morning regarding the topic at hand and it seems fitting to post it.
Q #15: I want to change my mind about death. I just had several loved ones “gently lay their bodies aside” yet it is grief that I am drawn to. Grief is not love, therefore it does not exist. Right? I must have made it? Can you articulate for me, based on various Course passages, a general response that would incorporate the Course’s theories so that I may apply them to this experience of grief in the world of illusion. What about repression and denial of this experience?
A: The Course never asks us to repress or deny what we are experiencing, whether it be grief or anger or pain or fear or any other ego-based reaction. But before we can change our mind about our feelings, we need first to understand what purpose they serve and why we have chosen to experience them. The feeling of grief reinforces the ego’s assertion that loss and death are real and that we can be and are deprived of love. Our experience cries out that Jesus is wrong, that we have been hurt and abandoned and left on our own. We are not being asked to deny that this is our experience. But that does not make it true.
In a graphic description of the world, Jesus says, “The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt…all the laws that seem to govern it are the laws of death. Children are born into it through pain and in pain. Their growth is attended by suffering, and they learn of sorrow and separation and death. Their minds seem to be trapped in their brain, and its powers to decline if their bodies are hurt. They seem to love, yet they desert and are deserted. They appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground, and are no more. Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel” (T.13.in.2:2,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11). And this is what we all believe. Would it not be better if we are wrong?
Jesus reminds us that his life, ending in apparent death, had the purpose of “teaching that communication remains unbroken even if the body is destroyed, provided that you see not the body as the necessary means of communication” (T.15.XI.7:2). But we still see the body as necessary for communication and believe that real communication ends with the death of the body, because we still want to see ourselves as a body. The body affirms our independent existence and its seeming experiences of loss and pain do not seem to reflect simply a choice in our minds. The ego does not want us to remember that the source of all our grief is the belief that we ourselves abandoned love and exiled ourselves from Heaven. Thanks to the ego defense of projection, it feels instead as if these are things that happen to us against our own will, that we are not responsible for how we feel. So we must begin by acknowledging that these are our feelings, but then we must also have a willingness to question whether our interpretation of the world and the events of our lives is correct.
The shift away from our pain and grief is a gradual process because we are afraid of the limitlessness of love, in which our individual lives, our personal selves with our unique personalities, have no meaning. And so Jesus gently reminds us both of the eventual outcome and the process: “Loss is not loss when properly perceived. Pain is impossible. There is no grief with any cause at all. And suffering of any kind is nothing but a dream. This is the truth, at first to be but said and then repeated many times; and next to be accepted as but partly true, with many reservations. Then to be considered seriously more and more, and finally accepted as the truth” (W.pII,284.1:1,2,3,4,5,6, italics added).
These words are not simply to be used as a “holy mantra” proclaiming what is true in order to drown out our ego’s interpretation and the accompanying feelings of loss and grief. Implicit in the process of changing our mind is the necessary but at times very unsettling task of looking at what we still want to believe and recognizing both its purpose — to keep separation and guilt alive — and its cost to us — suffering and pain. It is from a growing recognition of what we inflict on ourselves when we accept the ego as our teacher that the motivation develops to ask for help from a different Teacher. With that help, we can begin to see the losses of our lives in a different light, realizing that we do have a choice about what we experience and that we are not the victims of circumstances beyond our control.
p.s. 2+2= is my math problem …I will put 5 and see if it works!
Nope (:
And Now I see Anil has posted but I’m going to go ahead and enter this then read your post.
I am just reading through Nouk Sanchez new book “The end of death.” This is such a gift to the Course society, whatever that means. I read it on the bus today, and the man beside me just HAD TO ask to read that title. I was very available, but he just apologized – 🙂
WONDERFUL exercizes and meditations. I recommend it!
Lesson 69. My grievances hide the light of the world in me.
I thought today that even grief for my dear young friend is a grievance. It is better to see her passing out of our neighborhood as simply a reminder that she came here to laugh and dance and tell us how she loved being with us.
This lesson says it is our job to move thru the dense clouds with faith in the Light circle within. I tell ya’, for years now, I’ve had a tough time envisioning just where this circle is. It says I’m above it, but then I’m going thru it – so I’d be level with it, or am I reaching down? I may be responsible for getting this light out but I am surely logistically/spatially perplexed. So many body level preconceptions to resist with. What karate Ken do to straighten me out?
for me, it is a sensation of warmth and safety. And within the heart area
My salvation comes from me. No more victim-perpetrator-rescuer… no more triangulation. My salvation comes from me because I never left God. Only in a very bad convoluted dream could it ever be possible.
I was reminded by a Course Study Buddy that the first of the traits of the Teachers of God – is Trust.
I want to be that person that trusts – that Jesus is real – that the Course is real – that God is Love – and therefore- so am I! That Oneness is our Truth and Reality.
Hugs to all my Villagers on this lovely day – when Easter is coming and all grass is growing up green again. Let the flowers be all white and sparkling in the summer sun. (For They Have Come!))
When I read this morning that my salvation comes from me, I was kinda worried and kinda shock in my shoes. I needed to remember that God is my strength.
Lesson 75. The Light has come.
Thank God ! (=
I am entitled to miracles –
What the beep is a miracle? all this time and I still don’t know.
It does nothing. It merely shows us who the dreamer is.
Can’t fix anything in the dream. Not that kind of miracle.
I feel kind of jealous or left out. Other people get to traipse all around the world, looking at ancient pyramids. And chit chatting the day away in such happy places with very special master teachers.
I feel entitled to my grievances – but hardly to a miracle.
Amazingly enough, I still want all the things I want. No matter how much I know this stuff.
Curse God and die – didn’t even work in the dream. Woe is me!
Back to work… at least I can’t get in too much trouble there!
Lessos 77. I am entitled to miracles. (And seeing Leni here is a good start., welcome dear heart!)
I am entitled to miracles.
Ask for them whenever a situation arises in which they are called for. You will recognize these situations. And since you are not relying on yourself to find the miracle, you are fully entitled to receive it whenever you ask.
Remember, too, not to be satisfied with less than the perfect answer. Be quick to tell yourself, should you be tempted:
I will not trade miracles for grievances. I want only what
belongs to me. God has established miracles as my right.
tex …
being one who has traveled the world and met all kinds of divine enlightened masters
being one who has seen the great pyramids and traveled through India and Tibet and Kashmir and beautiful sacred places
feeling delighted to have met you and traipsed around temecula under a bright full moon
it’s all an incredible journey
living in hawaii in full devotion and assistance to my mom has been the most exotic journey of all
am under the impression that you do this kind of care and work all the time too as your practice
all this is a miracle
this day this leaf this tweeting bird this sleeping cat this newspaper delivery that shows up in the middle of the night this pink morning cloud this new granddaughter it’s all all all a blessing a miracle
you are a miracle
you are amazing
may all beings everywhere be happy and free
Peggy, you are a song
every moment coming up with new verses
oh yes! peggy – I love you and all the Village People so much!
I know I really want to replace my grief with miracles – I just kinda play with the format to give a voice to the “other” things i want — namely – to be lost in the shuffle of a dream.. sometimes I find i want it very much to be true.
Until (as my former boss said about the company owner) when the lights go off, the eyes start to glow and the real motivation sod the dark dream come out! Then suddenly I am crying (like the Apostles did with X) Help! Saaaaaave me!
I loved that moon that night in Olde Towne Temecula!
Apparently, miracles can move all the way into the illusion from time to time. And of course, I roll around in them there like a pig in truffles. I have lamented about losing the current volume of Ken’s Journey Through the Workbook, and Tex found a facebook page where the moderator mentioned that they are in pdf format on the web. So, I now have access to them. So, Annie, you can relax your fingers in a warm wax therapy dip, and not think you want to type them out for me!
This is it www . askandletgod . com / docs / ACIM / C77. pdf – but with all the spaces taken out, and the C# matching what you want. Amazing! Happy reviewing with Ken’s helpful thoughts
Oh Tex you are amazing when it comes to surfing the web!!!
What a gift to all of us you are!!!
Big Heart and Hugs to You.
The wax therapy dip sounds wonderful Katrina-next time we hook up we should do something like that!
I wonder if Hedda is back home in Finland?
I know she said she had to go right back to work upon her return home.
She must be wonderfully exhausted.
Sending sweet kisses to my Leni…always lovely when you float on by.
Hope you are doing ok Anil. Miss you!
Lawrence buddy I don’t want you to think that you’re off the hook with the horoscope entries just cuz of my theory regarding workbook/birthday dates. I know you don’t send them for babies but I feel that someones’ birthday is near…we haven’t celebrated one in a long time! Hey Nina…whose birthday is up next? I feel you keep the best records of anyone here in our Village. (:
Annie, I only know of birthdays when i get the reminder from Jacquie Lawson Birthday cards.
There are at least 3 of us in sebtember and october I know
sometimes i think i am the worst student here – I just suck at “getting this”
because all this time I really want to still eat and fight….
Then I really want peace… But I still wanna fight and kiss and make up and – well….
The problem is always a branch of the thought that I could ever be spereate from God. That, as the Ur Text says, that an angel could fall from God’s grace for any reason.
Fall and land on earth – in this living hell hole… far far away from God and Creation.
I am remembering Mother Superior here – she wrote once in a blog what if God did not make the world, then who did? WHO?
I know it is my projection.
I want to much for the problem to be solved “out there” and then all the little people will be “healed,” and start to “act right”.. which means to do my bidding, even if it is not what they might want [as if “they” were even real enough to decide this!! Thus further “proving” my egocentric chivalry = meaning – I want what i want when i want it and EFF YOU (literally?) if you don’t give it to me : I shall find a way or make a way to take it from you at any rate – even if it takes forever and costs me everything, etc etc etc.]
In my previous study group, a guy was lamenting the same thing – relationships – and we admitted his desires were kinda “sick” (as in demanding)…. and chimed in with “That is why they are called ILLusions!” Ill indeed. Ill fated and Illogical and just plain ILL.
So yeah… Let me recognize the problem.
I know the problem.
So it can be solved.
Might as well skin me alive and kill me. (says my ego)
As I read this back I am struck with the idea that the margins on the page are justified – and Oh – how nice they look! Because we really don’t want any straggly ugly words poking out all over the place, now DO we?
Not sure if I am a bliss ninny or a diva – or a conjoined twin of all of the above?
My task now is to just look at the chaos without judging it… lay in my hammock and observe the changes and I look this way and that…. what a world!
<3
Reading Ken’s Lesson 79 commentary on the One Problem, he says, “However, you cannot receive the answer if you are filled with guilt, judgment, and blame. You accept the answer only when you acknowledge personally that you have pushed love away again; not because you are sinful, but because you are afraid. By choosing Jesus’ forgiveness, you let his love gently wash over you, assuring you that you have done nothing wrong, except bring pain upon yourself.”
Pushed love away because I am afraid of feeling loved. I can’t even define if I want it to be Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, or the Father whose love washes over me. Better to push it back than decide who gets to give it to me.
I am reminded of Byron Katie’s Work where she walks us through exercises starting with our judgments to the place where we love what is, to the spot where we stop pushing love away. And we don’t pick who loves us, we find it is me that loves me. Jesus is me. The Holy Spirit is my right mind. The Father is my heart.
Lesson 80
Let me recognize my problems have been solved.
I did keep saying this today whenever my ego life tried proving it wasn’t so.
I said it with deep conviction. Lulled day.
I just didn’t want to let this key lesson be under genuflected.
“Lesson 80
Let me recognize my problems have been solved.”
I am following Nouk a lot, and she has recently published “The end of death.” On the page with the book, one can download 3 excellent meditations, and i do 2 of them daily. One of of them she stresses that all our wishes for healing is instantly received and given – and that is understandable, since time is a concept made by guilt and fear. Personally I have had great help from knowing that as soon as I utter a wish for something to be healed, it IS – now the appearances of “no-healed” will stay only as long as I distrust the Miracle.
The more often I do these mediations/invocation of the Miracle, the easier it is to understand for me. Just practice.
Time for Review
Lesson 81
#61 I am the light of the world
#62 Forgiveness is my function as the light of the world.
In the JTTW:
“We have made up a thought system that is the exact opposite of Heaven’s. Thus Jesus represents for us “the way, the truth, and the life, just as the ego represents the detour that keeps us from our Home-anillusory thought system culminating in death. Once again Jesus appeals to our desire to be happy and return to our Source. To the extent to which we do not want to return, and wish instead to remain separate individuals, we choose against our happiness and consequently continue to imprison our minds with “illusions and thoughts of death.” We believe our minds have no power because we have denied we have a mind at all, leaving power to rest in the body and in the world.
These words play back the experience of my Spiritual Father (Ken) saying: “I am not dying”,
in contrast to my Biological Father saying: ” I am dying”.
I choose to believe Ken.
And I am grateful to my Father who played his role perfectly till the end so that I could see/experience this contrast.
I choose happiness.
“…it is a mistake to think the problem and solution are found in the world. They rest only within our minds, which alone contain hope for true and lasting change.”
The review lessons are fun. Well, perhaps not to overstate it, but certainly more fun than any time through the workbook prior. Tying two (or more) of these lessons together strengthens the lattice of the thoughts in my mind. They get welded to each other, making it easier to remember, one recalling the other.
Am still very ego-bound with the lessons, trying very hard to do them perfectly, never once achieving it, but finally able to not obsess or feel bad, in any way, about not doing them through the day as per my intentions.
So that’s good.
But I’m still petrified of trying to peek ahead to the next days lesson, or if I mistakenly remember the words of the key thought of the day, I go back and look it up. The deep fear of a retributive God remains in my mind.
So these reviews are great, they offer the freedom to remember multiple thoughts, I. That sense they are less constraining to me. Purely self-imagined of course (=
I was able to put both thoughts for today…61 and 62 to good use at various points in my biggest challenge to date. Like Lisa said, the thoughts go all over the map with respect to this special relationship of marriage, and ones significant other, and with a young un in the mix, its open season for the ego monkey mind to try every trick in the book.
But 61 and 62 came through with flying colors. (=
It may seem odd to say this, but this might turn out to be the best experience of Life in this lifetime. Before this, life was seemingly running on auto-pilot. I thank her quite often these days, since the thought first came to me earlier this week, it has been a wake-up call like no other.
To be increasingly aware of every moment and every breath, and all the millions of lives that breathe every second of the day with us, and all the different situations that each of us go through, good, bad, ugly, joyful, whatever….
Bernard, dear brother, a very special thanks for the warm words of comfort, they were truly helpful the day you wrote it, and the day after, and even today, the echoes of the healing melody of those words resonates in a deep corner of my heart…there were some words in particular that stood out, like…”we are all plying a role here, everyone has forgotten the script, and we are all improvising as we go along”
And Tex, I love that Bernard’s message meant so much to you too…one of the reasons I speak as openly as I do in this loving nvironment, is that I have always believed that there is no predicting what will be helpful to whom, in a forum of this sort, so I feel that the more openly I can share here, the more I/we will benefit.
(Of course, the opposite may be true too, and unwittingly, we may annoy or hit the buttons of our neighbors, so I apologize in advance for anything along those lines (=
I am looking forward to Review lesson 82 when I wake up, but I will write about late at night if I do…for now Happy Lesson 81 to all that ae on the bus…. (:
now we are reviewing the lessons again. I need this time and these reviews because I never did them the first time (the first 20 years or so)
so yeah!
Lesson 82
#63 The Light of the world brings peace to every mind through my forgiveness.
#64 Let me not forget my function
Oh Tex you are not alone! And the opportunity to forgive ourselves is ever present and then we are back to our purpose, back to our function.
The last two line from yesterdays JTTW, “We learn the proper use of our mind’s power, shifting from the ego’s alien purpose of attack to the Holy Spirit’s right-minded purpose of healing. Thus we return our will to the Will that God created.”
The key word there for me is “shifting”.
We’ve been driving on automatic for years and now we need to learn how to drive a stick.
Naturally we will stall, and grind gears and want to give up.
That’s why we are on the “Bus” for now.
Daily lessons for a year and then as the Course says the real work begins…
I think those tourist buses got the idea from J setting up shuttle buses where you can hop on and off as many times as you wish…next stop Lesson 83 (:
Every time I hop on I look to see if Jamie might be driving ….he was a speedy driver…god he was so much fun!!!
I feel so extremely conflicted – raging against the universe – and punishment as I watch as the course mocks me and tells me that is it MY problem that my prayers are not answered, and my needs are not met…. and I cry and cry and cry because i know that it is true – and yet i still don’t want to believe it.
Also, all the little problems that seem to be facing me all have the same theme:
People who know better when they can’t seem to DO better…
People who see that low carbs diets help lose weight/and still won’t admit they see the logic although they clearly see the results…
People who see the fallacy of conventional Christian “wisdom” and yet hate and ridicule the Course
People who deny the seeming truth of who and what they are and live a lie, choosing to be apart from people they love
People who are too stubborn to admit the “truth” even when the evidence is impeccable and without a flaw… and they still choose “wrongly.”
I know what form is and I know what content is. I know and I do not care. I want what I want when I want it. And all the Laws of Attraction must bend to my wicked twisted sick insane illogical (and stupefied) will.
So I took my sh!t storm to the HS to help. I asked him to exterminate all the people who get in my way. And I ‘ll be “damned” – they are still here today! Die – you gravy sucking pigs – DIE! I command you! Why are you not dead? Or suffering like I was/am? Because there is no god. I have concluded this in just one day’s worth of pondering.
You’re welcome!
Win-gardium Course-iosA!! Or was it Win-gardium LeviOsa!
rant over
back to puppies and kitties –
love to my sister Annie!
All is well – just *poo*
My “Elder Brother” is sure a strict “babysitter” sometimes!
All I wanted to do was
*rule the world
*save the world
*fly
*play with my wooly bear
*eat sleep and wreck havoc
“Filio” in the blanks!
Ah…. ok … ok…
Remember Dorothy (tex) you are wearing your ruby slippers (:
Lesson 83
#65 My only Function is the one God gave me
Despite our ego’s shenanigans, we cannot loose. Our insanity has no effect on the sanity within, nor our sane function of forgiveness. Ken’s words
#66 My happiness and my function are one.
Give up the world! But not to sacrifice. You never wanted it. What happiness have you sought here that did not bring your pain? What moment of content has not been bought at fearful price in coins of suffering? Joy has no cost. It is your sacred right, and what you pay for is not happiness. Be speeded on your way by honesty, and let not your experiences here deceive in retrospect. They were not free from bitter cost and joyless consequence (T-30.V.9:4-12).
Lesson 84
#67 Love created me like itself.
#68 Love holds no grievances.
From JTTW: “Realizing what we are doing, and seeing the tremendous cost of holding on to our grievances, we strengthen the determination not to attack the Self that unites the seemingly separated fragments of the Sonship. We wish now to remember that Self and no longer cherish the purpose our grievances served.”
Turns out they were not rubies – but blood
carry on