Acim Village

~ Death and Dying Academy, Temecula, March 2011 – Part 5 ~

(Winnie’s notes posted at Acimvillage.com. Many thanks to Winnie from Bernard)

[ After the break, Ken has trouble shooshing us and has to resort to ringing a little bell…” I`m like a shepherd with the sheep” says he. I think it would have been funny if at that point someone had sung out ” yeah and we`re like lambs to the slaughter !” – tee hee]

Tp443 What if you recognized this world is an hallucination? What if you really understood you made it up? What if you realized that those who seem to walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder and destroy themselves, are wholly unreal?
Could you have faith in what you see, if you accepted this? And would you see it?

The miracle establishes you dream a dream and its contents are not true. This is all you need. There are so many places where the Course says that. You are the decision-making self.

Purpose is everything. There are only two purposes. When you change your purpose, you will wake with great gusto. It doesn`t mean you deny your experiences.
You are not entitled to your bitterness. As you go through your day, don`t believe the ego`s lies. There should be great joy if you are really doing this right………..but you have to really practise……..and it takes time because of our fear.

Freud isolated the phenomenon of Resistance when he realized his patients didn`t want to get better. A dream showed him.
We are so resistant to this Course. This Course is the end of the ego. What is helpful is just to notice the resistance.
The Course says why don`t you just give a nod to God?…..It`s not because you are so busy. It`s because you are afraid. This Course is not hard to understand if there is no interference. You don`t have to appreciate iambic pentameter.

This Course is practical. To every single thing, apply Lesson 5 I am never upset for the reason I think and Lesson 23 I can see peace instead of this. I`ve spoken with Jesus and he says that you have been absolved from doing the Workbook if you just do those two lessons. Now you can graduate and return home. I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts. Just think how joyful you will be. You will be a totally loving person to all people all the time.

When I was in Graduate school, I had to deal with a 9 or 10 year old boy who had abusive parents. I thought everything was fine. On the last day he slowly walked towards his parents and then he turned and walked back towards me. I did not do my job properly. I did not hear the universal call for help.

One way of fleshing out what this means is to see the body as a vehicle of separation leading to differentiation leading to judgement and then attack. We tend to disassociate the Course. The mother of all zen koans is that the eyes don`t see and the brain doesn`t think. It doesn`t mean that we should deny our bodies. It doesn`t mean that at all, but it does mean that we should deny the interpretation.

We have no right to say “I`m not a body. I`m an illusion” if you look in a bathroom mirror and see a body.

TMp3 A teacher of God is anyone who chooses to be one. His qualifications consist solely in this; somehow somewhere he has made a deliberate choice in which he did not see his interests as apart from someone else`s. Once he has done that, his road is established and his direction is sure. A light has entered the darkness. It may be a single light, but that is enough. He has entered an agreement with God even if he does not yet believe in Him. He has become a bringer of salvation. He has become a teacher of God.

My interests are not the same as a carrot`s. I want to eat that carrot. I`m hungry, but the carrot probably doesn`t have the same idea. Bodies are all different.
A major theme of the Course is that we are all the same. It is impossible not to judge someone or something that is different from me. The ego doesn`t recognize sameness. You will not find that word in the ego`s dictionary. Conflict is tiring. When you change your purpose you will jump out of bed with joy.
This world is a cesspool of guilt. How could you be happy here?

A very simple principle while living here is to be kind. That`s the beginning of undoing. Kindness originates in the mind each and every moment. Kindness created me kind.
Be kind to yourself when you are not being kind.

I`m going to finish with one of Helen`s poems. The “altar” is the mind, the decision-making mind.

THE PLACE OF RESURRECTION

There is an altar that I seek. For there

And only there can certain peace be found.

The light of holiness shines white upon

Its cooling stillness wreathed with lilies round.

Here is the place where those who thought that death

Was lord of life must come, to learn of One

Who seemed to die, that life is lord of death.

Beside the lilies sickly dreams are gone,

And stillness spreads a blanket over all

Who seemed to know no rest and find no peace,

To bring the quiet and the dreamless sleep

In which their dreaming will forever cease.

Here we awake, my brothers and myself,

For all of us come here to find the way

To waken from the dream of sin the world

Was made to represent. We come to lay

Our guilt beside the altar and step back,

Putting illusions and mistakes aside,

And learn before an empty tomb to see,

He is not dead Who here was crucified.

~ Death and Dying Academy, Temecula, March 2011 – Part 6 ~

(Winnie’s notes posted at Acimvillage.com. Many thanks to Winnie from Bernard)

~ Death and Dying March Academy 2011 ~ Part 6
(Tuesday)

When we talk about death, we are talking about the body`s death. Some people see death as an ending. This makes the error real. We think death separates us from our loved ones and our body. We think it ends our pain and suffering.

Tp 584…A brother separated from yourself, an ancient enemy, a murderer who stalks you in the night and plots your death, yet plans that it be lingering and slow; of this you dream. Yet underneath this dream is yet another, in which you become the murderer, the secret enemy, the scavenger and the destroyer of your brother and the world alike. Here is the cause of suffering, the space between your little dreams and your reality. The little gap you do not even see, the birthplace of illusions and of fear, the time of terror and of ancient hate, the instant of disaster, all are here. Here is the cause of unreality. And it is here that it will be undone.

There`s not many things I like to boast about, but this is one of them. I was always trying to get Helen to write poems and would use occasions like Christmas and Easter to motivate her. She would get ideas for poems and write down the line. If she wrote down a line, that would mean that she would have to finish it at some stage. So she had all these bits of papers with lines on it which i would grab and encourage her to finish. When she got to the last one – > There is a risk of thinking death is peace…….. she said “This is not a poem. It belongs to the Course. Find where it goes.”
So I did. Helen agreed that it was a perfect fit.
Tp583 What could you choose between but life or death, waking or sleeping, peace or war, your dreams or your reality? There is a risk of thinking death is peace, because the world equates the body with the Self which God created. Yet a thing can never be its opposite. And death is opposite to peace, because it is the opposite of life. And life is peace. Awaken and forget all thoughts of death, and you will find you have the peace of God.

The locus of my suffering is my body. Its abuse, breaking down and aging. We think death means the end of suffering – all based on the idea that death is real. People long for death, see it as a mercy, use euthanasia. I am not trying to minimise people`s suffering. Using magic is not sinful. While Christian Science agrees with the Course that sickness is in the mind, they teach that going to a doctor/ taking medicine is sinful. There have been court cases against parents who have let their child die. Tp24 All material means that you accept as remedies for bodily ills are restatements of magic principles. This is the first step in believing that the body makes its own illness. It is a second misstep to attempt to heal it through non-creative agents. It does not follow, however, that the use of such agents for corrective purposes is evil.
Magic is anything we use to solve a problem where the problem does not exist. We think the problem is in the body so therefore the solution must be in the body. And the mind`s decision for guilt, does not get addressed.

We are terrified of miracles and of the Atonement. We are terrified of the mind. It is alright to use a compromise approach. The same time as you doing magic, practise the miracle. Never stay in pain.

But recognize that your mind has chosen this for reasons that you do not understand.

Doing the Workbook is magic. This Course is an illusion. The only value of this Course is to teach you that there is no Course. The only value of this Course is to teach you that there is no time. We can use this world of duality as a classroom to get us beyond duality. When you help someone alleviate pain, you are telling them that their pain is just the same as yours but in a different form. We have shared interests, not separate interests.

Death is seen as punishment for our sins. Another idea we have of death is that it is an awakening, the beginning of a new life. Life after death presupposes that there was life, that there is another side.
But there is only the mind. Everything exists only in one place – the blue dot.
This is one colossal dream dreamt by one Son of God. Within that dream are just fragments of dreams.
Ideas leave not their source. Dreams leave not their dreamer.
Physical death is nothing. Nothing happens when you die because nothing happens when you live. I like this phrase from Plotinus “the seat of destiny” – That`s the blue circle.
The Holy Spirit is outside of us. The world is outside of us.
In Lesson 167, it says that mind never sleeps. When it chooses to fall asleep, it`s still choosing. It`s all pretend.