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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
CH 26 "THE TRANSITION"
IV. THE BORDERLAND
18 Complexity is not of God. How could it be, when all He knows is one? He knows of one creation, one reality, one truth, and but one Son. Nothing conflicts with oneness. How, then, could there be complexity in Him? What is there to decide? For it is conflict that makes choice possible. The truth is simple---it is one, without an opposite. And how could strife enter in its simple presence and bring complexity where oneness is? The truth makes no decisions, for there is nothing to decide between. And only if there were could choosing be a necessary step in the advance toward oneness. What is everything leaves room for nothing else.
CHAPTER 26 III-IV, 10-24
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
DAILY LESSON
WHAT IS THE CHRIST?
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
<VIDEO>
Christ is God's Son as He created him.
He is the Self we share, uniting us
with one another, and with God as well.
He is the Thought Which still abides within
the Mind Which is His Source. He has not left
His holy home, nor lost the innocence
in which He was created. He abides
unchanged forever in the Mind of God.
He is the link that keeps you one with God,
and guarantees that separation is
no more than an illusion of despair,
for hope forever will abide in Him.
Your mind is part of His, and His of yours.
He is the part in Which God's Answer lies;
where all decisions are already made,
and dreams are over. He remains untouched
by anything the body's eyes perceive.
For though in Him His Father placed the means
for your salvation, yet does He remain
the Self Who, like His Father, knows no sin.
Home of the Holy Spirit, and at home
in God alone, does Christ remain at peace,
within the Heaven of your holy mind.
This is the only part of you that has
reality in truth. The rest is dreams.
Yet will these dreams be given unto Christ,
to fade before His glory, and reveal
your holy Self, the Christ, to you at last.
The Holy Spirit reaches from the Christ
in you to all your dreams, and bids them come
to Him to be translated into truth.
He will exchange them for the final dream
which God appointed as the end of dreams.
For when forgiveness rests upon the world
and peace has come to every Son of God,
what could remain to keep things separate,
for what remains to see except Christ's face?
And how long can this holy face be seen,
when it is but the symbol that the time
for learning now is over, and the goal
of the Atonement has been reached at last?
So therefore let us seek to find Christ's face,
and look on nothing else. As we behold
His glory, will we know we have no need
of learning or perception or of time,
or anything except the holy Self,
the Christ Whom God created as His Son.
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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
DAILY LESSON
L e s s o n 275
God's healing Voice protects all things today.
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
<VIDEO>
Let us today attend the Voice of God,
Which speaks an ancient lesson, no more true
today than any other day. Yet has
this day been chosen as the time when we
will seek and hear and learn and understand.
Join me in hearing. For the Voice of God
tells us of things we cannot understand
alone, nor learn apart. It is in this
that all things are protected, and in this
the healing of the Voice of God is found.
Your healing Voice protects all things today.
And so I leave all things to You. I need
be anxious about nothing. For Your Voice
will tell me what to do and where to go;
to whom to speak, and what to say to him;
what thoughts to think; what words to give the world.
The safety that I bring is given me.
Father, Your Voice protects all things through me.
~ Original Handscript of ACIM
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ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections
LESSON 275
God's healing Voice protects all things today.
Sarah's Commentary:
When Jesus says, "God's healing Voice protects all things today," (W.275) he is talking about the fact that we are forever safe and our eternal gifts---gifts like peace of mind and joy---can't be lost, no matter what we do and where we go. The gifts have always been ours and are guaranteed in our creation. What God's healing Voice does is call to us to awaken to the truth of who we are. His Voice reminds us that the separation never happened and we will "seek and hear and learn and understand" (W.275.1.2) when we turn to Him, Who speaks to us all through the day. The Voice of the Holy Spirit is our Guide and Teacher within us. When we listen to the ego, we are choosing not to hear this Voice.
The Voice for God reminds us of "an ancient lesson, no more true today than any other day." (W.275.1.1) This ancient lesson, taught over and over in the Course, is that we have never separated from God and are still as we were created---One with Him. This is the Atonement Principle. We have not and cannot change who we are as we were created. Yet we can and do experience a self that seems to be a separate body and personality with a separate will and separate thoughts, but it is not the truth. It is the illusion---a dream of an existence seemingly happening in this moment. The truth is that we are still at home in Heaven and still One with God, never having changed ourselves in truth.
In this Lesson, we are invited to join with Jesus in hearing the Voice for God. "Join me in hearing. For the Voice for God tells us of things we cannot understand alone, nor learn apart. It is in this that all things are protected. And in this the healing of the Voice for God is found." (W.275.1.3-6) Jesus is saying that only when we join with him, as a symbol of the truth in the right mind, can we hear the Voice of truth speaking to us. His message to us is that we are safe, we are love, we are invulnerable, we are innocent, and we are complete. This is where our protection lies. Apart from Him, we tune into the obsessive thoughts of the ego, with its constant chatter of what to do, where to go, what plans to make for our pleasure, what to worry about, and how to see our brothers, their faults, or their specialness. When we identify with this voice, we stay in a constant state of fear and anxiety. We never feel certain about anything because the ego does not know anything. Nothing is right with ego. As the song says, "I can't get no satisfaction."
The good news is that we can make another choice. The ability to make a new decision is in the mind. The mind can choose what it gives attention to. The ego wants all our attention on it, but when we choose to withdraw our interest in its stories, its perspective, its beliefs, and its thoughts, it has no power to disrupt our peace. This requires that we notice what we are thinking and to bring all of these untrue thoughts to the Truth. We look at our thoughts from a place behind the mind of the thinker, which is the observer, and we see their unreality. When we look from this place, we look without judgment. We can laugh at the foolishness of these thoughts. Our mind is the cause and thus the source of everything we experience. Nothing outside of the mind is the cause of how we feel. By the power of our decision, we choose the thought system of separation or Oneness, and we make this choice in every moment.
We need to join with Jesus because he tells us that we cannot understand anything alone. To be alone is to be with our own interpretations, which always involve the ego. When we engage with the ego, we are excluding our brother from the One Self we are. Jesus tells us again and again that when we make exceptions by determining who is worthy of our love and who isn't, we will stay in the prison of our own making. We are called to join with him and see our brother as Jesus sees him. Forgiveness sees that what your brother did has not happened. He is forever innocent. In joining with Jesus as the symbol of the love that we are, we see that we are all the same. As we come to experience our same Self, we increasingly know that we are loved and protected.
I watched a lovely movie last night called, The Man Who Knew Infinity. It is a story of the life and academic career of the pioneer Indian mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan and his friendship with his mentor, Professor G.H. Hardy. I love how movies offer us an opportunity to watch our minds on the movie screen, just as we are called to do when we watch our projections on the screen of this world. What this movie illustrated to me is how we invest in differences. In the movie, we see judgments based on status, culture, beliefs, values, and self-concepts, all of which are eventually healed as respect and honor replace the judgments until there is a deep connection and with it a recognition of sameness. Sameness is a reflection of Oneness, which cannot be known in this world. Sameness is the closest we can come when we realize our brother is our Self.
Once we have heard the call to come home and once we have decided that there is a better way to find happiness than with the ego, we have started on the road to peace. We take this road step by step. With each situation where we choose peace, we have taken another step toward wholeness. We have tried to find all kinds of answers in form---in the false belief that we can make life work for us. When we choose to give up on trying to find our own answers for happiness in this world and recognize we don't know and are wrong about everything we think will work, we start on the road to true peace. This is the invitation to the Holy Spirit to show us the way. As long as we believe anything in this world will work for us, we are distracted from our spiritual goals and look for our happiness in the world where it can never be found. Our motivation is still divided, but tolerance for pain is not without limit, and sooner or later, we get more serious and more willing to listen to the deeper Call within.
We turn more consistently to the Holy Spirit for guidance when we recognize that our way has never brought the peace and joy we are looking for by listening to the ego. As we release our thoughts of aloneness, our victim stories, our sadness, and our frustrations and simply come with "wholly empty hands" (W.189.7.5) to this place of respite, we demonstrate a willingness to be taught---a recognition that we have been wrong about everything. We have been wrong about who we think we are, who we think our brother is, and what the problem really is. This is a deeply humbling place of surrender where we open ourselves to guidance and where every question is answered. "For Your Voice will tell me what to do and where to go; to whom to speak and what to say to him, what thoughts to think, what words to give the world." (W.275.2.3) Then our actions emanate from our right minds where we are guided by the One Voice that knows what is loving in every situation we encounter. When we get out of the way and the voice of the ego fades into the background, guidance becomes natural. We simply follow the prompts and are always where we need to be and who we need to be with.
"Who assumes a power that he does not possess is deceiving himself. Yet to accept the power given him by God is but to acknowledge his Creator and accept His gifts. And His gifts have no limit. To ask the Holy Spirit to decide for you is simply to accept your true inheritance. Does this mean that you cannot say anything without consulting Him? No, indeed! That would hardly be practical, and it is the practical with which this course is most concerned. If you have made it a habit to ask for help when and where you can, you can be confident that wisdom will be given you when you need it. Prepare for this each morning, remember God when you can throughout the day, ask the Holy Spirit's help when it is feasible to do so, and thank Him for His guidance at night. And your confidence will be well founded indeed."
(Manual for Teachers. 29.5.1-10)
What is there ever to be anxious about? What is there to fear? What is there to plan? What is there to worry about? Who would we want to crucify? If we feel attacked, it is only because we hold mistaken perceptions about ourselves that we are vulnerable and can be hurt. We are wrong about the way we see everything that seems to happen to us. Every one of us is in this world for only one purpose, which is to wake up from this dream of separation. We share one goal, which is to know ourselves as the innocent Son of God we are. This world is the classroom where we can learn this about ourselves and teach it through our demonstration. When we perceive our attack thoughts or attacks seemingly coming at us, we need not get defensive and counterattack. Instead, we can choose to bring our fear thoughts for healing, knowing our perception about any situation is always wrong. There is never anything to be afraid of. I am safe and protected always, and as I come to know this, I can bring safety to everyone I meet in every holy encounter. It is not the idea of Sarah bringing this message, but the light that can now shine through this body and personality. My part is to be willing to do the healing of all my misperceptions.
Ken Wapnick says that we must not minimize the ego by choosing not to pay any attention to it or by affirming and visualizing our way past it. The Course is about teaching us to look at the ego with great honesty and courage. This is a course about mind watching. Salvation is the acceptance of the fact "that you are doing this unto yourself." (T.27.VIII.10.1) (ACIM OE T.27.IX.86) What we are doing to ourselves is not recognizing our attraction to guilt and death, and that this attraction to our separate identity can only be maintained through judgment and attack. The trick, however, is not to fight the ego for that only gives it more power. It is to keep practicing forgiveness by remembering to look with the Holy Spirit, Who "looks on devastation, and reminds the mind that what it sees is false." (W.PII.Q13.What is a Miracle.1.3)
We don't know the answers, and we don't need to figure anything out because, on our own, we can't. We just need to get out of the way and allow the Answer to come through us. Protection and guidance come through the Voice for truth. You may say that you don't hear this Voice, but you do. You get prompts and inspired thoughts when you stop planning, controlling, and figuring things out for yourself. In the stillness is the Answer. It comes in many forms: a thought, a sense of knowing, a prompt to be somewhere, a notion, a voice, or a sign. We will sense some kind of inner prodding and it emanates in the right mind where the truth abides. The Holy Spirit is in us and is our link to God. He is in our right minds where the truth can be accessed when the ego no longer holds our attention or our interest. To simply turn away from the ego with the thought, "I don't care what you (ego) have to say," opens the way for truth to come in.
Notice also who and what shows up in your life as a perfect answer for a situation confronting you. It may not look like a perfect answer, but you can't be the judge of that. We simply don't know. "The Holy Spirit is invisible, but you can see the results of His Presence, and through them you will learn that He is there." (T.12.VII.3.1) (ACIM OE T.11.VIII.63) Initially, we will find Him in the specifics of our lives where the Holy Spirit supports what we think are our needs, even though they may be foolish. He offers us help with these needs as long as they don't delay us in time. If a parking spot shows up, when we feel in desperate need of one and ask Him for it, this may be a demonstration for us of His presence. Yet further along this path, when the loving thoughts are our only Guide and the only Voice we listen to, we will experience a more constant state of peace and joy and the specifics will no longer matter. In other words, when the much longed for perfect parking spot does not show up, our peace will not be shattered.
Today, the choice is ours to hear the voice of the ego or to hear the Holy Spirit's Voice. Clearly, we go back and forth in this process, but it is valuable to remember that any fear, anxiety, concern, frustration, or issue of any kind is as a result of listening to the ego. We can change our minds and find refuge in the truth always present in the sane right mind where the Holy Spirit dwells.
I was recently driving through a busy intersection and saw a homeless man with a sign asking for help. A woman in the curb lane opened her window and gave the man some money, which is not particularly unusual. What was different was the beauty and radiance of her smile as she looked him in the eye and said something, which I could not hear, but what still sits in my memory was the beauty of her radiant smile. She was, for me, another demonstration of the love of the Holy Spirit, shining through her.
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Chapter Twenty Six
The Transition
CHAPTER 26 III-IV, 10-24
Voice and Music by Martin Weber, CIMS SonShip Radio
10 It is not difficult to understand the reasons why you do not ask the Holy Spirit to solve
all problems for you. He has not greater difficulty in resolving some than others. Every problem is the same to Him because each one is solved in just the
same respect and through the
same approach. The aspects which need solving do not change, whatever form the problem seems to take. A problem can appear in many forms, and it will do so while the problem lasts. It serves no purpose to attempt to solve it in a special form. It will recur and then recur again and yet again until it has been answered for all time and will not rise again in any form. And only then are you released from it.
11 The Holy Spirit offers you release from
every problem that you think you have. They are the same to Him because each one, regardless of the form it seems to take, is a demand that someone suffer loss and make a sacrifice that you might gain. And when the situation is worked out so no one loses, is the problem gone because it was an error in perception which now has been corrected. One mistake is not more difficult for Him to bring to truth than is another. For there
is but one mistake---the whole idea that loss is possible and could result in gain for anyone. If this were true, then God would be unfair, sin would be possible, attack be justified, and vengeance fair.
12 This one mistake in any form has
one correction. There
is no loss; to think there is, is a mistake. You
have no problems, though you think you have. And yet you could not think so if you saw them vanish one by one without regard to size, complexity, or place and time, or any attribute which you perceive that makes each one seem different from the rest. Think not the limits you impose on what you see can limit God in any way.
13 The miracle of justice can correct
all errors. Every problem
is an error. It does injustice to the Son of God and therefore is not true. The Holy Spirit does not evaluate injustices as great or small or more or less. They have no properties to Him. They are mistakes from which the Son of God is suffering, but needlessly. And so He takes the thorns and nails away. He does not pause to judge whether the hurt be large or little. He makes but one judgment---that to hurt God's Son
must be unfair and therefore is not so.
14 You who believe it safe to give but some mistakes to be corrected while you keep the others to yourself, remember this: justice is total. There is no such thing as partial justice. If the Son of God is guilty, then is he condemned, and he deserves no mercy from the God of justice. But ask not God to punish him because
you find him guilty and would have him die. God offers you the means to see his innocence. Would it be fair to punish him because you will not look at what is there to see? Each time you keep a problem for yourself to solve or judge that it is one which has no resolution, you have made it great and past the hope of healing. You deny the miracle of justice
can be fair.
15 If God is just, then can there be no problems that justice cannot solve. But you believe that some injustices are fair and good and necessary to preserve yourself. It is these problems that you think are great and cannot be resolved. For there are those you
want to suffer loss and no one whom you wish to be preserved from sacrifice entirely. Consider once again your special function.
One is given you to see in him his perfect sinlessness. And you will ask no sacrifice of him because you could not will he suffer loss. The miracle of justice you call forth will rest on you as surely as on him. Nor will the Holy Spirit be content until it is received by everyone. For what you give to Him
is everyone's, and by your giving it can He ensure that everyone receives it equally.
16 Think then how great your own release will be when you are willing to receive correction for all your problems. You will not keep one, for pain in any form you will not want. And you will see each little hurt resolved before the Holy Spirit's gentle sight. For all of them
are little in His sight and worth no more than just a tiny sigh before they disappear, to be forever undone and unremembered. What seemed once to be a special problem, a mistake without a remedy, or an affliction without a cure, has been transformed into a universal blessing. Sacrifice is gone. And in its place the love of God can be remembered and will shine away all memory of sacrifice and loss.
17 God cannot be remembered until justice is loved instead of feared. He cannot be unjust to anyone or anything because He knows that everything that is belongs to Him and will forever be as He created it. Nothing He loves but must be sinless and beyond attack. Your special function opens wide the door beyond which is the memory of His love kept perfectly intact and undefiled. And all you need to do is but to wish that Heaven be given you instead of hell, and every bolt and barrier that seems to hold the door securely barred and locked will merely fall away and disappear. For it is not your Father's Will that you should offer or receive less than He gave when He created you in perfect love.
18 Complexity is not of God. How could it be, when all He knows is one? He knows of
one creation,
one reality,
one truth, and but
one Son. Nothing conflicts with oneness. How, then, could there be complexity in Him? What is there to decide? For it is conflict that makes choice possible. The truth is simple---it is one, without an opposite. And how could strife enter in its simple presence and bring complexity where oneness is? The truth makes no decisions, for there is nothing to decide
between. And only if there were could choosing be a necessary step in the advance toward oneness. What is everything leaves room for nothing else.
19 Yet is this magnitude beyond the scope of this curriculum. Nor is it necessary we dwell on anything that cannot be immediately grasped. There is a borderland of thought which stands between this world and Heaven. It is not a place, and when you reach it is apart from time. Here is the meeting-place where thoughts are brought together---where conflicting values meet and all illusions are laid down beside the truth where they are judged to be untrue. This borderland is just beyond the gate of Heaven. Here is every thought made pure and wholly simple. Here
is sin denied and everything that is received instead.
20 This is the journey's end. We have referred to it as the real world. And yet there is a contradiction here in that the words imply a limited reality, a partial truth, a segment of the universe made true. This is because knowledge makes no attack upon perception. They are brought together, and only one continues past the gate where Oneness is. Salvation is a borderland where place and time and choice have meaning still, and yet it can be seen that they are temporary, out of place, and every choice has been already made.
21 Nothing the Son of God believes can be destroyed. But what is truth to him must be brought to the last comparison that he will ever make, the last evaluation that will be possible, the final judgment upon this world. It is the judgment of the truth upon illusion, of knowledge on perception---it has no meaning and does not exist. This is not your decision. It is but a simple statement of a simple fact. But in this world, there
are no simple facts because what is the same and what is different remain unclear. The one essential thing to make a choice at all is this distinction. And herein lies the difference between the worlds. In this one, choice is made impossible. In the real world is choosing simplified.
22 Salvation stops just short of Heaven, for only perception needs salvation. Heaven was never lost and so cannot be saved. Yet who can make a choice between the wish for Heaven and the wish for hell unless he recognizes they are
not the same? This difference is the learning goal this course has set. It will not go beyond this aim. Its only purpose is to teach what is the same and what is different, leaving room to make the only choice which
can be made.
23 There is no basis for choice in this complex and over-complicated world. For no one understands what is the same and seems to choose where no choice really is. The real world is the area of choice made real, not in the outcome but in the perception of
alternatives for choice. That there
is choice is an illusion. Yet within this one lies the undoing of
every illusion, not excepting this.
24 Is not this like your special function, where the separation is undone by change of purpose in what once was specialness and now is union?
All illusions are but one. And in the recognition this is so lies the ability to give up all attempts to choose between them and to
make them different. [How simple is the choice between two things so clearly
unalike.] There
is no conflict here. No sacrifice is possible in the relinquishment of an illusion
recognized as such. Where all reality has been withdrawn from what was never true, can it be hard to give it up and choose what
must be true?
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