"Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists.
Herein Lies the peace of God."
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A
Course in Miracles
TEXT
CHAPTER 9
The Correction of Error
X. Magic Versus Miracles
85
All
magic is a form of reconciling the irreconcilable. All religion is the recognition that the irreconcilable cannot
be
reconciled. Sickness and perfection
are
irreconcilable. If God created you perfect, you
are
perfect. If you believe you can be sick, you have placed other gods before Him. God is not at war with the god of sickness you made, but
you
are. He is the symbol of willing
against
God, and you are afraid of him
because
he cannot be reconciled with God's Will. If you attack him, you will make him real to you. But if you refuse to worship him in whatever form he may appear to you and wherever you think you see him, he will disappear into the nothingness out of which he was made.
86
Reality can dawn only on an unclouded mind. It is always there to be accepted, but its acceptance depends on your willingness to
have
it. To know reality must involve the willingness to judge
unreality
for what it is. This is the
right
use of selective perception. To overlook nothingness is merely to judge it correctly, and because of your ability to evaluate it truly,
to let it go
. Knowledge cannot dawn on a mind full of illusions because truth and illusions are irreconcilable. Truth is whole and
cannot
be known by part of a mind.
87
The Sonship cannot be perceived as
partly
sick because to perceive it that way is not to perceive it at all. If the Sonship is one, it is one in
all
respects. Oneness
cannot
be divided. If you perceive other gods, your mind is split, and you will not be able to
limit
the split because the split
is
the sign that you have removed part of your mind from God's Will, and this means it is out of control. To be out of control is to be out of
reason
, and the mind
does
become unreasonable without reason. This is merely a matter of definition. By
defining
the mind wrongly, you perceive it as
functioning
wrongly.
88
God's laws will keep your minds at peace because peace is His Will, and His laws are established to uphold it. His are the laws of freedom, but yours are the laws of bondage. Since freedom and bondage are irreconcilable, their laws cannot
be
understood together. The laws of God work only for your good, and there
are
no other laws beside His. Everything else is merely lawless and therefore chaotic. Yet God Himself has protected everything He created
by
His laws. Therefore, everything that is not under them does not exist. "Laws of chaos" are meaningless by definition. Creation is perfectly lawful, and the chaotic is without meaning because it is without
God
. You have given your peace to the gods you made, but they are not there to take it from you, and you are not able to give it to them.
89
You are
not
free to give up freedom, but only to
deny
it. You
cannot
do what God did not intend because what He did not intend
does not happen
. Your gods do not
bring
chaos; you are
endowing
them with chaos and accepting it of them. All this has never been. Nothing but the laws of God has ever operated, and nothing except His Will will ever be. You were created through His laws and by His Will, and the manner of your creation established you
as
creators. What you have made is so unworthy of you that you could hardly want it if you were willing to see it
as it is
. You will see nothing at all. And your vision will automatically look beyond it to what is in you and all around you. Reality cannot break through the obstructions you interpose, but it
will
envelop you completely when you let them go.
90
When you have experienced the protection of God, the making of idols becomes inconceivable. There are no strange images in the Mind of God, and what is not in His Mind cannot be in yours because you are of
One
Mind and that Mind belongs to
Him
. It is yours
because
it belongs to Him, for ownership is sharing to Him. And if it is so for Him, it is so for you. His definitions
are
His laws, for by them He established the universe as what it is. No false gods you attempt to interpose between yourself and your reality affect truth at all. Peace is yours because God created you. And He created nothing else.
91
The miracle is the act of a Son of God who has laid aside all false gods and who calls on his brothers to do likewise. It is an act of faith because it is the recognition that his brother can do it. It is a call to the Holy Spirit in his mind, a call to Him which is strengthened by this joining. Because the miracle worker has heard Him, he strengthens His Voice in a sick brother by weakening his
belief
in sickness, which he does
not
share. The power of one mind
can
shine into another because all the lamps of God were lit by the same spark. It is everywhere, and it is eternal.
92
In many only the spark remains, for the Great Rays are obscured. Yet God has kept the spark alive so that the rays can never be completely forgotten. If you but see the little spark, you will learn of the greater light, for the rays are there unseen. Perceiving the spark will heal, but knowing the light will create. Yet in the returning, the little light must be acknowledged first, for the separation was a descent from magnitude to littleness. But the spark is still as pure as the great light because it is the remaining call of creation. Put all your faith in it, and God Himself will answer you.
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A Course in Miracles
WORKBOOK
Part I
Review III
1 Our third review begins today. We will review two of the last 20 ideas each day until we have reviewed them all. We will observe a special format for these practice periods which you are urged to follow as closely as you can. We understand, of course, that it may be impossible for you to undertake what is suggested here as optimal each day and every hour of the day.
2 Learning will not be hampered when you miss a practice period because it is impossible at the appointed time. Nor is it necessary that you make excessive efforts to be sure that you catch up in terms of numbers. Rituals are not our aim and would defeat our learning goal.
3 But learning will be hampered when you skip a practice period because you are unwilling to devote the time to it which you are asked to give. Do not deceive yourself in this. Unwillingness can be most carefully concealed behind a cloak of situations you cannot control. Learn to distinguish situations which are poorly suited to your practicing from those which you establish to uphold a camouflage for your unwillingness.
4 Those practice periods which you have lost because you did not want to do them for whatever reason should be done as soon as you have changed your mind about your goal. You are unwilling to cooperate in practicing salvation only if it interferes with goals you hold more dear. When you withdraw the value given them, allow your practice periods to be replacements for your litanies to them. They gave you nothing. But your practice periods offer you everything. Accept their offering and be at peace.
5 The format you should use for these reviews is this: devote five minutes twice a day or longer if you would prefer to contemplating the ideas assigned. Read over the ideas and comments which are written first in each day's exercises. Then begin to think about them quietly, letting your mind relate them to your needs, your seeming problems, and all your concerns.
6 Place the ideas within your mind, and let it use them as it chooses. Give it faith that it will use them wisely, being helped in its decisions by the One Who gave the thoughts to you. What can you trust but what is in your mind? Have faith, in these reviews, the means the Holy Spirit uses will not fail. The wisdom of your mind will come to your assistance. Give it direction at the start, then lean back in quiet faith, and let it use the ideas you have given it as they were given you.
7 You have been given them in perfect trust, in perfect confidence that you would use them well, in perfect faith that you would understand their messages and use them for yourself. Offer them to your mind in that same trust and confidence and faith. It will not fail. It is the Holy Spirit's chosen means for your salvation. And with His trust merits yours as well.
8 We emphasize the benefits to you if you devote the first five minutes of the day to your review and also give the last five minutes of your waking day to it. If this cannot be done, at least try to divide them so you undertake one in the morning, and the other in the hour just before you go to sleep.
9 The exercises to be done throughout the day are equally important and perhaps of even greater value. You have been inclined to do the exercises and then go on to other things, without applying what you learned to them. As a result, your learning has had little reinforcement, and you have not given it the opportunity to prove its worth to you.
10 Here is another chance to use it well. In these reviews we stress the need to let your learning not lie idly by between your longer practice periods. Attempt to give your daily two ideas a brief but serious review each hour. Use one on the hour and the other one a half an hour later. You need not give more than just a moment to each one.
11 Repeat it, and allow your mind to rest a little time in silence and in peace. Then turn to other things, but try to keep the thought with you and let it serve to help you keep your peace throughout the day. If you are shaken, think of it again. These practice periods are planned to help you form the habit of applying what you learn each day to everything you do.
12 Do not repeat it and then lay it down. Its usefulness is limitless to you. And it is meant to serve you in all ways, all times and places, and whenever you need help of any kind. Try, then, to take it with you in the business of the day and make it holy, worthy of God's Son, acceptable to God and to your Self.
13 Each day's review assignment will conclude with a restatement of the thought to use each hour and the one to be applied on each half hour as well. Forget them not. This second chance with each of these ideas will bring such large advances that we come from these reviews with learning gains so great that we begin again on solid ground.
14 Do not forget how little you have learned. Do not forget how much you can learn now. Do not forget your Father's need of you as you review these thoughts He gave to you.
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A Course in Miracles
WORKBOOK
Lesson 113
[Review of Lessons 95-96]
1
For morning and evening review:
[
95] I am One Self, united with my Creator.
2
Serenity and perfect peace are mine because I am One Self, completely whole, At one with all creation and with God.
[96] Salvation comes from my One Self.
3
From my One Self, Whose knowledge still remains within my mind, I see God's perfect plan for my salvation perfectly fulfilled.
4
On the hour:
5
I am One Self, united with my Creator.
6
On the half hour:
7
Salvation comes from my One Self.
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ACIM Edmonton
Sarah's Reflections
Lesson 113
Review III ~ Lessons 95-96
There are times I feel I am at the mercy of my raucous ego. This is what is described in Chapter 23 as
"The War Against Yourself,"
where Jesus says these are thoughts of our littleness that lead us into temptation, but this need not be. If we allow our littleness or that of any brother to lead us into the temptation to judge and attack, we will
". . . walk trembling in a fearful world,"
(T.23.IN.5.7) (ACIM OE T.23.I.5) and not realize, all this time, that Heaven's glory shines on us though we remain unaware. Part of our mind wants to choose peace and happiness. It is in conflict with the part that still wants to listen to the dictates of the ego, telling us our anger is justified, we have reason to be afraid, we have been wronged, and there is something still of value to pursue in the world. This conflict can become unbearable when we have one foot in the ego camp, listening to the voice of the false self, and the other in Spirit. The answer to this conflict is to step out of the ego and devote our lives more and more to accepting the truth about ourselves. We do this by denying the power of the ego to rule our lives. This is the only appropriate use of denial and very helpful to our healing.
This Lesson affirms that we are One Self, and if this is indeed the case, how can One Self be in conflict? How can there be repressed and denied parts of us that have any reality? How can there be parts that we are ashamed of, dark places we want no one to see or know about? Though we can give these parts power, none of them are real. They only seem to be the truth about us because we have invested belief in these thoughts. We believe we are something other than what God created. How is this possible when there is only one true power, which is love? How is it that the ego seems to have any power at all?
Our minds are powerful because they receive their power from our Source. We have taken some of that power and given it over to the ego. And it is that part we listen to so much of the time. We identify with that part when we identify with the body and personality. The truth is that our reality is beyond the ego identity. It is the decision-making part of the mind that can choose against the ego. This is where our true power is. It is not with the ego, since we can decide against it whenever we choose.
The truth is that we have not turned the beautiful eternal being we are into a sinful self. We have only lost awareness of the Christ Self to a greater or lesser extent. All we have done is closed our eyes to the truth and have chosen instead to listen to the lies of the ego. The truth is that we are perfectly innocent. We can know our innocence when we refuse to listen to the voice of the ego.
"Walk you in glory, with your head held high, and fear no evil."
(T.23.IN.3.1) (ACIM OE T.23.IN.3)
"What can you value more than this? For here is your salvation and your freedom. And it must be complete if you would recognize it."
(T.23.IN.6.6-8) (ACIM OE T.23.IN.6) In other words, we need to move to one side of this conflict by recognizing that anything in us other than peace and joy is not the truth.
There are many temptations during the day to justify why we are upset. These situations need not be significant. It may be a comment from someone, a critical look, a bill we weren’t expecting, an accident, or anything we don't like where we choose to throw away our peace and insist it was taken from us. Now we feel justified in being angry and upset, telling ourselves that the cause of our anger is coming from this situation. Yet the fact is that the cause of our upset is coming from a thought that we are holding about our self. This thought has been denied or repressed. Now we project it onto another person or situation outside of our own minds. It is impossible to have a reaction to another unless we have denied it in ourselves first. When we take responsibility for our projections, we can undo what we have denied in ourselves.
Today, we recognize our mind as cause and the world as effect. This may be hard to grasp because we have reversed cause and effect. The reality is that everything starts with the beliefs and concepts we hold about ourselves. When someone says something that we find hurtful, it is only because we already hold these self-attacking thoughts in our minds. If this were not the case, what is said would have no effect on us.
Today, we dedicate ourselves to the truth of who we are, so when the temptation arises to be pulled back into our littleness, we remember who we are. If this seems too difficult in the moment, we can take the time to simply rest with the feelings that emerge. We can use affirming self-talk to remind ourselves that we are One Self, united with our Creator. We can allow any feelings to arise without trying to distract from them. We can accept that everything is playing out perfectly for our highest good, and we can trust in the perfection of the orchestration of everything that comes up in this classroom.
Truth walks with us and nothing can hurt us. We are perfectly safe! As Jesus says,
"Would you, for all these meaningless distractions, lay Heaven aside?"
(T.23.IN.4.5) (ACIM OE T.23.IN.4) We lay Heaven aside for the most trivial reasons, don't we? Look at what we sacrifice when we get upset---our peace and our joy!
"Your destiny and purpose are far beyond them,
[the meaningless distractions of this world]
in the clean place where littleness does not exist."
(T.23.IN.4.6) (ACIM OE T.23.IN.4) The discipline we apply to these Lessons is what brings us back to ourselves.
When we identify with the ego, we see attack and defense as our way out. When we choose our innocence, our One Self, and our purpose for being here, then we see everything as a reflection of our minds and a part of our One Self. When upsets, judgment, unworthiness, and blame arise today, be willing to turn them all over to the Holy Spirit. When we look at our judgments and self attacks with the Holy Spirit from above the battleground and outside of this dream, we see their unreality. They are just reactions of the character in the dream and not the truth of what we are. We can smile at the silliness of it all. Nothing in this dream is serious. It is all made up.
We are One. And we can choose to release anything standing in the way of that Oneness. We can see it is just a wrong-minded thought of separation we are holding and cherishing. If we have difficulty letting it go, remember that we have Mighty Help to call on. Spirit reminds us that we are not our thoughts. This is all about our choice and our willingness to let go of our way, our beliefs, and our perspective and lean on His direction. We will then see with a broader perspective as we look through the eyes of Jesus who is a symbol of the love within us. We all share the same Self.
"How beautiful it is to walk, clean and redeemed and happy, through a world in bitter need of the redemption that your innocence bestows upon it!"
(T.23.IN.6.5) (ACIM OE T.23.IN.6) There is nothing more important,
"For here is your salvation and your freedom."
(T.23.IN.6.7) (ACIM OE T.23.IN.6)
You may want to read more in Chapter 23 where Jesus goes on to talk about the laws that appear to rule the world we made, which are
"The Laws of Chaos."
(T.23.II) (ACIM OE T.23.III) These laws define separation by saying: 1) We each have our own truth and it is different for everyone. 2) Each one of us must sin and therefore deserves attack. 3) We have made a God in our own image and told Him what He must believe about Himself. We ultimately hate and fear this God we made. He appears to be a more powerful ego. And finally, 4) We have what we have taken from others, so we can gain at their loss. If you reflect on these laws, you will see that they are laws we live by when we choose to live in competition with others rather than accept the truth of our reality as the same One Self.
Jesus gives us a very simple way to assess whether we have chosen the wrong mind of the ego or the right mind of the Self we are. He says that our feelings will inform us. Each time we are not experiencing peace and happiness, we have chosen the ego. Now we can make another choice.
"Forgiveness cannot be withheld a little. Nor is it possible to attack for this and love for that and understand forgiveness."
(T.23.III.4.5-6) (ACIM OE T.23.IV.44)
For those of us who struggle to understand this Course, which can seem difficult, this section reminds us that it is, in fact, easy because it makes no compromise.
"This is the truth, and nothing else is true."
(W.95.10.3) The truth about us is that we are One Self and the knowledge of who we are is still in our minds. All we need to do is bring the blocks we hold against the truth to the light; but this is challenging for us. We can accept that truth is true, but it is much harder to accept that "nothing else is true." (W.95.10.3) Jesus says,
"My role is to separate the truth from the false, so truth can break through the barriers the ego has set up and can shine into your mind."
(T.4.III.2.5) (ACIM OE T.4.IV.47)
"Who but the insane would undertake to believe what is not true, and then protect this belief at the cost of truth?"
(T.4.III.10.4) (ACIM OE T.4.IV.55) This is exactly what we do when we defend our perspectives and think we know anything of value. The world is an illusion. Nothing here is real. We have given meaning to everything here. In reality, nothing here has any meaning except the meaning we give it all. Now we are called to withdraw our own meaning and let the truth be written in the space left open in our minds.
Today, we are called to read over the ideas and comments,
"And then begin to think about them, while letting your mind relate them to your needs, your seeming problems and all your concerns."
(W. Review III.IN.5.3) We are basically letting related thoughts come to address any need, problem, or concern that we bring to this practice. Let the thoughts come up without your effort, but simply allow them to emerge. They are providing you guidance for your problems in light of this Lesson. We already have the wisdom in our right minds. With these ideas in your mind,
"Give it faith that it will use them wisely, being helped in its decisions by the One Who gave the thoughts to you."
(W.RIII.IN.6.2)
"Have faith, in these reviews, the means the Holy Spirit uses
[forgiveness]
will not fail."
(W.RIII.IN.6.4) The means provided us are to release all the thoughts that block our peace by taking responsibility for them. It is never about forgiving anyone but only about bringing the thoughts we project onto others back into our own minds and forgiving ourselves for using others to block our own peace and joy.
Remind yourself to do the Lesson frequently throughout the day on the hour for the first idea and on the half hour for the second idea, giving the idea a brief but serious review. Most important, because we forget all the time, the introduction ends by saying, "
Do not forget how little you have learned. Do not forget how much you can learn now. Do not forget your Father's need of you, as you review these thoughts He gave to you."
(W.RIII.IN.13.1-3) When we listen to our thoughts and allow them to dominate our minds, we lose our way. We forget that we are not our thoughts, and they don't define us. To remain with the obsessive thoughts of the ego is to choose to remain in hell when Heaven is stretching its arms to us.
"Do not forget your Father's need of you, as you review these thoughts He gave to you."
(W.RIII.IN.13.3)
Love and blessings, Sarah
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