"Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists.
Herein Lies the peace of God."
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A
Course in Miracles
TEXT
CHAPTER 11
God's Plan For Salvation
PAUSED FOR WEEKEND
VIII. The Guide For Miracles
61
Miracles demonstrate that learning has occurred under the right guidance, for learning is invisible, and what has been learned can be recognized only by its
results
. Its generalization is demonstrated as you use it in more and more situations. You will recognize that you have learned there is no order of difficulty in miracles when you have applied them to
all
situations. There
is
no situation to which miracles do not apply, and by applying them to all situations, you will gain the real world. For in this holy perception, you will be made whole, and the Atonement will radiate from
your
acceptance of it for
yourself
to everyone the Holy Spirit sends you for your blessing. In every Child of God His blessing lies, and in
your
blessing of the Children of God is His blessing to
you
.
62
Everyone in the world must play his part in the redemption of the world to recognize that the world
has
been redeemed. You cannot see the invisible. Yet if you see its effects, you
know
it must be there. By perceiving what it
does
, you recognize its being. And by
what
it does, you learn what it
is
. You cannot
see
your abilities, but you gain confidence in their existence as they enable you to
act
. And the
results
of your actions you
can
see.
63
The Holy Spirit is invisible, but you can see the
results
of His Presence, and through them you will learn that He is there. What He enables you to do is clearly
not
of this world, for miracles violate every law of reality as this world judges it. Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond
all
of them. Perceiving His results, you will understand
where
He must be and finally
know
what He is.
64
You cannot see the Holy Spirit, but you can see His manifestations. And unless you do, you will not realize He is there. Miracles are His witnesses and speak for His Presence. What you cannot see becomes real to you only through the witnesses who speak for it. For you can be
aware
of what you cannot see, and it can become compellingly real to you as its presence becomes manifest
through
you. Do the Holy Spirit's work, for you
share
in His function. As your function in Heaven is creation, so your function on earth is healing. God shares His function with you in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit shares His with you on earth.
65
As long as you believe you have two functions, so long will you need correction. For this belief is the
destruction
of peace, a goal in direct opposition to the Holy Spirit's purpose. You see what you
expect,
and you expect what you
invite
. Your perception is the result of your invitation, coming to you as you sent for it. Whose manifestations would you see? Of whose presence would you be convinced? For you will believe in what you
manifest
, and as you look out, so will you see in. Two ways of looking at the world are in your mind, and your perception will reflect the guidance you chose.
66
I am the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, and when you see me, it will be because you have invited Him. For He
will
send you His witnesses if you will but look upon them. Remember always that you see what you seek, for what you seek you
will
find. The ego finds what
it
seeks and
only
that. It does not find love, for that is
not
what it is seeking. Yet seeking and finding are the same, and if you seek for two goals you will find them, but you will
recognize
neither. For you will think they are the same because you
want
them both. The mind always strives for integration, and if it is split and wants to
keep
the split, it will believe it has one goal by
making
it one.
67
We said before that
what
you project is up to you, but it is
not
up to you
whether
to project, for projection is a law of mind. Perception
is
projection, and you look in
before
you look out. As you look in you choose the guide for seeing, and
then
you look out and behold his witnesses. This is
why
you find what you seek. What you want in
yourself
, you will make manifest by projection, and you will accept it
from
the world because you put it there
by
wanting it.
68
When you think you are projecting what you do
not
want, it is still because you
do
want it. This leads directly to dissociation, for it represents the acceptance of two goals, each perceived in a
different
place, separated from each other
because
you made them different. The mind then sees a divided world
outside
itself but not
within
. This gives it an illusion of integrity and enables it to believe that it is pursuing one goal. As long as you perceive the world as split,
you
are not healed. For to be healed is to pursue one goal because you have
accepted
only one and
want
but one.
69
When you want
only
love you will see nothing else. The contradictory nature of the witnesses you perceive is merely the reflection of your conflicting invitations. You have looked upon your minds and accepted opposition there, having
sought
it there. But do not then believe that the witnesses for opposition are true, for they attest only to
your
decision about reality, returning to you the message you
gave
them. Love is recognized by its messengers. If you make love manifest, its messengers will come to you because you
invited
them.
70
The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of this world.
You can decide to see it right
. What
you
made of it is
not
its reality, for its reality is only what you
gav
e it. You cannot really give anything but love to anyone or anything, nor can you really
receive
anything else from them. If you think you have received anything else, it is because you have looked within and thought you saw the power to give something else
within yourself
. It was only this decision that determined what you found, for it was the decision of what you
sought
.
71
You are afraid of me because you looked within and are afraid of what you saw. Yet you could not have seen reality, for the reality of your mind is the loveliest of God's creations. Coming only from God, its power and grandeur could only bring you peace
if you really looked upon it.
If you are afraid, it is because you saw something
that is not there
. Yet in that same place, you could have looked upon me and all your brothers in the perfect safety of the Mind which created us. For we are there in the peace of the Father, Who wills to project His peace through
you
.
72
When you have accepted your mission to
project
peace, you will
find
it, for by
making it manifest
, you will
see
it. Its holy witnesses will surround you because you
called
upon them and they will come to you. I have heard your call and I have answered it, but you will not look upon me nor
hear
the answer which you sought. That is because you do not yet want
only
that. Yet as I become more real to you, you will learn that you
do
want only that. And you will see me as you look within, and we will look upon the world as God created it together. Through the eyes of Christ,
only
the real world exists and can
be
seen. As you decide, so will you see. And all that you see but witnesses to your decision.
73
When you look within and see me, it will be because you have decided to manifest truth. And as you manifest it, you will see it both without
and
within, for you will see it without
because
you saw it first within. Everything you behold without is a judgment of what you beheld within. If it is
your
judgment, it will be wrong, for judgment is not your function. If it is the judgment of the Holy Spirit, it will be right, for judgment
is
His function. You share His function only by judging as
He
does, reserving no judgment at all unto yourselves. For you will judge
against
yourselves, but
He
will judge
for
you.
74
Remember, then, that whenever you look without and react unfavorably to what you see, you have judged yourself unworthy and have condemned yourself to death. The death penalty is the ego's ultimate goal, for it fully believes that you are a criminal, as deserving of death as God knows you are deserving of life. The death penalty never leaves the ego's mind, for that is what it always reserves for you in the end. Wanting to kill you as the final expression of its feeling for you, it lets you live but to await death. It will torment you while you live, but its hatred is not satisfied until you die. For your destruction is the one end toward which it works, and the only end with which it will be satisfied.
75
The ego is not a traitor to God to Whom treachery is impossible, but it
is
a traitor to you who believe
you
have been treacherous to your Father. That is why the
undoing
of guilt is an essential part of the Holy Spirit's teaching. For as long as you feel guilty, you are listening to the voice of the ego, which tells you that you
have
been treacherous to God and therefore
deserve
death. You will think that death comes from God and
not
from the ego because, by confusing yourself
with
the ego, you believe that
you
want death. And from what you want, God does
not
save you.
76
When you are tempted to yield to the desire for death,
remember that I did not die
. You will realize that this is true when you look within and
see
me. Would I have overcome death for myself alone? And would eternal life have been given me of the Father
unless
He had also given it to you? When you learn to make
me
manifest,
you
will never see death. For you will have looked upon the deathless in
yourself
, and you will see only the eternal as you look out upon a world that
cannot
die.
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A Course in Miracles
WORKBOOK
Lesson 132
I loose the world from all I thought it was.
1
What keeps the world in chains but your beliefs? And what can save the world except your Self? Belief is powerful indeed. The thoughts you hold are mighty, and illusions are as strong in their effects as is the truth. A madman thinks the world he sees is real and does not doubt it. Nor can he be swayed by questioning his thoughts' effects. It is but when their source is raised to question that the hope of freedom comes to him at last.
2
Yet is salvation easily achieved, for anyone is free to change his mind, and all his thoughts change with it. Now the source of thought has shifted, for to change your mind means you have changed the source of all ideas you think or ever thought or yet will think.
3
You free the past from what you thought before. You free the future from all ancient thoughts of seeking what you do not want to find. The present now remains the only time. Here in the present is the world set free. For as you let the past be lifted and release the future from your ancient fears, you find escape and give it to the world.
4
You have enslaved the world with all your fears, with doubts and miseries, your pain and tears, and all your sorrows press upon it and keep it a prisoner to your beliefs. Death strikes it everywhere because you hold the bitter thought of death within your mind. The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real.
5
Perhaps you think you did not make the world but came unwillingly to what was made already, hardly waiting for your thoughts to give it meaning. Yet in truth you found exactly what you looked for when you came. There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly.
6
Ideas leave not their source. This central theme is often stated in the text and must be borne in mind if you would understand the L e s s o n for today. It is not pride which tells you that you made the world you see and that it changes as you change your mind. But it is pride that argues you have come into a world quite separate from yourself, impervious to what you think, and quite apart from what you chance to think it is.
7
There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth. He will return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again.
8
But healing is the gift of those who are prepared to learn there is no world and can accept the L e s s o n now. Their readiness will bring the L e s s o n to them in some form which they can understand and recognize. Some see it suddenly on point of death and rise to teach it. Others find it in experience that is not of this world, which shows them that the world does not exist because what they behold must be the truth, and yet it clearly contradicts the world. And some will find it in this course and in the exercises that we do today.
9
Today's idea is true because the world does not exist. And if it is indeed your own imagining, then you can loose it from all things you ever thought it was by merely changing all the thoughts that gave it these appearances. The sick are healed as you let go all thoughts of sickness, and the dead arise when you let thoughts of life replace all thoughts you ever held of death.
10
A lesson earlier repeated once must now be stressed again, for it contains the firm foundation for today's idea. You are as God created you. There is no place where you can suffer and no time that can bring change to your eternal state. How can a world of time and place exist if you remain as God created you?
11
What is the lesson for today except another way of saying that to know your Self is the salvation of the world? To free the world from every kind of pain is but to change your mind about yourself. There is no world apart from your ideas because ideas leave not their source, and you maintain the world within your mind in thought.
12
Yet if you are as God created you, you cannot think apart from Him nor make what does not share His timelessness and love. Are these inherent in the world you see? Does it create like Him? Unless it does, it is not real and cannot be at all. If you are real, the world you see is false, for God's creation is unlike the world in every way. And as it was His Thought by which you were created, so it is your thoughts which made it and must set it free that you may know the Thoughts you share with God.
13
Release the world! Your real creations wait for this release to give you fatherhood, not of illusions, but as God in truth. God shares His Fatherhood with you who are His Son, for He makes no distinctions in what is Himself and what is still Himself. What He creates is not apart from Him, and nowhere does the Father end, the Son begin as something separate from Him.
14
There is no world because it is a thought apart from God and made to separate the Father and the Son and break away a part of God Himself and thus destroy His wholeness. Can a world which comes from this idea be real? Can it be anywhere? Deny illusions, but accept the truth. Deny you are a shadow briefly laid upon a dying world. Release your mind, and you will look upon a world released.
15
Today our purpose is to free the world from all the idle thoughts we ever held about it and about all living things we see upon it. They can not be there—no more than we. For we are in the home our Father set for us along with them. And we who are as He created us would loose the world this day from every one of our illusions that we may be free.
16
Begin the 15 minute periods in which we practice twice today with this:
17
I who remain as God created me would loose the world from all I thought it was. For I am real because the world is not, and I would know my own reality.
18
Then merely rest, alert but with no strain, and let your mind in quietness be changed so that the world is freed along with you.
19
You need not realize that healing comes to many brothers far across the world as well as to the ones you see near by as you send out these thoughts to bless the world. But you will sense your own release, although you may not fully understand as yet that you could never be released alone.
20
Throughout the day, increase the freedom sent through your ideas to all the world, and say whenever you are tempted to deny the power of your simple change of mind:
21
I loose the world from all I thought it was and choose my own reality instead.
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ACIM Edmonton
Sarah's Reflections
Lesson 132
I loose the world from all I thought it was.
We are very invested in our way of seeing things. We trust in our observations and believe in what our senses tell us. We believe there is a world already here when we were born. In other words, we think the world was always in place yet we read in this Lesson that this is not so. The world is a picture of what is in our own minds.
"The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning
.
"
(W.132.4.1-2) This Lesson is very clear in its statement---there is no world! Indeed, it is startling to hear this said over and over in this Lesson and throughout the Course. Our minds have a hard time accepting it, so Jesus makes a case for why this must be so. We may want to push this thought away.
"Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth
.
"
(W.132.6.4) If we don't get it this time, there may be a later time, or maybe another lifetime, when we will return to learn it.
The thoughts we hold about the world make it real for us
. "Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real."
(W.132.4-2-3)
Since the world we see is just the effect of our thoughts, Jesus gives us the analogy of a madman, hallucinating. What we call seeing is not seeing at all but more like image-making. These images are projections of the thoughts in our minds. Yet we are told it is fruitless for us to directly question the reality of the world, for this is like trying to convince a madman that his hallucinations are not real. Instead, we are encouraged to question the thoughts in our minds. What must I be thinking to see a frightening world, a sad world, a challenging world, or an exciting world? The thoughts and beliefs I hold become what I picture of the external world. Thus, the world becomes a perfect witness of what is in my mind.
"Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly
.
"
(W.132.5.2) When we become willing to look at our thoughts and to question them, we start the process of healing. Healing happens when we become aware of our thoughts and beliefs and are willing to see that we are wrong about everything. The world is the screen on which we project our thoughts. The thoughts are in our minds and the good news is that they can change because we are the ones holding them. Everything we are seeing is our misperceptions. It is only our insistence that we are right about our opinions and judgments that keeps the mind bound to its perspectives. To admit that I don’t know anything is to be willing to be open to a new way of seeing.
Jesus says,
"But it is pride that argues you have come into a world quite separate from yourself, impervious to what you think, and quite apart from what you chance to think it is."
(W.132.6.1) In other words, we keep making the case that we are simply victims of this world and are not responsible for making it moment by moment! We resist taking responsibility for our projections that are seen on the screen of the world. Yet this is precisely what we are asked to do. We are asked to take responsibility for what we perceive.
Our minds are powerful. Our stories of being victimized by the people and events of this world do not come from the world at all but from the way we choose to give meaning to these events. Our beliefs alone give the world its power.
"What keeps the world in chains but your beliefs?"
(W.132.1.1) They are false beliefs, and they originate with the ego. We learn that the beliefs we hold can be dismissed, recognizing they have no power except the power we choose to give them. They keep us invested in the illusion when we invest in the stories, beliefs, and thoughts we hold.
What we need to do is take responsibility for our thoughts and recognize their power.
"Belief is powerful indeed
.
"
(W.132.1.3) Bringing these beliefs to awareness and taking responsibility for the meaning we give to everything that shows up will start the process of shifting our perspective about the world.
"Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly
.
"
(W.132.5.2) That is why Jesus says,
"Yet is salvation easily achieved
,
for anyone is free to change his mind, and all his thoughts change with it."
(W.132.2.1) As our thought system shifts from sin, guilt, fear, suffering, and death to forgiveness, peace, healing, innocence, and holiness, everything changes. Our minds are where the source of our freedom lies because we can choose to release all that is false. This is good news because we are now no longer at the mercy of events outside of our own minds!
Don asked me to follow him to the body shop to have his car fixed. I told him I did not know the way there and asked him not to lose me. As we were driving, he chose to run a yellow light, leaving me to sit at the red light. I felt angry that he had not stopped to wait for me. I judged him for being inconsiderate of me. Fear set in, as I did not know how to get there on my own. All kinds of thoughts crossed my mind as I worried about what to do now, and why he would do this to me. The voice of the ego can get very obsessive. Watching my mind, I reminded myself that I was, in that moment, creating my reality. Then I asked myself these questions: "Will what I am thinking and feeling impede my path or enhance it?" "Will it solidify the ego's dream or help me awaken from it?" and "Do I really want to hold onto a thought that is hurting me?" Holy Spirit, help me to see it differently. I realized I could choose peace and reminded myself that my goal was peace.
I actively resisted buying into the ego harangue and affirmed that I would not listen to it. I was willing to trust that all would be well and that I would be guided to where I was to go. As I kept driving, I spotted his car up ahead with several cars driving slowly in front of me, which prevented me from catching up with him. I smiled as I thought about how it was my dream and therefore completely malleable. As this thought came, the cars all moved away to the side and there I was right behind him! Our part is to make space in our minds for the shift to take place from murder to miracles. When we do, the world shifts accordingly. This is what the miracle does. This is what willingness to tune into our intuition offers us. It reminds us that there is never anything wrong. We just need to align our minds with Spirit and ignore the rants of the ego. They do not belong in our pristine minds. They are part of the false self that we are not.
In holding thoughts of attack, I actually seek for what I
". . . do not want to find."
(W.132.2.4) When I change my mind, all my thoughts change with it. Now, I no longer want anger and attack and I’m motivated to find what I truly want, which is peace. Stubbornly holding onto our positions keeps us in hell. If we don't want to suffer, we need to change our minds. The idea is to close the gap between the time spent in holding onto grievances and in choosing forgiveness. Jesus reminds us that we are not stuck with the way things are. We are free to change our minds and recognize that when we change our minds, we change the source of our beliefs. This means the source of our thoughts has shifted from the ego mind to the true Source in the mind, which is our Divine Self. With this shift, we experience miracles. This takes willingness and determination not to buy into how things appear based on our senses but to question our perspectives and ask for the help of our inner Teacher. It brings us to the present moment.
"The present now remains the only time. Here in the present is the world set free."
(W.132.3.1-2) When we are willing to undertake the healing of our own minds, healing extends to the world through us, as there is only one mind.
"For as you let the past be lifted and release the future from your ancient fears, you find escape and give it to the world
.
"
(W.132.3.3)
"You have enslaved the world with all your fears, your doubts and miseries, your pain and tears; and all your sorrows press on it, and keep the world a prisoner to your beliefs
.
"
(W.132.3.4) We think our pain and tears are our own personal experience, yet he begs to differ, claiming that our pain bodies, as Eckhart Tolle calls them, keep the world prisoner to our sorrows. We enslave the world with our thoughts and beliefs and force death on it. Thus, we hold the world in bondage to the ego thought system. It is held in place by the illusion of time, with the beginning and end of this thought system being death. The reason he says the world began with death is because God had to die if we were to exist. In other words, God had to give up His life for us to live. It is a belief we hold of "one or the other." Both can’t exist in Oneness.
What is our source? Where did we come from? Jesus says,
"Now the source of thought has shifted, for to change your mind means you have changed the source of all ideas you think or ever thought or yet will think."
(W.132.2.2) Isn't it interesting to contemplate our source? How did we get here? The collision of egg and sperm is said to be the beginning of us, yet Jesus assures us, we are eternal and always have been. There is no beginning or end.
"Perhaps you think you did not make the world, but came unwillingly to what was made already, hardly waiting for your thoughts to give it meaning. Yet in truth you found exactly what you looked for when you came
.
"
(W.132.4.4-5)
Don't we all have the experience of wondering what we are doing here? We may, as children, have said to our parents, "I didn't ask to be born." I certainly challenged my parents with this thought! I clearly believed it was not my choice to be born. I had thoughts of being a victim of my circumstances, thinking I had been placed in the wrong home. I did not feel like I belonged in this family. The fact is that we did choose to come. We chose all the circumstances of our lives. It is our dream. We are the dreamer and we write the script for the dream we choose to experience. A veil of amnesia fell across our minds when we arrived here. We wanted a home for our individuality and specialness and a separate self. We got the experience we wanted, which was a world that would prove that we are innocent victims of circumstances beyond us.
"There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly. Ideas leave not their source. This central theme is often stated in the text, and must be borne in mind if you would understand the lesson for today. It is not pride which tells you that you made the world you see, and that it changes as you change your mind
.
"
(W.132.5.1-5) What an important paragraph! Our release lies in recognizing that the world is a projection of our minds. We read here and in the text,
"Ideas leave not their source
.
"
(W.132.5.3) The guilt in the mind is projected out and now it is seen as forms in the world that we have come to believe are external realities.
Because we think the world exists as independent of our minds, it follows that we would think the cause of our problems comes from the world, which is acting upon us. In other words, we see the world as cause, and we are its effect. If this were the case, we could only be released from our pain if the world were to change in our favor. Fortunately for us, we have it all backward. The fact is that the world is an effect of our thoughts, but because those thoughts can be changed by choosing against the ego thought system, we have the power to change our perspective on the world. We have reversed cause and effect. The truth is our minds are the cause and the world is the effect. This requires looking at our thoughts and beliefs with great honesty, taking responsibility for everything that seems to happen to us, seeing it all started with our own thoughts, and being willing to bring them to the truth. This is the recognition that the world we see is nothing but
". . . the outside picture of an inward condition
.
"
(T.21.IN.1.5) (ACIM OE T.21.I.1) All it does is mirror to us what is unhealed within. Therefore, it is very helpful to our healing as a witness to what is in the mind.
We don't have power over what seems to be done to us, but we do have power over our thoughts.
"The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of this world. You can decide to see it right."
(T.12.VII.9.1-2) (ACIM OE T.11.VIII.70) When we experience the world attacking us, we have an opportunity to look within at our own self-attack, our unworthiness, our anger, and our guilt. When our minds are healed and our perception is free of guilt, we will see a benign world where there is no blame, attack, or pain. It is not about anything changing in our external world. There will be changes in our outward condition as the mind is healed, but more than that, our perception of everything will change. No matter what is happening, with our changed perception, we will only see everything as either love or a call for love. We can't see a guilty world without having guilt in the mind.
Jesus tells us that to believe there is a world outside our minds is arrogance. In other words, we insist that we know better than God. If the world is real, God must be responsible for the problems of the world. We think it is humble to proclaim that we could not have made the world. We think only God has that power. Jesus says it is humility to acknowledge we made the world. To believe there is a world outside our minds is to insist we are right about what reality is and what God is. How can there be a separate world if there is nothing outside the Mind of God, just as there is nothing outside our own minds? Ideas leave not their source! If the world were real, the reality of God’s Oneness must have been destroyed. While Jesus assures us that we are powerful indeed, we don't have the power to change who we are as eternal beings or who God is. We can be truly thankful that we can’t change the truth of what we are or our reality as One with God.
We come from the eternal and formless Mind of God and are made in His image. As we loosen our thoughts from all we think the world of form is, we become a channel of energy from this invisible field of love, which is our Source. All of us are God's Thoughts, individualized by our belief in separation from our Source. The only reason we don't live from this place of Oneness is because of our belief in separation and our investment in our false thoughts. Now we are called to question those thoughts and beliefs and recognize that we don't know anything; but as little children with beginning minds, we are willing to be taught. We are not what we have, what we do, what others think of us, separated from everyone else, and separated from God. We are a part of our Source. God is not apart from our minds.
Our real nature does not fit this world. Our false thoughts made this world. They can't be our real thoughts because we are told,
"Yet if you are as God created you, you cannot think apart from Him, nor make what does not share His timelessness and Love
.
"
(W.132.11.1) Our real thoughts could not have made this world because the world is unlike God. There is no time and space in God's reality, and we are as God created us. Our reality is outside of time and space as well. Therefore, we do not even inhabit this world nor this body. Jesus says,
"To free the world from every kind of pain is but to change your mind about yourself
.
"
(W.132.10.3)
When the student is ready to know the truth about themselves,
"Their readiness will bring the lesson to them in some form which they can understand and recognize
.
"
(W.132.7.2) Some have come to this understanding through near-death experiences. Some have had experiences of a mystical nature,
"And some will find it in this course, and in the exercises that we do today
.
"
(W.132.8.1) As we discover what we truly are by allowing love to move through us, we realize, increasingly, that the world of illusion is incompatible with the truth of what we are. Loosing the world is all about freeing ourselves from guilt through the Holy Spirit. As our thoughts are transformed, we transform the world. The world is simply the effect of our thoughts.
"
I loose the world from all I thought it was, and choose my own reality instead
.
"
(W.132.17.2) The one who chooses is the one this Course is aimed at. When we turn away from the voice of the ego and ask for help from Jesus, we are willing to be taught.
It is up to us to choose when we are ready to resign as our own authority, and instead, turn to the Holy Spirit. This means we must stay vigilant in watching our thoughts and in asking to be shown another way of seeing. This is what forgiveness is all about. It is about watching our thoughts and taking responsibility for our projections. Every grievance, every expectation, every wish, every plan, every worry, frustration, and anxiety, when seen, can be released. We can let our minds be changed, quietly, when we are ready, and it does not matter where and when this happens. We might be on our deathbed, in prison, in a holiday resort, at our workplace, or in our homes. We do not have to try to escape our current situation. The setting is irrelevant. It is the decision that is important. When we bring our illusions to the truth, our thoughts are healed. When we let go of our grievances, then peace, and joy prevail.
The world of time---of past, present, and future---does not exist. It is the present that
". . . now remains the only time"
(W.132.3.1) where the healing takes place.
"Here in the present is the world set free. For as you let the past be lifted and release the future from your ancient fears, you find escape and give it to the world."
(W.132.3.2-3)
Our experiences of release, of peace and of joy, convince us of the reality of our Source, and the recognition that we did not create ourselves. We are not our own source. Remember that the focus today is not on denying the reality of the world or simply dismissing it as illusion but looking instead at what we are projecting onto it and seeing how we are defending ourselves against perceived dangers.
What do we want to believe about ourselves today? What is real? The ego? The body? Or do we accept our Identity as God created us? We get constant affirmation from the world of who we are as separate individuals, but this is about the false self. Our Being is not what the world has affirmed about us. What we have come to believe about ourselves, as a result of past conditioning, is completely false. Isn't this a liberating idea? Yet it is also an idea that brings up fear and resistance, which we need to be aware of and bring forth for healing. Remember that courage and honesty are needed to be willing to look at all our false perceptions. As we do this healing work today,
". . . healing comes to many brothers across the world, as well as to the ones you see nearby, as you send out these thoughts to bless the world
.
"
(W.132.16.1) We are still in God. We have never left our Source. It is not an easy concept to get, yet Jesus says when we get it, we will know our own reality. Whenever we have the experience today of feeling victimized by something or someone outside of ourselves or we feel distressed, it is a trigger for us to notice we are looking outside ourselves to feel better.
"I who remain as God created me would loose the world from all I thought it was. For I am real because the world is not, and I would know my own reality."
(W.132.15.2-3)
"Then merely rest, alert but with no strain, and let your mind in quietness be changed so that the world is freed, along with you
.
"
(W.132.15.4.1) This requires stopping, looking, and bringing our thoughts to the light of truth.
Love and blessings, Sarah
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