"Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists.
Herein Lies the peace of God."
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A
Course in Miracles
TEXT
CHAPTER 13
From Perception to Knowledge
V. The Guarantee of Heaven
37
When we are all united in Heaven, you will value
nothing
that you value here. For nothing that you value here you value wholly, and so you do not value it at all. Value is where God placed it, and the value of what God esteems cannot
be
judged, for it has been
established
. It is
wholly
of value. It can merely be appreciated or not. To value it partially is not to
know
its value. In Heaven is everything God valued and nothing else. Heaven is perfectly unambiguous. Everything is clear and bright and calls forth
one
response. There is no darkness, and there is no contrast. There is no variation. There is no interruption. There is a sense of peace so deep that no dream in this world has ever brought even a dim imagining of what it is.
38
Nothing in this world can give this peace, for nothing in this world is wholly shared. Perfect perception can merely show you what is
capable
of being wholly shared. It can also show you the
results
of sharing while you still remember the results of
not
sharing. The Holy Spirit points quietly to the contrast, knowing that you will finally let Him judge the difference for you, allowing Him to demonstrate which
must
be true. He has perfect faith in your final judgment because He knows that He will make it
for
you. To doubt this would be to doubt that His mission will be fulfilled. How is this possible, when His mission is of God?
39
You whose minds are darkened by doubt and guilt, remember this: God gave the Holy Spirit to you and gave Him the mission to remove all doubt and every trace of guilt that His dear Son has laid upon himself. It is
impossible
that this mission fail. Nothing can prevent what God would have accomplished from accomplishment. Whatever your reactions to the Holy Spirit's Voice may be, whatever voice you choose to listen to, whatever strange thoughts may occur to you, God's will
is
done. You
will
find the peace in which He has established you, because He does not change His Mind. He is invariable as the peace in which you dwell and of which the Holy Spirit reminds you.
40
You will not remember change and shift in Heaven. You have need of contrast only here. Contrast and differences are necessary teaching aids, for by them you learn what to avoid and what to seek. When you have learned this, you will find the answer that makes the need for
any
differences disappear. Truth comes of its own will unto its own. When you have learned that you
belong
to truth, it will flow lightly over you without a difference of any kind. For you will need no contrast to help you realize that this is what you want, and
only
this. Fear not the Holy Spirit will fail in what your Father has given Him to do. The Will of God can fail in
nothing
.
41
Have faith in only this one thing, and it will be sufficient: God wills you be in Heaven, and nothing can keep
you
from it or
it
from you. Your wildest misperceptions, your weird imaginings, your blackest nightmares all mean nothing. They will not prevail against the peace God wills for you. The Holy Spirit will restore your sanity, because insanity is
not
the Will of God. If that suffices Him, it is enough for you. You will not keep what God would have removed, because it breaks communication with you with whom He would communicate. His voice
will
be heard.
42
The Communication Link which God Himself placed within you, joining your minds with His,
cannot
be broken. You may believe you
want
it broken, and this belief
does
interfere with the deep peace in which the sweet and constant communication which God would share with you is known. Yet His channels of reaching out cannot be wholly closed and separated from Him. Peace will be yours, because His peace still flows to you from Him Whose Will
is
peace. You have it
now.
The Holy Spirit will teach you how to
use
it and, by projecting it, to learn that it is in you.
43
God willed you Heaven and will
always
will you nothing else. The Holy Spirit knows
only
of His Will. There is no chance that Heaven will not be yours, for God is sure, and what He wills is as sure as He is. You will learn salvation, because you will learn
how to save
. It will not be possible to exempt yourself from what the Holy Spirit wills to teach you. Salvation is as sure as God. His certainty suffices. Learn that even the darkest nightmare that disturbed the mind of God's sleeping Son holds no power over him. He
will
learn the lesson of awaking. God watches over him, and light surrounds him.
44
Can God's Son lose himself in dreams when God has placed
within
him the glad call to waken and be glad? He cannot separate
himself
from what is
in
him. His sleep will not withstand the call to wake. The mission of redemption will be fulfilled as surely as the creation will remain unchanged throughout eternity. You do not have to know that Heaven is yours to make it so. It
is
so. Yet the Will of God must be accepted as
your
will to know it.
45
The Holy Spirit cannot fail to undo
for
you everything you have learned that teaches you what is not true must be reconciled with truth. This is the reconciliation which the ego would substitute for your reconciliation unto sanity and unto peace. The Holy Spirit has a very different kind of reconciliation in His Mind for you, and one which He
will
effect as surely as the ego will
not
effect what it attempts.
46
Failure is of the ego,
not
of God. From Him you
cannot
wander, and there is no possibility that the plan the Holy Spirit offers to everyone for the salvation
of
everyone will not be perfectly accomplished. You
will
be released, and you will not remember anything you made that was not created
for
you and
by
you in return. For how can you remember what was
never
true or
not
remember what has always been? It is this reconciliation with truth, and
only
truth, in which the peace of Heaven lies.
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A Course in Miracles
WORKBOOK
Part I
Review IV
1
Now we review again, this time aware we are preparing for the second part of learning how the truth can be applied. Today we will begin to concentrate on readiness for what will follow next. Such is our aim for this review and for the lessons following. Thus we review the recent lessons and their central thoughts in such a way as will facilitate the readiness which we would now achieve.
2
There is a central theme that unifies each step in the review we undertake, which can be simply stated in these words:
3
My mind holds only what I think with God.
4
This is a fact and represents the truth of what you are and what your Father is. It is this thought by which the Father gave creation to the Son, establishing the Son as co-creator with Himself. It is this thought which fully guarantees salvation to the Son. For in his mind no thoughts can dwell but those his Father shares. Lack of forgiveness blocks this thought from his awareness. Yet it is forever true.
5
Let us begin our preparation with some understanding of the many forms in which the lack of true forgiveness may be carefully concealed. Because they are illusions, they are not perceived to be but what they are—defenses which protect your unforgiving thoughts from being seen and recognized. Their purpose is to show you something else and hold correction off through self-deceptions made to take its place.
6
And yet your mind holds only what you think with God. Your self-deceptions cannot take the place of truth. No more than can a child who throws a stick into the ocean change the coming and the going of the tides, the warming of the water by the sun, the silver of the moon on it by night. So do we start each practice period in this review with readying our minds to understand the lessons that we read and see the meaning which they offer us.
7
Begin each day with time devoted to the preparation of your mind to learn what each idea you will review that day can offer you in freedom and in peace. Open your mind and clear it of all thoughts that would deceive, and let this thought alone engage it fully and remove the rest:
8
My mind holds only what I think with God.
9
Five minutes with this thought will be enough to set the day along the lines which God appointed and to place His Mind in charge of all the thoughts you will receive that day. They will not come from you alone, for they will all be shared with Him. And so each one will bring the message of His Love to you, returning messages of yours to Him. So will communion with the Lord of Hosts be yours, as He Himself has willed it be. And as His own completion joins with Him, so will He join with you who are complete as you unite with Him and He with you.
10
After your preparation, merely read each of the two ideas assigned to you to be reviewed that day. Then close your eyes and say them slowly to yourself. There is no hurry now, for you are using time for its intended purpose. Let each word shine with the meaning God has given it as it was given to you through His Voice. Let each idea that you review that day give you the gift which He has laid in it for you to have of Him. And we will use no format for our practicing but this:
11
Each hour of the day bring to your mind the thought with which the day began and spend a quiet moment with it. Then repeat the two ideas you practice for the day unhurriedly, with time enough to see the gifts which they contain for you, and let them be received where they were meant to be. We add no other thoughts, but let them be the messages they are. We need no more than this to give us happiness and rest and endless quiet, perfect certainty, and all our Father wills that we receive as the inheritance we have of Him.
12
Each day of practicing, as we review, we close as we began, repeating first the thought that made the day a special time of blessing and of happiness for us and through our faithfulness restored the world from darkness to the light, from grief to joy, from pain to peace, from sin to holiness. God offers thanks to you who practice thus the keeping of His Word. And as you give your mind to the ideas for the day again before you sleep, His gratitude surrounds you in the peace wherein He wills you be forever and are learning now to claim again as your inheritance.
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A Course in Miracles
WORKBOOK
Lesson 149
My Mind holds only what I think with God.
[137] When I am healed, I am not healed alone.
[138] Heaven is the decision I must make.
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ACIM Edmonton
Sarah's Reflections
Lesson 149
My mind holds only what I think with God.
Review IV ~ Lesson 137 - 138
[137] When I am healed, I am not healed alone.
[138] Heaven is the decision I must make.
When I am entertaining thoughts of worry, anxiety, anger, grievances, annoyance, irritation, impatience, control, bitterness, helplessness, any kind of distress, or, in fact, an expectation or fantasy of any kind, I can choose to change my mind and choose the peace of Heaven instead. It is so easy just to say that I am in a bad mood, or that I am having a difficult day, and allow my mind free rein to stay in that state. It is helpful to ask, "Who is the ‘I’ that is in a bad mood?" When we identify with the "I," which is the small self, we believe this is our identity. When we withdraw belief from this false self, we can simply be the witness of this state. When we witness our condition without judgment or condemnation of any kind, then with the Holy Spirit the mind shifts. That is what the miracle does. It is a change of mind. The Holy Spirit replaces the problem with the answer. That is why there is no order of difficulty in miracles. That is the simplicity of salvation, as our part is only about the willingness to change our minds from wrong-minded to right-minded perspective. When we witness our state through the eyes of Jesus or Holy Spirit from outside this dream, we are seeing it for what it is—nothing.
It need not wait on time but can happen in an instant. If it takes longer, so be it.
"
Now you must learn that only infinite patience produces immediate effects. This is the way in which time is exchanged for eternity. Infinite patience calls upon infinite love, and by producing results
now
it renders time unnecessary. We have repeatedly said that time is a learning device to be abolished when it is no longer useful. The Holy Spirit, Who speaks for God in time, also knows that time is meaningless. He reminds you of this in every passing moment of time, because it is His special function to return you to eternity and remain to bless your creations there. He is the only blessing you can truly give, because He is truly blessed. Because He has been given you freely by God, you must give Him as you received Him.
"
(T.5.VI.12) (ACIM OE T.5.VIII.81)
Choosing happiness, choosing Heaven, and choosing joy and peace takes a kind of discipline we don't always feel like exercising. We let the ego run rampant, and then we justify and rationalize why we feel the way we do. To make a choice for Heaven is to be willing to have the blocks to love removed with the help of the Holy Spirit. These blocks keep us from the awareness of the love we are. When we stubbornly resist the healing work, we are then closing the door to Heaven. There is a beautiful painting where Jesus is knocking on a closed door with no handle on his side of the door. The handle is on the inside and must be opened by us. It is up to us whether we open the door to let him in. We will do so when we are ready. It is our decision. We have been given free will and thus the power and the freedom to choose. Jesus will never impose his will on us. When we are ready to choose to save ourselves is our own decision, as there is no savior outside our own minds. The power of the Holy Spirit, given us at the moment of separation, is in our right minds.
Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, can't bypass our choice, as this would only serve to undermine the power of our minds and our will to decide when we will allow Heaven in. As we become willing to release our blocks to God's Love, we welcome the power within us, more and more. Our will is as powerful as God's because He created us. We have all His attributes, but we are also reminded that our pain threshold is not without limit. Because of this, He can be certain the day will come when we will choose the path back home to the Christ Self. While our tolerance for pain may be extensive, it is not without limit.
We don't have to wait for pain to become intolerable in order to make a decision for Heaven. When we are highly motivated to heal our minds and choose the miracle instead of the grievance in each moment, peace and joy will prevail. Each time we apply the Lesson, our motivation for peace and for Heaven is increased. We can change our minds at any time and recognize peace can be available to us right now in this very moment. As we connect our minds to Heaven, we will also connect to each other because as today's Lesson reminds us,
"When I am healed, I am not healed alone."
(W.137) There is no other.
"As you see him you will see yourself. As you treat him you will treat yourself. As you think of him you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself."
(T.8.III.4.2‑5) (ACIM OE T.8.IV.19) Healing overturns the laws of sickness, showing us their unreality. These laws, which we believe have power, must not be real when we see how easily they are overturned. Healing cancels out the dream of sickness and demonstrates that we are all one.
Healing is all about deciding and choosing and being willing. What holds us back? What are we afraid of? We think we can protect and defend ourselves from being too transparent and vulnerable. We think by staying angry, by being right, and by holding onto our perspectives and our opinions, we will maintain our independence and our autonomy and remain safe. We hold beliefs that keep us in hell. We may believe people are judging us, or the world is unsafe. We think we know what is best for ourselves and that other people can hurt us. We believe we can be rejected and that someone in our lives should be different than they are so our needs can be met. We believe the body should be healthy, and we can't do anything right, and on and on it goes. Each of these beliefs, and many others, brings suffering. We hold them because they keep us invested in the belief that we are who we say we are.
It is in our humility that we are strong. Our strength is our willingness to recognize we are wrong about all our perceptions and the beliefs we hold. It is in letting go of what we think we know, allowing life to live us, that we become channels of His Love. When we surrender to the love surrounding us and upholding us and we plug into our true source of power, ordinary life becomes extraordinary and divine. If we could choose Heaven at any moment and don't, we need to ask ourselves, "What is stopping me in this moment? What is my payoff in holding onto my story and my perspective with regard to any situation?" There is always a payoff for maintaining our idea of control. The payoff is that we keep our identity intact. What we don’t realize is that this is how we maintain our suffering.
We get to be right about the way we have set things up, and this makes God wrong. We make a case that the world is the cause for how we feel, so we assume the role of the victim of the world we see. This means someone outside our own minds is responsible for our condition. It makes them guilty and then we justify our attacks on them. We don't do anything without some kind of "juice" or payoff. Even pain has a payoff because someone must pay. By our suffering, we show our brother how guilty he is. We demonstrate that they have sinned by showing them our injured self. Examining our ego programming is not always fun but always worthwhile if we are committed to our healing. It is the only way to Heaven. We can't go around our own fear but must go through the darkness to the light. Fortunately for us, it shows itself to us daily every time we are triggered by anyone or any situation outside ourselves.
Under all this is the unconscious belief in sin and the belief that we will be punished with hell. We spend our lives running from this belief by focusing on distractions and refusing to look at our fears. We pursue the good life in the belief that we can carve out some kind of pleasure in the face of impending aging, dying, and spending an eternity in hell. This is apparently what we are running from with our pursuit of happiness, as we define it in the world. This unconscious belief in death and our fear of waking up to the god of the ego, which we have made, must be brought to light to see it has no validity. The god that the ego has projected is a vengeful god. It is a projected image of our own ego. Now, Jesus tells us we insist that God take on our definition of Him. Yet he also tells us God is only love and nothing else. There is only Heaven, and this is the only choice to be made. Our guilt is released through forgiveness by watching our unforgiving thoughts and being willing to turn them over to the Holy Spirit. When we do, we will experience the truth of our being, which has never sinned and is eternally pure and innocent as created by our loving Father, Who only wants us to know what we really are.
We continue our practice as before, beginning and ending the day devoted to the preparation of our minds to learn what each idea can offer us in freedom and in peace. Let us commit today to raise every belief we hold to doubt. We open our minds and clear them of all thoughts that would deceive. We continue with the hourly remembrance, and whenever we feel triggered by anything today, we apply the Lesson.
Love and blessings, Sarah
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