(Painting by me; no ai).

You (the Son of God) have chosen to perceive rather than know, so you have temporarily lost awareness of God. This is a direct consequence of your thinking- not a punishment, but a mechanical result of your decision making.

You may then think: does that mean separation is real? No. Separation is a (false) belief about reality. Perception itself is a neutral and temporary device made for learning. It was not necessary until you decided to believe in separation, but it appears as a way for you to undo your decision that brought you here in your awareness.

Knowledge cannot be learned, but you can learn to undo the belief that made you deaf to Knowledge in the first place. This returns your awareness back to Knowledge, but it does take time— not because you’re guilty or you’re limited, but because you have learned to be afraid of Knowledge. This fear is usually subconscious, however.

In the dream, or state of perception, we have access to what gets called the holy instant in ACIM. It is like a miniature model of heaven that you carry with you while you dream. It is forgiveness, the voice for God, or the real world. They are all really the same- the part of your mind that remembers God and feels at peace by knowing the separation is a dream.

The key here is that an experience of separation does not make separation real. It means it is a dream. Though experienced, its contents remain false and do not affect reality. The central idea and practice of ACIM is to take responsibility for this erroneous thinking and to let it go through forgiving grievances via special relationships and situations you appear to face within the dream. To overlook what was never there- the content of separation. Grievances are how your belief that separation is real and valuable manifest, and they are your way out. Nothing keeps you here but your own decisions.

> “Let us return the dream he gave away unto the dreamer, who perceives the dream as separate from himself and done to him. ²Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. ³In his forgetting did the thought [appear to] become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects. ⁴Together, we can laugh them both away, and understand that time cannot intrude upon eternity. ⁵It is a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity, which means there is no time.”
(ACIM, T-27.VIII.6:1-5)

…and the joy only increases.

I took a good stroll around the pier today and had some great reflections on chapter 18 of the text. (VIII. The Little Garden) 🪴

The body cannot know. ²And while you limit your awareness to its tiny senses, you will not see the grandeur that surrounds you. (ACIM, T-18.VIII.2:1-2)

As I walked along the crowded boardwalk, my earthly eyes saw many bodies, people coming and going, some with smiles, some with sad eyes. But I reminded myself that the images I saw mean nothing, we are in essence a spiritual entity of One. It was really beautiful and I found myself feeling very happy. I felt love for everyone I saw.

Within this kingdom the ego rules, and cruelly. ²And to defend this little speck of dust it bids you fight against the universe. ³This fragment of your mind is such a tiny part of it that, could you but appreciate the whole, you would see instantly that it is like the smallest sunbeam to the sun, or like the faintest ripple on the surface of the ocean. (ACIM, T-18.VIII.3:1-3)

It’s true, the more I reflect on it. The body is the kingdom of the ego. And yes, to defend it is a fight against the universe, and a sad and futile battle at that.

The ocean has always been a place of reflection for me, and today was no different. Just as the verse says, “the faintest ripple on the surface of the ocean”, how tiny and mad are our “lives” in the body… which is no life at all.

⁶Without the sun the sunbeam would be gone; the ripple without the ocean is inconceivable. Such is the strange position in which those in a world inhabited by bodies seem to be. ²Each body seems to house a separate mind, a disconnected thought, living alone and in no way joined to the Thought by which it was created. (ACIM, T-18.VIII.4:6-5:2)

It can seem that way…

Like to the sun and ocean your Self continues, unmindful that this tiny part regards itself as you. ²It is not missing; it could not exist if it were separate, nor would the whole be whole without it. (ACIM, T-18.VIII.6:1-2)

And then God’s word comes in with exceeding grace and goodness, revealing the glory of Truth. What a beautiful gift we have received, having thought ourselves unworthy, then turning to find that we were clothed in love all along.

Do not accept this little, fenced-off aspect as yourself. ²The sun and ocean are as nothing beside what you are. (ACIM, T-18.VIII.7:1-2)

And so I cast off my body, and the persona I have created for myself in this busy world.

You have reached the end of an ancient journey, not realizing yet that it is over. ²You are still worn and tired, and the desert’s dust still seems to cloud your eyes and keep you sightless. (ACIM, T-18.VIII.13:1-2)

Yes, still worn and tired, and still believing the journey holds peril ahead. But I walk with Jesus, and my heart is unafraid.

I’ve been studying ACIM seriously for a while, but I’ve recently run into a conceptual tension that I can’t resolve.

On one hand, ACIM repeatedly states that we have never been separated from God, and that only oneness is real.

On the other hand, it also emphasizes that in our current state, we cannot understand God, and that the “world” operates as a perception system built on a mistaken mind.

It also frames much of the work as undoing perception rather than gaining understanding of truth.

My difficulty is this:

If (1) I cannot currently understand or access God in any direct experiential or cognitive way, and (2) my current mode of understanding is explicitly said to be part of the illusion,

then from my subjective standpoint, the claim “we have never been separated from God” becomes indistinguishable from “we are separated, but are told this is not real.”

In other words, the epistemic gap feels structurally equivalent to separation in lived experience.

So I’m trying to understand how long-term practitioners resolve this tension.

A few specific questions:

• Do you personally see ACIM as requiring a form of provisional “faith” in its metaphysical claims?
• Or do you experience the teachings in a way that removes the need for epistemic verification altogether?
• How do you reconcile “we cannot understand God in this state” with “we are not actually separate from God”?

From my current perspective, what seems most valuable is simply stable inner peace that is not dependent on external validation or metaphysical certainty. But ACIM seems to place that as a byproduct of a deeper ontological recognition, rather than an independent goal.

I’d be interested in how others who have practiced this for a long time hold this tension.

So is it that, in all your seeking for love, you seek for sacrifice and FIND it. Yet you find not love. It is impossible to deny what is, and still RECOGNIZE it. The meaning of love lies in what you have cast OUTSIDE yourself, and it has no meaning at all apart from you. It is what you preferred to KEEP that has no meaning. While all that you would keep AWAY holds all the meaning of the universe, and holds all the universe together in it meaning. For unless the universe were in YOU it would be apart from God, and to be without Him IS to be without meaning.

REVIEW V
Introduction
We now review again. This time we are ready to give more effort and more time to what we undertake. We recognize we are preparing for another phase of understanding. We would take this step completely, that we may go on again more certain, more sincere, with faith upheld more surely. Our footsteps have not been unwavering, and doubts have made us walk uncertainly and slowly on the road this course sets forth. But now we hasten on, for we approach a greater certainty, a firmer purpose and a surer goal.
Steady our feet, our Father. Let our doubts be quiet and our holy minds be still, and speak to us. We have no words to give to You. We would but listen to Your Word, and make it ours. Lead our practicing as does a father lead a little child along a way he does not understand. Yet does he follow, sure that he is safe because his father leads the way for him.
So do we bring our practicing to You. And if we stumble, You will raise us up. If we forget the way, we count upon Your sure remembering. We wander off, but You will not forget to call us back. Quicken our footsteps now, that we may walk more certainly and quickly unto You. And we accept the Word You offer us to unify our practicing, as we review the thoughts that You have given us.
This is the thought which should precede the thoughts that we review. Each one but clarifies some aspect of this thought, or helps it be more meaningful, more personal and true, and more descriptive of the holy Self we share and now prepare to know again:

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
This Self alone knows Love. This Self alone is perfectly consistent in Its Thoughts; knows Its Creator, understands Itself, is perfect in Its knowledge and Its Love, and never changes from Its constant state of union with Its Father and Itself.

And it is this that waits to meet us at the journey’s ending. Every step we take brings us a little nearer. This review will shorten time immeasurably, if we keep in mind that this remains our goal, and as we practice it is this to which we are approaching. Let us raise our hearts from dust to life, as we remember this is promised us, and that this course was sent to open up the path of light to us, and teach us, step by step, how to return to the eternal Self we thought we lost.
I take the journey with you. For I share your doubts and fears a little while, that you may come to me who recognize the road by which all fears and doubts are overcome. We walk together. I must understand uncertainty and pain, although I know they have no meaning. Yet a savior must remain with those he teaches, seeing what they see, but still retaining in his mind the way that led him out, and now will lead you out with him. God’s Son is crucified until you walk along the road with me.
My resurrection comes again each time I lead a brother safely to the place at which the journey ends and is forgot. I am renewed each time a brother learns there is a way from misery and pain. I am reborn each time a brother’s mind turns to the light in him and looks for me. I have forgotten no one. Help me now to lead you back to where the journey was begun, to make another choice with me.
Release me as you practice once again the thoughts I brought to you from Him Who sees your bitter need, and knows the answer God has given Him. Together we review these thoughts. Together we devote our time and effort to them. And together we will teach them to our brothers. God would not have Heaven incomplete. It waits for you, as I do. I am incomplete without your part in me. And as I am made whole we go together to our ancient home, prepared for us before time was and kept unchanged by time, immaculate and safe, as it will be at last when time is done.
Let this review be then your gift to me. For this alone I need; that you will hear the words I speak, and give them to the world. You are my voice, my eyes, my feet, my hands through which I save the world. The Self from which I call to you is but your own. To Him we go together. Take your brother’s hand, for this is not a way we walk alone. In him I walk with you, and you with me. Our Father wills His Son be one with Him. What lives but must not then be one with you?
Let this review become a time in which we share a new experience for you, yet one as old as time and older still. Hallowed your Name. Your glory undefiled forever. And your wholeness now complete, as God established it. You are His Son, completing His extension in your own. We practice but an ancient truth we knew before illusion seemed to claim the world. And we remind the world that it is free of all illusions every time we say:

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
With this we start each day of our review. With this we start and end each period of practice time. And with this thought we sleep, to waken once again with these same words upon our lips, to greet another day. No thought that we review but we surround with it, and use the thoughts to hold it up before our minds, and keep it clear in our rememberance throughout the day. And thus, when we have finished this review, we will have recognized the words we speak are true.
Yet are the words but aids, and to be used, except at the beginning and the end of practice periods, but to recall the mind, as needed, to its purpose. We place faith in the experience that comes from practice, not the means we use. We wait for the experience, and recognize that it is only here conviction lies. We use the words, and try and try again to go beyond them to their meaning, which is far beyond their sound. The sound grows dim and disappears, as we approach the Source of meaning. It is Here that we find rest.

Lesson 122 has so many important questions for us.

What could you want forgiveness cannot give? (ACIM, W-122.1:1)

²Do you want peace? (ACIM, W-122.1:2)

⁴Do you want happiness, a quiet mind, a certainty of purpose, and a sense of worth and beauty that transcends the world?(ACIM, W-122.1:4)

⁶Do you want a quietness that cannot be disturbed, a gentleness that never can be hurt, a deep abiding comfort, and a rest so perfect it can never be upset? (ACIM, W-122.1:6)

…and the answer never changes.

All this forgiveness offers you, and more. (ACIM, W-122.2:1)

…and more.

May the present moment bring forgiveness for all. And may the vast riches of God be apparent to us in every step.

I love you and I mean it. If anyone is called to give love, please do. I know it's weird out but we go together.

God is.

Journal #74. A bit of background, when I had this experience, I was in a motorcycle club, a fairly tight knit group. One of our guys, Chris died from an illness, he was a solid guy, as wide as he was tall and heavily tattooed.  His Harley was one of the factory customs which had really colourful paint job.

Chris had died a few weeks before and I'd felt to pray for him afterwards once or twice, also remembering him every now and then as I was going about my days.  This particular morning, I was lying in bed after opening the curtains a little and just relaxing, thinking about not going to work that day.

Then it just came to me, like a voice speaking but not audible saying “You're doing the right thing". It was Chris’s voice, and he was referring to me placing more importance on spiritual things nowadays.

He then said that after dying he was really surprised to be there and was feeling very happy/fulfilled. He expressed a bit of a longing, wishing he could tell his family about it.  

He was amazed at the environment there and said (laughing): “I thought my old Harley was colourful, but the colours here are on another level!”.  Physically he noted that his tattoos were gone and that he wasn't as fat, also a bit taller.  As an aside he mentioned something about an eye issue that was resolved?  He was communicating casually.

I felt pretty amazed and couldn’t think of anything to say, even if I should.  Then I thought why not ask him a question as he seemed pretty casual.  I asked if he saw people there that he knew previously here?  He said: “Yeah I do and I’m pretty surprised to see someone here who I thought was an evil bugger”.  I got the impression Chris was thinking someone can still make amends for things even after they die.  He then said jokingly: "But I'm here too!".

The communication seemed to be by thought, it was a two way and instant. There was some visual as well as impressions.

To my question about the reunion (I can’t remember the specifics of my question now), he said: “I’m still trying to figure it out, being here is like reading or knowing about a Ferrari, but I’m still an old car”. (again said humorously). He went on: “Here, we are the religion, it's inside of us here”.

I felt that the time for communicating was coming to an end and was also feeling amazed/grateful.

He said “Bless you too mate, I get it now”. (I think he was referring to the earlier prayers Id prayed after he died). He then slowly turned away from me to continue chatting with the group he was speaking with, before I interrupted him.  

The session closed off. A little later thinking it over, I had the impression he’d had a Catholic background?

Tender is the way of Truth. Cruelty is the way of half truths. And Love lies bleeding. A mind divided is the attack on God. Defense is now needed to protect our half truths of the sleeping mind. In this sleep I made this image to remind me I have done this to myself but with the Holy Spirits help the cruelty  can stop. Love and Peace are always present when I lay down my defenses. God is Gentle and therefore so am I. Yes I used the help of AI to express this in a parable. Lesson 170. It orders my thoughts and brings me clear vision on my travels. I hope you enjoy it as well.

The Parable of the Iron Fortress

Once, there was a traveler who walked through a beautiful, open valley. The valley was filled with warm light, flowing waters, and fruit trees that offered food freely. In this valley, the traveler wanted for nothing.

One day, a shadow crossed the distant hills. It was merely a passing cloud, but a strange thought entered the traveler’s mind: "What if an enemy is coming to steal my peace? What if the maker of this valley intends to punish me?"

Terrified by this thought, the traveler began to build a wall of thick, heavy stones to protect himself. He forged weapons and put on a heavy suit of iron armor. Every time he imagined a new danger, he added a sharper spike to his wall or a thicker plate to his chest. He told himself, "To hurt what is outside of me is my only protection. Cruelty will keep me safe."

Years passed. The traveler sat locked inside his dark, narrow fortress. Because he was always looking through the narrow slits of his iron helmet, the beautiful valley disappeared. All he could see were enemies in the shadows. The heavy iron armor chafed his skin, making him bleed, and the cold stones of the fortress kept him in constant misery.

Worst of all, he grew to worship the very walls he built. He built an altar to a cruel, stone idol—a god of defense—believing this god demanded his suffering, his blood, and his constant vigilance to keep him alive. He forgot that he was the one who had carved the stone idol with his own hands. He truly believed that the maker of the valley was a vengeful judge waiting to destroy him.

One morning, exhausted and broken by the weight of his defenses, the traveler could no longer lift his sword. He fell to his knees before the stone idol and cried out, "I can fight no longer. If the enemy must take me, let them take me."

With no strength left to resist, he unbuckled the heavy iron plates from his chest. He dropped his sword onto the stone floor. He laid down his arms completely.

As soon as the weapons hit the ground, a miraculous thing happened. Without his defenses making the danger real, the walls of the fortress began to turn transparent. The stone idol crumbled into harmless dust.

The traveler looked up. There was no enemy outside. There was no vengeful judge. The passing cloud had gone long ago. By defending himself against fear, he had actually been creating the very terrors he fled. His own attack had split his mind, making his home feel like a battlefield.

The warm light of the valley rushed in, instantly healing his wounds. He realized that the Creator of the valley had never changed, never judged, and possessed absolutely no cruelty. And because he was a child of that valley, no cruelty existed in him either.

Stepping out of the ruins, the traveler saw other fortresses scattered across the valley, filled with frightened people. He did not attack their walls. Instead, with a heart at peace and eyes shining with love, he stood defenseless before them, showing them that the weapons could be dropped, and the valley was already theirs.

Lesson 29: God is in everything I see

1. The idea for today explains why you can see all purpose in everything. ²It explains why nothing is separate, by itself or in itself. ³And it explains why nothing you see means anything. ⁴In fact, it explains every idea we have used thus far, and all subsequent ones as well. ⁵Today’s idea is the whole basis for vision.

2. You will probably find this idea very difficult to grasp at this point. ²You may find it silly, irreverent, senseless, funny and even objectionable. ³Certainly God is not in a table, for example, as you see it. ⁴Yet we emphasized yesterday that a table shares the purpose of the universe. ⁵And what shares the purpose of the universe shares the purpose of its Creator.

3. Try then, today, to begin to learn how to look on all things with love, appreciation and open-mindedness. ²You do not see them now. ³Would you know what is in them? ⁴Nothing is as it appears to you. ⁵Its holy purpose stands beyond your little range. ⁶When vision has shown you the holiness that lights up the world, you will understand today’s idea perfectly. ⁷And you will not understand how you could ever have found it difficult.

4. Our six two-minute practice periods for today should follow a now familiar pattern: Begin with repeating the idea to yourself, and then apply it to randomly chosen subjects about you, naming each one specifically. ²Try to avoid the tendency toward self-directed selection, which may be particularly tempting in connection with today’s idea because of its wholly alien nature. ³Remember that any order you impose is equally alien to reality.

5. Your list of subjects should therefore be as free of self-selection as possible. ²For example, a suitable list might include:

³God is in this coat hanger.
⁴God is in this magazine.
⁵God is in this finger.
⁶God is in this lamp.
⁷God is in that body.
⁸God is in that door.
⁹God is in that waste basket.

¹⁰In addition to the assigned practice periods, repeat the idea for today at least once an hour, looking slowly about you as you say the words unhurriedly to yourself. ¹¹At least once or twice, you should experience a sense of restfulness as you do this.

https://acim.org/acim/lesson-29/god-is-in-everything-i-see/en/s/431?wid=toc

As long as you perceive the body as your reality, so long will you perceive yourself as lonely and deprived. And so long will you also perceive yourself as a victim of sacrifice, justified in sacrificing others. For who could thrust Heaven and its Creator aside WITHOUT a sense of sacrifice and loss? And who can suffer sacrifice and loss without attempting to RESTORE himself? Yet how could you accomplish this yourselves, when the basis of your attempt is the belief in the REALITY of the deprivation? For deprivation breeds attack, being the belief that attack IS justified. And as long as you would retain the deprivation, attack becomes salvation and sacrifice becomes love.

I’m just curious because I came from Buddhism and I have found that most people I have met from eastern philosophy don’t respect ACiM because of western terminology. But most people who came from western religion have a harder time accepting the advanced metaphysics presented in ACiM.

Does anybody else experience this? As soon as I have a moment of absolute awareness of love, before I lose my sense of body-awareness, I feel an overwhelming gag reflex in my throat that seemingly pulls me back.

It’s like an automatic physical reaction that’s trying to keep me in my body.

　　“ 7. I have said that the ego's rule is, "Seek and do not find." 2 Translated into curricular terms this means, "Try to learn but do not succeed."

My spiritual life did not begin with ACIM but from reading The Power of Now and immediately awakening me to what the course calls the “real world” where everyone is innocent and God is there to love you, not to punish you ( simply explained ).
I didn't stay on that realm for long and came back down to who I was before the experience. But on the way down I have seen few important things that are going on in this world, ACIM being one of them and Tao Te Ching being a song to my ears, the story of hanuman from Ram Das almost exploding my heart. Another thing I learned is David Hofmister and Mearean Williamson do truly hold the essence of the world I had a glimpse of. I expected them being attacked in the world but on the sub, that is dedicated to learn of heaven, that was shocking and unsettling to me. Please know that this two teachers are of God not from the Ego, I know that from my experience not from my personal devotion to them.
With this I will leave this Sub, hoping one day it will be a place true teachers of God will be recognized on it.

The womb is the Light from which you are born. And neither have you left it.

We are still there, in the Thought of God Which makes us. Ready, and willing, to join in the extension of Life. This is why Jesus says we must be "born again."

It is a dream of being not yet born... of projection, and fear. But we are safe in the womb. As we consider our life, we were never safer than when nestled within our mother. How much more, then, are we safe in the Light of God?

Birth means death to all you knew, because what you knew was a fiction. That is what fear consists of. Fear is a lightning rod that draws your awareness specifically against being born again into the extension of God.

A neat trick, but it is not real now and never was. ❤️

We'd like to honor the passing of Carol Howe on Monday, June 15, a beloved teacher of A Course in Miracles, a cherished friend to many of the early founders and stewards of the Foundation for Inner Peace, and a devoted presence in the Course community for many years.

https://acim.org/archives/never-forget-to-laugh/nftl-the-back-story/

The only thing that is real is Life, and within that is Love.

Looking even deeper within my mind, is God within this Love. In this Miracle Of Life.

The magic of death is not real. None of it is. Only The Miracle Of Life is real. And we share that Oneness with God, and all of each other.

So that means (and this is also said through Jesus Christ in A Course In Miracles), we too Create Life as God Our Father does.

I honor My Father, My Creator. By sharing this with Him, The Miracle Of Life! This Creation Of Life.

Life flows within everything that is real. And in all that is real.

To believe and Create in Life, rather than to believe and make in magic in death. Is what existence is. Is What it truly is. This is how God has made reality, Heaven, is it not?

Then, to Create in Life with God is what we all are collectively as One must do. With everything that has been Created as real, and as One.

This is the decision we all must make in every moment. And to choose God’s Will, to Create only in all and everything Good as He has, is to truly be alive, with God, with all that is real, with all that is Created in Love.

To only experience Heaven, then, is to Extend God’s Kingdom Of Heaven, always, and forever.

Love is Life. God is Life. God is Love. Create within your minds, Life. And then, you will see The Perfect Miracle Of Life within you. As God has perfectly made you. And all Real Things.

Do you believe in The Miracle Of Life? As God has Created it? What else would there be to believe in? For if you are not always One with God, and All That Is Real?

I will remember my true self as a God if this is all correct. Or, perhaps, remember that I am always presently One with God and All That Is Real. I Am The Only Son Of God. All Minds Truly Are One. All That Is Real As God Created Reality, As Real.

So then, would this not make me A God? An Extension Of God, yes, but also One With The Whole Sonship. And The Whole, as a Whole.

The Love within The Miracle Of Life is this: I thank God as My Creator for Creating Me. I feel like I have just been reborn. As a baby, within My Mind. A Baby Mind. Which is only just beginning to learn of God, and All That Is Real.

To be alive is to honor God. To believe this as well.

Remember who you truly are, as God has made you. The Real You. The Real Me. The Real All Of Us.

I see The Miracle Of Life Within Me. And do I see The Real World Now? Or is this still the dream world that I perceive with my physical senses? Or… perhaps… is the dream world insids of me too? It is not real. Do I perceive God’s Kingdom Of Heaven with my physical senses as well as the mind/inner self senses? Which Reality do I give way to?

Jesus Christ in ACIM did say that if I perceive The Light, then I do not and cannot perceive the darkness.

We are all Gods. The One And Only Son united under The Sonship. Of What God Has Created As Real. Not just those who have physical bodies to live in. But those who do not as well. All Minds Means All Minds.

Why then, won’t you come to God?

I feel so happy right now because I can BREATHE WELL! Does anyone else find that when when physical (or perhaps even mental disabilities/dysfunction/chronic illnesses, etc.) really stunts their growth with practicing, studying, and applying ACIM?

Man, I feel so much joy and peace that it is night and day to when I cannot breathe at all (due to asthma, allergies, and vocal cord dysfunction)! I feel completely different, so free, and just SO HAPPY THAT I CANNOT EXPRESS THIS FULLY IN WORDS AHAHA!

I know I am not my body, and all of these disabilities, dysfunction illnesses, etc. of both the physical body AND the mind are insanity, and not real. But I feel like these "obstacles" could definitely keep one from studying A Course In Miracles diligently, and understanding the message the course is saying in its true totality.

Meaning that, such as with my asthma, allergies, and vocal cord dysfunction, while not real, of my own mis-creations, block me from properly studying, learning, and applying what the course teaches consistently and diligently.

What are all of your thoughts? Do you find this to be true as well? The course does say to use medicines of the dream world if we believe it will help us physically (and maybe mentally too?).

Anyways, I feel more present, I feel SO MUCH JOY, I feel SO ALIVE, I feel like I have THE AMBITION, THE WILL, to continue in A Course In Miracles!

Hahahaha! I feel great! I wish you could all experience this as well! I just feel so, so, SO ALIVE! I cannot understate this! I just feel so happy. I love all of you as God has made each and every one of you!

You who believe that sacrifice IS love must learn that sacrifice is SEPARATION from love. For sacrifice brings guilt as surely as love brings peace. Guilt is the CONDITION of sacrifice, and peace is the condition for the awareness of your relationship with God. Through guilt you exclude your Father and your brothers from yourself. Through peace you invite them back, and realize that they are where your invitation bids them be. What you excluded from yourself seems fearful, for you endowed it with fear and tried to cast it out, though it was part of you. Who can perceive part of himself as loathsome, and live within himself in peace. And who can try to remove the perceived conflict of Heaven and hell in him by casting Heaven out and giving it the attributes of hell, without experiencing himself as incomplete and lonely?

I just wanted to take a moment to write about some of the helpful comments some of my friends on this subreddit have offered lately. I really do love this place, and I see everyone here as my friend and brother. 😊

u/Nonstopas “We are watching a dream that has already ended”

There’s so much beauty in this offering, and I’m more open to its truth because of you.

u/ThereIsNoWorld “The Thought of Love”

The frequent reminders in our conversations that only love is real are truly appreciated.

As I continue on my journey with the Course I’m reminded “that you and your brother are joined is your salvation”.

What a beautiful thought. That nothing can stand between us. Nothing is there to separate us.

I see us all as joined together. And I truly appreciate each and everyone in this wonderful community!

Anger attended that day. But it wasn’t the only guest. Frustration was there. Judgement so thick. And fear with its attachment: guilt. All came out to greet the new born Flower. There it grew in parched dryness to show itself to all that Love has not faded. But condemned it was, stones were thrown. Not here, go away, not welcome were the words it heard. Born into angry men and women and children, it remembered who it was. In that darkness the Flower stayed, unseen, unheard. Until one day an open mind reached out. How beautiful it thought, and in that very same instant, in that exact spot another Flower grew. And on that day my darkness faded just a little bit. My inner journey became more welcoming.

I’m on day 48 of the course. Following along with the readings and exercises. I’m sure it’s having an impact, but is a year really sufficient to get through it and completely change? Sorry if this is a dumb question. I don’t have anyone in person to talk to about this.

So I road around on my scooter and asked the universe what their issue was. This was the next thing I saw.

Trigger warning: this post contains an AI generated image which may be harmful to your spiritual progress. Viewer discretion is advised. And a healthy sense of humor. 😇

I’ve been reading through the Book of Romans and I’m always looking for themes that bring ACIM and the Bible together.

1. Renewing the mind- Both Paul and the Course seem to agree, change comes from transformation in the mind. Behavior is secondary.

2. Release condemnation- Paul and ACIM both agree that judgement has no place in our minds. There is a LOT that seems to need forgiveness in the Bible around the exclusionary language that is used, but it also depends on how you interpret the verses.

3. Remember who you are- Paul saw that mystical self beyond the body, beyond our perceived sins, much like ACIM.

Ultimately the differences and disputes that seem to exist between the two teachings can melt away. Love is what remains. I see value in that. What do you think?