I really wanted to end my A Course in Miracles series with my last post, but then I came across some of my notes on essential quotes from the course, and I knew, that I can’t withhold them from you. :)
Each and every one has the potential to change your view on „reality“.
They are very concentrated insights, and I will add my comments to each one. My recommendation with them is to don’t ingest them all at once, since they will grow and unfold over time in your life…
This classroom is not about our relationship with the world, but our relationship with Truth.
The course often refers to our life as a classroom. In this quote, Jesus makes clear, that the main curriculum is not about our relationships in (and with) the world.
ACIM is a course in content and not form. It will never tell you, what to do in the world of form, because form is illusionary. So the focus is on the content and the content is always the same: The decision in the Mind between the thought system of the ego or that of Truth. Only one brings you to Truth. So the question is: What is my relationship with Truth?
The world is a maladapted solution for a non-existent problem.
There is really only one problem: The belief in the separation from God.
The world is the manifestation of this belief. Inside the world, there are endless solutions - all stem from the first problem - the separation from God, that never happened.
It’s not that the world is everything, and beyond that is the big nothingness - it’s exactly the opposite: the world is nothing and beyond that is everything (Love, Peace etc)
Forgiveness is still and quietly does nothing; it merely looks and waits and judges not.
Forgiveness as explained in Part 1 of my series, is the word the course uses for undoing the basic misunderstanding of separation. It’s not really something you do. Basically it’s looking at your 2 options every moment: the thought system of the ego and the thought system of the holy spirit. (see Part 5). With that you will also see what follows with each of them.
No need to judge - just looking innocently at the results of your decision will make it obvious. If you experience guilt or fear, you will know, which thought system you have decided for and you can make a different decision each and every moment.
Love is the absence of the belief in cause
This is maybe my all-time favorite description of Love. Since ideas leave not their source, cause and effect are the same in Oneness.
Guilt on the contrary is the result of believing that there is cause and effect - and therefore separation.
„You did X and that’s why I felt Y“ or „Because I did X in the past, Y was the result“.
This is the linear way our human (ego) minds work - it is called „logic“.
Truth is not logical and there is no way to tell, what caused what - even more though, they are not separate at all!
Love is Oneness and therefore there is no cause and effect in Love.
Love is. Period.
Forgiving is the means by which you overcome your fear of death, because death does not attract you when guilt is gone.
This is a very deep one, that needs further explanation.
There are basically 4 obstacles to peace mentioned in ACIM and one of them is the attraction of death. The reason why it’s called attraction and not fear alone is, because from inside the insane ego’s thought system, death is the proof, that we separated from God. In other words: the existence of death proofs, that the ego has a life on it’s own and the separation really happened. Death is basically the thought, that we are separate from our creator.
That’s why we are attracted to the concept of death and fear it at the same time. Remember, that guilt is used in the course to describe the result of the belief in the separation from God and forgiveness is its antidote.
So when through forgiveness, the guilt is gone, with it goes also the interest (and fear) in the concept of death (as a proof of the separation).
All the course does, is switching our focus from mindlessness to mindfulness - from us being a body to us being the universal Mind.
The Ego’s greatest fear - and the reason it made up a world - is, that the son of god (the decision maker) may change his mind. The world is made to prevent a change of mind. To make this possible, the Ego convinced us, that we don’t have a Mind at all - that we are a physical body and that our life will end with death.
The moment we realize, that „we“ are (universal) Mind (=Spirit), the concept of death becomes obsolete. This won’t happen as long as there is still the hidden purpose described above.
God has absolutely nothing to do with this world
Another all time favorite of mine and a quote from Ken Wapnick and not from the course itself.
There are basically two different myths of how the world came to be. The scientific myth of the big bang and the religious myth of some God creating the world.
ACIM has none of those in its metaphysics. It says very clearly, that the world is just a dream. God being pure Oneness, Love and Peace didn’t create a world of duality, guilt, fear and suffering.
Even more though, God can’t create something, that is the opposite of himself and therefore, God doesn’t even know about something like „a world of form“. Since he doesn’t know about the world, he can’t have any effect on it. That’s why, God seems so absent in this world - because he is - and there is no world!
…and that’s why - as a final quote:
There is no life outside of Heaven
Life is not the opposite of death. Life is eternal. Life is only in God.
So contrary to the Nietzsche quote „God is dead“, it’s much more like „We (=the world of form and bodies) are dead“ and the real life - the real world - is the place we never left and where we will live forever as One Mind.
Thanks for reading this short (but intense) epilogue to the ACIM series.
I know, that many of these topics are controversial and you may had some „wait….but….!“ moments.
This is an expected result, because the course is basically turning our world view upside down on purpose - not because it speaks the Truth („The truth that can be spoken, is not the real Truth“ as the Tao the Ching says), but because it’s the undoing of our previous held believes.
The thought systems of Ego Inc and Heaven Inc cancel each other out, and what is left is Truth.
This process has to trigger many resistances. I would go so far to say, that if you didn’t experience resistances, you have not understood what is written here. ;) …but the topic of resistances is a whole other one…
I promise you, that for the next article, I’ll try to think about a more lighthearted and fun topic! ;) Nevertheless, ACIM tells us, that if we begin to really understand the course, we smile more often at our own insanity and the one of the perceived world.
So in the end, also a course this deep and radical, has to be taken in lighthearted way.
Much Love,
"Love is the absence of belief in cause"
Interesting. Actually I see it exactly like that, but if I was to give anyhting to the existence of cause then it would be WE ARE the cause. So in a way, believing in myself implies believing that I am the cause of everything by being. WE are the Universe, it flows through us perennially.
"There is no life outsside of heaven"
That is a great one as well! Heaven is us having unconditional and limitless creative freedom without any consequences ever. When we wish a "very evil" person to "go to hell" (using dualistic jargon), then for such a willfully evil person hell is that which the other side of the duality spectrum would call heaven. If you WANT to express yourself as being "evil", expressing yourself as "good" against your will is like hell then.
Excited what you will conjure up next! :)
Awesome, I would agree and add: Since there is only one source (= God = We = Universal Mind) and "ideas leave not their source" (as quoted from the course), the effect of anything is not different from its cause. That's why giving is receiving. How is that for some late night insight in the nature of the universe that we are? ;)))
It is a very questionable phrase, God is such, that everything he did, compared to him, is as if he did not exist. I am convinced that at first God made a different world for each man, and that is in that world, that is within ourselves, where we should try to live. There is no power that does not come from God.
In general this I have listed as my favorite post since you have enough knowledge
Yes, to understand this phrase, one has to know the metaphysics of ACIM. The world is a dream, that the son of god (=the universal mind) is dreaming. So God didn't create any world, because there literally is no world. If one thinks, that he is a physical body in a physical universe, then of course this phrase is totally questionable - even more so, it can't make any sense.
Indeed, there is no power outside of God, but there is also no outside of God.
Thank you for your nice comment! 🙏
Thanks to you for sharing so much knowledge with your followers, this universe is full of many worlds because each head is one, and that is what makes it interesting, that we can influence but not force to change its ideals whether political, religion or what this one more
In the long run it could all turn out that everything is nothing, because nobody knows what really “is”, everyone is just trying to be smart. It must be fun for the Universe to watch us 😄 but the truth is everything is nothing, and everything is something
This philosophy is similar to the tenants proposed by Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science. It is always wonderful to examine one's conscience and beliefs. It is also wonderful to exchange ideas. resteemed to my blog. Looking forward to exploring your course. I think the best version is that we are never alone.
original watercolor by pesocci
Thank you for your beautiful picture and the resteem! ❤️
this post is really good
I believe that heaven will be inherited by every man who carries heaven in his soul. Even people who want to go to heaven do not want to die to get there.
Yes indeed, people don't want to die to go to heaven, because they believe, that they are a body and that they are living.
We are not bodies, but pure universal Mind, that is dreaming that it is a "body". There is no death, because there is literally no life outside of heaven. That's the point.
In other words: We are also not a body lying somewhere sleeping and dreaming - we are no body at all. Universal Mind is Spirit. That's hard to grasp, when everyone seems to believe, that they are a body - it seems to be "normal" to believe that. That's why it's called an illusion.
The ego part of the Mind (and Mind is not a part of a "brain" - a "brain" is part of the Mind instead) does everything to cover this up - simply for the reason, that once you realize this, you always have the option to choose "the right minds" view and the ego fears that it loses the trust in it, which is experienced as a fear of "death". Since the ego is no alive at all, it's not really a death though...
This realization alone, changes the whole perspective of "life". It's radical.
I hope, I could explain this very important point better.
Thanks for your comment and your nice words @demi98! ❤️
A really lovely series, you have me picking my ACIM up again which is always a pleasure. Looking forward to the avenues you will takes us next.
Thanks! Do you got the ACIM in plain language translation by Liz Cronkhite? This really helped me deepen my understanding - and of course Ken Wapnicks books are beyond awesome! :)
I believe that for all problems there is a solution, at the hand of God we can achieve it all will guide us and help us with the solution, thanks for sharing the truth I have learned a lot from ACIM
Really inspiring, i want more of this. Nicely done
Buen artículo. Gracias por compartirlo.
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