Ideas from A Course in Miracles

This is a point which many very sincere Christians have misunderstood: The Crucifixion did NOT establish the Atonement. The Resurrection did.

If the Crucifixion is seen from an upside down point of view, it certainly does appear AS IF God permitted, and even encouraged, one of His Sons to suffer BECAUSE he was good. This particularly unfortunate interpretation is genuinely tragic on a mass basis and has led many people to be bitterly afraid of God. Persecution is a frequent result, justifying the terrible misperception that God Himself persecuted His own Son.

The real Christian would have to pause and ask “how could this be?” Is it likely that God Himself would be capable of the kind of thinking which His own Words have clearly stated is unworthy of man?

In milder forms, a parent says “This hurts me more than it hurts you,” and feels exonerated in beating a child. Can you believe that the Father REALLY thinks this way?

Jesus was NOT punished because YOU were bad. It is so essential that all such thinking be dispelled. This kind of error is responsible for a host of related fallacies, including the misbelief that God rejected man and forced him out of the Garden of Eden.

The Resurrection demonstrated that NOTHING can destroy truth. Good can withstand ANY form of evil, because light abolishes ALL forms of darkness.

“Vengeance is Mine sayeth the Lord” is strictly a karmic viewpoint. This is a real misperception of the truth, by which man assigns his own evil past to God. The “evil conscience” from the past has nothing to do with God. He did not create it, and He does not maintain it. God does NOT believe in karmic retribution at all. His Divine mind does not create that way. HE does not hold the evil deeds of a man against even HIMSELF.

Sacrifice is a notion totally unknown to God. Sacrificing others in any way is a clear-cut violation of God’s own injunction that man should be merciful even as His Father in Heaven is merciful. It has been harder for many Christians to realize that this commandment (or assignment) also applies to THEMSELVES.

Though Christians generally (but by no means universally) recognize the contradiction involved in victimizing others, they are less adept at ensuring their own inability to victimize themselves.

Jesus has been correctly referred to in the Bible as “The Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world.” Those who present the lamb as blood-stained do NOT understand the meaning of the symbol.  Correctly understood, the symbol is a very simple parable, or teaching device, which merely depicts His innocence.

Innocence is wisdom, because it is unaware of evil, which does not exist. It is, however, PERFECTLY aware of EVERYTHING, that is true. Because the innocent heart is pure, it defends true perception, instead of defending itself AGAINST it.

Innocence is INCAPABLE of sacrificing anything, because the innocent mind HAS everything and strives only to PROTECT its Wholeness. Innocence can only honor man, because honor is the NATURAL greeting of the truly loved to others who are LIKE them.

The lamb taketh away the sins of the world only in the sense that the state of innocence or Grace, is one in which the meaning of the Atonement is perfectly apparent. “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God” is another way of saying the same thing. Only the innocent CAN see God.

The innocence of God is the true state of mind of His Son. In this state, man’s mind DOES see God, and because he sees Him as he Is, he knows that the Atonement, NOT sacrifice, is the ONLY appropriate gift to His OWN altar, where nothing except perfection truly belongs. The understanding of the innocent is TRUTH. That is why their altars are truly radiant.

The lion and the lamb lying down together refers to the fact that strength and innocence are NOT in conflict, but naturally live in peace.

A Declaration of Sovereign Rights

As individuals, we bury our attention in one activity or another, failing to see the whole to which the parts belong.

Institutional structure has become a substitute source of security. And when structure becomes the master, the determining factor, it has gone too far.

Structure has gone to far when government seeks to survive only for its own power and not to serve its people.

Enough is enough when any bureaucracy ceases to serve, and begins to be self-protective and self-enriching. Enough is enough when business is buried under paperwork and has lost its sense of values and production. Enough is enough when school teaches only theory and little about the way life really works.

Structure can serve you if you remember its limitations. Or, it can oppress you if you forget what it is. 

The structure of scientific theory needs to be relaxed if innovative thinking is to occur.  Business structures need to be relaxed if new values are to emerge. People need to have a sense of governing themselves so that responsibility can grow. If respect for ethics is to exist upon the earth there has to be a sense of joy in doing the right thing, rather than fear of punitive action for doing the wrong thing.

In the end, structure will always betray you, because it has to. Structure is mortal. 

For each individual there is a responsibility to know and to honor the difference between indigenous and surrogate power.

Man delegates surrogate power to structure and forces external to himself. But surrogate power always draws its energy from indigenous power. When this rule is respected and openly acknowledged, surrogate power can be an effective extension of authority. Surrogate power can extend man’s influence over the environment, however, when delegated power assumes the rights of indigenous power, it corrupts very quickly. 

The moment surrogate power assumes the rights of indigenous power, corruption begins. Usually this is implemented by the use of force, mandatory conformity, suppression of rights, and dishonesty. In human history, most social hierarchies have relied on conditioning, reward, and punishment for maintaining control over citizens.

Under such oppressive conditions nothing works better than a declaration of sovereign rights held by indigenous power. This is the power of all true liberators.

Your indigenous power lies in being a child of God, in the love that you are, and in your external covenant with the Creator. It is one of your divine and immortal rights to know your Creator. You don’t need a facilitator, and your don’t need someone else’s opinion of God to know rightly. For God is in your heart.

In the course of living you also delegate authority to many self created identities, most especially social, career, and achievement identities. Whenever such identities command and own your life, assuming the rights of indigenous power, then problems will arise.

In the ways of the world, a great deal of energy is spent on judgment which is nothing less than competition for dominance among invented realities. Man’s original sin was judgment. That is the only sin which a pure and innocent soul can commit. The immediate, inevitable, and unavoidable consequence of judgment is separation from the object of your judgment and from God to the degree that the Creator is also part of that which you have judged. Judgments have a way of expanding and multiplying until separation from God becomes a real and monumental problem. A being in separation is unconscious of his Source, and therefore he will endlessly pursue the task of creating himself.

A society which uses law only as a platform for judgment will fall into peril. Law has no validity in itself except through the love in which it is rooted. Love’s power does not replace nor override the workable laws of conduct. Love exposes the reasons for law, replacing enforcement with true enlightenment.

There is no coincidence that excess consumption of meat in the western world is having its heaviest consequence in damage to the physical heart. Second to over consumption, the other great offense against animals is the manner in which they are raised for slaughter in loveless quarters. This is unconscionable and is leaving a bitter legacy. Moreover, the food resulting from it is depleted in every conceivable way.

In many situations where profit is being touted, there really is no true profit—only dollars being shuffled into the accounts of those with the greatest leverage. These are monetary illusions created to secure the positions of those in power, especially under conditions where no true profit has been generated.

True profit benefits all. Illusions can be maintained behind the mask of structure only for a time until necessary demands bring the walls tumbling down. This is true of nations as well as business and individuals.

Mentions of profit are often accompanied by feelings of guilt or jealousy, because the nature of profit is misunderstood. Profit is often associated with economic manipulation, and for such reasons it has come to have a bad name. True profit benefits all, and it is worthy of pursuing, materially and spiritually. As you seek prosperity, do not resent the concept of profit.

Maximum effect for minimum effort does not lead to laziness, but rather it restores a willingness to work. What produces laziness is worn out bodies and rebellious attitudes deploring force-based business and production where there is no true profit and no reward.

A long day of tedious work, followed by chores and duties at home and a restless night of sleep hardly prepares one for a new day with energy and vigor. The last thing anyone wants under such conditions is more work. The answer is not doing more, but taking what you are doing and making it richer.

Express more dimensions of yourself or put more dimensions of yourself into the workplace. Make friends. Explore a learning curve that could enrich your life on other levels. Practice memory, concentration, or social skills. You say this takes energy you don’t have. Actually, this will give you the energy you have lost.

Apply more dimensions of yourself to whatever you do. This recommendation is not for adding to the length of your agenda. It is for enriching it with more transparent overlays for all the things that you are, compressed into the same period of time.

There is a common heart within the oneness of spirit that feels and knows the rightness of all things, which balances and heals in ways that exceed normal understanding. Thus, a man may give to one and receive from another. He may toil in a factory and be rewarded by the love of his children. He may selflessly give of his time to conserve nature and be rewarded by the teachings of life. He may visit the sick and be healed of his own self-pity. He may forgive one man and be forgiven by others.

This is the dimension of cause and effect which cannot be manipulated in selfish ways, for it is activated only by the nature of each person’s love. As you express the love that you are, there is no limit to the blessings which can unfold before you.

This is why I ask you to forgive, to release, and to observe the greater power of grace in order to end your long separation from God, which has made you a captive to the lowest level of reality.

Abstraction Calls

Who could succeed where contradiction is the setting of his searching? Yet searching is inevitable here. For this you came, and you will surely do the thing you came for. But the world cannot dictate the goal for which you search unless you give it power to do so. Otherwise, you are still free to choose a goal that lies beyond the world and every worldly thought.

The ego wants to join the spiritual journey with its goals of economic success, material prosperity, and special ones to call family, whether it be a “biological” or “ethnic” or “spiritual” family. Yet there are no form goals or outcomes that will not instantly dissolve into the Light of Peace when they are not longer valued.

The only outcome worthy of our Holy Mind is peace, and this is independent of form. Heed not the ego’s witnesses, for false images appearing as real cannot keep you from Awakening unless this be your desire. Nothing happens by accident.

Abstraction Calls, and those who have the ears to hear and the eyes to see gladly Answer the Call. The world of ego familiarity begins to dissolve and fall away in awareness as you enter the realms that the mystics and saints and sages have spoken about for centuries. Your trust in the Holy Spirit grows strong as you withdraw faith from the ego, and the body, and the five senses the ego made to reinforce its error of separation.

I love you dearly. You are not alone Beloved One, though the dissolving ego would have you believe and think and feel and perceive that you are. I am with you always, closer than the breath which seems to animate the dream figure. Our Comforter is ever Present, reminding all that the dreams of seeming fear and guilt and isolation are almost over now, and will change to happy dreams of non-judgment through forgiveness of illusions and nonattachment to form.

If you feel out of accord with the Harmony of the Present, let go of the thoughts of past or future. Feel the Peace of our Holy Mind right Now, the Mind that is shared with God.

Grace is experienced when the mind lets go of trying to control anything of the world of form.

The Plan of Salvation is always Now and always is simply a Moment of Grace, that you may experience in a long line at the grocery store.

Remember: In Peace I Live. In Grace I am released.

Ascend in Love by giving complete forgiveness priority over everything the ego’s world can seem to offer. Everything is already accomplished, and so Watch the dream in Happiness with the Holy Spirit and let all things be exactly as they are.

Your Responsibility to Yourself

There is a deep responsibility you owe yourself, and one which you must learn to remember ALL the time. The lesson will seem hard at first, but you will learn to love it, when you realize that it is true, and constitutes a tribute to your power. You who have sought AND FOUND littleness, remember this: Every decision that you make stems from WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE, and represents the value that you PUT upon yourself. Believe the little can content you, and, by LIMITING yourself, you will NOT be satisfied. For your function is NOT little, and it is only by finding your function, and fulfilling it that you can ESCAPE from littleness.

There is no doubt about what your function IS, for the Holy Spirit KNOWS what it is. There is no doubt about its magnitude, for it reaches you through Him, FROM Magnitude. You do not have to strive for it, because you HAVE it. All your striving must be directed AGAINST LITTLENESS, for it DOES require vigilance to protect your magnitude in this world. To hold your magnitude in perfect awareness, in a world of littleness, is a task the little cannot undertake. Yet it is asked of you, in tribute to your magnitude, and NOT your littleness. Nor is it asked of you alone.

Knowledge is not the motivation for learning this course. Peace is.

The goal of the curriculum, regardless of the teacher you choose, is “Know Thyself.” There is nothing else to seek.

The ego teaches that your strength is in you alone. The ego does not know what it is trying to teach. It is trying to teach you what you are without knowing what you are.

The Holy Spirit teaches you that if you look only at yourself you cannot find yourself, because that is not what you are. The Holy Spirit teaches that all strength is in God and therefore in you.

When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. You can encounter only part of yourself because you are part of God, Who is everything. His power and glory are everywhere, and you cannot be excluded from them.

Your power and glory are in your brother, because they are yours.  As you see your brother, 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 either find yourself or lose yourself. Whenever you are with anyone, you are learning what you are because you are teaching what you are. Never forget your responsibility to your brother, because it is your responsibility to yourself.

Give him his place in the Kingdom and you will have yours. You cannot be powerless to do this, because this is your power.

When you acknowledge this you bring the acknowledgment automatically to everyone, because you have acknowledged everyone. By your recognition you awaken theirs, and through theirs yours is extended. 

It’s time for you. The Spirit carried you here. 

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