Reflections 239 to 252
239/ Same, not different
21st June 2025
“The further down my spiritual path I go, the less I am able to define. When I turn inward, I find no words. Only Light; only Love.” Laura Jaworski.
The Love of Christ will light your face, and shine from it into a darkened world that needs the light. (ACIM, T-22.IV.3:7)
***
Lesson 239. The glory of my Father is my own (ACIM, W-239). Yesterday: I have just read through the lesson again - “on my decision all salvation rests” - and I still can’t seem to get to grips with it. It says my Father trusts me and has placed His Son’s salvation in my hands, which I assume means seeing the Christ in everyone I meet. This was easy yesterday, with warm weather and friendly people, and I am also aware that we are asked to practise any lesson regardless of our understanding, and this I did. Today: My wife called me downstairs while I was meditating earlier, but that was fine. We are all the one light and nothing can change what we are.
Are thoughts, then, dangerous? To bodies, yes! The thoughts that seem to kill are those that teach the thinker that he can be killed. And so he “dies” because of what he learned. He goes from life to death, the final proof he valued the inconstant more than constancy. (ACIM, T-21.VIII.1:1-5)
A Course in Miracles teaches us that we are all the same, not different.
It is our thoughts that dictate the differences. Attraction, hate, revulsion - they all arise from within the one mind - and this means from within a portion of the mind that is always thinking.
That portion always thinks with the ego. When it sees someone as an enemy, it either shrinks back and contracts, or crashes forward and attacks. The ego can never accept and just be.
The vast majority of the mind, however, sees everyone as a friend. It sees only love. It has a knowing that looks with complete awareness on what can never change.
We therefore start the process of knowing by becoming aware of what is going on. The ego is simply the maker of our own little worlds and is not the Source which created us whole and entirely perfect.
We are all the same mind, not different minds, and this mind sits quietly within the Mind of God.
22nd June 2025
“One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.” Friedrich Nietzsche.
The Wholeness of God, which is His peace, cannot be appreciated except by a whole mind that recognizes the Wholeness of God’s creation. (ACIM, T-6.II.1:2)
***
Lesson 240. Fear is not justified in any form (ACIM, W-240). Yesterday: This was another lesson that I would read but, unless I really concentrated, I couldn’t quite get to grips with. And that is the key - concentration. We have to be fully immersed in whatever we are reading, otherwise the ego runs rampant and change can never happen. Change is the whole purpose of doing the Workbook. Today: I have just been reading about specialness in the Text; I am also aware of how we tend to perceive everything wrongly; and the lesson is a reminder that not one thing in this world is actually true. Fear, then, is the great illusion and, until we awaken from that fear, we will continue to be fooled by everything that we see around us.
Christ comes to what is like Himself; the same, not different. For He is always drawn unto Himself. What is as like Him as a holy relationship? And what draws you and your brother together draws Him to you. Here are His sweetness and His gentle innocence protected from attack. And here can He return in confidence, for faith in another is always faith in Him. (ACIM, T-22.I.11:1-6)
What is Christ?
A Course in Miracles tells us that Christ is not a body. Absolutely not.
Christ is simply the Self we share. There is no distinction. Christ arose out of God and is everywhere and is everything.
Look within, and we will find that Christ is there. Christ is just a Thought - meaning that it is not ephemeral but permanent. The Thought of Christ has never left the Source that created It.
Christ is pure innocence and Heaven is Christ’s home. We share that innocence in every relationship.
The study of A Course in Miracles therefore allows us to know Christ. This does not require piety or abstinence. It merely means we become inwardly calm and then we will know that Christ is real.
23rd June 2025
“You are never alone. You are eternally connected with everyone.” Amit Ray.
Truth and illusion have no connection. This will remain forever true, however much you seek to connect them. (ACIM, T-19.I.7:1-2)
***
Lesson 241. This holy instant is salvation come (ACIM, W-241). Yesterday: The lesson told us that not one thing in the world is actually true. Our thoughts are confused and all the world is thought. This meant that, as I spent part of the afternoon in the garden (just thoughts), a daphne was taken from a pot (all thought) and was re-planted into the ground (further thought). I (yet more thought) hope it flourishes. Today: Several times, I had to open my eyes and read the lesson again - just to get a gist of what it was telling me. And then it occurred to me that I had been sitting for a very long time, at which point I had to open my eyes once more. My ego was mildly irritated to see that I had set the timer for thirty minutes instead of fifteen.
Behold the great projection, but look on it with the decision that it must be healed, and not with fear. Nothing you made has any power over you unless you still would be apart from your Creator, and with a will opposed to His. For only if you would believe His Son could be His enemy does it seem possible that what you made is yours. (ACIM, T-22.II.10:1-3)
A Course in Miracles tells us that it is impossible to see anyone as an enemy and to know their truth.
Everything we see stems from the mind - and this includes the world (“the great projection”) and all those trillions of forms that inhabit the world. To know a form truly, it is essential to heal the mind.
Healing simply re-establishes the truth of what we are, which is complete wholeness and love. This doesn’t feel remotely possible when we are the body because we are not the body. We are simply a mind that is thinking it is a form.
What thinks, then, just has to be changed. Change the mind and we change how we see the world.
Who wouldn’t want a world that is loving and peaceful? This is a basic need, without exception.
Inner peace means outer peace. What thinks happy thoughts has to become the sights that are seen.
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24th June 2025
“At any moment, you have a choice, that either leads you closer to spirit or further away from it.” Thich Nhat Hanh.
According to the Holy Spirit’s teaching, only God’s purpose can be accomplished, and it is accomplished already. (ACIM, T-11.V.11:4)
***
Lesson 242. This day is God’s. It is my gift to Him (ACIM, W-242). Yesterday: The lesson told me that only the holy instant can bring salvation. It was a Monday and Mondays tend to be busy mornings. I tried to be present with someone who was telling me how her life is falling apart. Presence suggested that I shouldn’t say too much and just keep healthy boundaries. Life is perfect with spirit and not when it isn’t. Today: This lesson needs my total attention as I read it. It is addressed to my Self as well as the Self that is God, and this is of no interest to my little self which is only concerned with its own little universe. In fact, it has to feel threatened because, ultimately, it is living on borrowed time.
Reality opposes nothing. What merely is needs no defense, and offers none. Only illusions need defense because of weakness. And how can it be difficult to walk the way of truth when only weakness interferes? You are the strong one in this seeming conflict. And you need no defense. Everything that needs defense you do not want, for anything that needs defense will weaken you. (ACIM, T-22.V.1:6-12)
A Course in Miracles tells us that all defences are misplaced. They prove that we are trusting in something that is odd, alarming and quite unscrupulous in its nature.
It’s as if we need protection against attack - whether this be verbal or physical. Defences prove that to attack is to be strong. Defences are also the walls that we build around us to keep the vermin out.
The practice of the Workbook shows us the insanity of such thinking. It teaches us to be a witness instead of a denier. It wants us to observe what we have done and allow the Holy Spirit to undo it.
Undoing is forgiveness. It’s a merging with the mind of peace instead of staying with a mind in fear.
We have to become entirely accepting instead of wholly defensive. And this means we become happier because we fully understand that there is nothing to be unhappy about.
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243/ Last Resort
25th June 2025
“Be like the honeybee who gathers only nectar wherever it goes. Seek the goodness that is found in everyone.” Amma.
Fear is attracted to what love sees not, and each believes that what the other looks upon does not exist. (ACIM, T-19.IV-A.10:8)
***
Lesson 243. Today I will judge nothing that occurs (ACIM, W-243). Yesterday: It was around midday when I realised that I had misread a word in the lesson (seeing it as “live” instead of “lead”) and so hadn’t been reading the line “I will not lead my life alone today” correctly. From my own experience, I know how much I try to be in charge of the direction I take and so it’s good for me to correct my way of thinking. Today: This lesson tells me that we are all small parts, but each one of us contains the whole. The whole is perfect and therefore we shouldn’t judge anything as it occurs. Everything that happens to us is for the greater good.
Do you want freedom of the body or of the mind? For both you cannot have. Which do you value? Which is your goal? For one you see as means; the other, end. And one must serve the other and lead to its predominance, increasing its importance by diminishing its own. Means serve the end, and as the end is reached the value of the means decreases, eclipsed entirely when they are recognized as functionless. (ACIM, T-22.VI.1:1-7)
Ultimately, A Course in Miracles has to be a last resort. We need to have tried everything and nothing has worked. The pain has become so bad that it’s do or die.
Healers, diets, liquids, pills - name it and it’s been tried. We have run out of ideas.
And so we are asked to go inwards, not outwards. We have to face the cause and not the effects.
The cause of all our pain is always the ego. The cause is the absolute terror that we have somehow offended God. It is a separation anxiety and it always increases the more we try to suppress it.
Our anxieties simply have to be faced. We need to step into the storm and rid the storm of its rage.
Our last resort, then, is forgiveness. This is the balm that heals the cause and takes the pain away.
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244/ Point of Light
26th June 2025
“There is a light within every soul; it only needs the clouds that overshadow it to be broken for it to beam forth.” Hazrat Inayat Khan.
In order to see, you must recognize that light is within, not without. (ACIM, W-44.2:1)
***
Lesson 244. I am in danger nowhere in the world (ACIM, W-244). Yesterday: The lesson asked us not to judge anything that occurs. In the morning, I covered a yoga class and a woman - of whom I had already made some assumptions - attended. After the class, she was the last to leave and we had an unexpected and engaging conversation in which all of my assumptions went crashing. They were replaced by a sense of awe. Today: I do doubt this lesson but I want to believe it - really, truly, honestly. For me, danger never seems too far away.
Nothing around you but is part of you. Look on it lovingly, and see the light of Heaven in it. So will you come to understand all that is given you. In kind forgiveness will the world sparkle and shine, and everything you once thought sinful now will be reinterpreted as part of Heaven. (ACIM, T-23.in.6:1-4)
A Course in Miracles arises from the tiny point of light. It sits quietly within all of us, just waiting.
This point of light can change our whole outlook, but only if vision returns to the mind that wants it.
And this is when the mind lets go of the physical and moves to the spiritual. It’s called an awakening.
The mind then fills with the memory of an eternal and ecstatic love which encompasses everything.
And we are that light. We belong to it and it belongs to us. The point of light is our origin and end.
Wayne Morrison’s near-death experience showed him that light and it changed his life forever. It allowed him to know that how we treat others is how we feel about ourselves. We become what we think we are and love is always the essence of everything.
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245/ Spider’s Web
27th June 2025
“You are never alone or helpless. The force that guides the stars guides you too.” Shrii Shrii Anandamurti.
The whole power of God’s Son lies in all of us, but not in any of us alone. (ACIM, T-8.VI.8:5)
***
Lesson 245. Your peace is with me, Father. I am safe (ACIM, W-245). Yesterday: The lesson went against everything we should feel as bodies and also as minds that think. It stated that we can never be in danger in the world. As I applied this theme throughout the day, I was secretly glad that I only had to visit a garden centre in the morning and cut the grass in the afternoon. I didn’t want to put the theory to the test. Today: This lesson (for me) is so beautiful. It is about being peaceful enough to hear the echo of God’s Voice. I feel that it is the same as turning down the volume on the radio when it’s just too loud. A little earlier, I’d been alternating between a quiet mind and a noisy mind for the fifteen minutes of my meditation.
The memory of God comes to the quiet mind. It cannot come where there is conflict, for a mind at war against itself remembers not eternal gentleness. The means of war are not the means of peace, and what the warlike would remember is not love. War is impossible unless belief in victory is cherished. (ACIM, T-23.I.1:1-4)
A Course in Miracles tells us that the ego is at war with God. Any unease we feel is merely the belief that the ego has the power to be victorious.
It’s important to recognize this unease. It could be felt as anything - anger, depression, sadness, indifference - it doesn’t matter. It is simply a story that our thoughts are making up in the mind.
It is the ego asserting its authority. The ego loves to push us into a corner and then pretend to help.
And God isn’t aware of this, just as we aren’t aware how a fly feels when trapped in a spider’s web.
The point of freeing our minds of the ego is for the same reason that we might remove the spider’s web. There is simply nothing that our thoughts can cling to.
This allows us to experience absolute inner peace. All war stops when the mind just can’t be fearful.
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246/ Split Mind
28th June 2025
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is.” Albert Einstein.
The basic decision of the miracle-minded is not to wait on time any longer than is necessary. (ACIM, T-1.V.2:1)
***
Lesson 246. To love my Father is to love His Son (ACIM, W-246). Yesterday: The lesson was about peace and peace is exactly what the Holy Spirit Is. In the morning, I read a quote from Hafez which was so beautiful that I had to write it down and take it into the class I was covering. This was the first time I have ever done that in nearly seventeen years of teaching yoga and, when I got there, the students teasingly said that their teacher always uses a quote to finish her class. To me, this is how the Holy Spirit works; this is the Holy Spirit in action. Today: This lesson is quite unambiguous (as they all are). The only way to be constantly peaceful is to see that peace in everyone. There is no one anywhere that cannot be loved. We have to see that love everywhere.
There is no life outside of Heaven. Where God created life, there life must be. In any state apart from Heaven life is illusion. At best it seems like life; at worst, like death. Yet both are judgments on what is not life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning. Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is not in Heaven is not anywhere. (ACIM, T-23.II.19:1-6)
A Course in Miracles tells us that there is only conflict outside of Heaven, and all conflict has to be illusory. To be in Heaven means there is only total peace.
Any illusion is always a form and it is only because the mind is split that this feels impossible to understand. We think we are physical forms but what is real could never be seen by the body’s eyes.
The metaphysics of A Course in Miracles only sparks an interest in the part of the mind that knows God. The split mind refutes it and is triggered by it, and it is this that we have to actively heal.
The forgiveness that heals the split mind is not known by the world. It simply shows us that nothing has happened and the world does not exist. We (the Christ) have never left Heaven (God’s Oneness).
We could find any number of reasons for not doing A Course in Miracles but we should never ask the split mind for answers. It is only when the mind is healed that all conflicts just fall away and cease.
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29th June 2025
“If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten your path.” Buddha.
Learning is joyful if it leads you along your natural path, and facilitates the development of what you have. (ACIM, T-8.II.2:7)
***
Lesson 247. Without forgiveness I will still be blind (ACIM, W-247). Yesterday: It was a Saturday and, for me, Saturdays are busy but satisfying mornings. I looked at the lesson as often as I could but, later, I did forget for a couple of hours. Maybe I was because I was taking the grass cuttings to the recycling centre and felt pissed at the man because he said it was closed? Life gets in the way of the discipline of practice and, as the lesson told me, I can only know the Father when I see the love in the Son. Today: As I was sitting with this lesson, I heard a cat meowing far away, and my mind made up scenarios about cats; earlier I had written down a couple of quotes - same thing, more scenarios. My mind was active and yet forgiveness means looking past this activity to the peace. What does my thinking have to do with the constant peace of the Holy Spirit in my mind?
There is no safety in a battleground. You can look down on it in safety from above and not be touched. But from within it you can find no safety. Not one tree left still standing will shelter you. Not one illusion of protection stands against the faith in murder. Here stands the body, torn between the natural desire to communicate and the unnatural intent to murder and to die. (ACIM, T-23.III.6:5-10)
A Course in Miracles asks us if guilt can be absent from a battlefield? By definition, wars are about slaughter and attack, of gaining what the other will lose.
We need to change the cause of the battle. This is clearly the ego whose purpose is to control.
The change occurs when we learn to love as the guns are firing. Our practice is to see love whenever we feel threatened - this means regardless of what our minds are telling us is happening.
Only a peaceful mind can make the right decision. Only peace can ever be the bringer of peace.
It is not easy to accept that our thoughts establish our reality. We are the cause of the death we see.
And we bring a truce to the battle with forgiveness. The war always stops when peacefulness can be.
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248/ Wholly Sinless
30th June 2025
“What if nothing exists and we’re all in somebody’s dream?” Woody Allen.
Like you, your brother thinks he is a dream. Share not in his illusion of himself, for your Identity depends on his reality. (ACIM, T-28.IV.3:1-2)
***
Lesson 248. Whatever suffers is not part of me (ACIM, W-248). Yesterday: As I write this, I am thinking in different time lines. Tomorrow (a Tuesday) my wife is going into hospital to have a cataract op. Yesterday (a Sunday) I spent too long talking to a neighbour I barely know - a very interesting conversation about spiritual beliefs - and my wife became upset because we should have been going out and she didn’t know where I was. I now feel upset because she was upset and am also feeling anxious because she is feeling anxious. This is perfect for forgiveness. Today: This lesson is easy to read and just what I wanted to hear. It is supported by a passage I have just read in the Text that states that the body is simply an empty frame - our real Self is framed by God through the Holy Spirit. This puts into context the illusory nature of self and suffering.
Do not remain in conflict, for there is no war without attack. The fear of God is fear of life, and not of death. Yet He remains the only place of safety. In Him is no attack, and no illusion in any form stalks Heaven. Heaven is wholly true. No difference enters, and what is all the same cannot conflict. (ACIM, T-23.IV.1:1-6)
A Course in Miracles reminds us that we don’t actually need forgiveness. It states that the wholly pure have never sinned and what we are is beyond forgiveness.
We are all the same Self because we are not a body. The body is just an expression of a belief in sin.
What we are is spirit - whole, pure and innocent - and this is not a figment of our mind’s imagination.
Our goal, then, as we study the lessons, is to see as God sees and to act as God acts. God is One and cannot be divided. God’s Will is exactly the same as ours.
Our will is freewill and so the whole purpose of forgiveness is to undo the cause of the source of sin.
The split mind judges but love does not. Love is the permanent state of the wholly sinless mind.
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249/ When Life Flows
1st July 2025
“In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.” Deepak Chopra.
Your creation by God is the only Foundation that cannot be shaken, because the light is in it. (ACIM, T-3.VII.5:5)
***
Lesson 249. Forgiveness ends all suffering and loss (ACIM, W-249). Yesterday: The lesson showed me that “whatever suffers is not part of me”. At around midday, I was listening as a client explained about her neighbour’s suicide attempt - extreme suffering. She said that she was being blamed by other neighbours for his condition - more suffering. She told me that her life had become one disaster after another - suffering continued. And so it went on. In the ego’s world, suffering is required but it has to be met with love. Today: It’s amazing how the mind pushes forward to create new scenarios about the future, as well as jumping back with thoughts of the past. I experienced all of this as I sat with this lesson a short while ago and, each time that I became aware of what was happening, I would forgive my thoughts by letting them fade and gently go.
To learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold. Not one can be kept hidden and obscure but it will jeopardize your learning. No belief is neutral. Every one has the power to dictate each decision you make. For a decision is a conclusion based on everything that you believe. (ACIM, T-24.in.2:1-5)
We decide for good or bad. Life is either going our way or it is going against us. Very rarely can we ever decide to just be and do nothing.
We all have our projects and ideas for the future. We love to predict and plan for more happiness than we had in the past. We are basically seeking for more because we are scared of having less.
And the past lies dormant and ready to haunt us. One tiny thought might trigger a whole cascade of events whereby we end up feeling frantic. And this is what we are trying to distance ourselves from.
A Course in Miracles brings us back into the present moment. It tells us that it is only now that life actually happens and it is only now that life can be lived.
Nothing can ever be wrong in this very instant; what is now holds only peace and expansion. It is only when we stop running from this instant that life starts to flow and neediness begins to fade.
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250/ Pure and Undiluted
2nd July 2025
“The world is nothing but a moment.” Rumi.
It is with your thoughts, then, that we must work, if your perception of the world is to be changed. (ACIM, W-23.1:5)
***
Lesson 250. Let me not see myself as limited (ACIM, W-250). Yesterday: The lesson told us that forgiveness ends all suffering and loss. Suffering and loss describe the human condition - although, when bad things do happen, I do feel that we might also experience human generosity and support. It was a day where my wife had her cataract removed and it was definitely a process where human kindness played a part. Today: I’m not sure how much I fulfilled the potential of this lesson - seeing myself as unlimited and a holy Son of God. Great waves of thought took me away from my goal as I sat with it earlier but I just had to keep returning to the theme that I am not the body and am something more elevated and higher.
Would it be possible for you to hate your brother if you were like him? Could you attack him if you realized you journey with him, to a goal that is the same? Would you not help him reach it in every way you could, if his attainment of it were perceived as yours? You are his enemy in specialness; his friend in a shared purpose. (ACIM, T-24.I.6:1-4)
We are one, not many. We are mind, not the body. We are at peace, not incomplete.
A Course in Miracles asks us to find the light within our minds. It emphatically states that everyone is that light.
We are reminded that we are all friends, not foes. We just have to opt for love as opposed to hate.
And everyone we meet is a yet another chance to unshackle the mind from its illusory darkness.
The truth is, we can be at peace or we can be searching for peace. We can be eternal or we can continue to be transient. We can be whole or we can remain broken off into little pieces.
The changeless never changes. Reality is always pure and undiluted. Truth encompasses everything and is the only expression of a love-filled mind.
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3rd July 2025
“You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you.” Barack Obama.
Error cannot really threaten truth, which can always withstand it. Only the error is actually vulnerable. (ACIM, T-1.III.5:1-2)
***
Lesson 251. I am in need of nothing but the truth (ACIM, W-251). Yesterday: Letting go of limitations was the theme of the lesson - it was all about seeing the light in everyone we meet. For me, it was also about being aware of the insults I sometimes hurl at myself and just going with the flow of non-thought. That, I feel, is being with the Holy Spirit. Today: To know the truth is the goal of the day. This means that the only judgement I should hold about myself is that I am perfect. This is not perfection in terms of doing (as in the ego) but more in terms of just being (as in the Self). I will endeavour to be diligent in my practice.
You can defend your specialness, but never will you hear the Voice for God beside it. They speak a different language and they fall on different ears. To every special one a different message, and one with different meaning, is the truth. Yet how can truth be different to each one? The special messages the special hear convince them they are different and apart; each in his special sins and “safe” from love, which does not see his specialness at all. (ACIM, T-24.II.5:1-5)
We’re often told that we need to live our truth. A Course in Miracles reminds us that there is only one truth - that we are completely and utterly One with God.
There is no opposite to what we are. Everything is perfect. Nothing can die because everything lives.
No wonder, then, that we are so confused. Being right about death means we are wrong about life.
And the near-death experience is yet more proof of our wrongness. It establishes life as a fact.
Lesley Lupo tells us that dying is such a relief. She was crushed by a stampede of horses in 1988 and left her body. For years, she felt she had to be careful about who she told about her near-death experience. But she also knew that every breath is precious and that she had to turn her life around.
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252/ Where It Begins
4th July 2025
“Let your Teacher be Love itself.” Rumi.
Spirit need not be taught, but the ego must be. (ACIM, T-4.I.3:1)
***
Lesson 252. The Son of God is my Identity (ACIM, W-252). Yesterday: The lesson told me that only truth is important. Truth is oneness and, when going to a dance class in the morning, I could feel that oneness - not immediately but after a while, when all my judgements had been let go and the mind heard the music, and when the body was just moving without thought, then that touched the very edge of truth. Today: This morning, as I awoke, I had an exquisite feeling of peace. There were no churning thoughts, no anticipation of the day, just a feeling that everything is alright as it is now. And I sensed that this is what it must be like to be with the Holy Spirit. It was a nice surprise.
Forgiveness is the end of specialness. Only illusions can be forgiven, and then they disappear. Forgiveness is release from all illusions, and that is why it is impossible but partly to forgive. No one who clings to one illusion can see himself as sinless, for he holds one error to himself as lovely still. And so he calls it “unforgivable,” and makes it sin. (ACIM, T-24.III.1:1-5)
Sin is always personal. Sin is simply an excuse for suffering.
Forgiveness is always about someone else. Someone out in la-la land has hurt us.
A Course in Miracles wants us to know that sin and forgiveness are inherent in the mind that has invented fear. One is as illusory as the other.
It’s a statement that nothing in the world can ever hurt us; we have made the hurt in the world.
And so, as a way of putting theory into practice, we need to practice forgiveness.
This is when truth starts and illusion ends. We are working on the cause and not the effect
The source of all suffering is always in the mind. It is only from within the mind that all reality begins.
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