Reflections 309 to 322
309/ Nothing and Everything
30th August 2025
“I was no longer the centre of my life and therefore I could see God in everything.” Venerable Bede.
If God created His Son perfect, that is how you must learn to see him to learn of his reality. (ACIM, T-10.V.12:5)
***
Lesson 309. I will not fear to look within today (ACIM, W-309). Yesterday: The lesson was all about coming back to now (“this instant is the only time there is”). Whenever I sat with it, or just read it, it was always a good reminder to come back to the present moment. Where we are is the only place to be, although my thoughts enjoy disputing otherwise. Today: This feels a great lesson to practise. I have just been reading in the Manual for Teachers how God placed the Answer into the mind of His Son (what we are) the instant that the thought of separation arose. This makes sense to me and puts into perspective all the nonsense that my fearful mind is thinking.
An ancient hate is passing from the world. And with it goes all hatred and all fear. Look back no longer, for what lies ahead is all you ever wanted in your heat. Give up the world! But not to sacrifice. You never wanted it. What happiness have you sought here that did not bring you pain? What moment of content has not been bought at fearful price in coins of suffering? (ACIM, T-30.V.9:1-8)
Forgiveness, then, is the key to happiness. It brings us the real world and, beyond the real world, it serves no purpose. There is none, for A Course in Miracles tells us that we are one with God.
The antidote to guilt is always forgiveness. Guilt shows us the false world - one of pain and suffering - and aspects of that world are probably what we are looking at now. Therefore, forgiveness is the antidote to pain of any kind.
What we need to do is undo. We have to remove all the layers of the onion until there are no more left to peel away. And then we will find that it is not nothing we find but everything.
We are afraid of one single thought. It is a thought that has become magnified into billions of different thoughts but, ultimately, the thought is ephemeral and lifeless.
One single thought of fear appears to block us off from everything. Forgiveness exposes it so that we have no choice but to look at it. And all we do is find it is not there.
310/ When Time Stops
31st August 2025
“A warm smile is the universal language of kindness.” William Arthur Ward.
In the holy instant, you will see the smile of Heaven shining on both you and your brother. (ACIM, T-19.III.10:1)
***
Lesson 310. In fearlessness and love I spend today (ACIM, W-310). Yesterday: The lesson was pleasantly straightforward - it was about removing the fear to look within. A line from the lesson stated: “I fear to look within because I think I made another will that is not true, and made it real.” I appreciated that. It is so obvious that a lot of my thinking is mindless gibberish and yet I place so much importance on it. Today: A slight tummy ache negated the effect of my first sitting with this lesson. My mind would float off into flights of self-absorption and I would have to keep returning to the theme of the lesson, which is fearlessness and love.
Look on your brother with the willingness to see him as he is. And do not keep a part of him outside your willingness that he be healed. To heal is to make whole. And what is whole can have no missing parts that have been kept outside. Forgiveness rests on recognizing this, and being glad there cannot be some forms of sickness which the miracle must lack the power to heal. (ACIM, T-30.VI.8:1-5)
A Course in Miracles tells us that God’s Son is perfect because, if he wasn’t perfect, he wouldn’t be God’s Son.
What we see is a symbol of life or death; we either see the ego or the Holy Spirit; we either judge with a passion or we love unconditionally.
There are no half-measures within two thought systems that are polar opposites. One has love at its core and the other has fear.
And it is fear that has to be the motivation for applying ourselves to A Course in Miracles. Fear has led us down dark alleyways and on to nowhere. It taunts us with promises it can never keep.
Love is the inevitable consequence of practising A Course in Miracles. This is not dependent on time.
Therefore, time is symbolic to a mind that is fearful. Time only stops when the mind is at peace.
1st September 2025
“Life can give everything to whoever tries to understand and is willing to receive new knowledge.” Pramoedyer Ananta Toer.
The knowledge that illuminates not only sets you free, but also shows you clearly that you are free. (ACIM, T-2.I.4:9)
***
Lesson 311. I judge all things as I would have them be (ACIM, W-311). Yesterday: The lesson pointed to fearlessness and love. Several satisfying things happened during the day. I cleaned all of the windows and cut the grass. I completed some online training and so all the little jobs that I have been deflecting seemed to get done. As the day went on, I felt fearless and full of love. Today: This lesson asks us to release all judgement because we only know the tiniest part of what totality is. Judgement arises through the ego and the ego is an illusion. God’s Judgement is that we are perfect and this is all that matters.
What do your scripts reflect except your plans for what the day should be? And thus you judge disaster and success, advance, retreat, and gain and loss. These judgments all are made according to the roles the script assigns. The fact they have no meaning in themselves is demonstrated by the ease with which these labels change with other judgments, made on different aspects of experience. (ACIM, T-30.VII.2:1-4)
A Course in Miracle tells us that only a constant purpose can give any event that unfolds during the day a stable meaning. The ego puts different meanings onto everything; the Holy Spirit sees one meaning in everything.
Fear is never satisfied; love, by definition, always is and relationships are the actual proof of this. It means we either see the other person with the ego or the Holy Spirit, and only the latter involves absolutely no judgement at all.
A Course in Miracles also tells us that we need a dream of “pardon” if we want a constant purpose within the “dream”. What we see stabilizes and symbolizes everything that is is good. We breathe in love instead of hate.
And, as A Course in Miracles reminds us, our days are not at random. We are completely and utterly responsible for what we see. Discipline our thoughts and we see with the right mind; this is when life becomes perfect and flows with ease and spontaneity.
2nd September 2025
“The truly good gaze upon everything with love and understanding.” Dalai Lama.
God is praised whenever any mind learns to be wholly helpful. (ACIM, T-4.VII.8:1)
***
Lesson 312. I see all things as I would have them be (ACIM, W-312). Yesterday: The lesson was about judgement, which happens all the time with a split mind. There was a car, which seemed to be parked a lot on the pavement right outside our front door. My mind was getting annoyed, wondering why it had to park there, and I was beginning to think I would have to confront the driver. I asked the Holy Spirit to see it differently and, last night, as I tweaked the blinds, I saw the young son of the neighbour across the road in the driver’s seat. He reversed the car out and parked in their driveway. All my anxiety disappeared. Such a nice family, and I began to enjoy my evening. Today: This lesson reminds us that perception follows judgement. My dilemma is how to shift from the thought system of the ego to the thought system of the Holy Spirit. I wish there was a switch I could turn on and off. Sometimes the ego just seems so loud.
What is temptation but a wish to make illusions real? It does not seem to be the wish that no reality be so. Yet it is an assertion that some forms of idols have a powerful appeal that makes them harder to resist than those you would not want to have reality. Temptation, then, is nothing more than this; a prayer the miracle touch not some dreams, but keep their unreality obscure and give to them reality instead. (ACIM, T-30.VIII.3:1-4)
A Course in Miracles tells us that reality is changeless. The split mind has merely reduced reality to forms that are capable of change.
Appearances therefore deceive because reality needs vision, not sight.
The miracle proves that linear time can be manipulated. It is like a conjuring trick. Form disappears and is replaced by another form. We awaken for a moment and then fall back into sleep again.
The holy instant is therefore a changeless reality. It is witnessed by the unified and happy mind.
And changeless perfection is found only in the present moment. It is a simple case of hit or miss.
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313/ Like Attracts Like
3rd September 2025
“All it takes is one good person to restore hope.” Pope Francis.
Child of God, you were created to create the good, the beautiful and the holy. Do not forget this. (ACIM, T-1.VII.2:1-2)
***
Lesson 313. Now let a new perception come to me (ACIM, W-313). Yesterday: The lesson states that it is impossible to overlook what we would see, the implication being that there are only two ways of seeing - with the Holy Spirit or with the ego. It was a good morning in which I spent three hours trimming my neighbour’s laurel hedge (paid work) and it set me up to feel very glad that I was alive. Today: We are asked to have a new perception, which means seeing a new world. So many images appeared as I sat with this lesson, and none of them mirrored the light of Christ in my mind. Vision is always the purpose of the lesson.
There is no living thing that does not share the universal Will that it be whole, and that you do not leave its call unheard. Without your answer is it left to die, as it is saved from death when you have heard its calling as the ancient call to life, and understood that it is but your own. The Christ in you remembers God with all the certainty with which He knows His Love. (ACIM, T-31.I.9:1-3)
Everyone we meet, then, is a reflection of what is going on inside our minds. If guilt is coming up, then it will be mirrored back to us; if it is peace, then this is reflected back to us. Nothing escapes.
When we realise this, then we can fully appreciate that life is fair and on our side.
A Course in Miracles asks us to forget all the bad thoughts we have ever had. Instead, it asks that we remember only the thoughts of love and it is this that is going to attract the same into our lives.
The ego distracts us, playing havoc with our sense of self. It keeps us searching outwards for something - anything - to quell our inner thirst.
The Holy Spirit reminds us that we don’t have to go anywhere. It comes through as an inner knowing that requires absolutely no thought at all.
Therefore, like attracts like. It is the fundamental law that governs the mind.
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314/ Silence Speaks
4th September 2025
“In every person there is a sun. Just let them shine.” Socrates.
There can be no disinherited parts of the Sonship, for God is whole and all His extensions are like Him. (ACIM, T-12.IV.6:8)
***
Lesson 314. I seek a future different from the past (ACIM, W-314). Yesterday: The lesson was about gaining a new perception; it was about awakening from the dream of sin. It was a day where I went for my first swim in a very long time - and in a fifty metre pool as well. It was glorious. The dream of sin was gone. Today: This lesson continues with the theme of changing perception; it says that, when we do change our perception, then the future just becomes an extension of the present. This means no more pain which is very good news.
Be very still an instant. Come without all thought of what you ever learned before, and put aside all images you made. The old will fall away before the new without your opposition or intent. There will be no attack upon the things you thought were precious and in need of care. There will be no assault upon your wish to hear a call that never has been made. Nothing will hurt you in this holy place, to which you come to listen silently and learn the truth of what you really want. (ACIM, T-31.II.8:1-6)
The lesson today asks us to forget the past. This means that the present just takes care of itself.
The passage above does the same. It asks us to be very still for just an instant.
A Course in Miracles is therefore the process of becoming silent enough to hear the Voice for God. It guides our minds away from the static of the ego and towards a place where silence speaks.
The ego demands our full attention. Silence doesn’t demand anything except a curiosity to listen.
Erin Michelle Galito channels Jesus in the video below. Jesus tells us that our goal is to stop being mindless and to start being mindful. It is to become aware of what we are and to become awake in our Identity. All conflict disappears when clarity returns and we correct the error that is the ego.
315/
Heart of God
5th September 2025
“Prayer is an act of love. Words are not needed.” Teresa of Ávila.
What you ask for you receive. But this refers to the prayer of the heart, not to the words you use in praying. (ACIM, M-21.1:3-4)
***
Lesson 315. All gifts my brothers give belong to me (ACIM, W-315). Yesterday: Thank goodness for the hourly reminders on my phone. I’d be doing something and would be jolted out of my forgetfulness. And the lesson was all about coming back to the present moment (“I seek a future different from the past”) which meant that I could really enjoy where I was at that moment. Today: I found this a hard lesson to get to grips with on first reading. It might be because I am more inclined to concentrate on the negative in people - the possibility that I might have to defend myself. This lesson only emphasises the good that others do and how it affects us all.
Learn this, and learn it well, for it is here delay of happiness is shortened by a span of time you cannot realize. You never hate your brother for his sins, but only for your own. Whatever form his sins appear to take, it but obscures the fact that you believe them to be yours, and therefore meeting a “just” attack. (ACIM, T-31.III.1:4-6)
A Course in Miracles tells us that we are a ‘sin’ whenever we ‘attack’ anyone, and ‘attack’ means simply a thought of judgement.
Whenever we think a bad thought about anyone, it is proof that we are guilty and we are giving as we deserve. If we didn’t believe that we deserved ‘attack’, then we wouldn’t give ‘attack’ at all.
The passage above, then, is such an important teaching from within the Text. It also highlights the practical reasons as to why we apply ourselves to the Workbook.
Each lesson is there to show us our innocence.
Every time we sit with a lesson, we are setting an intention.
And whenever we finish the Workbook, we are told it is not an end but a beginning from which we start again. The paradox is that the Beginning is where we return to - at home in the Heart of God.
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316/ Laughter Now
6th September 2025
“Those who are right do not argue. Those who argue are not right.” Laozi.
Correct perception of your brother is necessary, because minds have chosen to see themselves as separate. (ACIM, T-3.V.9:2)
***
Lesson 316. All gifts I give my brothers are my own (ACIM, W-316). Yesterday: The lesson was “all gifts my brothers give belong to me.” Currently, my ego is wanting to know what the gift would be if someone had said something unpleasant to me? My right mind knows the answer - everything is an act of love or a call to love. Today: This lesson is a verification that what I give out is what I get back. Even now, as I write this, I have already sent out a Christ blessing to a couple of people I was thinking about, and I was thinking of them with a little less gratitude than I might have had.
Real choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. All its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death. There is no choice in its alternatives. Seek not escape from problems here. The world was made that problems could not be escaped. Be not deceived by all the different names its roads are given. They have but one end. (ACIM, T-31.IV.2:1-8)
Everything in the world leads to death. This is the obvious statement that the passage above is making. We can’t deny that it is true but we do need to prove that it is false.
And proving that it is false might appear to take a very long time but in fact it happens in just an instant. This is because nothing really happened at all.
The practice of A Course in Miracles takes us back to a moment out of time where all was one and the Son of God forgot to laugh. The Voice of A Course in Miracles must have been laughing all the time the transmission was taking place over a period of those seven years.
And meanwhile, the Son of God just sits beneath our suppressed sorrow and is waiting to be seen. The Son of God equals a realm of love that is just asking for our attention.
That realm is a peace that surpasses all understanding. It is outside of time and has no meaning to a mind that is serious. We find it by not taking life so seriously. We just want to become alive to the laughter that is contained within the present moment and not be dead to it in the past.
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317/ Beyond Thought
7th September 2025
“The perfect man uses his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing. It regrets nothing. It receives but does not keep.” Zhuangzi.
The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, the mind heals the body because it has been healed. (ACIM, T-5.V.5:1-2)
***
Lesson 317. I follow in the way appointed me (ACIM, W-317). The lesson (“all gifts I give my brothers are my own”) basically states that all of God’s gifts are ours to share. Each time I looked at the lesson (and there was a block of about three hours when I totally forgot), it was always a reminder that life is fair and we are one. Today: Here, the lesson begins with a first-person pronoun and so it immediately got my attention. It felt personal, reminding me that ‘I’ have a special place to fill (a role for me alone) in salvation. This made me feel special and worthy.
All choices in the world depend on this; you choose between your brother and yourself, and you will gain as much as he will lose, and what you lose is what is given him. How utterly opposed to truth is this, when all the lesson’s purpose is to teach that what your brother loses you have lost, and what he gains is what is given you. (ACIM, T-31.IV.8:4-5)
The passage above is such a key teaching within A Course in Miracles. We should read it time and time again, just to get the gist of it.
We look to the world as the solution to our problems and this is the big no-no. We should always look to our brothers, and especially those who press our buttons. Herein lies the solution.
What we give is what we receive - there is absolutely no getting away from this. Give love and we receive love, and it is the same with any unloving thoughts that we might have.
It begins and ends in the mind, because we are one mind. What we do to others, we do to ourselves.
Therefore, we need to be the awareness that is watching our thoughts. We become the observer.
Thoughts are the narrative that keeps the ego. Beyond thought is the love of which we are all a part.
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318/ Life Is a Continuum
8th September 2025
“If you know, say you know. If you don’t know, say you don’t know.” Confucius.
Doubts about being must not enter your mind, or you cannot know what you are with certainty. (ACIM, T-6.V-C.8:7)
***
Lesson 318. In me salvation’s means and end are one (ACIM, W-318). Yesterday: The lesson asked me to follow in the way that had been appointed and, at my age (sixty five), I feel I am in the right time and place. I can’t think of anywhere I would rather be than where I am now. And it is in the same part of the world that I grew up in, which I hated at the time, and this makes me feel extremely lucky. Today: I didn’t really get this lesson when I sat with it, and so I had to keep repeating the title and re-reading the lesson as I was meditating. However, I did read the additional page about creation and that made a lot of sense. Creation is the sum of God’s Thoughts and so my thoughts mean absolutely nothing at all.
Concepts are learned. They are not natural. Apart from learning they do not exist. They are not given, so they must be made. Not one of them is true, and many come from feverish imaginations, hot with hatred and distortions born of fear. What is a concept but a thought to which its maker gives a meaning of his own? (ACIM, T-31.V.7:1-6)
We are all a concept. Each one of us has made up an idea that we label as me, myself and ‘i’.
The world is a concept. It is a series of thoughts that are joined together and projected outwards.
Which means that everything we see are also concepts. They are shapes and forms that we have labelled with a meaning.
A Course in Miracles points this out in the nicest possible way and then shows us what we really are. It reminds us that salvation is simply the escape from all concepts. It tells us not to seek the Self in symbols but merely to question every aspect of what we think we are.
If we think we are a body, then that dies and we will die along with it. This is misery.
If we know that we are spirit, then life is a continuum and we enjoy the ride. This is happiness.
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319/ What Do We Choose?
9th September 2025
“Awareness of ignorance is the beginning of wisdom.” Socrates.
Innocence is wisdom because it is unaware of evil, and evil does not exist. (ACIM, T-3.I.7:4)
***
Lesson 319. I came for the salvation of the world (ACIM, W-319). Yesterday: For some reason, I never really connected with the essence of the lesson (“in me salvation’s means and ends are one”). Even when I sat for my final extended meditation in the evening, there was another lesson on my laptop screen and I had to check if it was the right one. I practised the lesson throughout the day but felt I got nowhere. Today: This lesson is also about salvation but mentions that arrogance prevents it. I remember a teacher calling me arrogant when I was about twelve, and then added that I was an enigma. Thank you Mrs Hooper, nothing much has changed.
Are you invulnerable? Then the world is harmless in your sight. Do you forgive? Then is the world forgiving, for you have forgiven it its trespasses, and so it looks on you with eyes that see as yours. Are you a body? So is all the world perceived as treacherous, and out to kill. Are you a spirit, deathless, and without the promise of corruption and the stain of sin upon you? So the world is seen as stable, fully worthy of your trust; a happy place to rest in for a while, where nothing need be feared, but only loved. (ACIM, T-31.VI.6:1-8)
The passage above can be condensed into the only two options we have to mind. We should read it time and time again simply to bring a degree of realism to our choices.
The two options are love and fear. Love makes us invulnerable and is known as spirit; fear equals the body and brings with it its own set of constraints.
A Course in Miracles teaches forgiveness as the process of returning the mind from fear to love.
The ego is the fear. It is self-made and is an entirely voluntary state of mind.
The Holy Spirit is the love. This is what the mind is, and what we are made of but we have forgotten.
Therefore, what do we choose? We either commit to fear or we commit to love. If we end up doing a bit of both, then only the ego will benefit from that option.
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320/ Minds Are One
10th September 2025
“If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.” Mother Teresa.
You cannot change laws you did not make, and the laws of happiness were created for you, not by you. (ACIM, T-9.I.11:9)
***
Lesson 320. My Father gives all power unto me (ACIM, W-320). Yesterday: The lesson stated that removing arrogance enables truth to fill the gap. Arrogance therefore might be equated with the absence of peace. For me, my thoughts might be calm and peaceful, and the next moment they are having a rant. I can swing from truth to lies in just an instant, Today: I have a habit of reciting the fifty principles of miracles before I do any study of ACIM in the morning. Earlier, I felt as if I was underwater and was alternating between a feeling of being fearful and being relaxed. Getting to the surface could easily be equated with awakening.
The concept of the self stands like a shield, a silent barricade before the truth, and hides it from your sight. All things you see are images, because you look on them as through a barrier that dims your sight and warps your vision, so that you behold nothing with clarity. The light is kept from everything you see. At most, you glimpse a shadow of what lies beyond. At most, you glimpse a shadow of what lies beyond. At least, you merely look on darkness, and perceive the terrified imaginings that come from guilty thoughts and concepts born of fear. (ACIM, T-31.VII.7:1-5)
A Course in Miracles tells us that fear is hell. The world is a reflection of that hell.
A Course in Miracles states that temptation is simply the wish to stay in misery.
And everyone we meet becomes just another chance to release ourselves from the constraints of the body and find a glimpse of Heaven.
A Course in Miracles also states that, when God says, “Release My Son!”, He is actually talking to each one of us directly.
Hell, temptation and enslavement, then, are all illusory states of mind. They are easily rectifiable.
And release comes through forgiveness. This means that our minds and the Mind of God are One.
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321/ Reassurance and Attention
11th September 2025
“You only know me as you see me. Not as I actually am.” Immanuel Kant.
Because I am always with you, you are the way, the truth and the life. (ACIM, T-7.III.1:9)
***
Lesson 321. Father, my freedom is in You alone (ACIM, W-321). Yesterday: It just rained and rained and rained, which was quite a contrast to the extended period of sunshine we have had during the summer months. The lesson was “my Father gives all power unto me” and so I decided to keep dry, stay inside, and pay attention to the lesson. Today: I got the feeling while sitting just now that the Holy Spirit’s Voice is bigger and more expansive than the ego’s voice which seems quite shrill. Spirit is everywhere and the ego is limited.
To teach is to demonstrate. There are only two thought systems, and you demonstrate that you believe one or the other is true all the time. From your demonstration others learn, and so do you. (ACIM, M-in.2:1-3)
The body can be demanding. It needs constant reassurance and attention.
A Course in Miracles is one way of reassuring the body it is okay to be loving and kind. We attend to its every need because the mind is calm.
The ego is therefore the needy one. It is a system of thought that drives the body forward and is propelled by the past. It hates itself but disguises that hate with a pretence of love.
The Holy Spirit enables the body to be used as an expression of love. It knows the body is really nothing, except in the mind that thinks it is. Therefore, it is only the mind that needs correcting.
The video below gives us a taster of what it is like to leave the body. The near-death experience is unique to everyone but it does demonstrate how the passing over is painless, even if the physical process is not. It also tells us is that life carries on after death. We are immortal and we do not die.
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322/ Doing Our Best
12th September 2025
“Be kind. Every person you meet is fighting a difficult battle.” Plato.
All your difficulties stem from the fact that you do not recognize yourself, your brother or God. (ACIM, T-3.III.2:1)
***
Lesson 322. I can give up but what was never real (ACIM, W-322). Yesterday: There was a time in the evening, shortly before I did my final fifteen minute extended practice, when it suddenly occurred to me that I had forgotten the lesson for a large part of the afternoon. We had been at a dance class on the other side of the moor until lunchtime and I do remember reading it as soon as it had finished. After that? I am unsure. Today: This lesson basically tells me that, by giving up fear, then love will always take its place. It’s a bit like trying to quieten down a turbo-powered jet engine. The ego revs itself up just to make its presence felt.
There is a course for every teacher of God. The form of the course varies greatly. So do the particular teaching aids involved. But the content of the course never changes. Its central theme is always, “God’s Son is guiltless, and in his innocence is his salvation.” It can be taught by actions or thoughts; in words or soundlessly; in any language or in no language; in any place or time or manner. (ACIM, M-1.3:1-6)
A Course in Miracles tells us it is just one spiritual path amongst thousands. This is why A Course in Miracles begins with an indefinite article.
And it is curious that the passage above states that all spiritual paths begin and end with the premise that God’s Son is guiltless. Guilt is the subtext behind everything that we do.
Nor could anyone believe that innocence is our salvation. To the ego, this is madness.
Guilt and salvation are so intertwined that we have to undo the whole thought system that thought it up. The ego has to go so that the Holy Spirit can simply take its place.
Except the mind is so caught up in delusion that it can barely conceive that this is possible.
We have to commit fully to the teachings. But, when we don’t, we should never beat ourselves up.
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