Reflections 351 to 365
351/ Inkling of Truth
11th October 2025
“Live within; be not shaken by outward happenings.” Sri Aurobindo.
Look, then, upon the light He placed within you, and learn that what you feared was there has been replaced with love. (ACIM, T-13.IX.8:13)
***
Lesson 351. My sinless brother is my guide to peace. My sinful brother is my guide to pain. And which I choose to see I will behold. (ACIM, W-351). Yesterday: I had no gardening work and so started the day with a swim at our local fifty-metre pool and then went to Tai Chi with a group in the park. Later, I continued with a mosaic which is going to be a birthday present for my wife’s nephew, and this was followed by a long walk. Frankly, the day felt perfect within the dream. Today: I awoke this morning feeling scared - both of people and of things - and yet forgiveness is a process whereby I just sit with whatever comes up and allow it to be. The help is the peace within me that knows there is nothing to be scared about. This lesson helps me to feel that.
God indeed can be reached directly, for there is no distance between Him and His Son. His awareness is in everyone’s memory, and His Word is written on everyone’s heart. Yet this awareness and this memory can arise across the threshold of recognition only where all barriers to truth have been removed. In how many is this the case? (ACIM, M-26.1:1-4)
As soon as we get a glimmer of hope - a sense that there might be something greater that this limited body - we become a teacher of God.
We are all works-in-progress. No one is perfect because, if we were, we wouldn’t be here.
And there’s a saying that even a broken clock tells the correct time twice.
A Course in Miracles is all about healing the mind. It is not about avoiding the inner hate we hold about ourselves. It is about facing it and learning that the Holy Spirit doesn’t see it.
The Holy Spirit is pure, undiluted love and bliss. This is what we are.
To just have an inkling of this could be equated with having a full body massage. Without it, it is like applying some facial oil; the wrinkles remain and the aches and pains persist.
352/ Choice of Thought
12th October 2025
“All works of love are works of peace.” Mother Teresa.
In the world of scarcity, love has no meaning and peace is impossible. (ACIM, T-15.VI.5:1)
***
Lesson 352. Judgment and love are opposites. From one come all the sorrows of the world. But from the other comes the peace of God Himself (ACIM, W-352). Yesterday: Only a couple of days earlier, we had been taking a friend back to the coach station in Plymouth and had taken a completely different route because of attending a soul motion dance class. Coming back, we saw that the road we should have been travelling on had been blocked off, and yesterday I learned that it was because of two accidents - one a fatality. It occurred to me that we would have been right in the middle of it if we hadn’t of taken our visitor on that hour’s detour first. Was it a miracle that we missed either of those collisions? To me it was. Today: This lesson is nice and simple to practise. Beneath all the thoughts that judge - enveloping, surrounding and engulfing each and every one of them - is the peace of God. It doesn’t need to be chased. It just is.
Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem. Is it not madness to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end? We have asked this question before, but now we need to consider it more carefully. It is the one fixed, unchangeable belief of the world that all things in it are born only to die. This is regarded as “the way of nature,” not to be raised to question, but to be accepted as the “natural” law of life. (ACIM, M-27.1:1-5)
A Course in Miracles tells us that God did not create death because God did not create fear. Both death and fear are self-made beliefs in the mind.
Death, then, has become our symbol of the fear of God.
And this is why A Course in Miracles and the Bible will disagree completely on three deeply entrenched worldly facts. ACIM reminds us continually that God did not create the world, Jesus did not die for our sins and God’s Son is not a body.
The Bible is therefore dualistic in form. It is about bodies and for bodies. The world is its focus.
A Course in Miracles relates only to the mind and spirit. It is non-dualistic, meaning that there is no other. It tells us that our only choice is between two totally different systems of thought.
13th October 2025
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” Desmond Tutu.
It is impossible to conceive of light and darkness or everything and nothing as joint possibilities. (ACIM, T-3.II.1:3)
***
Lesson 353. My eyes, my tongue, my hands, my feet today have but one purpose; to be given Christ to use to bless the world with miracles (ACIM, W-353). Yesterday: The lesson told me that “I have within me both the memory of You, and One Who leads me to it”; it also reminded me that, as we walk around in bodies, love and forgiveness walk with us hand in hand. These two details felt both reassuring and crucial in that I need to hear them time and time again. Today: This lesson feels obvious but my first practice felt a bit functional. My mind was busy. We are heading off to South Africa for three weeks this time next Monday and today I am leaving for a few days to give my sister a break from looking after our mother. Things to do.
Very simply, the resurrection is the overcoming or surmounting of death. It is a reawakening or a rebirth; a change of mind about the meaning of the world. It is the acceptance of the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the world’s purpose; the acceptance of the Atonement for oneself. It is the end of dreams of misery, and the glad awareness of the Holy Spirit’s final dream. (ACIM, M-28.1:1-4)
A Course in Miracles tells us that the curriculum ends when we accept the Atonement fully and completely. The body is seen completely for what it is - nothing. Spirit encompasses everything and is everywhere.
Jesus saw this on the cross. His body was meaningless. Only life was meaningful because life is wholly of God and is God.
This is the high end but A Course in Miracles is very much about the low end. We have to get past the ego to know the Holy Spirit.
The ego, then, becomes our focus - in that the ego is only dismissed by being observed (and observed very closely). We want to be with all of our feelings as and when they happen.
Highs and lows are treated equally because they are all interpretations of a thinking pattern that arises out of fear. Life has nothing to do with fear because life arises only as an extension of love.
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14th October 2025
“The happiness of the world is transitory. The less you become attached to the world, the more you enjoy peace of mind.” Sri Sarada Devi.
If peace is eternal, you are at home only in eternity. (ACIM, T-5.III.10:8)
***
Lesson 354. We stand together, Christ and I, in peace and certainty of purpose. And in Him is His Creator, as He is in me (ACIM, W-354). Yesterday: The lesson essentially told me that the final step in awakening is losing myself in Christ - Christ becomes my Self. This meant that the tired part of myself - the part that felt frustrated and a bit anxious about travel - was still asleep. The repetition of the lesson, then, became a simple reminder of what I am and not what I imagined myself to be. Today: This lesson is so simple. All of us are sitting in Christ just as Christ sits in God. There is nothing that can ever disturb this - except a bunch of imagined thoughts and feelings. Look past these thoughts and we are free.
Here again is the paradox often referred to in the course. To say, “Of myself I can do nothing” is to gain all power. And yet it is but a seeming paradox. As God created you, you have all power. The image you made of yourself has none. The Holy Spirit knows the truth about you. The image you made does not. Yet, despite its obvious and complete ignorance, this image assumes it knows all things because you have given that belief to it. (ACIM, M-29.4:1-8)
We, the various entities that have a name, address and telephone number, or maybe don’t have, are merely concepts dreamt up in a mind that is split.
We, the one Self that is unified, whole, and complete, that knows itself as formless and at home within the Mind of God, are a natural extension of God’s Love.
And that extension is what life is. A Course in Miracles states that there is no death and this teaching has to go beyond the theoretical understanding. We need to know it completely.
Death arises from our fear of God. It is so deeply entrenched, awful and never to be looked at that it crucifies the mind and has to be the ultimate cause of all our suffering.
The solution is to look within to the peace in the mind. This feels hard but it really isn’t. It is when we become the witness to our thinking that all of our self-made concepts just dissolve and disappear.
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355/ Perfect Self
15th October 2025
“Where love rules, laws are not needed.” Annie Besant.
If you deny love, you will not know it because your cooperation is the law of its being. (ACIM, T-9.I.11:8)
***
Lesson 355. There is no end to all the peace of joy, and all the miracles that I will give, when I accept God’s Word. Why not today? (ACIM, W-355). Yesterday: I still try to keep the hourly observations of the lessons, honouring them whenever I forget, plus I sit for fifteen-minutes in the morning and the evening. I also know that the Workbook ends by saying that this is not the end but the beginning, and so I have recently noticed a thought popping into my mind as to when I might repeat the Workbook again? This, of course, is my ego asking. Today: This lesson ends with a question - basically asking us whether it is possible to awaken today? As I practised, my mind would settle into the theme of the lesson and then a story would arise which was always based on judgement. This is the ego keeping me asleep - in its own little way.
This is not a course in philosophical speculation, nor is it concerned with precise terminology. It is concerned only with Atonement, or the correction of perception. The means of the Atonement is forgiveness. The structure of “individual consciousness” is essentially irrelevant because it is a concept representing the “original error” or the “original sin.” (ACIM, C-in.1:1-4)
A Course in Miracles states that a universal theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only possible but necessary.
And this is our purpose as students of A Course in Miracles - to have the complete knowing that we are all one and a Child of God. This should be the experience that we are seeking.
To not follow our purpose is to stay as we are, meaning that we keep the belief we are the body. The body always equates with suffering, even if we do dress it up to cover over the cracks.
To suffer is to attack - and A Course in Miracles states that there is no difference between being attacked or attacking another. It all occurs within a dream and only in a dream is attack possible.
And the ego is that attack. To go beyond this, we need to awaken to what is beyond the ego. This is our perfect Self which is eternal, invulnerable and both a Creation of Love and a limitless joy.
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356/ As Form Disappears
16th October 2025
“Intuition is the whisper of the soul.” Jiddu Krishnamurti.
A pure mind knows the truth and this is its strength. (ACIM, T-3.I.5:5)
***
Lesson 356. Sickness is but another name for sin. Healing is but another name for God. The miracle is thus a call to Him (ACIM, W-356). Yesterday: The lesson asked us to accept God’s Word in order to bring peace and joy into our lives. I am currently listening to original Joel Goldsmith recordings from the ‘50s and ‘60s - a mystic who said exactly the same thing as ACIM. He told us that God comes into every relationship where love is the common goal, and healing is always the result. Like ACIM, we have to drop into our quiet centre in order to know the mystical ‘I’. Today: This lesson clarifies what has just been said; the fact that healing is another name for God shows me that God enters into any relationship where sickness (or sin) is excluded.
What is the ego? But a dream of what you really are. A thought you are apart from your Creator and a wish to be what He created not. It is a thing of madness, not reality at all. A name for namelessness is all it is. A symbol of impossibility; a choice for options that do not exist. (ACIM, C-2.1:4-9)
Our truth, then, is not confined to a body. Reality is not about form, nor is it about being embodied.
A Course in Miracles is about the formless Christ. It is about being patient enough to know the now. It is about having the full awareness of what we are.
It is only in timelessness that truth reveals itself. It is only in timelessness that the ego (or what we think of as the body) is glaringly absent.
And the near-death experience verifies that truth. It shows us that only mind is important as we leave the body. As form disappears, the mind has no need to doubt or resist.
Jayne Smith’s near-death experience is one of the most beautiful and eloquent accounts that can be heard. It shows us all the positive aspects of passing over to the other side. There is no confinement, just expansion; fear does not exist, only love; and the body might have gone but we are still alive.
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357/ Unlock the Door
17th October 2025
“Thought creates our world, and then says ‘I didn’t do it’.” David Bohm.
I who remain as God created me would loose the world from all I thought it was. (ACIM, W-132.15:2)
***
Lesson 357. Truth answers every call we make to God, responding first with miracles, and then returning unto us to be itself (ACIM, W-357). Yesterday: The lesson told me that God answers any request the Son might make - and immediately - and I equate this with what was taught over half a century ago by the mystic, Joel Goldsmith. He told us that it is impossible for God to answer our prayers. God can only Be and God just Is. Today: This lesson reminds me that forgiveness is truth’s reflection and that, when truth is fully accepted, it returns to be itself. While practising the lesson, I was also reminded of the saying which states that: “I and the Father are one.” This is a truth that I have recently started repeating and I really enjoy how it feels.
The ego’s opposite in every way,—in origin, effect and consequence—we call a miracle. And here we find all that is not the ego in this world. Here is the ego’s opposite and here alone we look on what the ego was, for here we see all that it seemed to do, and cause and its effects must still be one. (ACIM, C-2.5:1-3)
A Course in Miracles tells us that the miracle is also a dream - just like the ego and everything within the world. The miracle gives us a glimpse of our true reality.
The miracle forgives and the ego damns; one shows us an aspect of Heaven and the other takes us right into hell.
The miracle is therefore a change in perception. For a moment, truth is able to reveal itself.
And time just falls away as the miracle happens - light expels the darkness that clouds the mind.
Therefore, the fact that A Course in Miracles begins with fifty definitions of the miracle is a problem only for the ego. The miracle will never be understood by the part of the mind that is reading them.
And neither does the right mind need them at all. It is a fact that, since we are perceiving wrongly, the miracle is the key that unlocks the door.
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358/ Step by Step
18th October 2025
“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.” Laozi.
What is the Holy Spirit’s special function but to release the holy Son of God from the imprisonment he made to keep himself from justice? (ACIM, T-26.I.8:5)
***
Lesson 358. No call to God can be unheard nor left unanswered. And of this I can be sure; His answer is the one I really want (ACIM, W-358). Yesterday: The lesson told me that truth answers every call we make to God, offering us miracles before returning back into the mind to be itself. As I write this, it makes perfect sense - but maybe not when the hourly reminders were going off and I was trying to get tasks done for my mother. I felt busy and rushed, and would skim through the lesson resenting the truth. Today: I lay in bed this morning and felt that it should be no effort to join with God. In fact, I lay there thinking I am joined with God and to just let it be. It didn’t matter if there was a little voice interrupting my experience, nagging away at me.
Forgiveness is for God and toward God but not of Him. It is impossible to think of anything He created that could need forgiveness. Forgiveness, then, is an illusion, but because of its purpose which is the Holy Spirit’s, it has one difference. Unlike all other illusions it leads away from error and not towards it. (ACIM, C-3.1:1-4)
A Course in Miracles calls forgiveness a sort of happy fiction. Forgiveness is how we bridge the gap between perception and the truth.
We also learn that the face of Christ has to be seen before the memory of God can return. Seeing the face of Christ always involves vision, not sight.
And God’s Will is all there is. Illusions shift and change, but what God created is eternal and has no end. God therefore did not create the body.
This is the whole emphasis of every lesson that we do. The mind is being led back to the beginning.
Each lesson aims at healing the mind that thinks of bodies and finite forms. We perceive differently.
And, step by step, the mind is freed of its resistance to know that truth is whole and God is One.
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359/ Shining Star
19th October 2025
“The trouble is you think you have time.” Buddha.
The only aspect of time that is eternal is now. (ACIM, T-5.III.6:5)
***
Lesson 359. God’s answer is some form of peace. All pain is healed; all misery replaced with joy. All prison doors are opened. And all sin is understood as merely a mistake. (ACIM, W-359). Yesterday: The lesson reminded me that everything comes through the Holy Spirit and that no call to God is left unanswered. My question, then, would be how to cope with my pre-flight heebie-jeebies as we are travelling to South Africa in two days time? A good swim in the afternoon was the perfect antidote. For me, water feels like a spiritual experience. It cleanses the mind and makes me feel light and uplifted. Today: This lesson seemed so simple when I sat with it just now. Fifteen minutes were spent seeing through the farce of the ego - all the mental chatter that makes any life a hell. The goal, then, is to sustain this and know that I am one with God.
The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end. (ACIM, C-4.1:1-5)
A Course in Miracles tells us that the world stands like a block against Christ’s face.
The point is to fully understand that this block is just a fragile veil. Veils are easily drawn aside and passed through.
Our goal is true perception where only love is seen, except not with the eyes. Eyes have no vision.
And the end result is knowledge. The world disappears completely and we identify with Christ in everyone and everything. The ego is no more - it has disappeared like a wisp of smoke.
Christ is not a body. Christ is the Self that we are.
Jesus taught this in his lifetime and, since time is an illusion, he is reminding us of the Christ now. A Course in Miracles is his message to us. He says that Christ is our oneness and is shining like a star.
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360/ Paradox of Life
20th October 2025
“We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.” Thich Nhat Hanh.
Awakening runs easily and gladly through the Kingdom, in answer to the Call for God. (ACIM, T-8.II.8:5)
***
Lesson 360. Peace be to me, the holy Son of God. Peace to my brother, who is one with me. Let all the world be blessed with peace through us (ACIM, W-360). Yesterday: Six and a half hours were spent travelling up to Gatwick in order to fly to Cape Town the following day. My wife is from South Africa and this will be her biennial pilgrimage home. The lesson began by saying: “Father, today we will forgive Your World, and let creation be Your Own”. I spent the fifteen minutes of my final extended meditation jammed onto a train in between a mass of bodies. I couldn’t even see the man begging for change and saying that he was homeless. I was back in the big city and it was madness. Today: I have just read in the psychotherapy pamphlet about how every single person who crosses my path (without exception) is purely there in order to reflect exactly what I need to forgive. This lesson really shows me the ultimate goal of forgiveness, which is perfect peace.
There is no need for help to enter Heaven for you have never left. But there is need for help beyond yourself as you are circumscribed by false beliefs of your Identity, which God alone established in reality. Helpers are given you in many forms, although upon the altar they are one. Beyond each one there is a Thought of God, and this will never change. (ACIM, C-5.1:1-4)
A Course in Miracles tells us that the name of Jesus is the name of a man who saw the face of Christ in all his brothers, and who remembered God.
Christ is the perfect Creation of God and is what we are - except we have forgotten. Jesus was the first to remember - as many have since remembered - and this is now our purpose if we are still identifying with any form of fear.
Jesus is therefore a symbol of God’s Love because the human form is just an illusion. But we need something - anything - to guide us and this is also known as the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit therefore brings us back to what we have been searching for since day one as a body.
And this is the paradox of life. The ego thinks it is our identity, but it is not. Christ most certainly is.
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361/ Internal Comforter
21st October 2025
“If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?” Dōgen Zenji.
When you wake you will see the truth around you and in you, and you will no longer believe in dreams because they will have no reality for you. (ACIM, T-6.IV.6:7)
***
Lesson 361. This holy instant would I give to You. Be You in charge. For I would follow You, certain that Your direction gives me peace (ACIM, W-361-365). Yesterday: The day was perfect for practising the lesson. I was confined to a seat in a hollow tube flying across the sky for eleven hours, and there was nothing much else to do except to sit back and visit the loo. However, the lesson did remind me that “the Great Rays remain forever still and undisturbed within me”. Behind all the inertia and mental chatter, I knew the utter truth behind these words. Today: It’s not always easy to find a quiet space when travelling from a-b. I am in the empty dining room of a hotel on the edge of Cape Town International Airport, and it is early. A man interrupted me while I was meditating on the lesson and asked me if I was waiting for transport. I am. I am waiting for the Holy Spirit to take me home.
The Holy Spirit abides in the part of your mind that is part of the Christ Mind. He represents your Self and your Creator, Who are One. He speaks for God and also for you, being joined with Both. And therefore it is He Who proves Them One. He seems to be a Voice, for in that form He speaks God’s Word to you. He seems to be a Guide through a far country, for you need that form of help. He seems to be whatever meets the needs you think you have. (ACIM, C-6.4:1-7)
A Course in Miracles describes the Holy Spirit as the last remaining Communication Link between God and His separated Sons.
The Holy Spirit is a part of God but is not deceived by our supposed faults and defects. The Holy Spirit perceives but actually knows. The Holy Spirit arises from oneness to undo duality.
To know the Holy Spirit, we have to drop into the peaceful part of our minds and become the stillness. We have to forgo the eyes to find the vision of Christ.
The Holy Spirit is our intuition. Whatever the Holy Spirit tells us will always feel perfect and correct.
Essentially, the Holy Spirit is an internal Comforter. Without His Voice, we’d simply feel all alone.
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362/ Looking at Now
22nd October 2025
“Resisting what is happening is the major cause of suffering.” Pema Chödrön.
If you overlook love you are overlooking yourself, and you must fear unreality because you have denied yourself. (ACIM, T-11.V.10:5)
***
Lesson 362. This holy instant would I give to You. Be You in charge. For I would follow You, certain that Your direction gives me peace (ACIM, W-361-365). Yesterday: The final five lessons are all the same and, as I reminded myself of a title that was so familiar, I also realised that the other 360 lessons were also all about now. The day, then, became that practice although, at times, my eyes (the past) were closing due to tiredness. What got me right back into the present was a cold swim in the ocean - but so did a belly ache later (which is rising guilt). Today: We are in Onrus, a small town that is right on the ocean. I awoke this morning after vivid dreams and felt anxious about my wife’s brother who is experiencing financial difficulties. I then realised that all I can do in this very moment is bless. We either bless or damn, and it is always a choice.
You are His manifestation in this world. Your brother calls to you to be His Voice along with him. Alone he cannot be the Helper of God’s Son for he alone is functionless. But joined with you he is the shining Savior of the world, Whose part in its redemption you have made complete. He offers thanks to you as well as him for you arose with him when he began to save the world. (ACIM, C-6.5:1-5)
The passage above is reminding us that we are all, collectively, the one Spirit that God created as an extension of His Self.
Each body of anything or anyone is the same. We either see past the form to the Spirit, or we see just the form and not the Spirit.
A Course in Miracles is therefore a little path that meanders to the greater whole. It is about relationship. If any relationship is not holy (sinless), it hurts and hinders us.
Being sinful merely means we are disconnected from the Source which created us. It means we don’t know our Self. It means, essentially, that we are confused and anxious.
A Course in Miracles therefore leads us back to wholeness. It means that we connect to the One that Is. It means we have left all confusion behind by not looking ahead but looking at what is now.
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363/ Instant Freedom
23rd October 2025
“If I know what love is, it is because of you.” Hermann Hesse.
You do not know the meaning of love, and that is your handicap. (ACIM, T-12.V.6:1)
***
Lesson 363. This holy instant would I give to You. Be You in charge. For I would follow You, certain that Your direction gives me peace (ACIM, W-361-365). Yesterday: We are staying for two nights in an eco-friendly guest house about 100 km into the interior of the Western Cape and near a town called Robertson. If I could sum up the holy instant in just a few words, it was watching a heron on the edge of the lake as we sat waiting for our evening meal in the restaurant. Its attention was fixed and focused for ages - until slowly its long neck began to lengthen. And then suddenly, immediately and in a flash, it gave a lightening strike and caught its prey - probably an unsuspecting frog. The moment was over and it turned around and wandered off, taking a few sips of water on its way. Today: It’s dark and early, and there is the sound of birdsong overhead. Frogs are croaking in the lake in front of me and day is starting. Nature is simply the holy instant. Everything is immediate and about now. Only the ego distorts it, always wanting what it need not have.
You are a stranger here. But you belong to Him Who loves you as He loves Himself. Ask but my help to roll the stone away, and it is done according to His Will. We have begun the Journey. (ACIM, C-ep.2:1-4)
A Course in Miracles tells us that our separation from God is merely an illusion. The thought that thought it has disappeared and we are simply reviewing it mentally - over and over again.
The world of time and space exists only within the mind. We think it is out there but it is in here.
Therefore we need to drop in, not out. We need to practise the forgiveness that A Course in Miracles is teaching in order to know that nothing has happened. We need to stop listening to the voice of suffering (the sound of the ego) so that we can listen to the Voice for peace and instantly be free.
Erin Michelle Galito channels Jesus in the video below. Here, Jesus goes over a section of the text entitled The Message of the Crucifixion (ACIM, T-6.I). Jesus explains that the resurrection is simply a metaphor for awakening; the crucifixion is a reflection of how the ego makes our lives a living hell.
*Please click on the link below and this will take you through to the video on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ptoi8UsoaSo
364/ Awaken to Life
24th October 2025
“When mind is still, then truth gets her chance to be heard in the purity of the silence.” Sri Aurobindo.
The Holy Spirit is the Christ Mind which is aware of the knowledge that lies beyond perception. (ACIM, T-5.I.5:1)
***
Lesson 364. This holy instant would I give to You. Be You in charge. For I would follow You, certain that Your direction gives me peace (ACIM, W-361-365). Yesterday: If there is one thing I have found during the first week of our trip to South Africa - and one that typifies ACIM teachings on relationship and the Holy Spirit - it is the joy that I have witnessed in the black South Africans. I haven’t encountered anyone who hasn’t responded with anything but warmth and playfulness. And also, for me, the holy instant came late last night when I was feeling a bit sorry for myself with a minor stomach upset. I was reading a book by Mark Nepo on friendship (You Don’t Have to Do It Alone: The Power of Friendship). As I fell asleep, something happened in a minor dream that was so warm and loving that I felt totally uplifted and calm. I then slept very well. Today: As I closed my eyes to begin my first meditation, it was dark; when I opened my eyes it was light. The distant mountain range of the Langeberg was shrouded in mist and a new day had dawned. We have a long trip ahead of us to Sutherland, a town in the Karoo where the stars are said to be particularly beautiful at night.
Illusions of despair may seem to come, but learn how not to be deceived by them. Behind each one there is reality and there is God. Why would you wait for this and trade it for illusions, when His Love is but an instant farther on the road where all illusions end? The end is sure and guaranteed by God. Who stands before a lifeless image when a step away the Holy of the Holies opens up an ancient door that leads beyond the world? (ACIM, C-ep.1:7-11)
In the passage above, two questions are posed. The first relates to illusions and truth, and the second touches on the lifeless and life.
Illusions are simply what we have to look past, and life is endless and just has to be embraced.
A Course in Miracles is total non-duality and states that only the ego needs to question. Ultimately, no questions ever have to be asked. Truth can only express itself freely and without opposition.
Life, then, is eternal and unending - although to live as a body means we are dreaming it. To awaken to life means we find our true nature. No questions have to be asked when we know what we are.
365/ A Special Treat
25th October 2025
“Be kind to yourself as you proceed along this journey. This kindness, itself, is a means of awakening the spark of love within you and helping others to discover that spark within themselves.” Tsoknyi Rinpoche.
Ours is simply the journey back to God Who is our home. (ACIM, T-8.V.5:4)
***
Lesson 365. This holy instant would I give to You. Be You in charge. For I would follow You, certain that Your direction gives me peace (ACIM, W-361-365). Yesterday: It was late in the evening in the middle of town - with thousands of stars flooding the nighttime sky - when we saw the brightly-lit crescent moon slowly lowering itself towards the western horizon. The rest of it (still visible in shadow as a dull ochre colour) made it even more impressive. This would have been the three hundred and sixty-fourth time that the moon has set since these reflections began, which felt fittingly symbolic for me. Today: As I write this final reflection, I am in the bathroom of our guest house in Sutherland, South Africa. A cock is crowing outside and, through a translucent window, I can see that the sun has risen. It is not glamorous, more rough and ready, and this is the way that all of our lives are - until we awaken and know that we are not this body. The fact is, there is no guest house, no bathroom, no sun outside, no cock crowing and no world; there is only the one mind and there is only the now.
Forget not once this journey is begun the end is certain. Doubt along the way will come and go and go to come again. Yet is the ending sure. No one can fail to do what God appointed him to do. When you forget, remember that you walk with Him and with His Word upon your heart. Who could despair when hope like this is his? (ACIM, C-ep.1:1-6)
A Course in Miracles leads us back to oneness. The mind knows itself within the Mind of God.
The great illusion is that this takes time. It is a nonsense because the mind has not gone anywhere.
However, occasionally, we need a temporary collapse of time to know the truth - a moment when the mind loses all its worries and mental chatter. This is the holy instant.
The miracle, then, is to have found a path of study in which the unattainable now seems possible.
We are on a journey to awakening and to know this is a special treat. A Course in Miracles also reassures us that the end is certain - of course it is! Our treat is to become a mind that is one.
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