Showing posts with label ACIM text commentary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ACIM text commentary. Show all posts

Thursday, April 13, 2023

Escape the drugged world of sleep and align ourselves with God’s will.


How you wake is the sign of how you have used sleep. To whom did you give it? Under which teacher did you place it? Whenever you wake dispiritedly, it was not given to the Holy Spirit. Only when you awaken joyously have you utilized sleep according to His purpose. You can indeed be “drugged” by sleep, if you have misused it on behalf of sickness. Sleep is no more a form of death than death is a form of unconsciousness. Complete unconsciousness is impossible. You can rest in peace only because you are awake. T-8.IX.4:1-9

A Course in Miracles (pp. 306-307). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


So much of Jesus’ teachings in A Course Of Miracles are counter-intuitive. They don’t make sense from the thought system of the world of the ego. They do make sense from the thought system of Spirit. In this passage Jesus teaches us that sleep is withdrawal as if we are drugged and when the drug wears off our consciousness is shifted but this does not mean that we are spiritually awakened. To be spiritually awakened is to join with the Holy Spirit in the healing of the separation or what the Course calls Atonement where we experience the peace and bliss of the non dual Oneness.


In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning which is the pursuit of awakening. This awakening involves aligning our will with God’s will for us and the many become one.


Today it is suggested that we escape the drugged world of sleep which is the denial of the non dual Oneness and align ourselves with God’s will.


Wednesday, April 12, 2023

What would Love have me do?


Wholeness heals because it is of the mind. All forms of sickness, even unto death, are physical expressions of the fear of awakening. They are attempts to reinforce sleeping out of fear of waking. This is a pathetic way of trying not to see by rendering the faculties for seeing ineffectual. “Rest in peace” is a blessing for the living, not the dead, because rest comes from waking, not from sleeping. Sleep is withdrawing; waking is joining. Dreams are illusions of joining, because they reflect the ego’s distorted notions about what joining is. Yet the Holy Spirit, too, has use for sleep, and can use dreams on behalf of waking if you will let Him. T-8.IX.3:1-8


A Course in Miracles (p. 306). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


Sleep is a way of leaving the world of the ego by withdrawing from it. It is a hiatus from hell. When we return from sleep into our conscious mind most of us are not awake in the spiritual sense. To be awakened, enlightened, is to become cosmically conscious joining the non dual Oneness with our Transcendent Source by leaving the hell of the ego, rising above it, for peace and bliss.


In Unitarian Universalism, some of us join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning which takes us beyond the world of the ego to the world of Spirit, from the world of conditional love to the world of unconditional love.


Today it is suggested that we choose to awaken to the world of Spirit and leave the world the ego behind. When we leave sleep we can ask the Holy Spirit to help us be a conduit of God’s unconditional love in the world by asking continually throughout the day, “What would love have me do?”


Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Which choice will I make today: conditional love or unconditional love, reality or delusion?


Wrong perception is the wish that things be as they are not. The reality of everything is totally harmless, because total harmlessness is the condition of its reality. It is also the condition of your awareness of its reality. You do not have to seek reality. It will seek you and find you when you meet its conditions. Its conditions are part of what it is. And this part only is up to you. The rest is of itself. You need do so little because your little part is so powerful that it will bring the whole to you. Accept, then, your little part, and let the whole be yours. T-8.IX.2:1-10

A Course in Miracles (p. 306). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


The bumper sticker is “Reality cares nothing about your beliefs.” The Buddhists say, “It is what it is.” However, the ego wants something different from reality and tempts us to act, believing its lies, thinking that what the ego holds out can be achieved much to our eventual dismay.


In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. UUs, more than other believers, tend to believe in reality even though we are no better than others at finding it.


Today it is suggested that we consider that reality, unconditional love, is different from unreality, conditional love. We have a choice in which world we want to live. Which choice will I make today?


Monday, April 10, 2023

Are you a body with a soul or a soul with a body?


I said before that the Holy Spirit is the Answer. He is the Answer to everything, because He knows what the answer to everything is. The ego does not know what a real question is, although it asks an endless number. Yet you can learn this as you learn to question the value of the ego, and thus establish your ability to evaluate its questions. When the ego tempts you to sickness do not ask the Holy Spirit to heal the body, for this would merely be to accept the ego’s belief that the body is the proper aim of healing. Ask, rather, that the Holy Spirit teach you the right perception of the body, for perception alone can be distorted. Only perception can be sick, because only perception can be wrong. T-8.IX.1:1-7


A Course in Miracles (pp. 305-306). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


“Only perception can be sick, because only perception can be wrong.” Are you a soul in a body or a body with a soul? The ego answers one way and the Holy Spirit another. Which do you believe?


In Unitarian Universalism we join together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This inherent worth and dignity does not come from the body but from the soul.


Today it is suggested that we reflect on the question of whether you are a body with a soul or a soul with a body. With which do you primarily identify?


Sunday, April 9, 2023

Focus on health and not sickness, on holiness and not separateness, on openness and not defensiveness.


Everything used in accordance with its function as the Holy Spirit sees it cannot be sick. Everything used otherwise is. Do not allow the body to be a mirror of a split mind. Do not let it be an image of your own perception of littleness. Do not let it reflect your decision to attack. Health is seen as the natural state of everything when interpretation is left to the Holy Spirit, Who perceives no attack on anything. Health is the result of relinquishing all attempts to use the body lovelessly. Health is the beginning of the proper perspective on life under the guidance of the one Teacher Who knows what life is, being the Voice for Life Itself. T-8.VIII.9:3-10


A Course in Miracles (p. 305). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


The Holy Spirit does not accept sickness. The Holy Spirit always supports health. Health is wholeness while sickness is separation, division, and defensiveness.


In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth. In other words UUs, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, promote healing and health.


Friday, April 7, 2023

Loving without judgment.


The Holy Spirit teaches you to use your body only to reach your brothers, so He can teach His message through you. This will heal them and therefore heal you. T-8.VIII.9:1-2

A Course in Miracles (p. 305). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


The body is a conduit of God’s unconditional love into the world. When we love everybody unconditionally all the time salvation of the separation has occurred on earth as it is in heaven.


In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to accept one another and encourage spiritual growth. This is the function of the Holy Spirit manifested in human intentions and interactions.


Today it is suggested that we love unconditionally without judgment whoever crosses our path.


Thursday, April 6, 2023

How free are we really?


When you lay the ego aside, it will be gone. The Holy Spirit’s Voice is as loud as your willingness to listen. It cannot be louder without violating your freedom of choice, which the Holy Spirit seeks to restore, never to undermine.T-8.VIII.8:6-8

A Course in Miracles (p. 305). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


Spiritual progress can be assessed when the degree of conditioning by the external world is measured. When we overcome this conditioning, we are liberated from it and free. In order to overcome this conditioning we need to be aware of it and then ask the Holy Spirit, “What would Love have me do?” Jesus tells us that if we ask we will get an answer. The clarity of the answer depends on the extent of our willingness to listen.


In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote justice, equity, and compassion which requires the setting aside of the conditioning of the ego and accepting Love.


Today it is suggested that we question our behavior, motivations and intentions and consider the extent to which they are the result of conditioning and socialization as compared to our conscious choice. How free are we really?


Wednesday, April 5, 2023

Consider the Oneness to which we ultimately belong.


Sickness is a way of demonstrating that you can be hurt. It is a witness to your frailty, your vulnerability, and your extreme need to depend on external guidance. The ego uses this as its best argument for your need for its guidance. It dictates endless prescriptions for avoiding catastrophic outcomes. The Holy Spirit, perfectly aware of the same situation, does not bother to analyze it at all. T-8.VIII.6:1-5


A Course in Miracles (p. 304). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


The ego loves baloney or more vulgarly, bullshit. The ego would have us live in fear because then we are more likely to listen to it. The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, tells us that we are loved unconditionally and have nothing to fear. Being drops of the ocean we are meant to give up our separateness and rejoin the Transcendent Source from which we have emerged.


In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the awareness of the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. Like the Buddhist monk said to the hot dog vendor, “Make me one with everything.”


Today it is suggested that we consider the Oneness to which we ultimately belong.


Tuesday, April 4, 2023

Do we identify with our spirit or our body?


It is still true that the body has no function of itself, because it is not an end. The ego, however, establishes it as an end because, as such, its true function is obscured. This is the purpose of everything the ego does. Its sole aim is to lose sight of the function of everything. A sick body does not make any sense. It could not make sense because sickness is not what the body is for. Sickness is meaningful only if the two basic premises on which the ego’s interpretation of the body rests are true; that the body is for attack, and that you are a body. Without these premises sickness is inconceivable. T-8.VIII.5:1-8


A Course in Miracles (pp. 303-304). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition.


From a sociological viewpoint there is a distinction between illness and sickness. Illness is a scientific fact of physical dysfunction while sickness is a social role that people enact. In other words, sickness as a social role, once we become aware of this, is a choice. The ego encourages us to be sick because of the social rewards that can be obtained. However, when one considers that we are spirit in a body and not a body with a spirit, sickness makes no sense.


In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. How can this inherent worth and dignity ever be sick?


Today it is suggested that we consider whether we identify with Spirit or with our body and the implications of this choice?


Monday, April 3, 2023

The bliss of cosmic consciousness.


The ego makes a fundamental confusion between means and end as it always does. Regarding the body as an end, the ego has no real use for it because it is not an end. You must have noticed an outstanding characteristic of every end that the ego has accepted as its own. When you have achieved it, it has not satisfied you. This is why the ego is forced to shift ceaselessly from one goal to another, so that you will continue to hope it can yet offer you something. T-8.VIII.2:3-7

A Course in Miracles (pp. 302-303). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


As people sometimes say, “There’s always something!” or “(S)he’s always on to the next big thing.” Psychologists call this phenomenon a product of “hedonic adaptation” meaning that when the novelty and initial pleasure wear off there has to be more or something else to sustain the high. Today we see this phenomenon in our digital age as FOMO, the fear of missing out.


In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning which involves seeking not pleasure or happiness or joy but bliss. Bliss is not found in the world of the ego but in the world of God, unconditional love.


Today it is suggested that we consider what the things we seek are for. If they are merely for pleasure and happiness we will fail in the long run because these things of the ego cannot give us bliss. What we seek is the oneness with our Transcendent Source which provides the bliss of cosmic consciousness.


Sunday, April 2, 2023

Creating heaven and hell.


Freedom from illusions lies only in not believing them. There is no attack, but there is unlimited communication and therefore unlimited power and wholeness. The power of wholeness is extension. Do not arrest your thought in this world, and you will open your mind to creation in God.T-8.VII.16:5-8

A Course in Miracles (pp. 301-302). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


The world of the ego is made up of projections which are illusionary. The path to truth and meaning is to rise above the illusions of the world of the ego and focus on the unconditional love of God.


In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. This means rising above the illusions of the ego perpetuated by our projections and coming to an awareness of the non dualistic Oneness.


Today it is suggested that we be careful what we wish for because in the wishing we can create heaven or hell.


Saturday, April 1, 2023

What would Love have me do?


Joy is unified purpose, and unified purpose is only God’s. When yours is unified it is His. Believe you can interfere with His purpose, and you need salvation. You have condemned yourself, but condemnation is not of God. Therefore it is not true. No more are any of its seeming results. When you see a brother as a body, you are condemning him because you have condemned yourself. Yet if all condemnation is unreal, and it must be unreal since it is a form of attack, then it can have no results. T-8.VII.15:1-8


A Course in Miracles (p. 301). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


The above passage can bring one to laughter if the reader gets it. St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “If God is with you, who can be against you?” We use our free will to ignore God’s will for us and when we do we can be asked, “How is that working out for you?” We cannot ignore God’s will for us, which is unconditional love, forever. We think we can, but that thought is just stupid and laughable.


In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. This search ultimately comes down to discerning God’s will for us and all God’s creation.


Today, if we are attempting to know God’s will for us all we need to do is ask “What would Love have me do?” and be open and honest in listening for the answer which comes from the Holy Spirit.


Friday, March 31, 2023

Is the body for the domination and subjugation of others or for collaboration, cooperation, and the creation of harmony?



To conceive of the body as a means of attack and to believe that joy could possibly result, is a clear-cut indication of a poor learner. He has accepted a learning goal in obvious contradiction to the unified purpose of the curriculum, and one that is interfering with his ability to accept its purpose as his own. T-8.VII.14:5-6


A Course in Miracles (p. 301). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


What is the body for? It is the vehicle for communication here in the world of the ego so that people can learn from whence they came and to where they will return. The body is for unconditional love and the salvation of humankind when everybody loves everybody all the time. Using the body for attack to dominate others is not the path to peace and bliss.


In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote justice, equity, and compassion in human relations. This principle enables the development of what Buddhists call “right relationship.”


Today it is suggested that we reflect on how we use our bodies. Are they for domination and subjugation of others or for collaboration, cooperation, and the creation of harmony?


Thursday, March 30, 2023

What kind of shape are our mental and spiritual capacities in?


The opposite of joy is depression. When your learning promotes depression instead of joy, you cannot be listening to God’s joyous Teacher and learning His lessons. To see a body as anything except a means of communication is to limit your mind and to hurt yourself. Health is therefore nothing more than united purpose. If the body is brought under the purpose of the mind, it becomes whole because the mind’s purpose is one. Attack can only be an assumed purpose of the body, because apart from the mind the body has no purpose at all. T-8.VII.13:1-6


A Course in Miracles (pp. 300-301). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


The body is a machine which requires maintenance just like your car or other appliance. The purpose of the body is to act as a vehicle for communication. The body is used by the mind and not the other way around.


In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This inherent worth and dignity emanates from the mind not from the body.


Today it is suggested that we consider our fitness: not our physical fitness but our mental and spiritual fitness. What kind of shape are our mental and spiritual capacities in?


Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Extending our minds to others in peace and joy.


To confuse a learning device with a curriculum goal is a fundamental confusion that blocks the understanding of both. Learning must lead beyond the body to the re-establishment of the power of the mind in it. This can be accomplished only if the mind extends to other minds, and does not arrest itself in its extension. This arrest is the cause of all illness, because only extension is the mind’s function. T-8.VII.12:5-8

A Course in Miracles (p. 300). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


The “learning device” mentioned in the above passage is the body. The curriculum goal is the Atonement which is the healing of the separation from the non dual Oneness that some people call “God.” The Atonement is accomplished when a mind extends itself to other minds and does not stop itself in extending which facilitates the Atonement. One for all and all for one. When the mind is stopped in extending itself to others, illness occurs because the mind is stopped from doing what it was created to do.


In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to accept one another and encourage spiritual growth.


Today it is suggested that we look for the Divine Spark in every person and focus on that, extending ourselves to the Divine Spark in others in peace and joy.


Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Do you join with others in unconditional love or attack them when they don’t meet your expectations?

 

To communicate is to join and to attack is to separate. How can you do both simultaneously with the same thing and not suffer? Perception of the body can be unified only by one purpose. This releases the mind from the temptation to see the body in many lights, and gives it over entirely to the One Light in which it can be really understood. T-8.VII.12:1-4


A Course in Miracles (p. 300). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


To communicate with love is to join and to communicate with attack separates. The body is the means of communicating unconditional love. When we understand the purpose of the body, as a means of communicating unconditional love and facilitating the Atonement, we experience peace and bliss.


In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote justice, equity, and compassion in our human relations. Enacting this principle is a constructive use of our bodies.


Today it is suggested that we be aware of how we use our bodies: to join with others in unconditional love or to attack them when they don’t meet our conditions and expectations.


Monday, March 27, 2023

What is it we wish to communicate to whom, when, how, and why?




Perceiving the body as a separate entity cannot but foster illness, because it is not true. A medium of communication loses its usefulness if it is used for anything else. To use a medium of communication as a medium of attack is an obvious confusion in purpose.T-8.VII.11:4-6


A Course in Miracles (p. 300). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


Jesus, in A Course Of Miracles, teaches that the body other than a means of communication is an illusion. The body is constantly changing throughout the life cycle. Identification of the self with the body leads to confusion if not depression and anxiety.


In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This worth and dignity does not arise from the body but from the mind which can continually develop and extend itself to others in communion.


Today it is suggested that we consider the body as a vehicle of communication. What is it we wish to communicate to whom, when, how, and why?


Sunday, March 26, 2023

Are we a mind with a body or a body with a mind?


Healing is the result of using the body solely for communication. Since this is natural it heals by making whole, which is also natural. All mind is whole, and the belief that part of it is physical, or not mind, is a fragmented or sick interpretation.T-8.VII.10:1-3

A Course in Miracles (p. 299). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


The mind heals. The body cannot. The body is merely a means of communication. The body is part of the mind and is animated by it.


In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This worth and dignity is manifested in the mind, not the body.


Today it is suggested that we consider whether we are a mind with a body or a body with a mind. Our decision makes a huge difference in our experience of peace and bliss.


Saturday, March 25, 2023

The interdependent web of which we are a part.


There is nothing so frustrating to a learner as a curriculum he cannot learn. His sense of adequacy suffers, and he must become depressed. Being faced with an impossible learning situation is the most depressing thing in the world. In fact, it is ultimately why the world itself is depressing. The Holy Spirit’s curriculum is never depressing, because it is a curriculum of joy. Whenever the reaction to learning is depression, it is because the true goal of the curriculum has been lost sight of. T-8.VII.8:1-6

A Course in Miracles (p. 299). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


The curriculum of the world of the ego is depressing. The world of the ego teaches that happiness comes from obtaining idols whether the idol be money, romance, power, status, material objects. This curriculum is doomed to failure and the resulting depression. The Holy Spirit’s curriculum teaches that peace and join comes from healing the separation and unification with the non dualistic Oneness from whence we emerged. All for one and one for all.


In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the awareness of the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. All for one and one for all.


Today it is suggested that we reflect on the interdependent web of which we are a part.


Wednesday, March 22, 2023

The inklings deep down in our hearts


Rejoice, then, that of yourself you can do nothing. You are not of yourself. He of Whom you are has willed your power and glory for you, with which you can perfectly accomplish His holy Will for you when you accept it for yourself. He has not withdrawn His gifts from you, but you believe you have withdrawn them from Him. Let no Son of God remain hidden for His Name’s sake, because His Name is yours. T-8.VII.6:1-5

A Course in Miracles (p. 298). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 


The Jesus of the Course In Miracles speaks in such a metaphysical way that, at times, it is difficult to understand what He means. Everyone has a right to make their own meaning of His words and the meaning offered here is for comparison if not agreement. Jesus is saying that we do not make ourselves even though we think we do. Like little children we say “You are not the boss of me.” However when it comes to our Transcendent Source, our TS is the boss of us and we can accept this reality or reject it. Which choice do you expect will bring more peace and bliss?


In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together  to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning which is found in discerning God’s will for us with the help of the Holy Spirit.


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