"A Course in Miracles"

"This course is a beginning, not an end. Your Friend (Jesus) goes with you. You are not alone. No one who calls on Him can call in vain. Whatever troubles you, be certain that He has the answer, and will gladly give it to you, if you simply turn to Him and ask it of Him.

He will not withhold all answers that you need for anything that seems to trouble you.

He knows the way to solve all problems, and resolve all doubts. His certainty is yours. You need but ask it of Him, and it will be given you." (E-1)

Shortly after my Husband's death, I set out on a mission of discovering what this insane world was all about, how we got into this reality and how we can get out of it.

A book, accidentally on purpose, literally fell onto my lap, a book called, "A Course in Miracles". This happening was the beginning of a massive transition of my thought system, firmly placing me on the path Home. The circumstances and timing of my husband's death was his greatest gift of love to me. This book was divinely gifted, with the purpose of awakening my mind.

The following is a short introduction, a background of the book's creation and contents:

A sudden decision was made between two people to join in on a common goal. One of which was to unite a strained professional relationship between Helen Schuman and William Thetford, Professors of Medical Psychology at Columbia University, in New York city.

Both were anything but spiritual.

"The head of the department announced that he was tired of the angry and aggressive feelings and attitudes reflected and concluded that there must be another way."

As if on cue, Helen, agreed to help him find it. Apparently this course was the other way. This intention was the "little willingness" required by Spirit to enable Him to use any situation for His purposes and provide it with His power.

Helen began to write in a diary, she recorded highly symbolic dreams and images that were coming to her. One day, she was surprised to find the words written: "This is a Course in Miracles." This was the introduction to the "Voice".

Without any sound, a kind of rapid, inner dictation was written down in a shorthand notebook. The writing was never automatic. "It could be interrupted at any time and later picked up again." It seemed to be a special assignment which she agreed to complete.

Bill supported and encouraged the recording of this Voice. She would take down what the Voice "said" and read it to him the next day, and he typed it from her dictation.

The whole process took about seven years.

Thus a book was created, 669-page Text, a 488 page Workbook for Students, and a 92-page Manual for Teachers.

At the beginning of the dictation Helen was given an explanation for what was happening. She was told that there was a "celestial speed-up.'

'The world was in pretty bad shape,' Jesus told her, which is obvious to anybody who looks around. This was in the mid-1960's and the world seems to be in even worse shape now.

The purpose of all this is to aid in changing people's minds about the nature of the world.

This book was divinely orchestrated, dictated, and transcribed word for word, for a world badly in need of Divine Intervention.

What the Book says:

Nothing real can be threatened.

Nothing unreal exists.

Herein lies the peace of God.

This is one quote regarding fear.

"Perfect love casts out fear. If fear exists,

Then there is not perfect love.

But:

Only perfect love exists.

If there is fear,

It produces a state that does not exist. Believe this you will be free. Only God can establish this solution, and this faith is His gift."

(T-1.VI.5:4-10)

This book does not demand, inflict nor advocate pain of any kind.

Through knowledge, it encourages forgiveness, reconnecting with unconditional love and eternal peace.

What is the body?

"I am not the body,

Nor is the body mine.

I am awareness itself."

We may be surprised to know that the body is not solid. The foundation of everything in this universe, including bodies, is made out of atoms. Atoms have huge distances between them, compared to what is envisioned in the sky.

If we compressed the body, the total amount of atoms created would amount to a pinhead. Atoms are made of subatomic particles, pure energy. The body that appears solid is nothing more than a vast amount of space, empty, nothingness.

The idea that the body is a temporary vehicle serving the soul is an accepted belief among many organized religions. Regardless of believing that to be true, many still grieve intensely, instead of happiness, they embrace sorrow.

Although most agree with the view that our true being is an immortal soul in a mortal body, most if not all identify ourselves with the body.

We often refer to the personal 'I'; I grew up, I work, I'm ill, I love and so on. Our minds are swept into this realities' obsession with an accumulation of things, often living selfish lives with very little regard for the well being of others.

Our hopes and fears are projected into the future, as we chase after anything that could possibly bring us happiness. Most times it is seeking security, status, comfort, or recognition, assuming some or all will deliver love and peace.

It becomes a process of going through a loop of new things becoming old things and as the moment of its lime-light is passed, the mind starts looking for the next thing that would certainly fill that happiness void. It is generally both getting and not getting what the mind desires that can be extremely disappointing.

Ultimately mistakenly believing that obtaining acquisitions or status qualifies as an intended goal determining the success or failure of one's life. It isn't the pursuit or collection of things in which the mind finds true joy. It is happiness without cause, the bliss that is felt when seeking stops. Only when minds are clear of desire can true peace and overwhelming joy be experienced.

"The body is confined

By its natural properties.

It comes, It lingers awhile, It goes.

But the Self neither comes nor goes.

So why grieve for the body?"

Time dictates the process of the body's existence. Fear of our own extinction is the driver behind a wish for a body's continued life. The mind tends to equate the body's survival with its own survival, and generally spends a lot of effort into prolonging its existence. Strangely, many ignore mental health; thus, the consequential well-being of the body, effectively becoming responsible for its death.

It is this realities' 'never enough' mentality that drives us in circles, endlessly looking for security that never arrives. The hypocrisy is that struggles experienced with a hope of a long and happy future, merely brings the body closer to death, the mind's greatest fear.

We rarely stop to smell the roses or just be in the present moment. If we could relax and slow down demanding thoughts, there would come a recognition of a truth that life is solely a "timeless presence".

The mind believes itself to be a time-bound mortal entity, who's actions are driven by desire and fear. If only it could perceive itself differently and not allow mental stresses to be the drivers and creators of its reality. Life would be fully expressed with a certainty that this unique moment is complete, perfect, and with its own reward.

Embracing the death of a body without personal attachments or emotional reactions is freedom. When the mind is no longer invested in this reality and a belief in a body, fear of death no longer exists. It is truly a challenge to change the mind's belief systems and consequential withdrawal from identifying with the body.

Allowing to be drawn into life's dramas, or identifying personally to attacks by others, must stop; an attack by another is merely a call for love. To remain neutral, means to see things for what they are; a play within which actors deliver their scripts, presenting no significance in the mind because just like the body they are unreal. So just 'allow' this play to play out.

Yes, insults will still sting, activating emotions and intrusive thoughts, but they do not refer to the "real you". Much like watching a movie becoming absorbed and entranced, momentarily believing it is real. When emotional upheaval arrives, it also leaves, unless there is resistance in letting it go. Pleasure, as well, is part and parcel of the experience, it is transitory and insignificant, so do not try to hold onto it, simply enjoy the moment, as a moment.

All suffering is caused by identifying with a body that is separate from others, firmly believing in its reality. This world, referred to as being our reality, is filled with temporal manifestations; compositions such as experiences, emotions, thoughts, bodies, cosmos, trees, animals, children, neighbors, all simply appearing in a background of space.

Our true and eternal Self sees the body as one of many temporal appearances. No longer identifying the Self as an idea of a body growing old and dying. The realization of this truth enables processing an idea that its true identity is not the body, but the mind that thinks it to be real. The collective mind is the background, all that which appears against it, and the pure awareness of it all.

"The body is false, And so are its fears.

Heaven and hell, freedom and bondage.

It is all invention. What can they matter to me?

I am awareness itself."

This movie has been replayed for so long that the mind is so completely identified with the body that it has apparently forgotten the truth. The truth is that we are not immortal souls temporarily confined in a body, collectively, we are an infinite mind having a finite experience.

Break free from identifying with a body in a world filled with deceptions. Know the Self in its true splendor, free from illusory chains binding the soul to the birth and dying cycle. As a united whole, the Mind is of the eternal and the temporal; the One Son of God, the Christ Mind, the One without Time.

"Because you think you are the body,

For a long time you have been bound.

Know you are pure awareness.

With this knowledge as your sword

Cut through your chains.

And be happy!"*

*From "The heart of Awareness - Ashtavakra Gita"

translation by Thomas Byrom.

Could this reality be a dream?

That was a dream.' God smiled and said,

"A dream that seemed to be true.

There were no people, living or dead,

there was no earth, and no sky o'er head:

there was only Myself - in you."

(Ella Wheeler Wilcox)

In night time dreams, we may come across age-old mountains, oceans, stars, and planets. There often are people and animals, cities and forests. Experiencing days or even years passing by. To the dreamer, in the moment, it all feels very real.

The dreamer may encounter danger and the accompanying fear can be so intense that it jolts the dreamer awake. Upon awakening, fear disappears, dismissed as a silly dream that it is.

Where was the time, the space, and the objects that filled it? One would say inside the dreaming mind. But how is it possible to be present inside that same mind that is in it.

This dream experience clearly shows how apparently solid realities such as the world of objects, space, and time could well be illusory, having no substance of reality.

Let us consider the possibility that the Self (the Christ Mind, an extension of Creator) imagines or dreams up this world in a similar way. Like the dreamer appearing in his own dream, or we might say that the Mind imagines appearing as many, experiencing a life in a world where everything is separated.

The substance of this imagined "reality' is Pure Awareness - the stuff that dreams are made of. In this reality/dream the mind appears and superimposes on this undivided whole the illusion of separate objects and events by creating boundaries in a reality with space and time.

In this universal dream, just as in the dreams we have at night, there is the illusion of places, distances, awareness of self and others, which creates the relative experiences of an unreality of space and time. The dream and the dreamer are one-and-the same Self-aware reality.

"...there is evidence to suggest that our world and everything in it - from snowflakes to maple trees to falling stars and spinning electrons are also only ghostly images, projections from a level of reality so beyond our own it is literally beyond both space and time."

(The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot)

It is simply One, expressing and manifesting itself as an intricate illusion of a multifaceted dance of creation. To become aware that we are collectively the Christ Mind is to remember what was never really forgotten, just hidden, buried in life's collection of emotional rubbish.

Much like the poor man in the children's story who suddenly finds out that his father is, in fact, the king. A re-membering called Self-realization or enlightenment, clarity, or the final understanding, eventually comes about. They all point to the same truth of what you really are, the Christ Mind, the one Son of God.

Divinity is our true reality, innate essence, true home, and birthright a treasure seeming forgotten. Once this treasure is re-cognized or dis-covered, you know your true self (Self) to be divine, immortal, eternal and beyond time and space.

A homecoming after an awesome journey in fantasyland, a return to the place we never really left. Filled with mysterious concepts and relationships, simply moving from one dream into another dream.