ACIM Potpourri
with kironJ
‘I rest in God today, and let Him work in me and through me,
while I rest in Him in quiet and perfect certainty’
Welcome to a page of ACIM writing
Please enjoy this selection of ideas and experiences arising from the study and practice of the Course
New writing will be added regularly
A Potpourri Introduction to A Course in Miracles
A Course in Miracles is a contemporary spiritual masterpiece first published in 1976. Jesus is widely understood to be the ‘voice’ of the Course, bringing his pure nondual message again in a form that we are now ready for. Christian terminology is used to teach non-Christian ideas; a brilliant device for the healing of our dualistic split minds which believe in sin and fear a punishing God. The Course also employs a sophisticated psychology to help us see how we are choosing separation from each other and from our Creator.
The book contains 3 volumes:
The Text, which presents the radical and profound metaphysics of the Course.
The Workbook, which sets out 365 Lessons to support the practical application of the metaphysical ideas.
The Manual for Teachers and Supplements, which further support study and practice of the Course’s thought system.
Here is the Course on the Course,
from each of the volumes of ACIM:
From the Preface:
‘The curriculum the Course proposes is carefully conceived and is explained, step by step, at both the theoretical and practical levels. It emphasizes application rather than theory, and experience rather than theology. It specifically states that “a universal theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only possible, but necessary”.. It emphasizes that it is but one version of the universal curriculum.. There are many others.. They all lead to God in the end’.
From the Text:
‘The whole purpose of this course is to teach you that the ego is unbelievable and will forever be unbelievable’.
‘We are therefore embarking on an organized, well-structured and carefully planned programme aimed at learning how to offer the Holy Spirit everything you do not want. He knows what to do with it’.
‘This course is not beyond immediate learning, unless you believe that what God wills takes time. And this means only that you would rather delay the recognition that His Will is so’.
‘This course offers a very direct and a very simple learning situation, and provides the Guide Who tells you what to do. If you do it, you will see it works. Its results are more convincing than its words. They will convince you that the words are true’.
From the Workbook:
‘There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach’.
‘This course removes all doubt which you have interposed between Him (God) and your certainty of Him’.
‘This course does not attempt to take from you the little that you have. It does not try to substitute utopian ideas for satisfactions which the world contains. There are no satisfactions in the world’.
From the Manual for Teachers:
‘Forgive the world, and you will understand that everything that God created cannot have an end, and nothing He did not create is real. In this one sentence is our course explained. In this one sentence is our practicing given its one direction. And in this one sentence is the Holy Spirit’s whole curriculum specified exactly as it is’.
‘This course has come from him (Jesus) because his words have reached you in a language you can love and understand’.
kironJ’s ACIM Blog
The Hidden Phase 2 of ACIM
Following a conversation recently with a Course student, I feel prompted to share about what may become an increasing phenomena in the ACIM world. I'll call the student T. T, a devoted Course student for some time, has been undergoing a deep healing process, questioning everything, and now questioning whether…
HEALING OUR SENSE OF ISOLATION
When have you felt most alone? An internet search shows it’s likely to have been while experiencing a bereavement/ going through a relationship breakup/retiring and losing the social contact you had at work/changing jobs and feeling isolated from your co-workers/ moving to a new area without family, friends or community…
GUIDANCE ON GUIDANCE
The question of guidance seems to be swathed in false hopes, frustrations and apparent failures perhaps more than any other aspect of studying A Course in Miracles. This article aims at bringing some clarification, and includes an aspect of receiving guidance that I've not heard mentioned in Course circles before. I…
WONDERFUL WAPNICK TEACHING ABOUT ACIM
Here is a selection of wonderful quotes by Ken Wapnick about studying A Course in Miracles. I invite you to contemplate these teachings and find what guidance and welcome to miracles are here for you today. Starting first with some encouragement from the Course: 'Your little effort and small determination call…
JOINING MINDS AND DRINKING WATER
I’d like to share my daily spiritual practices in the hope that something here may be useful to you. I am full on flat out passionate about the beauty and power of A Course in Miracles, and so all my days are now dedicated to practice in some way or…
THE WAY FROM SANTA FE
I lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for 9 glorious months of intuitive art, playing the gong, walking the gem strewn hillsides surrounding the city, going to all manner of exotic spiritual gatherings, and living in the most adorable guest casita with a terraced garden full of hummingbirds. This was…
THERE IS NO DEATH
I just couldn’t bear her, or living there.The house was a glaring testimony to sickness and struggle. Everything spoke of her ‘condition’, from the ‘special chair’, to wrist warmers left on the kitchen counter, to dust in high places where she couldn’t clean, to the stool by the washing machine,…
THE POWER AND EMPTY PROMISE OF NOW
'The stillness and the peace of now enfold you in perfect gentleness. Everything is gone except the truth'. T16.7.6 This article is a warm invitation to look at our understanding of 'now'. Please come on in.. Maybe everyone who reads this will recognise the expression 'The Power of Now'. Eckhart…
Guidelines for studying the Workbook
‘It is the purpose of this workbook is to train your mind to think along the lines the text sets forth..
You are merely asked to apply the ideas as you are directed to do..
It is their use that will give them meaning to you, and will show you they are true.’ (W, Introduction)
It is impossible to get our studying wrong!
Every practice period will help, regardless of how we judge it.
Think of each Lesson as a gift to yourself, a tremendous stride towards peace.
Studying the Course is like learning a new language, with a twist..
A foreign language uses different words for the same content. The Course uses familiar terms, but they have a totally different meaning to the world’s meaning for them.
This can take some getting used to!
Spending time with the Course, building relationship with its Presence, becoming familiar with its Voice, helps us to access the part of our mind that already understands the teaching perfectly.
Bringing this understanding to our conscious awareness is the goal. We’re not expected to have it now.
The Lessons are designed with our current lack of understanding in mind.
It’s very helpful to read the Introduction to the Workbook regularly, as a reminder of how the Course would like us to approach the Lessons.
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Practice welcoming the encouragement that is given to us in the Lessons; much is given.
We don’t need to accept the ideas, only allow the questioning process of all we thought we knew and understood.
Simply allow space in our minds for the ideas, be open and receptive, and then they can reach beyond our conceptual thinking.
We are learning to soften our fixed meanings and free our minds of false ideas.
We are asked to develop willingness to accept the Holy Spirit’s help in this.
Alongside our insecurities about not fully intellectually understanding the Lessons comes an entrenched belief that we do understand ourselves and our world. Our physical identity is built on understanding the world’s ways and laws.
Studying the Course helps us come to a new and clear realisation of what is true and what isn’t, and what we innately know as a Child of God.
We need to practice every step. All of them are needed to comprehensively undo our use of the ego’s thought system.
We need much reinforcement in this undoing of our current way of seeing and for the opening to new perceptions.
Patience with ourselves, and with the Course’s method of repetition, is a wonderful attitude to adopt.
It’s best not to look ahead to future Lessons, or refer back to Lessons already covered.
Stay focused on the Lesson of the day, and trust that this is quite sufficient.
The Course has been described as a symphony of ideas, and they will be brought again and again to our attention.
As we study, our life experiences will provide us with the perfect practice for the day’s Lesson.
It’s helpful to bear this in mind, and be grateful for the supreme intelligence that is overseeing our studying.
We are working on forming new habits of disciplined spiritual practice which will serve us for the rest of our lives.
It is worth the effort!
There is a difference between genuine lack of time to practice on occasions, and a lack of willingness to practice disguised as using distractions as an excuse. A good approach is to be gentle with ourselves always, while choosing radical honesty about our practice.
The ego will try to hijack our studying at every turn and in all ways conceivable.
Common ways are:
forgetting
being too busy
perfectionism (can’t go on to the next Lesson until I’ve fully understood the current one)
analysis of the ideas
deciding we’ll do the Lessons our way rather than follow the instructions
just reading the Lessons rather than practicing them
deciding some Lessons aren’t important/interesting and paying less attention to these
deciding some Lessons are wonderful and delaying the process by spending lots of time with these
resisting the structure of the Lessons, not wanting to be told what to do
wanting immediate intellectual understanding and letting lack of understanding discourage us
deciding we’re just not up to it
Quiet morning time to practice is essential to establish our mental set for the day, before the mind gets cluttered with the day’s activities.
The Course says ideally to take this time as soon as we get up, but it also advises to practice when few distractions are anticipated and when we feel reasonably ready. We can but do our best, in our circumstances.
As our world is negated, our mind starts searching for a new truth. If we give the space, the Holy Spirit will provide this new truth. We don’t need to be concerned about anything but allowing the undoing and choosing the willingness to be shown. We don’t need to try and ’empty our minds’, but simply be present, observe and practice.
The truth will naturally dawn on our minds as we follow the exercises and expand our willingness.
Our resistance and any uncomfortable thoughts and feelings that surface during our practicing are all part of studying the Course. ACIM works in us to bring to light what we have hidden/disguised/dissociated from, so that we can choose healing and let go of what is hurting us.
Acknowledging thoughts and feelings is central to our progress, and prevents a log jam of resistance building up.
Celebrating the powerful invitations to heal will be a great help.
If resistance is very strong, try just sitting with hands on the closed book, asking for the Holy Spirit’s support.
The Course advises us not to fight ourselves, so if strong resistance continues then it could be that we’re simply not ready at that time.
Any perceived failures and inadequacies with the Course are precisely what we need to look at to find peace and healing. They will represent existing false beliefs we have about ourselves. The ego will want to find us guilty and persuade us we’re poor students.
A central part of studying the Course is to practice not believing this, or anything our ego says about ACIM.
The Course also encourages us to make our best efforts to follow the Lesson instructions as accurately as possible. Saying ‘we can’t get it wrong’ could be an ego tactic, rather than gentleness to ourselves.
Practicing will increase our ability to discern the difference.
Two quotes to give us all encouragement:
‘Each gift to Him will be multiplied a thousandfold and tens of thousands more.
And when returned to you, it will surpass in might the little gift you gave
as much as does the radiance of the sun
outshine the tiny gleam a firefly makes an uncertain moment and goes out!’ W172
Jesus says, ‘I would not ask you to do things you cannot do,
and it is impossible that I could do things you cannot do..
nothing can prevent you from doing exactly what I ask,
and everything argues for you doing it.’ T159
ACIM Stories & Experiences
Please enjoy this selection of stories & experiences arising from the study and practice of the Course
SUMMER BREAK AND GRATITUDE (31st July 2024)
I’m about to go into an August summer break, and it marks the end of a 5 year phase in the full time role of ACIM teacher. I cannot begin to express the gratitude I have for all who have joined me in so many workshops, classes, study and experience series, study sessions, 1-1’s, and silent joining sessions. The miracles have been legion!
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When I return to work in September I’ll be continuing with some events on others’ programmes, 2nd and 4th Monday practice sessions on my programme and a limited number of 1-1’s. This work form is to give space for the new ACIM project of writing a book. The prompt to write arrived over a year ago, and it seems much if not all my own healing has been in service of preparing me for this venture.
TRUE STROKES FROM SPIRIT (21st July 2024)
I’ve just been doing some research for the ‘From Ego Drama to Spiritual Power’ class in October, and have found some chilling examples of how the ego works..
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In Transactional Analysis, a form of psychotherapy, a ‘stroke’ is defined as a ‘unit of recognition – a unit of attention which provides stimulation for an individual’. A smile, a compliment, a frown, an insult all show our existence has been recognised
VIGNETTES OF THE GERMAN FESTIVAL (25th May 2024)
Closing thoughts on this miraculous gathering
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On the first day, Andreas Prohl, co-organiser of the Festival, with a hundred and one things to think about and do, offering to pick a participant up from the train station because her train was delayed.
SNEAKY EGO AND DRAMA TRIANGLES (12th May 2024)
We had such a powerful joining yesterday for the ‘Stepping Out of the Drama Triangle’ workshop.
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As we start claiming our power, feeling less a victim of others and the world, and stop rescuing others as a way of avoiding our own neediness without God, and pull back from persecuting others, seeing they are simply our projections, then the mind can get really frightened in its approach to the Light.
Persecutor – a vengeful God
EGO BACKLASH TO EGO BACKFIRE (5th May 2024)
Feeling inspired to write about the miracles on offer if we view ‘ego backlashes’ in a different light.
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The ego thought system is insane, sick, destructive, spoiling for a fight at every turn.. (and of course unreal).
PERFECT LESSON FOR EASTER SUNDAY (31st March 2024)
Today’s lesson is ‘Miracles are seen in light’, and it has such deep and powerful teaching about darkness and light (or we could say, crucifixion and resurrection). The message is that we have all power to choose the miracle of resurrection, which of course is of the mind and not the body.
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Here is a summary of the teaching in the first few paragraphs:
TWO FUNERALS AND JOY (11th February 2024)
The Students of Joy series is well underway, and there was some sharing in the last session that I feel inspired to post here. It touched me deeply, and I hope it will be helpful for you too. I’ll call the participants B and L.
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The theme of this session was ‘confusion between pain and joy’, and these examples show so clearly the process of coming to clarity.
TODAY’S LESSON SEEN MORE DEEPLY (23rd January 2024)
I’ve just been with today’s lesson, ‘I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts’, and have seen its meaning more deeply than before. Prompted to share, so hope this is helpful:
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Giving up attack thoughts doesn’t just mean giving up judgements of others and of ourselves.
LOOKING MORE DEEPLY AT FRANCES XU’S PASSING (22nd October 2023)
We’ve come through the initial shock of Frances passing, and have no doubt been through a process of assimilating not only that there is no longer a Frances but also the circumstances of her passing. And we can now choose to apply the fundamental teaching of ACIM to what seems to have occurred.
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Let’s take attention from ‘what happened to Frances’ to the healing of our own minds, our one responsibility, and see what ‘Frances’s passing’ can show us.
From lesson 137:
I have numbered the quotes so I can refer to them afterwards in applying them to this situation, for the purpose of our own healing.
And I applied quote 7 in the decision to post this.
ISRAEL, HAMAS AND FORGIVENESS (11th October 2023)
Feeling inspired to remind us of ACIM’s teaching on forgiveness, and that it applies to all seeming happenings in the world:
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‘The major difficulty that you find in genuine forgiveness on your part is that you still believe you must forgive the truth and not illusions’.
‘It is impossible to forgive another, for it is only your sins you see in him… Do not ever think you can see sin in anyone except yourself’.
Shall we join in the prayer, ‘Let me perceive forgiveness as it is’.
GOING AND NOT GOING TO GREECE (28th September 2023)
Today it seems I set off on the journey to Greece, to speak at the Greece ACIM festival.
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When I went to France at the beginning of the year, it did seem like I went somewhere. When I went to Canada in April, it didn’t. It was far more obvious that it was only my thinking – of going, being in and coming back from another country. The thinker of these thoughts didn’t go anywhere!
‘Love is one.. It never alters with a person or a circumstance It is the Heart of God, and also of His Son’.
A BRUISED HEEL AS A STEP TO GOD (20th September 2023)
I’m in the middle of a miracle, so thought I’d share..
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Nothing has happened, only a decision by the mind to:
believe in loss
Indeed, a step to God.
LETTING THE DOER FADE AWAY (10th September 2023)
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Stand up and sit down, as you would normally do, being aware that this is something you as a person are doing. You the person have decided to do it and you do it. This is our everyday experience.
All blessings for all and any engagement with letting go of the doer.
KEN ON STRAIN AND FATIGUE (15th August 2023)
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This has landed as never before.. helped by Ken stating so simply:
“It is not we, our physical and psychological selves, that are perceiving and experiencing the world.. our eyes are sightless and our ears do not hear.. It is the split mind that exists outside time that projects its dualistic thoughts of separation onto the body”
And now to strain and fatigue. What if we really took the following in:
“Although this is not our experience, it is hard work indeed to keep ‘real’ the illusory nature of time, because in reality it has already been corrected. And it is this ongoing strain of attempting to deny reality and make the unreal real that is the true source of the strain and fatigue that is our experience of living in this body”.
So, not busy work schedules, or family roles, or the weather, or bodily symptoms, or getting older.. we get tired because our minds are trying to make the unreal real. It is quite a task they have set themselves!
FOCUS ON THE SECOND COMING (5th July 2023)
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I’ve just been with a student in a silent joining session, with the idea ‘By grace I am released’. It took me into a deep experience of opening the door in my mind to ‘beyond’ and being guided to focus on the Second Coming, ‘the time in which all minds are given to the hands of Christ, to be returned to spirit’.
This universal release has of course already happened (we are mentally reviewing what has gone by) and of course has never really happened (the separation never occurred).
By taking my attention to the Second Coming I was strengthening my knowing of both its levels and bringing it closer not only for this mind but all minds.
The guidance included writing this post, and asking if you feel called to this focus.
‘What is the Second Coming’ is a passage immediately following Lesson 300.
‘Pray that the Second Coming will be soon, but do not rest with that. It needs your eyes and ears and hands and feet. It needs your voice. And most of all it needs your willingness’.
POEM OF CELEBRATION (27th May 2023)
I’ve just qualified as a ski instructor, and this reflects immense healing in my mind. I feel a shift in the healing process now, so that it will look like much healing going on within the other instructors I work with, and those that come apparently to learn to ski.
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THE EXQUISITE HOLY WAY
and choosing again.
HOLY TRINITY PRACTICE (20th November 2022)
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Choose 3 ideas – say ‘holy peace, holy power, holy light – and for 15 minutes be absolutely resolute in keeping your focus on them. You might choose one of the ideas as the main focus, and then go to the other two as ‘stabilisers’ if the ego thoughts intensify to an extent that you can’t keep with one idea. You might choose to cycle round all three.
We did this in the support session last Monday and the group found it very powerful and helpful, and much was said about wanting to adopt this practice themselves. One participant has let me know she has been doing this practice and always asks Spirit about the particular ideas for that day. Other suggestions are ‘holy love, holy joy, holy abundance, holy stillness..’
SO INSPIRING! (16th November 2022)
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K’s new neighbour began making demands that K do her cleaning and cooking, cut her hair, take out the rubbish.. and wanted to talk to K about her problems.. At first K was overwhelmed with old thinking that she ‘ought’ to help someone who clearly can’t cope on her own. Then K took the issue to Holy Spirit and was shown what is truly helpful. The neighbour wouldn’t be interested in ACIM but she had mentioned God, so K has told the neighbour that she’ll join with her in talking about God but won’t join with her in talking about her problems. On a practical level, K offered to take out the rubbish and has provided her with details of departments who can help.
THE LAND OF BARBIE DOLLS (3rd November 2022)
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There were lots of tears and a feeling of being hit by a 10 ton truck. Raw and bruised..
BODY UPDATE (30th August 2022)
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Last Tuesday I had the option of quite a physically demanding day or a really full on demanding day. The guidance was to go for the latter and stay rooted in the idea that the mind is outside time and space and cannot possibly be tired.
This deeply challenged my mind’s ancient pattern of reaching for tiredness as escape and comfort and ego bolstering..
BLESSING FROM TODAY’S LESSON (10th June 2022)
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The blessing as given is:
‘Give me your blessing, holy Son of God. I would behold you with the eyes of Christ, and see my perfect sinlessness in you’
All blessings if you choose this exercise in miracles.
STAYING IMPERSONAL AND HELIUM BALLOONS (25th May 2022)
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This led to an instant expansion and an image of a helium balloon rising into the sky. The helium balloon has no control over where it goes; it will rise and be taken by air currents. Similarly, a mind that is welcoming the memory its impersonal nature will simply rise above belief in the dream and be taken by Spirit. I’m noticing some fear, but not enough to stop the huge gratitude for the practice and the determination to keep rising.
A COLD CLASSROOM: JOINING OR OBLIVION? (10th May 2022)
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I did go back to sleep 4 times during the day, for an hour each time. The striking thing was observing the overwhelming ego desire for oblivion. Before one of the times, I tried to stay awake and join minds with Jesus, which offers the greatest restoration. No, just fell asleep..
In worldly terms we’d say – of course, you’ve got a fluey cold, your body needs sleep.. but I recognised that as an excuse, a false reason, disguising the attraction to death, the seduction of oblivion. Through listening to the ego we make an identity and world that is full of stress and strain and sickness, and then the ego comes up with rogue solutions to block out these stresses and strains – sleep can be used this way, and then ultimately death of the body.
The group session last night was part of the Ken Wapnick series focusing on resistance. Ken makes powerful and eloquent calls for us to do nothing but look at the resistance with the Holy Spirit and feel its effects. So, applying this yesterday, I didn’t try and get ‘kironJ’ ready to lead the sessions, but allowed a deep looking at my choice for and attraction to sickness.
‘One need but say, “There is no gain at all to me in this” and he is healed.. The resistance to recognising this is enormous, because the existence of the world as you perceive it depends on the body being the decision maker’.
Yesterday was a supreme classroom in which to feel this resistance.. It may seem easy to say – there’s no gain in sickness, but is it so easy to say there’s no gain in being ‘kironJ’ in a physical world? They are the same decision, and I now feel closer to saying ‘no gain’ to both..
It was also a beautiful opportunity to welcome Spirit to speak through me, and not be concerned about the apparent weakness in kironJ. Of course, perfect timing.. with 30 minutes to go before the group session I felt a wave of strength come through, and during the session I shared of my healing day, which was appreciated..
A footnote about sleep.. someone asked in the session if sleep is always of the ego. No.. the Holy Spirit can use everything we’ve made, and if we dedicate our sleep to holy purpose, to our mind resting in God, nothing to do with relief from illusory stresses and strains, then much healing can come of it.
Last night I could happily put my sleep to this purpose.. whew!
WHY FOLLOW THE NEWS? (14th April 2022)
In the support session on Monday a participant, I’ll call her P, shared that she is still troubled by the Russia Ukraine war, but that she is also attracted to the news about it. P asked for suggestions, a healing process..
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What came to mind immediately was to suggest not watching the news for a day, and watch her mind instead in response to no news. P’s first reaction was ‘no, no, no, anything but this..’. Ego loud and clear, protecting its place in P’s mind..
Turning to Spirit and desiring to remember the Truth, beyond all good/bad/tragedy/suffering, will bring peace to our war torn split minds, and allow a perfect showing of what needs to be done in the dream. Sometimes Spirit may guide us to watch the news, sometimes not, but either way it will be for the holy purpose of healing our minds and not in response to the hallucination of a conflicted and violent world.
RELEASING AN EGO STRANGLEHOLD (24th March 2022)
Sitting amid miracles and wishing to share..
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In the kironJ dream, skiing has been a prominent subplot. Young adulthood saw skiing as specialness supreme, offering freedom and excitement and evidence of being ‘good at something’. Then came a long gap, when it was viewed as a cherished memory and unlikely to come my way again due to ill health and then ill wealth..
A miracle.. this ‘special’ activity now being re-purposed. A new panorama of powerful spiritual opportunity opens up as the belief in ‘duncehood’ wanes. I can be in the role for healing and blessing, not for the purpose of trying to fix inadequacy (or succumbing to it). I am so grateful for what I sense will be ‘ACIM outreach’; another strand of supporting others to go beyond ego limitation, and so go beyond the ego in this mind.
ANOTHER STEPPINGSTONE TO NOT WORSHIPPING THE GOD OF SICKNESS
(26th January 2022)
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This morning the symptoms were milder and I could get out of bed and stay up for the day. I did a 2nd Covid test, again negative. I’m so grateful for my Mighty Companions and that I could set the goal of healing at the outset. Not once did I feel a victim or sorry for myself, even with next week’s ski trip being cancelled because the family have Covid (mild symptoms). The treasure is practicing not bowing down to the god of sickness.
ENJOYING FOOD BLOCKING HEALING (18th January 2022)
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NO BIG OR LITTLE PROBLEMS, ONLY PREFERENCES (9th January 2022)
In yesterday’s workshop, A New Year Dive into Healing, one aspect of the teaching we looked at seemed to strike a particular chord, so sharing here.. ‘All that a hierarchy of illusions can show is preference, not reality’. Saying more..
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Our minds have made some problems to be ‘difficult to fix’ because we want some projections to be beyond forgiveness. Our choice for separation and our personal identity depends on projections, which we call problems and other people’s wrongdoing. The ego, ever ingenious, makes some problems that are easy to resolve so we keep hope that this world can come good, and some problems that aren’t easy to resolve so that we keep either trying to fix them or bemoaning that we can’t (either way we keep attention in the world, the ego’s main aim).
Each mind has a preference for particular easy/difficult issues. We also have common ideas about easy/difficult. These too are preferences, although it doesn’t seem like this in our experience. For example, a cold and cancer are equally unreal and equally amenable to healing. Our minds are colluding with each other in the belief that cancer is a serious illness and so it serves as a powerful anchor in the ego thought system. Think of all the cancer research, cancer experience, cancer care, cancer fears..
All quotes are from ‘The Laws of Healing’, Chapter 26, section 7
LONDON SIGHTS AND A NEW PERCEPTION (9th November 2021)
In last night’s support session a participant asked for some insight into how to be in his sightseeing trip to London today. He remembered me talking about going to the Wimbledon tennis a few years ago with the intention of seeing it wasn’t real, and said he didn’t want to spend all his day saying ‘this isn’t real’!
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What holy sights might there be for this participant to see in his trip today.
WHAT HAPPENS AT A FUNERAL (28th September 2021)
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‘It is the one idea which underlies all feelings that are not supremely happy. A slight discomfort, the merest frown, acknowledge death. It is the alarm to which you give response of any kind that is not perfect joy. It is but an idea, irrelevant to what is seen as physical’
PERFECT PATHS OF CORRECTION (17th September 2021)
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MIRACLE WORKING (2nd September 2021)
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I’m so very grateful for this connection and join P in saying – what else is there but to claim this certainty through the miracle and to share it?
SKIING FOR HEALING (16th July 2021)
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‘The bringer of all miracles has need you receive them first, and thus become the joyous giver of what you received’.
CELEBRATING CLEARING (29th June 2021)
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HAPPINESS AND DEATH WISHES (13th April 2021)
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UPDATE OF THE TALE OF THE COVID JAB (8th April 2021)
Another healing invitation is revealing itself in this Covid vaccination experience, and I hope it’s a useful follow up to my last writing.
It’s become clear that there was an undetected belief in my mind about the high value of having a ‘sensitive body’. It’s an ancient defense strategy that’s been employed by my mind through countless lifetimes/dreams: if I’m sensitive/weak/fragile then I can’t be called upon to do things I don’t want to do. It’s been a guaranteed opt out clause and coping mechanism within the chaotic world of illusions.
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So, to this current episode.. I’ve unconsciously chosen a story of ‘big reaction to the Covid vaccination’ to support the ‘sensitive body’ belief. There is great healing on offer here! I have an opportunity to change my mind and recognise there is zero value in projecting a sensitive body, and total value in ‘accepting my part in God’s plan for salvation’ (today’s Lesson).
‘We have a mighty purpose to fulfill, and have been given everything we need with which to reach the goal. Not one mistake stands in our way’.
This sensitive body belief had to come to the surface to be healed. If I’d decided against the vaccination, my mind would have generated another ‘sensitive body’ story, with the same opportunity for healing if given to the Holy Spirit.
The issue really isn’t to have the vaccination or not. It’s do I want complete healing or not?
If we ask for complete healing, that’s what we’ll receive through looking on all our guilt and choosing again.
If we ask for a more comfortable illusion, that may be what we receive for a while, but it will incur guilt and so more painful illusions will follow.
Today’s Lesson says, ‘We dedicate ourselves to truth today, and to salvation as God planned it be’.
I’ve found that this episode has brought a deeper dedication. Amen to that.
TALE OF A COVID JAB (3rd April 2021)
I had the Covid vaccination on Wednesday, and it’s been a miraculous experience, wishing to share.
I wasn’t planning to have the vaccination, but an invitation to go to Santorini in July with my son and family brought me to a new decision. The proposed holiday has holy purpose, so I need to be able to go.
By Wednesday I was feeling fully aligned with Spirit on the safety and appropriateness of having the vaccination. It was all easy and efficient at the Covid centre, but within a few minutes of the jab I could sense the vaccine spreading round my body. My system felt deeply compromised, and I was glad it was only a short walk home.
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Whew! Such gratitude for that chunk of guilt coming up to be let out!
The feeling of being compromised has come back a few times, in waves, but not nearly as strong as in those first couple of hours, and there have been no more past life/dream experiences. I’ve been taking a homeopathic ‘vaccination kit’ of remedies, and I’m sure this has given ‘tangible form’ to my choice for healing. So grateful that I was led to this use of magic.
This episode has given me a new appreciation of the utter ghastliness of the ego thought system, and the total supremacy of Light and our Truth. I’m smiling and smiling at the timing, of this happening in the lead up to the Easter celebration of the mind’s resurrection.
THE MIRACLE OF GIVING UP OPINIONS (16th March 2021)
We had a beautiful study group yesterday, focused on the Manual for Teachers section 18, ‘How is Correction Made?’ A participant, I’ll call her D, shared that she decided to give up all opinions about what her husband does and doesn’t do, after becoming aware of just how many sneaky judgements were leaking out from her. D delightedly reported to us that it’s been a huge relief to give up these opinions and that their marriage has never been happier! Her experience is now of living with a beautiful being and it’s all so much easier.
How inspiring!
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From the section:
‘God’s teachers’ major lesson is to learn how to react to magic thoughts wholly without anger.. Anger but screeches, ‘Guilt is real’. Reality is blotted out as this insane belief is taken as replacement for God’s Word’.
A major lesson indeed, and our family relationships are often the most powerful classrooms for it.
Another participant was full of wry smiles as he quoted:
‘If he senses even the faintest hint of irritation in himself as he responds to anyone, let him instantly realise that he has made an interpretation that is not true’.
Hum.. the bar is set high in the Course.. and that is why it is a course in MIRACLES!
This is the section that contains the fundamental and well-known statement:
‘The sole responsibility of God’s teacher is to accept the Atonement for himself’. Atonement meaning the correction of our errors..
What clear and loving direction.
I’D LOVE TO SEE ALL STUDENTS TRY THIS! (29th March 2021)
Douglas Crawford and I led a combination workshop on Saturday, with breathwork and ACIM brought together to such healing and miraculous effect.
Some feedback:
‘I’m writing to thank you and Douglas for an amazingly different and exciting workshop. You both presented ways of working with ACIM in a totally new light for me. I’ve been studying the Course for ten years and embrace it as my path, but l felt today’s blend of breath work and penetrating self-enquiry gave me new and unforeseen tools to deepen my understanding and strengthen my resolve’.
Having supported some of Douglas’ rebirthing work before, in the physical, it was truly wonderful to witness its releasing power over Zoom. Participants lay down and turned their cameras so they could be seen; all sound was on, and Douglas’ calm and assured presence held them through the process. Earlier I had led a relationship contemplation, which brought many issues to the surface. All ripe to be taken into the breathwork..
I see profound healing on offer through this vehicle of rebirthing and ACIM. The breathwork encourages release of entrenched patterns and pain, way below conscious awareness, and ACIM gives perfect context and support for the choice to transcend our patterns and pain. Douglas and I will be offering this combo again!
DEEP MOVEMENTS OF DISINTEGRATION (14th March 2021)
Following a powerful clearing overnight, indeed deep movements of disintegration, I feel inspired to quote 2 paragraphs from today’s Lesson.
These paragraphs graphically describe the insanity of this world and just how extensive our healing needs to be if we are to come to peace. Last night was an experience of securely choosing to be one mind with Jesus, and to let ALL else go. I could feel the ego thought system falling apart, in total disarray. Miraculously, Spirit held me in the centre of the storming, where I could rest in the knowing that we have to witness the chaos of separation before we’ll truly decide for God.
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Idle wishes and grievances are partners or co-makers in picturing the world you see. The wishes of the ego gave rise to it, and the ego’s need for grievances, which are necessary to maintain it, peoples it with figures that seem to attack you and call for ‘righteous’ judgment. These figures become the middlemen the ego employs to traffic in grievances. They stand between your awareness and your brothers’ reality. Beholding them, you do not know your brothers or your Self.
Your will is lost to you in this strange bartering, in which guilt is traded back and forth, and grievances increase with each exchange. Can such a world have been created by the Will the Son of God shares with his Father? Did God create disaster for His Son? Creation is the Will of Both together. Would God create a world that kills Himself?’
HOW RESTFUL TO SIMPLY OBSERVE (17th February 2021)
In yesterday’s The Script is Written session, someone asked about the tempo of the healing process and wondered if there is some guidance on this. She’s been working hard, listening back to previous sessions, journaling, studying the teaching on time..
ACIM teaches that the world is over, and we are mentally reviewing the illusion of separation. It’s a closed system, nothing new will happen, our only choice is which inner teacher to watch the movie with and which parts of the script to review.
Whew! Going deep into this understanding will take us out of all the pressure to push through forgiveness opportunities, to strive for healing, to awaken.. The most powerful position we can adopt is at the quiet centre, observing, re-interpreting with Spirit, flowing within Joining, remembering always we are watching a film of what hasn’t happened. We will all choose, and in fact have already chosen, to stop this observation and remember we are in Peace. How restful is that..
THE MIGHTY HOLY USE OF METAPHYSICS (30th January 2021)
I’m becoming really clear about the difference between studying the metaphysics of the Course with the ego and the Holy Spirit! Preparation for the ‘Metaphysical Jamboree’ workshop in April is proving to be an unexpectedly powerful experience, so feeling inspired to share..
Focus on the metaphysics can be discounted as leading us to intellectualisation, and can be seen as less important than the practice – or even a distraction from it. Yes, we can easily get stuck in our heads if the ego has hopped on board, urging us to ‘know the Course, chapter and verse’, or struggle with each sentence’s meaning.
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I’ve just been in silent joining with Jesus, contemplating ‘God is in my mind’ (part of today’s Lesson title). I let the idea drop deeper and deeper in – God really IS in MY mind! (my true mind, not the split mind). I was then shown to reverse the idea – ‘my mind is in God’. I felt great expansion in my awareness, a lightness, a formlessness. Then it was back to ‘God is in my mind’ and the expansion continued.. I went through many cycles of these 2 ideas and was so aware of how they were working together to promote opening.
As I write now, the sense of expansion and lightness is still here, and form seems to be less dense.
SPACE FOR ANGER (24th January 2021)
I led Anger, Peace and Miracles for a study group yesterday, the 4th time I’ve offered this workshop. It leaves me with great clarity about the healing power of giving space for anger to be seen and felt and owned. The aim is not to be comfortable with screaming our rage, but at being comfortable with giving it permission to come into our awareness without judgement.
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Our split minds are traumatised, and we can think of the core aspects of this trauma as being guilt, grief, anger and fear. They are entwined, and as we focus on healing any of the aspects we automatically bring all aspects to the light. Working on anger is a brilliant way forward, as it is loosening our attraction to the favoured ego device for promoting ‘I’m right and you’re wrong..’.
There were opportunities yesterday for participants to express anger and it was moving and healing indeed:
One, a ‘mature lady’ who has always seen herself as ‘not an angry person’ – and maybe proud of that – dived in the deep end with a vigorous repetition of ‘I’m so angry at you, how could you, how dare you’ (the starting point of expression that was offered). She reported later that over the lunch break she felt really ‘discombobulated’, not being able to find things in her kitchen etc, but was so grateful to start lifting the lid off this hidden part of her mind.
Another, who does feel great anger inside her and has been fearful that it would overwhelming/out of control if expressed, went flat out into screaming mode, letting it fly.. a gift for the participant and a gift for the group. When we put Spirit in charge, all is safe.
NOT BOWING DOWN TO PAIN (16th January 2021)
I feel inspired to offer some quotes about pain from Lesson 190, as I continue a masterclass on healing through my tooth situation. 4 weeks on from the redoing of a root canal procedure, and after oodles of healing focus, there is still soreness and a slightly puffy cheek. I’ve faced fear again and again as the situation allows deep cornerstone dread that ‘something is terribly wrong’ to surface, and as a result I feel ever more powerfully with Spirit.
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This morning I attended a wonderful workshop led by Jennifer Hadley on visioning, and the enquiry led me to see that the tooth healing masterclass is an invitation to let go of the entire principle of projecting guilt onto the body. The Course teaches that our experience is what we’re currently desiring: if there’s pain in the body it’s there in preference to being seen and felt in the mind.
I can feel a real shift about this, a new willingness to be present with the pain in my mind so that it can be released, and I’m turning to Lesson 190 as mighty support. Simply typing the quotes below is balm and strength.
I hope they support you too:
‘Pain is wrong perspective. When it is experienced in any form, it is a proof of self-deception’
‘It (pain) is a nightmare of abandonment by an Eternal Love’
‘Pain is a sign illusions reign in place of truth. It demonstrates God is denied, confused with fear, perceived as mad, and seen as traitor to Himself’
‘If God is real, there is no pain. If pain is real, there is no God’
‘It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way’
‘The world you see does nothing. It has no effects at all. It merely represents your thoughts. And it will change entirely as you elect to change your mind, and choose the joy of God as what you really want’
NEEDING THEIR NEEDINESS (11th January 2021)
We had a beautiful and rich workshop on Saturday, the Self Enquiry Bonanza. There were many miracles, and I’d like to share a couple with you.
One of the exercises was about bringing ‘inaccessible’ emotions to the surface, and a volunteer, I’ll call her P, chose to work with ‘neediness’. Another participant demonstrated an expression of neediness for P and the group, and then P was invited to have a go herself.
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Another participant was deeply moved by this exercise and shared that she looked after her disabled partner for many years, never realising that she needed his neediness to block awareness of her ‘separation neediness’. This was a miraculous shift, opening the way for a reassessment of all her relationships.
Feedback from this participant:
‘My thoughts & beliefs about myself were that of a strong & independent person caring for others. When the Holy Spirit showed me, through the neediness dramatisation.. I saw how I projected my neediness onto others, so I wouldn’t have to look at my own pathetic neediness/strength & keep my separation from God.. I learned to see myself in truth & now I can ask Holy Spirit to show me how to help appropriately’.
Anyone drawn to the ‘caring professions’ may well have entrenched ‘separation neediness’ to heal. I absolutely acknowledge this has been a central aspect of my healing..I so enjoyed sharing this bonanza of looking, and the wonderful and deep processes that the participants engaged in.
REVIEW OF ALL PEACE NO PIECES BY JACKIE LORA JONES
What a fabulous book! Deftly and engagingly written, this A Course in Miracles overview is a clear and accessible welcome for newcomers and also a deep invitation for long time students to contemplate the truly radical nature of the Course. Jackie, Cindy Renard’s sister, really understands the teaching and gives examples from her own life which show she absolutely puts it into practice.
I had many insights along the way, and particularly appreciated the no nonsense statement that much of what we call forgiveness, even as students, is actually based on separation ideas. If we let something go because we want peace, there is still a ‘me’ that’s letting go. If we see that forgiveness benefits both parties, there is a ‘me and you’. If we feel compassion for another, we are judging someone as different from us, as having a rough time, so again it’s acknowledging separation. Jackie insistently and consistently brings us to the Course principle that real forgiveness is forgiving the mind’s decision for the ego, and our practice is to allow the undoing of the belief that anyone is separate from us.
I learnt most from the chapter, ‘Our life scripts are written’…
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Jackie is great company and I found it a real pleasure to see the Course through her eyes. She encompasses the practicality and the metaphysical genius of ACIM in a warm and inspiring read. I highly recommend it!
All Peace No Pieces is the first book in Jackie’s planned ‘The Wisdom Series’, going deeper into aspects of the teaching. I will be looking out for the next one..
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