Living by the laws of chaos

In spite of our best intentions to be kind and loving, we are all bothered by negative thoughts that we’d rather not have. Even if we realize that upsets are never caused by externals, but are a choice of the mind (albeit unconsciously), the first of us to claim to never choose any judgment or negativity may throw the first stone. In chapter 23 of the text of A Course in Miracles, Jesus offers us his essay on “The laws of chaos”. Jesus describes in painstaking detail how these senseless laws drive the unconscious part of the mind to reject and condemn, and why we stubbornly insist on living by these laws; again, in spite of our best intentions to be kind and loving. A surface-reading of “The laws of chaos” may come with feelings ranging from uneasiness to outright depression, but to transcend and happily discard them, we must look at them calmly and closely (T-23.II.1:4). After all, you can’t change your mind if you don’t know what to choose between. Let’s briefly review these laws, which are not laws at all, but merely beliefs that we think serve a certain purpose.

“The first chaotic law is that truth is different for everyone.” (T-23.II.2:1). Setting aside mathematical logic, truth in this world is always linked to values and value. It is the stubborn insistence that separation and differences are true. Truth is therefore relative. Your truth differs from my truth. This negates the first principle of miracles that there can be no order of difficulty in miracles since all illusions are the same. This first law of chaos holds that illusions differ in value, and that each separate living thing establishes truth based on what is regarded as more valuable. This ‘law’ originated with the tiny, mad idea that we could establish truth apart from God. “To hell with oneness — differences are true, as a simple look around you will confirm without a doubt”, so the ego loudly claims.

The second law of chaos follows ‘logically’ from the first. If your truth is different from my truth, you are in error, and therefore deserve to be rejected and punished. The polite surface patch “We agree to disagree” is never free from underlying hate. Since your truth differs from mine, you must be wrong. This is the root of all hate and anger, which again originates from the ontological tiny mad idea that God is wrong and I am right. God and I (the ‘ego’ I) are different and must be enemies forever. “Fear of God and of each other now appears as sensible, made real by what the Son of God has done both to himself and his Creator” (T-23.II.5:7). Note that the laws of chaos exclude the possibility that it might just be a mistake. We perceive everyone as different and therefore evil, including God.

This leads to the third preposterous law that God must hate his Son. Since we are different and therefore enemies, there is no way to turn to God for help. “Now is conflict made inevitable, beyond the help of God. For now salvation must remain impossible, because the savior has become the enemy. There can be no release and no escape. Atonement thus becomes a myth, and vengeance, not forgiveness, is the Will of God.” (T-23.II.7:5). This, of course, refers to the ego’s image of God. Since projection makes perception, the way we perceive God determines the way we perceive the world.

Having accepted as gospel truth that we live in a threatening and dangerous world, we now succumb to the fourth law of chaos: the belief that we have what we take. You lose what I take from you, and vice versa. As Jesus explains: “All other laws must lead to this. For enemies do not give willingly to one another; nor would they seek to share the things they value. And what your enemies would keep from you must be worth having, because they keep it hidden from your sight.” If you do not attack, you will lose what little you have, becomes the reigning mantra of wrong-minded thinking. Therefore, I feel I am forced to defend and attack as well, lest I lose everything I feel I have.

What makes this fourth law particularly vicious is that we secretly ‘explain’ every lack we perceive in ourselves to be the result of a sinful attack on us by our enemies. And what do we feel we lack? Our peace; ultimately our innocence as child of God. My enemies stole it from me. I must take it back, and I am fully justified in doing so. This leads to the fifth and final law of chaos, which holds that there is a substitute for love and salvation: wresting the unrighteously stolen innocence back from other bodies will lead to salvation. This results in either the special hate relationship (in which I bluntly attack you, to “hurl you over a nameless precipice”, T-24.V.4:3) or in the special love relationship (in which we passionately adore each other’s body as long as you give me what I think I need to be complete).

Jesus concludes: “Never is your possession made complete. Never will your brother cease his attack on you for what you stole. Nor will God end His vengeance upon both, for in His madness He must have this substitute for love, and kill you both.” (T-23.II.13:1) Since all bodies inevitably die, we are constantly reminded by the ego that these laws of chaos are definite and true. And so in explaining these ‘laws’, Jesus has made conscious the mechanisms of our unconscious wrong-minded thinking: “You who believe you walk in sanity with feet on solid ground, and through a world where meaning can be found, consider this: these are the laws on which your “sanity” appears to rest. […] And it is here you look for meaning.” At this point the ego, sensing its imminent unmasking, protests that of course we do not believe these senseless laws, nor act upon them. Upon which Jesus calmly replies: “Brother, you do believe them. For how else could you perceive the form they take, with content such as this?” (T-23.II.18:3).

We merely need to attentively observe the interpersonal dynamics between people on a social party to recognize that underneath the smiles and kindness, these ‘laws’ operate with vicious certainty. Secretly, almost everyone compares his or her ‘state of fortune’ with that of others; physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, financially, you name it. How much have I compared to others in the group? Even though we congratulate others for a particularly impressive success, we secretly hate them for it, for we feel success belongs only to us, since we are the only one who is right about what is right and true. And so we constantly keep the mechanism of rejection and attack in effect, thereby guaranteeing the continued existence of the separated ego. And although “life’s a piece of shit, when you look at it”, to quote Mony Python, I at least exist as an individual personality.

As always with A Course in Miracles, the way out of hell is forgiveness. Since all laws of chaos are based on the premise that there is an order of difficulty in miracles, the root of undoing these ‘laws’ lies in accepting the fact that all illusions are the same, including the illusion that we separated from God. Truth does not vary, and we are certainly not the ones to establish it. Truth is of God. As the one Son of God, we are an extension of Love in the mind of God. In truth, we can only extend that same love; all else is illusory. Even in the dream world of duality this is true: if you share an idea you strengthen it. The more love you give, the more love you’ll receive (though perhaps not immediately). This reverses the fourth and fifth laws of chaos: I have the love that I have shared with others.

This does not mean that I give away all my earthly possessions, expecting to receive much more back in return. God’s laws operate on the nondualistic ‘level I’. On level II, the dualistic dream in which we experience separation, differences, time and space, “even an advanced therapist has some earthly needs while he is here” (P-3.III.3). These will be provided for if we choose to experience level II as a classroom; a process in which we slowly learn to see God in all the seemingly separated life forms we meet. Since everything we perceive is a projection, this is the way to remember God in ourselves, which enables us to finally forgive the tiny, mad idea that in reality never happened. We don’t fight the laws of chaos; we merely calmly look beyond them. Remember, “forgiveness is still, and quietly does nothing. It merely looks, and waits, and judges not (W-pII.1.4:1-3)”. So try to be aware of how the laws of chaos seem to operate in this world, and then forgive, out of the realization that “God thinks otherwise” (T-23.I.2:7) . Since the laws of chaos seem to have operated successfully for some fourteen billion years, don’t expect to be enlightened today — it’s a slow learning process. But each time we succeed in following the Holy Spirit’s counsel, we may be saving thousands of years of pain (W-pI.97.3). Who wouldn’t want that?

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Also see my seven “guidelines for living in an illusory world” in “Miracles or Murder: a guide to concepts of A Course in Miracles“. This guidebook, endorsed by Gary and Cindy Renard, was published in March 2016 by Outskirts Press and is available at Amazon.com:

Pratyahara!

In Patanjali’s classic treatise on yoga, written well over two thousand years ago, he describes eight “limbs” or topics to practice and master, to ultimately regain union with oneness (Samadhi). While the first four of these limbs focus on the ‘externals’ of this world, the latter four focus on the training of the mind. It’s fascinating to see the parallels between the old Indian spiritual schools, especially the nondualistic Advaita Vedanta, and A Course in Miracles. This is not only for scholarly reasons, but also from a practical point of view. Patanjali’s fifth limb is called Pratyahara, which roughly translates as “withdrawal of the senses”. It describes the process of shifting your focus from the world of externals to the inner world of the mind. Since this is also one of the main thrusts of A Course in Miracles, let’s briefly review what Patanjali says about Pratyahara and how we might apply this in our own spiritual practice.

According to Patanjali, the focus on externals results in scattered vital energy (prana). To successfully fuse with oneness (in the mind), we first need to learn to control and utilize the flow of prana, as a prerequisite for effectively training the mind. This is done by shifting the mind’s focus from externals to internals. At first, these can be very physical internals, such as the heartbeat, the flow of breath, or what the ears register. Since the senses have a ‘natural’ tendency to roam between sensory inputs, focusing on just one sensory organ silences the others, and calms the flow of prana. A more energetic form of Pratyahara focuses on each of the seven chakra’s consecutively, thereby veering the mind’s attention away from externals. On a more advanced level, one could focus on observing the stream of thoughts from a distance, gently dismissing them like fluffy clouds, on the rhythm of the breath. Either way, the mind shifts from external stimuli to an inner focus. This readies the mind for Dharana (concentration), Dhyana (meditation) and finally Samadhi (union).

Some misconstrue the goal of Pratyahara as renouncing the world and stop being active and stop caring for others. However, a host of teachers emphasize that this is not what Patanjali meant. As the Bhagavad Gita clearly states: “Live a very active life, but as a man centered within himself”. As clearly exemplified by role models such as Gandhi, Mandela and mother Teresa, you can live a very active life and yet be spiritually focused on the inner realm of the (right) mind. The value of Pratyahara is that it can end the slavery of the mind being tossed about by external stimuli. All worldly actions that you perform from such a trained state of mind will inevitably be much more effective. The goal is oneness, but the practice remains within the framework of duality, where it is needed.

In A Course in Miracles, Jesus invites us to go through roughly the same process. As I’ve quoted several times before, Jesus reminds us that “An untrained mind can accomplish nothing.” (W-pI.In.1:3). The goal is “…to train your mind in a systematic way to a different perception of everyone and everything in the world.” (W-pI.In.4:1) To this end, Jesus teaches us that love, peace, happiness and salvation cannot be found in externals (“Seek not outside yourself. For it will fail, and you will weep each time an idol falls”, T-29.VII.1). But he must also convince us that we are not a body; we are spirit (“Your reality is only spirit. Therefore you are in a state of grace forever”, T-1.III.5:4).

However, no matter how spiritually nice it may sound to read that our essence is eternal spirit and not mortal matter, we read A Course in Miracles experiencing ourselves in time and space, with people and events that seem to impinge upon us, and with death and taxes as inevitable parts of life. The workbook’s goal is, first, to undo the way of separation-victim-thinking that we’ve been brought up with, and, second, to acquire a consistently right-minded way of thinking. Unfortunately, too many students sigh in desperation that they’re just not able to tame the scattered mind from the focus on externals. The mind resists the workbook’s ultimate implications. The mind then seeks all sorts of distractions, which are available in mass quantity in the external world.

For those students, the daily practice of Pratyahara may be helpful. You want to ‘tame’ your mind in that it becomes less easily distracted by external stimuli. The mind-part of this practice is the realization that choosing to be distracted serves a purpose, namely to avoid the ‘threat’ of acquiring right-minded thinking. However, since this realization is oftentimes not enough in itself to end these habitual distractions,  it can be beneficial to ‘play’ with the energy flows in your body. You can thus structure the availability of vital prana energy, which then facilitates the mind’s consistent focus on the mind training that Jesus urges us to do. And just as taking an aspirine to alleviate a headache is not seen as evil by Jesus (T-2.IV.4:1), neither is it ‘evil’ to employ a bodily practice to facilitate a concentrated mind.

So why not try, for example, to close your eyes and concentrate on following the flow of breath from your nose to your lungs and back? Or try to focus solely on the beating of your heart throughout your body for a while. A practice that I personally like is to consecutively ‘turn on’ the lights of the seven major chakra’s in the body, starting at the base of the spine, going up through the heart, and ending at the crown of the head. You can train yourself to increase the inner ‘radiation’ of these lights up to the point that your entire body is immersed in light. While this is not in itself the mind training that Jesus advocates, it does help the mind to become less easily distracted by externals. In terms of ACIM scholar Kenneth Wapnick, this practice helps to shift figure and ground. Where we usually see the external world as figure and our spiritual journey as background, this practice helps us turn this around: we can now more easily focus on the spiritual journey as the prime figure in our mind, with the external world as the background. It’s a bit of ancient wisdom that still has practical value in our over-crazed western society.

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Also see my seven “guidelines for living in an illusory world” in “Miracles or Murder: a guide to concepts of A Course in Miracles“. This guidebook, endorsed by Gary and Cindy Renard, was published in March 2016 by Outskirts Press and is available at Amazon.com:

It’s the daily practice, stupid!

A famous classic joke about music, usually attributed to violinist Jascha Heifetz, concerns a tourist who asks him politely: “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?” Upon which Heifetz replies without even a twitch of a facial muscle: “Practice, practice, practice!” Likewise, if we are to manifest the inner peace that A Course in Miracles promises in the book, we should practice, practice, practice the lessons in the workbook, for “…an untrained mind can accomplish nothing. It is the purpose of this workbook to train your mind to think along the lines the text sets forth.” (W-pI.In.1). This leads to “…a different perception of everyone and everything in the world.” This is not your average high school course; its goal is no less than a complete reversal of perception and a complete reconditioning (or undoing) of the way the mind has operated till now.

Although Jesus urges us to not do more than one set of exercises a day, he does encourage us to practice the workbook lessons every day. Any musician knows that such daily practice is a prerequisite for mastery. It takes only a few days of forgetting to practice for a musical performance to get ‘rusty’. And as we all know, a practice is hardly ever perfect; that’s why it’s an exercise. Jesus knows very well his students won’t do the exercises perfectly. There’s not a single ACIM student who hasn’t experienced the sudden realization of just how often or quickly a lesson was forgotten; sometimes for hours, sometimes for days. An important purpose of the workbook is to bring into awareness just how much we resist the message of Jesus, and just how enamored we are of our individual specialness with our special gods and idols.

On the one hand Jesus cautions us not to be too zealous about perfection in doing the exercises (“Do not attempt to apply it [the exercise] to everything you see, for these exercises should not become ritualistic.”, W-pI.1.3:5). On the other hand, Jesus does urge us to try to find the willingness to apply the ideas as indicated (“Do not allow yourself to make exceptions in applying the ideas the workbook contains, and whatever your reactions to the ideas may be, use them. […] It is their use that will give them meaning to you, and will show you that they are true.” (W-pI.In.9;8). Therefore, in practicing the workbook, we are to walk the ‘fine line’ between keeping up a certain discipline in remembering to do a daily exercise, and yet not making the exercise itself a compulsive obligatory goal.

Many students are known to focus much more on the workbook lessons than on the textbook. For one, Jesus’ language in the workbook is much more straightforward than the oftentimes abstract, difficult passages in the textbook. But perhaps more important, the workbook is generally much more lighthearted than the sometimes rather dark, painful or gruesome passages in the textbook. Attractive lesson titles such as “I am the light of the world”, “I am entitled to miracles”, “Salvation is my only function here”, “There is no cruelty in God and none in me”, and “Love is the way I walk in gratitude”, can quickly ‘seduce’ the student into merely focusing on the cheery parts of the curriculum which emphasize acquiring a mode of perception that sees only God’s love in everything.

However, this is only half of the message of Jesus. Merely delving into blissninnyhood, as Kenneth Wapnick sometimes named it, means assuming that the ego can be dismissed lightly. However, anyone who has studied the textbook will have noticed that Jesus goes to great lengths to illustrate just how terribly attached we are to the ego thoughts we made. We associate our very identity and safety with our special ego personality. If we’re ever to be convincingly motivated to choose to undo that conditioning, Jesus must be very clear about the vicious nature of the ego. As long as we don’t fully realize the enormous pain inherent in the ego thought system, we may diligently practice workbook lessons, but we won’t really change. Not really. Motivation for the kind of change Jesus advocates is only attained when you’re thoroughly fed up with what’s going on. We need to go through threshold. An often-heard quote from Jesus is: “Tolerance for pain may be high, but it is not without limit. Eventually everyone begins to recognize, however dimly, that there must be a better way. As this recognition becomes more firmly established, it becomes a turning-point.” (T-2.III.3)

Let’s review one instructive example of Jesus, from chapter 19, that could be taken right out of a horror story. It’s Jesus’ way of illustrating the viciousness of the ego thought system, which we attempt to hide behind a mask of civilization. Behind that mask, however, everyone walks this world uncertain, lonely, and in constant fear. “Fear’s messengers are trained through terror, and they tremble when their master calls on them to serve him. For fear is merciless even to its friends. Its messengers steal guiltily away in hungry search of guilt, for they are kept cold and starving and made very vicious by their master, who allows them to feast only upon what they return to him. No little shred of guilt escapes their hungry eyes. And in their savage search for sin they pounce on any living thing they see, and carry it screaming to their master, to be devoured.[…] They will bring you word of bones and skin and flesh. They have been taught to seek for the corruptible, and to return with gorges filled with things decayed and rotted. To them such things are beautiful, because they seem to allay their savage pangs of hunger. For they are frantic with the pain of fear, and would avert the punishment of him who sends them forth by offering him what they hold dear (T-19.IV-A.12:3-7; 13:2-5).

If that’s not convincing enough, try studying chapter 23 about the laws of chaos once more. The way Jesus describes these systematic ‘laws’ of the world of time and space and perception, makes it crystal-clear just how deeply everything in this world is permeated with the “kill-or-be-killed” principle; if not physically, then certainly psychologically. No matter how much you invest in a mask of happiness, strife and disappointment are never far away. And although Jesus needs a happy learner, who has been shown both the illusory nature of this nightmare, and the ‘blissful’ truth of his true Identity as Son of God (and with him all his brothers and other life forms), Jesus needs to make sure this happy learner is properly motivated to really follow through. What do you think will motivate a student more: (a) Just telling him that there’s something better than his current perceived life, or (b) clearly and calmly unveiling all the pain that we’re constantly trying to push out of awareness, and then inviting us to take his hand to lead us to the real world, the gateway to Heaven?

If you would really master this curriculum, study the textbook (and manual) thoroughly, and do the workbook lessons diligently. Practice, practice, practice! The difference with music practice is that this is a practice that we shouldn’t try on our own. We need only find the little willingness to step back and invite Jesus or the Holy Spirit to guide us in our exercise. I don’t heal my mind; I allow my mind to be healed. But to be effectively healed, I must muster that little willingness from day to day. Only by having studied the textbook can I understand why this is so darn difficult. Thanks to Jesus’ instructive teachings, I am now aware of the enormity of the unconscious ego pain, and I have been shown the happy alternative. This provides the proper mindset for doing the exercises in the workbook. Sure, I know I won’t do the workbook perfectly, but I also realize that mastery of Jesus’ curriculum is inevitable: “The script is written. When experience will come to end your doubting has been set. For we but see the journey from the point at which it ended, looking back on it, imagining we make it once again; reviewing mentally what has gone by.” (W-pI.158.4:2). This a course out of hell which no-one can fail! Who would need a better motivation than that?

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Also see my seven “guidelines for living in an illusory world” in “Miracles or Murder: a guide to concepts of A Course in Miracles“. This guidebook, endorsed by Gary and Cindy Renard, was published in March 2016 by Outskirts Press and is available at Amazon.com:

Why do bodies decay?

We all regard the apparently inevitable decay and death of the physical body as one of the few certainties in life. Religions take it to be God’s punishment for our cardinal sin of not obeying Him. Scientists simply have no clue as to why entropy reigns supreme. So why do bodies decay?

Contrary to what most religions have taught for millennia on end, A Course in Miracles teaches us that God did not make the body (M-22.5:5), nor anything composed of matter, since God creates only Love (cf. W-pI.173). The body is a deceitful hallucinatory attempt of the ego to be on its own. The body is ‘proof’ that the separation from God has actually been accomplished. However, if the ego made the body to ‘prove’ it can do very well without God, why would it make a body that inevitably decays and dies? If the ego proclaims it has overthrown God, wouldn’t a body that lives forever be far more convincing? Why the decay?

For a plausible answer, we should first recap why the ego invented the body. In the ontological instant of the separation (in quantum physics we would call this a quantum possibility, in this case the possibility of separating from God) the ego immediately ‘told’ the seemingly sleeping Son that God would most certainly punish his heinous Son for such a sinful deed. The result: mortal fear and guilt! However, so the ego counsels, there is a way to escape this punishment, namely: hiding in an almost infinite collection of splintered fragments. This ‘solution’ of almost endless further separation is of course the only ‘solution’ the ego can come up with, since the ego is the idea of separation. The sleeping Son, overwhelmed with gargantuan guilt and in mortal fear of punishment, listens to the ego and sets in motion the Big Bang. From that moment on, time and space seemed to be. A zillion ‘bodies’ seem to endlessly disperse into the void.

The first target of the ego — to hide from Love, the state of Oneness — has now been achieved. Since the Son has chosen to follow the ego’s counsel, Oneness has now been erased from the awareness of the seemingly sleeping Son of God. The Son of God is now convinced he is a body. Although the Son is rather ambivalent about that body, He nevertheless regards this as his identity and his safety. In A Course in Miracles, Jesus has a slightly different view: “The body is a tiny fence around a little part of a glorious and complete idea. It draws a circle, infinitely small, around a very little segment of Heaven, splintered from the whole, proclaiming that within it is your kingdom, where God can enter not.” (T-18.VIII.2:5)

In truth, this is all illusory, but let’s follow the progression of the illusion for now, since anyone who still lives on psychological auto-pilot firmly believes this is reality. The ego must make sure that the Son of God never changes His mind about choosing the ego, for that would definitely mean the end of its reign. Therefore, the ego makes sure the body demands the mind’s constant attention, so that the memory of Oneness never comes into awareness. What better way to have the mind continually focus on the body than making sure the body is needful? We must breathe every few seconds, and if we do not drink and eat daily, the body is soon finished. We must constantly be vigilant about our nutrition and exercise lest we be hurt by legions of bacteria, viruses, and parasites. For most ‘living’ creatures, the body requires so much attention that any kind of psychological or spiritual vision is absolutely out of scope. Meanwhile the ego smiles.

Still, there is an additional, much more important reason for the ego to stress the body’s impermanence. A body that decays and dies ‘proves’ that Oneness is a lie: the attack and separation clearly succeeded. God failed; the ego is victorious! As we experience ourselves now, we clearly cannot be of God. We’re on our own; we made it! Consider: “…if oneness [i.e., eternal life] still remained untouched, who could attack and who could be attacked? Who could be victor? Who could be his prey? Who could be victim? Who the murderer? And if he did not die, what ‘proof’ is there that God’s eternal Son can be destroyed?” (W-pII.15.2:4). Since the ego is the idea of attack and separation, it cannot but continue to attack and separate, even in the made-up world of time and space. Therefore bodies must attack and be attacked, perishing in the end, as the ego cannot be anything other than its own source mechanism.

So there we have it: we listened to the ego’s seductive counsel of attempting autonomy on our own, to find ourselves in separated bodies that only live for an instant on the timeline of the cosmos, like a firefly’s brief glow in the night. Could the seemingly sleeping Son of God really be satisfied with this? Of course not! If you look closely at the world, you’ll see very few bodies (i.e., people) in a state that even remotely approaches happiness. Still, this misery is no doubt better than the morbid guilt and mortal fear of the terrible wrath of God over the ‘cardinal sin’ of attacking and separating from Him. I’d rather exist as a painful individual than face annihilation into oblivion should I choose Oneness and return to the Creator Whom I’ve rejected. That’s why Jesus teaches us in (T-13.III.1:10) that we’re not really afraid of the crucifixion (i.e., death); our real fear is of redemption, that is, the disappearance of our individuality once we choose Love (Oneness) again. So we accept decay as part of life. We’re totally insane, though the insanity is consistent.

So much for scientists who are currently delving into possibilities to double or triple our life span. They’ll no doubt succeed one day in significantly lengthening the longevity of our body cells. In fact, lab experiments on chicken’s body cells have shown that in absence of stress, body cells can be kept alive for over ten times the normal lifespan of a chicken. But here’s the catch: a life without stress is impossible in duality, as long as there still remains one scrap of guilt’n’fear over perceived sin and its consequences. And once we accept the Atonement and finally reach the real world (in the mind), free of guilt and fear, we will no longer choose the body as our home. So eternal life in time and space is by definition a fairy tale.

If at this point you are thoroughly disgusted about your body, hold your horses. As Jesus reminds us in Workbook part II, essay 5 (“What is the body?”), everything depends on purpose. Where we initially gave the body the purpose of attack, separation, decay and death, we “can change the purpose that the body will obey by changing what we think what it is for.” (W-pII.5.3:5) In other words, the body can also be used as a means by which the seemingly sleeping Son of God can return his mind to sanity. How? “The Son of God extends his hand to reach his brother, and to help him walk along the road with him. Now is the body holy. Now it serves to heal the mind that it was made to kill. You will identify with what you think will make you safe. […] Love is your safety. Fear does not exist. Identify with love, and you are safe. […] Identify with love, and find your Self.” (W-PII.5.4:3)

The bottom line is that it shouldn’t matter in the slightest that our body inevitably decays and dies. It is the stuff of the dream that we have chosen, to attempt the separation. It is not truth: “not one note in Heaven’s song is missed” (T-26.V.5). If, by studying and practicing a curriculum such as A Course in Miracles, we can learn to identify with our true Self, we’re well on our way to rediscover the everlasting peace that is still our source; the peace of the Father who holds not even the slightest grudge over what we were convinced we committed. We are like the prodigal Son, fearing to return Home. Learn to kindly help your brother and forgive all mistakes your perceive, and you will learn of the Love for your Self and for God. This is the royal road to everlasting peace.

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Also see my seven “guidelines for living in an illusory world” in “Miracles or Murder: a guide to concepts of A Course in Miracles“. This guidebook, endorsed by Gary and Cindy Renard, was published in March 2016 by Outskirts Press and is available at Amazon.com: