We control time

One of the things that make A Course in miracles as a spiritual curriculum so hard to learn, is its notion of the totally illusory nature of time, space, and perception. It simply doesn’t feel intuitive to be told that those you live, love and work with are wholly unreal because time, space and our senses are unreal. When actor Jim Carrey recently declared in an interview that he doesn’t believe in separated personalities anymore, he was met with sardonic laughter. People responded that anyone who doesn’t believe what his eyes see, has clearly lost his mind, as various cynical YouTube reaction videos graphically portrayed.

We are all convinced that time winds on regardless of what we think, say or do, from our first breath to our last. As long as we experience ourselves in a body, our thoughts and actions are guided by our perception in time. Even as faithful students of A Course in Miracles, we seriously doubt whether we have enough time in this particular lifetime to get from readiness to mastery (of accepting the Atonement). It is therefore intriguing to read in chapter 7 of the text: “You may think [that] this [i.e., ‘you’ll only be totally confident when you have mastered true forgiveness’] implies that an enormous amount of time is necessary between readiness and mastery, but let me remind you that time and space are under my control.” (T-2.VII.7:9) What does Jesus mean?

Jesus certainly doesn’t mean he is watching our doings from way up above, threatening that he could end it all with a snap of his fingers (if he had them). That would be the very opposite of his loving message that we are all Christ, including him and me and you. In fact, Jesus says: “There is nothing about me that you cannot attain. I have nothing that does not come from God. The difference between us now is that I have nothing else.” (T-1.II.4:10-12). Rather, Jesus is telling us that time, contrary to what we perceive, does not proceed linearly; it is holographic, meaning that the whole is contained in each instant. Everything in time is happening now. Jesus puts it this way: “Each day, and every minute in each day, and every instant that each minute holds, you but relive the single instant when the time of terror [i.e., separation] took the place of love” (T-26.V.13:1). In other words, we constantly tell Jesus to get lost, allowing the ego to manifest a future that turns out the same as the past, convincing us that time proceeds linearly, starting with the big bang some fourteen billion years ago.

Because Jesus states that he and you and I are essentially equal brothers, sharing the same right mind of Christ, he implicitly states that we can control time as well, however absurd this may sound. In fact, at some places he is rather explicit about this: “Each time you practice [forgiveness], awareness is brought a little nearer at least; sometimes a thousand years or more are saved. The minutes which you give are multiplied over and over, for the miracle makes use of time, but is not ruled by it.” (W-pI.97.3:2). And, from the manual for teachers, about the ‘Teachers of God’, that is, anyone who has chosen to learn Jesus’ curriculum of forgiveness: “Their function is to save time. […] Each one saves a thousand years of time as the world judges it.” (M-1.2:11,13).

Although Jesus is obviously using poetic, metaphoric language when he speaks of “a thousand years”, he is telling us two things. First of all, we should not be stressed out because of our fear we won’t embrace Salvation quick enough in this lifetime. Although Jesus doesn’t take a definite stand on the issue of reincarnation, he clearly implies that you and I are not here for the first time, and there will be many more lives to come. In fact, in Absence from felicity we read about the scene where Helen gets near her own tomb of some 1900+ years ago in Israel (do read that book!). When she is tempted to go there, Jesus clearly instructs her not to, saying in effect: “No. Let the dead bury the dead.” (p.357)

Secondly, Jesus is saying to you and me that it is entirely up to us when we choose to accept the Atonement. Each time we succeed in choosing forgiveness, the miracle abolishes the need for more time to learn to undo the ego, and therefore undo time and space. As Jesus says in chapter 4 of the text: “The only message of the crucifixion [i.e, separation] is that you can overcome the cross [i..e, the misery of the ego]. Until then you are free to crucify yourself as often as you choose.” (T-4.In.3:8-9). And, from the introduction to the text: “Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time.” (T-In.1:4). Therefore, it is not a matter of whether we will wake up (we all will eventually); it is a matter of when we choose to wake up. “In this world the only remaining freedom is the freedom of choice; always between two choices or two voices.” (C-I.7:1).

Now we can better understand why Jesus reminds us that “time and space are under my control”. You and I can abolish the need for more time, but we cannot do that without Jesus’ help. Remember: “Trust not your good intentions. They are not enough” (T-18.IV.2:1-2). Abolishing time requires us to admit that we, as separated ego, have been wrong about everything, including our very existence in time, and Jesus is right about our being already safe at home in eternity in the Heart of God, without a distinct personality. Again, as long as we believe we live in a body and perceive a world around us, this message frightens us to the bone, and we won’t accept it. Until the pain of the misery and failure gets too much and we exclaim that there must be a better way. Only once we experience the peaceful effects of true forgiveness are we truly practicing our readiness to accept the Atonement. What Jesus tells us in A Course in Miracles is that each time we succeed in choosing the miracle of forgiveness, we are really abolishing the need for more time, sometimes ‘thousands of years’. “The purpose of time is to enable you to learn how to use time constructively. […] Time will cease when it is no longer useful in facilitating learning” (T-I.1:15)

“What is a hundred or a thousand years to Them [the face of Christ and the memory of God], or tens of thousands?” (T-26.IX.4:1). Once I truly choose the path of the joy of Christ, time becomes irrelevant except insofar as I can abolish the need for more time, with Jesus’ help. Try to practice that most valuable insight in common, everyday situations. For example, if I catch myself at the grocer’s becoming irritated by the queue at the checkout, I can realize I’ve just been given a wonderful forgiveness opportunity. Time really doesn’t matter! So as a student of A course in Miracles, meaning ‘as a teacher of God’, do not become nervous as you fear you won’t reach the top of the ladder to the real world in this lifetime. You’ve been here many times before and will be here again. You and I will accept the Atonement. It is only to the extent in which we allow Jesus and the Holy Spirit to help us, how much time we still choose to take to attain it. So ask yourself regularly: “How long will I be willing to still live in hell? Will I not choose to follow Jesus (or the Holy Spirit) today?”

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See also “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:

Live with no regrets

Almost all of us have met people at some time who have chosen to regard the world with a cynical attitude. Many of these unfortunate people feel bitterly disappointed about their expectations of life. They feel they’ve been let down by a host of external factors, be it by people or by fate, which of course unconsciously reflects their belief they’ve been let down by God, Who apparently didn’t think too much of all their efforts, let alone their very existence. In hindsight they regret not having done things differently. A failure is a failure, and there’s no way to erase the past. Or is there?

Regrets seem to be about hope of finding more happiness if the approach had been different, but in effect they are about attempting to make a better dream world, which from Jesus’ point of view in A Course in Miracles, is hopeless. A complaint such as “If I had only done this or that differently, my life would be so much better” is an ego ploy to keep the mind focused on seeking, seeking and never finding, ensuring its continued existence. It keeps the mind from honestly evaluating the whole situation of the world and our seeming role in it, and once again choosing the unchangeable eternal Love of God.

If you and I honestly search our mind at any time during the day, we will undoubtedly discover that more than 90% of our thoughts are either about the past or the present. While on the one hand this dream world in which we believe we live does require us to make effective plans based on past experiences, the mind has the power to choose to spend a little more time focusing on the now, stepping back and asking the Holy Spirit sincerely what we should do, where we should go, and what we should say and think. Again, we refuse to do this because we are still enamored of our little ego. To make a real shift in your life’s happiness requires a diligent focus on being miracle-minded ever more often.

Miracle-mindedness, it should be noted, requires more than just affirming that the focus should be on (the voice of) love in the present here and now, however valuable such an attitude in itself is. We must learn to remember what we are and what this world is. A Course in Miracles contains ample passages that shed light on this: “All your difficulties stem from the fact that you do not recognize [know] yourself, your brother or God. […] The Bible tells you to know yourself, or to be certain. Certainty is always of God.” (T-3.III.2:1;5:1-2). “The miracle establishes that you dream a dream, and that its content is not true. This is a crucial step in dealing with illusions.” (T-28.II.7:1-2). And from the workbook: “A miracle is a correction. It does not create, nor really change at all. It merely looks on devastation, and reminds the mind that what it sees is false.” (W-pII.13:1-3). And, finally: “[Miracles] stand in shining silence next to every dream of pain and suffering, of sin and guilt. They are the dream’s alternative, the choice to be the dreamer, rather than deny the active role in making up the dream.” (T-28.II.12:1-3). Again, this puts in proper perspective what we are and what this world is about. Only then can we practice forgiveness the way Jesus asks us to.

In A Course in Miracles, Jesus treats the miracle and forgiveness as virtually synonymous: “Forgiveness is the healing of the perception of separation. Correct perception of your brother is necessary, because minds have chosen to see themselves as separate. […] But God’s miracles are as total as His Thoughts because they are His thoughts.” (T-3.V.9:1-2,7). In other words, the miracle heals the perception that things went wrong due to external factors. Our brothers are not against us; they are one with us, and as we see them so we see ourselves: “The miracle is the act of the Son of God who has laid aside all false gods, and calls on his brothers to do likewise. It is an act of faith, because it is the recognition that his brother can do it.” (T-10.IV.7:1-2)

Regrets therefore mirror wrong-mindedness, and serve no other purpose than keeping alive the ego’s focus on the future being the same as the past. Kenneth Wapnick once noted in one of his workshops that when asked if he would have done anything differently if he would get the chance, his answer was that “no, I would not change a single thing, because every single thing I did somehow had its role in contributing to a greater whole.” Of course, once one learns to “resign as his own teacher” (T-12.V.8:3), acknowledging that he was “badly taught” (T-28.I.7:1), under the guidance of the Holy Spirit everything in this dream world we call life becomes a useful classroom, and failure is inherently impossible. Regrets therefore, again, serve no purpose at all, except to keep the ego alive. Miracles, on the other hand, “fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven” (W-pII.13.5:1).

So whenever you catch yourself about being disappointed over anything in the past, realize that regrets are dark spots in the mind. These serve to keep the light of Jesus and the Holy Spirit at bay, but they really do not serve you. Dark spots call for forgiveness, not for wallowing in regret. Quickly choose a miracle instead of murder (T-23.IV.6:5), and remember that the closest approximation to eternity is now, not the past. If you can instead shake off the depressive feeling, and without any prejudice ask the Holy Spirit what you should do, this is bound to quickly result in the peaceful lightness that you then realize you and I and everyone have always wanted. You and I indeed have every reason to live life without regrets, because everything that happened that brought us to where we are now, offers the opportunity to make a right-minded choice: to let life be guided by the Holy Spirit, or what I call true intuition, ever more often. Diligently practicing forgiveness undoes the past, one dark spot at a time. Eventually there’ll be nothing left to have any regrets about.

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See also “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:

Is mitosis natural?

The biological process known as mitosis, wherein one cell spits into two, the two split into four, et cetera, also known as cell division, has been a mysterious marvel to many scientists. Apparently something orchestrates a plan behind this process: the 16th million cell isn’t different from the first, and yet the cell division results in a distinctly unique and characteristic life form, which flourishes a while, and then to eventually wither and inevitably die. Scientists ask why this happens in the way it does, and what is directing the DNA as orchestrator of this evolutionary process?

Students of A Course in Miracles realize that this whole separation-and-division process is the sum and substance of the ego. After all, the ego is the idea of separation and division. Consider: when the tiny, mad idea of individuality seemed to occur in the mind of the Son of God, the Son pondered what would happen if the whole notion would be taken seriously. That mistake, the first and only one that was ever made (T-27.VIII.6:2), resulted in the first split: the ontological separation. (This is still before there seems to be such a thing as time.) Division works! The Son now seems to be autonomous, and separate from his true identity as Christ.

Of course, instantly comes the realization that this autonomy was bought at a considerable price: the shattering of the peace of Heaven. In fact, God has been overcome, since apparently He isn’t “all in all” anymore. Exhilaration quickly turns to fear, as the Son realizes with horrible guilt that this separation was a sin that can never be erased, and punishment for which will surely follow by the vengeful Creator Who is intent on taking back what was stolen from Him. The ego comes to the rescue by advising the Son to project the sin and guilt away to a new self. The Son, now — by his own election — an amnesiac slave to the ego, follows through and splits once more. Now he identifies with an innocent, sinless self, whereas the sin and guilt are seen in the split-off other self. Now he is on his own, with Heaven still shattered, but he cannot be held accountable, since the guilt is obviously in the other.

However, the fear isn’t gone: the Son now becomes bitterly afraid of this newly made-up victimizer self, which it perceives as the vengeful God, hellbent on ‘repaying’ His Son. Still, once more the ego comes to the rescue, following its own nature: separation and division. It advises the Son to hide from God by splitting up into billions of fragments. Again the Son complies, setting in motion what we now know as the Big Bang, which is also the beginning of time and space. The process of the dispersion of matter in the cosmos is essentially no different from the cell division of mitosis: we are living (or better: seem to be living) in the house of the ego, which by nature operates by separation and division. But is it natural? Hardly. As Jesus tells us: “The world goes against your nature, being out of accord with God’s laws.” (T-7.XI.1:5)

Kenneth Wapnick once jokingly remarked that DNA is short for “Do Not Accept”, that is, do not accept our real heritage as the one Son of God, safely at Home in the Kingdom of Heaven; the Heart of God. In lesson 95 of the workbook, Jesus comments on this amnesia about our real heritage: “You are one within yourself, and one with Him. Yours is the unity of all creation. Your perfect unity makes change in you impossible. You do not accept this, and you fail to realize it must be so, only because you believe that you have changed yourself already. […] You are one Self, the holy Son of God, united with your brothers in that Self; united with your Father in His Will. Feel this one Self in you, and let it shine way all your illusions and your doubts.” (W-pI.95.1:2;13:2-3) We of course think we do not want this unity, because it will “cost” us our precious individuality.

Gary Renard was offered the Gospel of Thomas by Pursah, containing the literal sayings that Jesus reportedly taught his disciples some two thousand years ago. It makes for interesting reading, especially when studied in Rogier Fentener van Vlissingen’s excellent book “Closing the circle”. In the context of our current topic, saying 79 is of particular interest. The story is as follows. A woman in the crowd said to him [Jesus], “Lucky are the womb that bore you and the breasts that fed you.” He said to her: “Lucky are those who have heard the word of the Father and have truly kept it. For there will be days when you will say, ‘Lucky are the womb that has not conceived and the breasts that have not given milk.’”

To the ego, this is utterly ridiculous. After all, “no more babies” eventually means total extinction. And it is certainly not what we think when our heart melts at the sight of a newborn cute little baby. However, Jesus is in effect saying to us: “This is still separation. You still ‘Do Not Accept’ your heritage as spirit, at home in the heart of God. Do not feel guilty about this, but do realize that the essence of physical reproduction is still a choice for the ego.” Now Jesus would never advise us to stop making babies, since the body is not the problem: it is a wholly neutral thing (W-pI.294), which can be used — by the mind — for either separation from, or joining with our brothers. The choice is up to us.

This of course is Jesus’ true call to all of us: evaluate what will truly bring the lasting inner peace “that passeth all understanding” (Phil. 4:7):  shift the mind’s focus from separation and fear to joining and love, following the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Only then will the process of mitosis be seen in its right place, and eventually be discarded not with regret, but with a sigh of gratitude. Until that moment, which may indeed seem very far off, we need do nothing (T-18.VII) but practice forgiveness of our own condemning mind that remembers not to smile at all the judgment we indulge in, just to keep that silly notion of individual autonomy alive. Forgiveness teaches that it doesn’t matter. What matters only is the vigilance for the Kingdom, the only way to turn “Do Not Accept” into “Choose once again a better way”. Happy practicing!

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See also “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:

A lifelong learning to want Love

Caught a cold this week. Been coughing and sniveling for the past few days, with noticeable headache. On a physical level, you might say that a virus managed to get in and attack my bloodstream. I could therefore choose to regard myself as a victim of forces beyond my control. Still, we read in A Course in Miracles that “all illness is mental illness” (P-2.IV.1:1). Since the state of the body is an effect of the state of the mind, the cause of the physical illness resides in the mind: “Illness is the result of a view of the self as weak, vulnerable, evil and endangered” (P-2.IV.6:1).  Jesus adds that “The acceptance of sickness as a decision of the mind, for a purpose for which it would use the body, is the basis of healing. And this is so for healing in all forms” (M-5.II.2:1-2).

Although this recipe for healing sounds nice, in practice it can be rather hard to swallow and accept. After all, an aspirin alleviates my headache within an hour, whereas affirming that “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me. I want the peace of God” (W-pI.201.1; W-pI.185.1) doesn’t seem to have any influence on the state of my body whatsoever. So what gives? Well, instead of listening to the ego’s voice barking at me that I should feel very guilty over being such a weak and miserable brat, I could also honestly look at myself and affirm that apparently I still have forgiveness work to do in my mind. The cold is really saying that I am not as far up the ladder as I thought I was. This awareness in itself is very valuable, since it brings the mind back to the work that still needs to be done.

To many students, one of the most discouraging aspects of A Course in Miracles is the realization that there’s a big difference between saying “I want the peace of God” and really meaning it. “To say these words is nothing. But to mean these words is everything. […] No one can mean these words and not be healed.” (W-pI.185.1:1;2:1). And even if I do mean it for an instant, this doesn’t mean that the symptoms vanish immediately, as Kenneth Wapnick has pointed out on several occasions. The body is inherently slow; any physical change takes time. On the other hand, there are also well-documented cases of “healing journeys” with for example instant remission of terminal cancer, ‘merely’ through an all-encompassing focus on oneness and love. But even such ‘success stories’ often do not last a lifetime. The mind has still not unequivocally chosen Love; there’s still forgiveness work to do.

The reason why we don’t do this is clear to most students of A Course in Miracles. Choosing Love means choosing against the ego, which means choosing against its concept of individual consciousness, autonomy, time, and space. When the forgiveness work is completely done, the body vanishes! If you think you are sufficiently spiritually advanced to be beyond the body, just watch your reaction when you walk on the street and are nearly hit by a car. Or try the scenario in which you have no food available at all for several days. Or picture yourself stumbling from a cliff, almost falling into a thousand-feet deep abyss. These are sobering experiments: I can tell myself a thousand times that “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me,” but do I really mean it? If I’m honest to myself, I will admit that no, I do not really mean it as yet. I am still enamored of my little physical and psychological self.

Again, instead of feeling depressed and guilty about my lack of spiritual progress, I could remember that A Course in Miracles is a course in mind training, and the material world is a classroom in which I am offered loads of opportunities to choose to listen to the advice of the Holy Spirit. However, most of the time I apparently still choose the ego’s voice, which may weaken the mind but at least keeps up the illusion I exist. I do not yet realize the joy the Holy Spirit will give me. “Have you really considered how many opportunities you have had to gladden yourself, and how many of them you have refused?” (T-4.IV.8). I gladden myself by realizing I am one with all seemingly separated things. Condemnation of anything outside myself, then, means that I hurt myself.

Lesson 284, “I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt”, provides a wonderful summary of the proces of ending this hurt: “Loss is not loss when properly perceived. Pain is impossible. There is no grief with any cause at all. And suffering of any kind is nothing but a dream. This is the truth, at first to be but said and then repeated many times; and next to be accepted as but partly true, with many reservations. Then to be considered seriously more and more, and finally accepted as the truth. I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt.” (W-pII.284.1:1). The key lies in the gradual process of accepting this truth. No-one should expect to be enlightened overnight: by far the most of us need a lifetime, perhaps even much more, to reach such a level of acceptance.

Instead of bemoaning the uselessness of A Course in Miracles whenever you feel ill, stop and realize you’ve just been given an excellent opportunity for mind training, that is: forgiving your own mind that you’ve condemned yourself as weak by identifying with the separated ego. Do not feel guilty about that; do not fight the ego. And please do not hesitate to take an aspirin. It may be magic, but Jesus explicitly states that temporarily using magic (such as medicine) is not evil: “It does not follow, however, that the use of such agents for corrective purposes is evil. Sometimes the illness has a sufficiently strong hold over the mind to render a person temporarily inaccessible to the Atonement” (T-2.IV.4:4-5).

In other words, Jesus’ guidance is always kind, and you should therefore be kind to yourself. Being kind to yourself also means: realizing that keeping up a vigilant discipline for the Kingdom of God [by giving up judgment, and choosing forgiveness instead] (T-6.V.C.2) is not chastising yourself; it is the kindest thing you could offer to yourself. So be kind and train your mind. Do the work! Only then will you truly realize what it means to mean it when you think you want Love, the peace of God; and only then will you want it above all else. Remember, whatever enters in your life, in essence it’s yet another opportunity for practicing forgiveness.

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See also “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:

The price of death

In my neighborhood, I used to watch an elderly couple with their German shepherd dog go for a walk a couple of times a day. The dog had definitely reached the dog-age of retirement. Each year he walked a bit slower. Eventually he started to limp seriously on his hind legs. The next year I noticed the couple walked without a dog. But they aged themselves as well. Well before the dog died, she found herself confined to a motorized wheelchair. This lasted for about four years. Eventually, the husband found himself walking the neighborhood alone, and this year he passed away as well. The house was sold and their possessions taken to the local waste dump.

It made me realize the uselessness of many of my own worries, little and ‘big’. In sixty years from now, I myself won’t be walking this earth any longer. Fear about my bodily health, about whether people might like me or not, about cherished possessions that I might lose in an accidental fire become silly in that light. Frustrations over people who seemingly ignore everything and everyone in their environment; about things not turning out the way I had planned… it’s useless stress. As a ‘classroom’, they provide wonderful forgiveness opportunities, but such lessons also remind me just how much of the ladder I still need to climb to reach what A Course in Miracles calls the ‘real world’.

As humanity, we desperately cling to our brief existence in time. We strive to construct things that last. Still, we know that even “world wonders” such as the Taj Mahal and the Cheops pyramid will probably be gone in a few thousand years. Indeed, “All things must pass”, as George Harrison poignantly sang back in 1970, in the midst of the scribing of A Course in Miracles by Helen Schucman and  Bill Thetford. We know that everything and everyone decays, withers away and dies. Since we know not otherwise, we accept entropy as an inevitable cosmic law, and try to make the best of the brief time that’s given us, at best hoping for another chance in a next life.

It is Jesus’ formidable task to convince his students that not only life in this world and this cosmos is a tragic mistake, literally nothing more than a feverish nightmare, but also that there is something much, much better that could instantly be our experienced reality if we would only be willing make a better choice about the purpose of life. Although Jesus knows that this better choice has already been made, since he stands outside of the dream of time and space, most of his sleeping brothers in time still firmly believe that this decaying body is all they have and are. They experience, as Jesus graphically describes it, that “Their growth is attended by suffering, and they learn of sorrow and separation and death. […] They seem to love, yet they desert and are deserted. They appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground, and are no more. Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel.” (T-13.In.2:6).

A major quality of A Course in Miracles, I think, is that it makes its students aware of the all-pervasive power of projection, the dynamic of seeing something undesirable about yourself in someone else, thereby hoping to get rid of the pain. This world started from the ontological premise that we could live apart from our Creator and therefore abandon God. Since the guilt and accompanying fear over this ‘horrendous act’ is too terrible to face, we project it away, magically hoping that by erasing it from awareness, it will be gone (which it isn’t of course). Thus, through projection we believe that God has abandoned us. Consequently, we either tell ourselves that God probably doesn’t exist, or we rack and sabotage ourselves, pleading to our Creator to have mercy on us when we die, after so much serviceable sacrifice. Whichever way we choose to think, as long as we still believe we are a body, the ego reigns supreme, ensuring that there will still be more time to separate and die in.

Much of part II of the Workbook of A Course in Miracles is devoted to helping us make another choice, now that we’ve come to see the tragic mistake of not gently laughing about the ‘tiny, mad idea’ (T-27.VIII.6:2) of autonomy on our own. As lesson 327 promises: “I am not asked to take salvation on the basis of an unsupported faith. For God has promised He will hear my call, and answer me Himself. Let me but learn from my experience that this is true, and faith in Him must surely come to me. This is the faith that will endure, and take me farther and still farther on the road that leads to Him.” (W-pII.327.1:1). However, we must be willing to call, as the title of the lesson reminds us (“I need but call and You will answer me.”). Honestly cultivating such willingness is a process that takes time, as the metaphor of the ‘road that leads to Him‘ clearly emphasizes.

In A Course in Miracles, Jesus teaches us that God has not abandoned us. Remember, God’s final “judgment” is this: “You are still My holy Son, forever innocent, forever loving and forever loved, as limitless as your Creator, and completely changeless and forever pure. Therefore awaken and return to Me. I am your Father and you are My Son.” (W-pII.4:1). To which Jesus adds: “Do not abandon Love. Remember this, whatever you may think about yourself, whatever you may think about the world, your Father needs you and will call to you until you come to Him in peace at last.” (S-3.IV.10:6-7). This is not a call from some heavenly sphere, since God is already present in our mind, albeit buried: “Still deeper than the ego’s foundation, and much stronger than it will ever be, is your intense and burning love of God, and His for you.” (T-13.III.2:8) This awareness is what the ego constantly tries to bury.

A Course in Miracles is a course in mind training. It is not concerned with theological musings: “This course is always practical.” (M-16.4:1). Jesus knows very well we won’t change our mind just because he asks us to believe his blue eyes (if he would have them). Much of the curriculum is a daily disciplined training in honestly looking at what’s going on in the mind, refrain from judging, and then asking the Holy Spirit for help in guidance; help in making a better choice, one that will result in us experiencing peace. The promise of God is the feeling of inner peace that we experience through the withholding of judgment: “You have no idea of the tremendous release and deep peace that comes from meeting yourself and your brothers totally without judgment.” (T-3.VI.3:1).

Jesus in effect invites us: “Look at your choice to follow the ego. Let’s be honest, it’s failing you constantly. Why not try my alternative? Just test it [practicing forgiveness]. Experience how much better you’ll feel. You can go back to judgment anytime you want; no-one is forcing you. But it obviously can’t hurt to at least try out my road to happiness.” Indeed, many a student has reported that although much of the text remains vague and abstract, the experience of peace that follows from true forgiveness is unmistakable and irresistible, and this is what keeps them attracted and faithful to the message of the Course. Since the one remaining freedom of the sleeping Son of God is the choice of how much time he will take to wake up to peace, why not sooner than later? Test Jesus’ advice of withholding judgment this very day, and experience the peace that lasts; the convincing peace that heralds the end of death.

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See also “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: