“Because you have misperceived the body as your home, there is, in a sense, no ‘you’ to which the body can send its signals. And so the body seems to be in charge and to be both the experiencer and the interpreter of experience.”   …ACOL

Before I go on I need to clarify a statement I made in my last post, which is this: Many people believe that’s why we’re here in this physical dimension – to learn. They believe life has something to “teach” us, and we’re here to learn what that is. I’m not denying it’s so, but that being said, I don’t believe it to be the main reason we’re here.

I was writing while thinking within the context of the original reason for our sojourn into this physical dimension, which, I believe, was to express Love in form and create a world based in Love. But as I said then, something has gone terribly wrong. And that something has caused us to forget Who or What we are, why we’re here, how we got here and where we’re going, It has chained us to illusionary lives and false beliefs. One of those beliefs, and maybe the most difficult of all to change, is the illusion that we are physical beings dwelling in physical bodies.

“You see the flesh or recognize the Spirit.”   …ACIM

And now that we have placed ourselves in these illusionary lives I suppose it can be said that we are here to learn. But again, this is not quite correct either, except in the context of learning how to recognize, or remember that which we already know. According to the above quote we either see the flesh or recognize the Spirit. It’s not difficult to understand that to recognize something means that we would have had to have known it prior to recognizing it.

“Everyone teaches and teaches all the time.”   …ACIM

Once again my attention is drawn to the wisdom of Richard Bach: “You teach best what you most need to learn.” And as my attention goes there this question arises, how could we teach what we don’t know? The answer is, we couldn’t. Therefore, we already know what we’re trying to learn, and what we’re trying to learn the most is the thing we’re teaching the best. And if we’re teaching it to learn it then the students can be none other than ourselves.

I know how confusing the above paragraph must seem for it seems confusing to me even though I wrote it. But if I have the ability to straighten it out just a wee bit hopefully it will  eventually make, at least, some sense.

“The body is a learning device for the mind.”   …ACIM

This teaching all the time has nothing to do with the subjects taught in the so-called learning institutions of this world. What we’re always teaching is what we deep down believe we are. And the body is, as The Course tells us, no more than a learning device for the mind. In other words, it’s not who or what we are nor is it our home. It’s an expression into physical form of what we believe we are.

One of the most important aspects of your being is your power to believe. You have the power inherent within yourself to think, to reason, to accept, to reject and finally to believe. You can think that the body and you are one and the same thing. If you’re so inclined you have the ability to call upon your power of reason to help you with this. And by working with your power of thought coupled with your power of reason you’ll either accept the idea or you’ll reject it. If you accept it then most likely it’s because you’ve convinced yourself to believe it. This belief will cause you to see the flesh, which in turn will diminish your ability to recognize the Spirit.

“In this one error do all errors lie.”    …ACOL

To see the flesh only means that you must have accepted into your mind the belief that God either promotes suffering and death, or doesn’t exist. You have also accepted the idea that the experience we refer to as death will be your final experience.

I know that this does happen to many people because of all the suffering, poverty, sickness, loneliness and other negativity including death that they see going on in this world. I have heard some ask, how can you believe in a God that would allow the things that are going on in this world to happen?

When I write these posts I often take some time to get them written. I will write about a thought that occurs to me and then leave it for awhile until I feel like writing some more. This is the reason that some of them may not seem to flow in a stream that adheres to the topic. This one is no exception to that. I wrote as far as the above quote and then I stopped for awhile.

“Open your eyes today, and look upon a happy world of safety and of peace. a happy world of safety and of peace.”   …ACIM

I live in and therefore write from Nova Scotia, Canada. As I was taking my break from this one we had the most deadly act of mass murder in Canadian history take place right here in this small province. Most of you have probably heard of it. A man from Dartmouth went on a rampage during the night of April 18th & on into the morning of the 19th and killed 22 innocent people before the police caught up with and killed him.

I have been a student of, and to the best of my ability a practicer of  A Course in Miracles going on 9 years. The central and simple message of The Course is, we need to learn to live from LOVE instead of fear, which can only be accomplished through Forgiveness. In other words, we need to learn to recognize the Spirit. which is What we are. This recognization is truly necessary before we can understand true and real forgiveness.

The forgiveness The Course talks about is different – a lot different – than that which we consider to be forgiveness in this world. Forgiveness in this world of illusions looks upon the guilty and offers a reprieve from punishment. Whereas the Forgiveness The Course teaches is, there is no one guilty for all are innocent creations of a Loving God. As mentioned in the above quote, it (Forgiveness) looks upon a happy world of safety and of peace and allows it  to take the place of hell.

“It is love alone that leads to right action. What brings order in the world is to love, and let love do what it will.”   …Krishnamurti

I understand that the last part of this post has veered off course from its title, which I decided to let stand. The terrible tragedy that took place on April 22 & 23 here in Nova Scotia has been one of the greatest tests of my learning concerning the teachings of The Course since I began nine years ago.

That being said, I believe I have passed because instead of jumping on the bandwagon and accusing and condemning, the teachings of The Course came quickly to my mind. I thought, what would Jesus do?

Then the following passage from it came to me: “Miraculous forgiveness is only correction. It has no element of judgment at all. ‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do’ in no way evaluates what they do. It is strictly limited to an appeal to God to heal their minds. There is no reference to the outcome of their mis-thought. That does not matter.”

The truth is if we’re ever going to see that world The Course describes as a happy world of safety and of peace then LOVE and Forgiveness must include everyone – no exceptions. And that includes the man that did the deeds as well as those he did them to.

As the same verse points out: “Forgiveness is the means by which it comes to take the place of hell. In quietness it rises up to greet your open eyes and fill your heart with deep tranquility as ancient truths, forever newly born, arise in your awareness. What you will remember then can never be described. Yet your forgiveness offers it to you.”

I’m going to close this post with another quote from A Course In Miracles: “Your only calling here is to devote yourself with active willingness to the denial of guilt in all its forms. To accuse is not to understand.” 

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“Identify with love, and you are safe. Identify with love, and you are home. Identify with love, and find your Self.”