The Journey Back

October 22, 2021February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

The Journey Back

Based on the teachings of
A Course in Miracles – Original Edition
published by COURSE IN MIRACLES SOCIETY

Ours is simply the journey back to God, Who is our home. Whenever fear intrudes anywhere along the road to peace, it is always because the ego has attempted to join the journey with us and cannot do so. ACIM TEXT CH 8 V par 40

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This is such a transformative time to be alive. So much is happening and it is happening at lightning speed! The problems we thought we had a decade ago, and thought we had time to solve, have accelerated to the point where our solutions are outdated and no longer viable.

And yet our journey may not be as it seems. Many of us see the journey to this moment as linear, progressing from a BIG BANG and evolving continuously in Time and Space to culminate in this moment of NOW.

However, there are many people today who have crossed the veil of death and have been revived to share with all of us their experience of “timelessness.” They describe their experiences as a million times more “Real” than what we experience here in our bodies, in Time and Space.

What if everything we ever thought were true is not quite the way we thought. In fact, what if we have everything upside down and backward?

It turns out that these are the very same thoughts Dr. William Thetford had as he began to transcribe the shorthand notes of A Course in Miracles brought to him from his colleague Helen Schucman when he was Professor of Medical Psychology at Colombia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Director of the Psychology Department at the Presbyterian Hospital in New York City and she was Associate Professor of Medical Psychology and his assistant.

From New Realities Magazine, October 1984 (Interview conducted by James Bolen)

THETFORD: It has changed my life totally. I recall typing … and realized that if this material was true then absolutely everything I believed would have to be challenged – that I would have to reconstruct my whole belief system.

Dr. Helen Schucman, who was a hesitant scribe and self-described militant atheist, began to give more credence to an internal Voice she had heard for most of her life. Lately, it had been a bit more insistent, asking her to “take notes.” Eventually she learned, and somewhat to her consternation, that the Voice was that of Jesus.

The persistence of the Voice was most likely related to a new concept of a “Celestial Speedup.” Things were speeding up and we needed to make better choices now.

The “chosen ones” are merely those who choose right sooner. This is the real meaning of the celestial speed-up. Strong wills can do this now, and you will find rest for your Souls. God knows you only in peace, and this is your reality. ACIM OE TEXT CH 3 VI par 60

Taking these “Notes,” and bringing them to Bill to be typed, marked the beginning of their mutual journey back through the projection, misperception, and condemnation, toward the sanity of the Peace of God. This culminated in the creation of A Course in Miracles and also the beginning of the Journey Back for millions of people around the globe.

For perhaps the first time in our joint Journey on this planet, more and more people are shifting their view of this 3D experience and opening to the idea that there might be more, right here and right now. They are opening to the idea that the survival mechanism of the body has perhaps blinded them to the peace that comes from Knowing themSelves as Eternal, Sinless, and Guiltless Children of God — which is the message of A Course in Miracles.

Another intriguing concept in A Course in Miracles, and from other channeled entities, is that of simultaneous time. Instead of a horizontal continuum of past, present, and future, time can be seen as, indeed, a vertical INSTANT of Now and in that Holy Instant is your Reality. Everything is happening in this moment of Now. It has never begun and it will never cease.

We have repeatedly emphasized that one level of the mind is not understandable to another. So it is with the ego and the Soul, with time and eternity. Eternity is an idea of God, so the Soul understands it perfectly. Time is a belief of the ego, so the lower mind, which is the ego’s domain, accepts it without question. The only aspect of time which is really eternal is now. That is what we really mean when we say that “now is the only time.” ACIM OE TEXT CH 5 V par 37

This would mean that the Journey back to God would truly be a Journey into the experience of NOW where all eternity resides and where all is well and has always been.

The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of where you are always and what you are forever. It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed. ACIM OE TEXT CH 8 VI par 51

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*Reverend Reja Joy Green is one of the founding members of the Course in Miracles Society [CIMS] publishers of A Course in Miracles – Original Edition; She is the CIMS webmaster, produces & distributes the Daily Lesson & Text mailing, and facilitates the Course in Miracles study group in Omaha, NE Rev Reja Joy was ordained by Community Miracles Center and was a presenter, with her husband Chris, at the 2018 Annual ACIM International Conference in San Francisco.

As a registered Yoga Instructor, Rev. Reja Joy teaches Yoga from the perspective of A Course in Miracles. She also initiated a Daily Conference Call Study Group that began in 2013 and hosts several social media groups for those who wish to share this journey.

Course in Miracles Society (CIMS) is an international group of Course students and teachers organized to discover, authenticate, and propagate the divine teachings of A Course in Miracles. As students, we seek to increase our knowledge of Jesus’ words and to deepen our experience of his teaching. As teachers, we work to circulate the message of A Course in Miracles throughout the world by our words, by our deeds and by the example of our lives. Jcim.net

Awaken from the Dream

April 25, 2020February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

AwakenFroTheDream

Awaken from the Dream

Based on the teachings of
A Course in Miracles – Original Edition
published by COURSE IN MIRACLES SOCIETY

What a dream-like quality these recent days have had. It feels as if we are dreaming. And we must be! How else could this be so? It has to be a dream. And we’re going to wake up and then everything will go back to normal. Right?

And yet, in the next moment we realize that the world is still changed, and that it may stay changed forever.

Now it seems like we are awake, and it is real and yet everything is different. There is a sense of foreboding that encompasses everything. There is a sense that things are out of place and out of sync and nothing makes sense anymore, as if it did before. It’s as if someone took the playing board and threw it up in the air and now all the pieces are scattered. How will we put them back together? And can we?

And yet there is also a sense of Awareness and Presence and Aliveness that somehow feels familiar. Perhaps we remember having experienced all of these before, even though they didn’t last for long. Eventually, they dissolved, and everything went back to how it was before; but that’s not happening this time. This time is different.

This time the Awareness and Presence and Aliveness aren’t fading away and there is something else that is astonishing. We are not alone in our experience. The whole world has joined us.

Over the last decade the world has been united through electronic communication as never before and for the first time we, as a species, are experiencing a global event that impacts every one of us, with no exceptions, all at the same time.

The global event, of course, is the deadly and contagious virus that has reached into every facet of life for all the billions of people on our planet and has changed everything.

We seem to be awake now and yet it is still a dream. In A Course in Miracles we learn that we are awake within a dream of separation in which we all play a part. It teaches us that we are all waking up together to the Reality of our Oneness and to our Eternal nature and immortality.

“…your banishment is not of God and therefore does not exist. You are at home in God, dreaming of exile but perfectly capable of awakening to reality. Is it your will to do so? ACIM OE T.9.65

What is our will? So many of us have indeed responded to this viral threat as if, somehow, we were being called to once again make a choice. It is in these times of deep turmoil that everything peripheral and non-essential slips away. Everything trivial falls away and all that remains is a stark decision—- to choose Love or fear.

Initially, the fear may have been so overwhelming that many of us may have faltered as we searched for some relief. As students of A Course in Miracles we may have finally recalled that we have been given so much incredible Guidance to be used in all situations, especially where there is lack of love.

And so, we recall this Guidance that is simple and yet the resulting peace is so complete and total. With these words, our Soul is quieted and our strength returns:

Know first that this is fear.
Fear arises from lack of love.
The only remedy for lack of love is perfect love.
Perfect love is the Atonement. ACIM OE T.2.83-85

What has been so inspiring to witness, during this Pandemic, is how many people have truly made this choice for Love and then have given away the gifts they have received.

We witness as one man creates a YouTube Channel with “Some Good News – SGN” filled with inspiring video stories of people coming together to support one another, whether it’s a ballet troupe weaving together a choreographed production, each in their own homes yet each joining in the movement and the music; or a community in a locked-down city, spending the evening on their window sills and porches toasting each other and singing together; or hundreds of thousands of parishioners joining in a rosary, each in their own homes, yet joining with one voice.

The strength and power in realizing our One Self has become palpable.

I am One Self, united with my Creator,
At one with every aspect of creation,
And limitless in power and in peace. ACIM OE Lesson 95

Now, in this Holy Instant, our true faith enters. We may have, in the past and during most of our lives, put all of our faith in what our limited minds have told us; and we may have put our faith in what mankind has been listening to for centuries. Thus, the journey has been a perpetuation of the same illusions, the same dissatisfactions, and the same heartaches.

Today, we have reached a turning point.

The undeniable call to choose love has gone out in these stark times of loss. Can you feel it? It’s a Call sent to every one of us with no one excluded.

“I cannot choose for you, but I can help you make your own right choice. ‘Many are called, but few are chosen’ should read, ‘All are called, but few choose to listen. Therefore, they do not choose right.’ The ‘chosen ones’ are merely those who choose right sooner. This is the real meaning of the celestial speed-up.” ACIM OE T.3.49

Perhaps we are getting that chance now, in this Pandemic, to choose right sooner.

Now we are realizing that every Holy Instant gives us a chance to choose again. It is a call to shift our awareness from the unreal [limitation and fear] toward the Real [Unlimited Creativity and Love] and it is this very shift that is the Miracle.

Of course, we can resist the call to awaken to the New and thus fall victim to what we fear; but when we do this, we will always feel exhausted, depressed, and defeated.

We have all been called to choose Love as our Guide, and yet, we do not have to do this alone. We have help. How tender and loving are Elder Brother’s words as He whispers in our hearts:

“In peace we will continue in His way and trust all things to Him. In confidence we wait His answers, as we ask His will in everything we do. He loves God’s Son as we would love him, and He teaches us how to behold him through His eyes and love him as He does. You do not walk alone. God’s angels hover close and all about. His Love surrounds you, and of this be sure: that I will never leave you comfortless.” ACIM OE Workbook Epilogue par 6

And so, it is.

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There is No Judgment

March 26, 2020February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

There Is No Judgment

There is No Judgment

Based on the teachings of
A Course in Miracles – Original Edition
published by COURSE IN MIRACLES SOCIETY

The idea that there is No Judgment will be challenging for anyone to accept.

The immediate reaction will most likely be in the defense of judgment as if judgments were not only a given but a requirement in this world.

Our minds will say: Of course, there is judgment. There has to be judgment. How could there not be in this world of choice? Some choices are judged as bad and some are judged as good, but there must be judgment in order to navigate this world and fix it.

And yet, do we really?

Is there another way of looking at it?

A Course in Miracles-Original Edition tells us that there is.

Recently, a message was delivered to me as if it were from somewhere outside of me and yet it also felt as if it were from deep within. I was just walking from one room to the next and I ‘heard’ the words, “There is no judgment”. The words were tied to the thought and the words were the thought. Yet, what accompanied that thought was a tremendous feeling of release.

I have always judged myself harshly. Every second must be filled with me doing something worthy. All my activities, every second, must qualify as useful. There must be no slouching, no misuse of time.

It is fine and good to want to be productive, but when there is a sense of judgment and guilt from seemingly being unproductive, that’s where the mark is missed.

And now I hear: “There is no judgment.”

Those words wash over me like a forgiveness shower. If guilt is missing the mark [i.e. sin], then forgiveness is restoring that which will never change: my sinlessness, my guiltlessness, my immortality, my Eternal Soul. That is what I am feeling.

Forgiveness, … is still and quietly does nothing. It offends no aspect of reality nor seeks to twist it to appearance that it likes. It merely looks and waits and judges not. He who would not forgive must judge, for he must justify his failure to forgive. But he who would forgive himself must learn to welcome truth exactly as it is.

ACIM OE Workbook PII #4. What is Forgiveness

In those moments of truly realizing There is no Judgment, I was free of self-condemnation and knew, to the very depths of my being, that all is well; that there is nothing outside of me anywhere that judges me. There is nothing that needs to change or be different. Everything is as it should be and “All things work together for good.” ACIM OE TX.4.69

I knew that I could now integrate the following Lesson:

Lesson 268: Let all things be exactly as they are.

Let me not be Your critic, Lord, today, and judge against You.
Let me not attempt to interfere
with Your creation and distort it into sickly forms.
Let me be willing to withdraw my wishes
from its unity and thus to let it be as You created it.
For thus will I be able, too, to recognize
my Self as You created me. In Love was I created,
and in Love will I remain forever.
What can frighten me when I let all things be exactly as they are?
W2:268.1

Yet, how could this be? How could I let all things be exactly as they are? Should I let poverty, sexual abuse, murder, rape, theft, and war be “exactly as they are?”

When I ask these questions within, I realize that A Course in Miracles – Original Edition is offering a radical, new way of looking at this world. As the Course tells us: The fruits of any curriculum should bring peace. If they do not, then go the other way.

Perhaps to know deeply the meaning of this Lesson, we must seek within, past all our prior learning, past all our surface, limiting thoughts that tell us that we are separate, that we were born, and that we will die.

Can we let all those thoughts go for just a few moments and sit quietly, doing nothing, allowing the meaning of this Lesson to filter through us from the part of our Minds that has never left our Source?

From the study of ACIM OE, I am realizing that letting something be exactly as it is, is not condoning it, but it is seeing past the distortion of what is Real. Letting something be as it is, is letting it be “as You [Love] created it” and not as I am perceiving it. [see quote above]

This is also what Forgiveness means to me from my study of A Course in Miracles-Original Edition [ACIM OE]. For me, forgiveness means to see everything as God [Love] would see it, which means to see what is Real about everything. I’ve learned that ONLY LOVE IS REAL and if something changes, it was not Love. What is Real about Who I AM will never change, for “Love Created me like Itself.” ACIM Lesson 67

Thus, to let things be exactly as they are is to know that:

What is Real is the Love in the midst of hate.
What is Real is the Light in the midst of darkness.
What is Real is that which is Changeless in the midst of change.

When I know there is no judgment and see myself and everyone and everything with the eyes of love, I need do nothing for I have accepted the Atonement.

Lesson 337: My sinlessness protects me from all harm.

My sinlessness ensures me perfect peace, eternal safety, everlasting love,freedom forever from all thought of loss, complete deliverance from suffering.And only happiness can be my state, for only happiness is given me.What must I do to know all this is mine? I must accept Atonement for myselfand nothing more. God has already done all things that need be done.And I must learn I need do nothing of myself, for I need but accept my Self,my sinlessness, created for me, now already mine, to feel God’s Loveprotecting me from harm, to understand my Father loves His Son,to know I am the Son my Father loves.W2:337.1

My worthiness is guaranteed by God and All is well!

Now I know “I need do nothing of myself, for I need but accept my Self, my sinlessness…”

There is no judgment …for there is only God’s Love.

And so it is.

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The Purpose Given You

November 30, 2019February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

The Purpose Given You

by Rev Reja Joy Green*

I love it when synchronicities happen in my life. They seem to be sending me a hint that there is an unseen connection uniting me with all of life. The message seems to be that I am not alone and that we are all in this thing together—that all of life is united in this magnificent journey of BEING, which does not end when we leave our bodies. Recently, as I was thinking about these synchronicities, I was instantly reminded of a New York Times best-selling book I discovered recently by Laura Lynne Jackson called, “The Light Between Us.”

While listening to that audiobook, narrated by the author, who—by the way—does a spectacular job at bringing forth this blessed concept of Unity and Connectedness, I was struck by how much of this message is a reflection of what we are learning in A Course in Miracles-Original Edition.

“From loving minds there is no separation. And every thought in one brings gladness to the other because they are the same. Joy is unlimited because each shining thought of love extends its being and creates more of itself. There is no difference anywhere in it, for every thought is like itself.” ACIM OE TX.22.VII.64

What better time than now, in this time of racial strife, economic insecurity, climate change, and the general sense of malaise and hopelessness that all of these issues bring to our lives, to have a message come through that resonates so deeply within our being—There is another way! We are connected. There is a purpose here.

In A Course in Miracles-Original Edition, we are presented with the amazing idea that there are no accidents and that we are responsible for what occurs in our world. These are powerful teachings that take a bit of courage to open up to. There is a degree of acceptance and willingness and surrender that must be there before we can truly open our hearts to the loving messages in this Course, which will inevitably precipitate the healing that naturally follows.

“Miracles are natural. When they do not occur, something has gone wrong.”
ACIM OE TX.1.I.6

And so what is the Miracle? Wouldn’t it be a miracle to experience a shift in what we thought was so? What if we were to be shown that we had been totally mistaken in how we were seeing the world and that there is a way at looking at the world that brings peace to us and to everyone who comes in contact with us. What if all our misperceptions were hiding the Real World from our sight and that the miracle is what would shine them away?

If we are in despair at our current situation in this life, has the time come when we will have the courage to make a shift away from how we have always thought and toward being willing to look again, and this time to look with a Divine Vision from deep within?

In our daily ACIM OE TEXT Conference Call Study Group the other day, we read the following:

“A simple question yet remains and needs an answer. Do you like what you have made—a world of murder and attack through which you thread your timid way through constant dangers, alone and frightened, hoping at most that death will wait a little longer before it overtakes you and you disappear? You made this up. It is a picture of what you think you are, of how you see yourself. A murderer is frightened, and those who kill fear death. All these are but the fearful thoughts of those who would adjust themselves to a world made fearful by their adjustments. And they look out in sorrow from what is sad within and see the sadness there.” ACIM OE TX.20.IV.19

“They look out in sorrow from what is sad within,” but what if they looked out in joy from what is joyful within? What if we came with empty hands to a power deep within us that could show us what is truly so. What if we have been deceived by fear into seeing a world of separation when the world of connectedness and love has always been there, waiting to be seen.

You may have heard the story of the man outside of a town being asked by newcomers what the town was like. He told them that they’d better keep close watch of their valuables and make sure to always lock their doors. He even told them of all the times he had been robbed and cheated and suggested to them that they might want to think twice about living there.

And yet the newcomers move on to another man further down the road and ask him the same question to which his face brightens with joy. He tells them that he has experienced a torrent of generosity, kindness, and compassion from every single townsperson he has met since coming there. He tells them that they will love this town and that they may never want to leave it.

We see only what we believe deep within. When our beliefs align with Love, there is a healing of this seeming separate world that can and will take place and begins within each of us. That’s what A Course in Miracles is guiding us towards.

“There is no fear in perfect love because it knows no sin and it must look on others as on itself. Looking with charity within, what can it fear without? The innocent see safety, and the pure in heart see God within His Son and look unto the Son to lead them to the Father. And where else would they go but where they will to be? Each of you now will lead the other to the Father as surely as God created His Son holy and kept him so. In your brother is the light of God’s eternal promise of your immortality. See him as sinless, and there can be no fear in you.” ACIM OE TX.20.IV.27

This illustration of seeing what we believe is also related to the Course concept of responsibility. A Course in Miracles-OE tells us that we “are not victims of the world” we see, that there is “another way at looking at the world,” that “I will forgive and this will disappear.” It gently guides us away from our misperceptions and toward a new way of being and of seeing in which we use our inner guidance to show us the Love that is truly there.

“I am responsible for what I see. I chose the feelings I experience, and I decided on the goal I would achieve. And everything that seems to happen to me, I asked for and received as I had asked.” ACIM OE TX.21.III.15

What an amazingly powerful statement, and it is one in which we see a bit of bad news as well as good news.

What I see around me, as my life, is exactly what I have “asked for and received as I had asked” and in most cases, that’s bad news. When I look around me I see the seeming inhumanity of man toward each other, the state of the environment, or the chaos in our governments. Or, I could just look closer to my home and see my personal struggles and challenges in my family or with my health.

Yet, this need not be. While I may very well be aware of the bad news, the good news is—I am the one who can change it. My thoughts are not idle. My thoughts are the most powerful force in the Universe.

Now we might ask: What will it take to bring a miracle—a shift in this world that we inhabit today? How can we feel the Unity that lies beneath the duality and that connects us all?

A Course in Miracles teaches us that it will be the thoughts and feelings and the goals that we choose that will bring the shift. The miracle comes with the forgiveness we bring to the world that is seemingly outside of us. In the last pages of the last chapter in the Text of A Course of Miracles titled CHOOSE ONCE AGAIN, we find these loving words:

“You are as God created you, and so is every living thing you look upon, regardless of the images you see. What you behold as sickness and as pain, as weakness and as suffering and loss is but temptation to perceive yourself defenseless and in hell. Yield not to this, and you will see all pain in every form wherever it occurs but disappear as mists before the sun. A miracle has come to heal God’s Son and close the door upon his dreams of weakness, opening the way to his salvation and release. Choose once again what you would have him be, remembering that every choice you make establishes your own identity as you will see it and believe it is.” ACIM OE TX31.VIII.92

If forgiveness means to see only that which is real in each and everyone and everything, then with that gift, we fulfill our purpose in releasing the world from what we thought it did, knowing our forgiveness makes no exceptions. There is absolutely no one excluded for anything they have done or said. We see them as they truly are: whole and complete, sinless and guiltless, even though they may, for a while, continue to deny this truth themselves.

Thus, we are learning that the way to end the cycle of hate and fear is to choose Love, knowing that this is why we have come.

Now we choose again to see the synchronicities that surround us—to let ourselves be shown by the Love within that we are all One and that we are still as Love created us.

“This is the purpose given you. Think not that your forgiveness of each other serves but you two alone. For the whole new world rests in the hands of every two who enter here to rest. And as they rest, the face of Christ shines on them, and they remember the laws of God, forgetting all the rest and yearning only to have His laws perfectly fulfilled in them and all their brothers.” ACIM OE TX.20.V.34

And so, it is.

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*Reverend Reja Joy Green is one of the founding members of the Course in Miracles Society [CIMS] publishers of A Course in Miracles – Original Edition; She is the CIMS webmaster, produces the Daily Lesson & Text mailing, and facilitates the Course in Miracles study group in Omaha, NE Rev Reja Joy was ordained by Community Miracles Center and was a presenter, with her husband Chris, at the 2018 Annual ACIM International Conference in San Francisco.

As a registered Yoga Instructor, Rev. Reja Joy teaches Yoga from the perspective of A Course in Miracles, initiated a Daily Conference Call Study Group, and hosts several social media groups for those who share this journey.

Course in Miracles Society (CIMS) is an international group of Course students and teachers organized to discover, authenticate and propagate the divine teachings of A Course in Miracles. As students, we seek to increase our knowledge of Jesus’ words and to deepen our experience of his teaching. As teachers, we work to circulate the message of A Course in Miracles throughout the world by our words, by our deeds and by the example of our lives. Jcim.net

ACIM and the Unseen Guest

June 4, 2018February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

Graphic by ©Deposit Photos

A Course in Miracles and Our Unseen Guest

by Rev Reja Joy Green*

There are so many adventures awaiting us in this multidimensional life that we are living and yet they await our acknowledgment and our desire to investigate them before they open up and reveal their treasures.

Such were the opportunities given to both Helen Schucman and William Thetford [Bill], scribe & co-scribe of A Course in Miracles [1972], respectively, and to “Darby and Joan”, authors of Our Unseen Guest [1920].

Each of these tomes was written, in a manner, by an “Unseen Guest,” whose identity became evident in due time. And each of these tomes was birthed through a collaborative effort between two people who had dedicated themselves to the process.

In fact, these two relationships were integral to the success of the messages’ arrival as is witnessed in many examples of the transmission of information from “beyond the veil” as it is called.

In the case of A Course in Miracles, Helen Schucman, who had previously experienced a strong degree of intuition as she was growing up, along with waking dreams and visions, was seemingly just applying for a job with William Thetford, when she told him, “I am the person you are looking for.” It seems a mutual friend, who had known that Bill was looking to hire a research assistant, had told Helen to say just those words, although Bill was to say later that those words of introduction from Helen would come to have a greater meaning.

Helen also had an interesting experience. She was to tell Bill, at some later point, that during the interview, even though he couldn’t guarantee the salary, didn’t know what the duties were going to be, or if she would even have an office, she was compelled to accept the position. The “Voice,” which she initially thought was her intuition, had said to her very clearly, “Oh…there he is. He’s the man you’re supposed to help!”

Darby and Joan, authors of “Our Unseen Guest,” already had a close relationship as husband and wife, yet after stumbling upon the wonders of the Ouija-Board and later upon the trance channeling of Joan without the Board, they had found that they each had an integral part in the process. The “Unseen Guest” referred to Joan as the RECEIVER and to Darby, her husband, as the CONCEIVER and taught them that each position was integral to the process.

The treasure that these adventures revealed was the metaphysical wisdom gleaned about the plane of existence we find ourselves in now and those eternal realms beyond the veil. Just the act of “receiving” information, unknown to all parties, was a demonstration itself that there is more to this life than we realize. In other words, there truly is Life After Life, as Raymond Moody had written about.

What was this “Voice” that Helen heard? What was the manner in which it came about, and what did it say? Helen had sensed for a period of time that she was a “channel” and that something was trying to get through although the channel was clogged. Then, after several lucid dreams and some very vivid visions, Helen heard this Inner Voice say: “This is a course in miracles. Please take notes.”

As Helen describes it herself: “I did not understand the calm but impressive authority with which the Voice dictated. At several points in the writing, the Voice Itself speaks in no uncertain terms— JESUS. My own reactions to these references, which literally stunned me at that time, have decreased in intensity and are now at a level of wonder and acceptance.”

For Darby and Joan, the journey began on an unfamiliar Ouija-board they had just purchased, with these words spelled out: “For you two I have a message, a revelation,” and so it began. When asked, who was there, the name “Stephen” came through and the description of himself as an American soldier who had been killed in service to the Allied forces in WWI. Eventually, enough pertinent, verifiable information was received that both Darby and Joan were convinced that Stephen had actually lived and had died and was not merely their subconscious mind acting out upon the board. Now they could get on with his “revelation.”

One of the similarities between these two forays into the unknown was the interesting fact that with A Course in Miracles the material could stop in mid-sentence when Helen had to attend a meeting and could be picked up where it had left off, after Helen’s meeting was over and she could return to it.

Helen described the experience of hearing the Inner Voice in this way: “The Voice made no sound, but seemed to be giving me a kind of rapid, inner dictation, which could be interrupted at any time and later picked up again. I never knew when I started a sentence how it would end, and the ideas came so quickly I had trouble keeping up with them.”

For Darby and Joan, here is how it was described at a time when they were still using the Ouija-Board:

“Now and then some long sentence would complete itself only to find us forgetful of its first half. Entire clauses would be missing. We would cudgel our brains to remember them and when we failed, the tripod [of the Ouija-board], without hesitation, would repeat the sentence.” P.143

Another similarity is in the fluid manner in which the material was received as if it were already perfect and just needed to be recorded. Helen’s normal writing was filled with crossed-out and rearranged words, while the transcription of the Inner Dictation was straightforward and precise.

The same phenomenon appeared in “The Unseen Guest” when a famous poet, who had passed on a year or so before, came through with a new poem. Darby explained, “When Joan wrote poems it was ‘born of much travail,’ yet the Ouija-board sonnet, ‘sprang’ into spontaneous being.’” P.160

So much wisdom was gleaned from both glorious adventures that the scribes knew their lives would never be the same. Besides the fact as previously noted, that the communications themselves demonstrated Life After Life, the exquisite messages of eternal life and eternal love were breath-taking.

At one point, the material that came through Helen in A Course in Miracles was more like music than mere words and was even titled, A Song Remembered. “Listen and see if you remember an ancient song you knew so long ago and held more dear than any melody you taught yourself to cherish since.” ACIM CH 21 II 9

And from the board the idea that a symphony is made of individual performers who “never cease, during the performance of the symphony, to exist as individuals, that instead they will become more individualistic than ever. Yet, not in spite of that accentuation of individuality, but because of it, the orchestra becomes for the period of the number, a whole.” “The music carries the performers far into…a world ever more realized in oneness, ever more perfect in adjustment of the individual to the whole.”

Of all the wondrous ideas presented as if from an ancient memory, one idea seemed to stand out to grant a sense of hope in both these tomes, and that is the ultimate goal of our journey.

From A Course in Miracles it is given:

“You are altogether irreplaceable in the Mind of God. No one else can fill your part of It, and while you leave your part of It empty, your eternal place merely waits for your return.” ACIM OE CH 9 VII 57

And from our dear Unseen Guest, the valiant Soldier of the Spirit:

“Are not the ‘each,’ or part, …. inseparably bound together?” P.204 “I am a part of the whole, yet the whole is I. In you, in me, is all that is, consciousness. Yet we are but parts of the greater whole.”

And so it is.

~*~

*Reverend Reja Joy Green is one of the founding members of the Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]; She maintains the CIMS website and produces the Daily Lesson Mailing for ACIM students around the world. Rev. Reja Joy is an ordained minister through Community Miracles Cente and facilitates ACIM study group in Omaha. Rev Reja Joy and her husband Chris were presenters at the 2018 Bi-Annual ACIM International Conference in San Francisco.

As a registered Yoga Instructor, Rev. Reja Joy teaches through her RejaJoy-Yoga-Studio from the perspective of A Course in Miracles and hosts several social media groups for those who share this journey. Rev. Reja Joy currently resides with her husband Chris Green in Omaha, NE.

Thy Kingdom Come

April 14, 2018February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

Man holding a glowing earth globe in his hands

Holy Mother Father God

You are my Source—the Love in which I live.

There is no greater power. This Power sustains me, strengthens me, and shows me the way.

Love is the journeyman. Love is the journey, and Love is the destination. There is only Love.

I had forgotten my way and thought I lived in separation, desolation, and hopelessness.

I thought I was abandoned in a strange land where there were seemingly others who were afraid and lashed out, protecting who they thought they were and what they thought belonged to them.

I thought I was abandoned and so I was afraid and clung to who I thought I was, what I thought I owned— thinking I alone could keep myself safe from harm.

Yet, You did not abandon me, nor my brother. It is I who have abandoned my Identity as Your Child—-sinless, guiltless, and at One with all my brothers and with YOU, my One SELF.

It is my Prayer today to see myself at home within the Temple of my most Holy Mind and join with You, the Love that Created me.

From this I AM, will I extend the Light and Love to shine on all who are lost themselves in darkness and in hate.

For only Light will dispel the dark and only Love will dispel the hate.

Now do I remember—I AM Your Child, healed and whole, sinless, and guiltless, at One with You and all my brothers.

And now I see this gentle awakening dawning upon all of Your Children, as one light shines upon another in remembrance of its own light, and then upon another and another until the Sonship joins in the Glory of Its awakening to the One Self, —to the One Love at the Center of Its One heart.

And, so it is.

AMEN

The Eternal Now

March 17, 2016February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

THE ETERNAL NOW: IT’S HERE! IT’S HERE!

Graphic by Deposit Photos

Article by Rev Reja Janaki Joy Green*
~*~*~*~*~*~

Regardless of whether the body appears to be getting out of bed in the morning,
going home at night, or sitting reading a book, it is unavoidably now.
The fact that it is always now never can be changed.
It is impossible to make it be not-now.

Dziuban, Peter Francis Consciousness Is All: Now Life Is Completely New (p. 114).
Blue Dolphin Publishing, Inc. Kindle Edition.

When we were younger, my twin sister used to say that being with me is like looking at the sun. She was implying, in a not too veiled way, that I am an intense person and sometimes it is uncomfortable to be with me. I took it as a compliment.

I suppose I recalled the memory of this observation just ‘now,’ because I am venturing to write about a subject that is, for the most part, ignored—much like the fact that we are all going to die some day.

To visit the NOW might be like looking at the sun for some people. If we are going along, living our lives based on an imagined past and an inevitable future, the Present Moment of NOW might be viewed as something that would only gum up the system.

In fact, it stops the system.

Thus, when an idea challenges our reality, there is fear. We may not know how we got to this life, but we have developed ‘by now’ a way of coping with where we find ourselves. We have mitigated the fear of the unknown by building beliefs about what is so. These are the beliefs that are sacrosanct and not to be questioned, because to question these beliefs is to question our sanity.

However, you are reading these words. Something peeked your interest and brought you here. There are no accidents. When a person comes into our lives, or a book, a song, a movie—we have the opportunity to see it as a gift from our Soul, and pay attention.

There are no accidents in salvation. Those who are to meet will meet because together they have the potential for a holy relationship. They are ready for each other.

~ A Course in Miracles Original Edition [ACIM OE M], Manual for Teachers #3. Par 1

Every decision we have ever made has brought us to this MOMENT.

For me, right NOW, the moment is a beautiful March morning on my loft in which I have time to type and share my thoughts.

If you stop a moment to take notice, right NOW, you too can describe the MOMENT for you.

Yet it is always and forever, NOW. And that’s a beautiful thought. It doesn’t have to produce fear. There is strife only when we hold onto anything. In the letting go and accepting what is, there is PEACE.

In the ACIM Study Group I attend, which has been meeting every Sunday for several years here in Omaha, Nebraska, there is a gentleman who reminds us often of something he learned from his experience. He tells us the key to Peace, or to any difficult situation, is ‘Surrender’. This gentle person had a shift in consciousness and experienced himself as Pure Conscious Awareness. He ‘knows’ It is what HE IS NOW, what I AM NOW and what YOU ARE NOW. It never changes. When we surrender to what is, there is PEACE.

Be still and KNOW—God. [Love, Peace, Joy]

Years ago, many of us took the Werner Erhard Seminar Training [E.S.T.] and I often recall that the bottom line was, after two weekends of sitting in a hotel ballroom on a fold-up chair with very little food or sleep — “What IS, IS. And what isn’t, isn’t.”

How profound is that! Perhaps we could go further and ask ourselves these questions: Are we aware of this moment? Is the moment NOW? Is the moment HERE? Can we change this moment of NOW to not be the moment, to not be NOW, or to not be here?

Which brings us to the main focus of this essay: It’s HERE – It’s HERE.

As little girls, my twin sister and I had devised a game at the same time, yet unbeknownst to each other. When one of us shared with the other what we were doing, we were both stunned. We had each felt that the experience was our own discovery.

The process was to stare at an object, any object, and say to ourselves, “It’s here. It’s here.”

Soon, we were acutely aware of the moment of time in which we were looking at the object. The object faded from our attention, which was now placed in the present moment. Our full attention was on Presence, i.e. Pure Conscious Awareness.

And this was fine, for a while. It was fine until we tried to stop the game, and discovered “it’s here”. Ok. Well, that is all good, but now I want to get back to other things, and “it’s here.” Cool. I get it. Time to return. “It’s here.” Yikes. This is a tiny bit scary. I can’t seem to stop this presence. “It’s here.” But won’t it stop at some point? Won’t I find the end? “it’s here.” Isn’t there a place outside of Presence, outside of the NOW? “It’s here.” But now it seems like a dream I can’t wake up from. “It’s here.” When I do seem to wake up, I’m still here! It’s beginning to feel like a light show, or a kaleidoscope that keeps opening and opening and opening and never, ever stops! “It’s here.” There is no end! There will never, ever be an end! It is eternal! I have touched the face of infinity! The NOW has never started and it will never end. “It’s here.” Let me out!!

Even though it took quite a bit of words to describe this process, the experience itself took less than a minute. Time was ‘there’, as usual, with one minute seemingly coming after the other, and then it wasn’t. Or rather, it was there all at once. It was there AND not there. It was All AND Nothing. It was the Alpha and Omega.

Eventually, at some point, my sister and I had to force ourselves to forget what we were doing. By ‘now’, we were terrified. We were like a caged animal, trapped in a never-ending dream. With each attempt to escape, we were faced with another instance of the Moment, which we resisted. And it was this resistance that caused our pain and suffering.

Instead, we could have asked ourselves if there were actually something to resist or fear? Could we surrender to the truth of this experience? Could we accept what Is, Is, and what isn’t, isn’t? Could we open to the knowing of Who We Are as Pure Conscious Awareness, which will never die, and extends Itself forever?

[Lesson 67] Love created me like Itself.

I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss, and I cannot die. I am not a body. I would recognize my reality today. I will worship no idols nor raise my own self-concepts to replace my Self. I am in the likeness of my Creator. Love created me like Itself.

~ ACIM OE Workbook Lesson 84 Review of Lesson 67

What could this ‘knowing’ mean for us?

Could it mean that nothing we have ever done in ‘time’ has changed Who We Truly Are?
We give all the meaning our experience has. What if we found the courage to experience the essence of Pure Conscious Awareness? What would that be like? How would it inform our perceptions and our experience here in ‘time’?

What actually gives meaning to our experience if not the ground of BEING, which is Pure Awareness?

Only when I align my True Self with Pure Conscious Awareness am I able to open to the idea — I AM the Perfect, Sinless, Child of God.

This is Forgiveness [opening to that which is REAL, here and now]. This is Salvation [opening to that which is REAL, here and now]. This is the Atonement [opening to that which is REAL, here and now].

There is no other path. And so we celebrate what IS—Love IS! God IS! We ARE!

As we learn in A Course in Miracles:

⁵¹ The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of where you are always and what you are forever. It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed. Truth can only be experienced. It cannot be described, and it cannot be explained. I can make you aware of the conditions of truth, but the experience is of God. Together we can meet its conditions, but truth will dawn upon you of itself.”

~ ACIM OE Text CH 8 VI

In this beautiful MOMENT of NOW, shall we open to Who We Are and will forever BE. Can we open to knowing that these words I am typing are from the very center of my Being, which is your Being as well?

There is ONE Extension of the One Creator and Thou Art That!

And so it is!
AMEN ♥

========================================

*Reverend Reja Joy Green is one of the founding members of the Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]; She is the CIMS webmaster, eMagazine editor and producer of the Daily Lesson Mailings [example of mailings]. Rev. Reja Joy facilitates the Course in Miracles study group in Omaha and is ordained as a Community Miracles Center minister. Rev Reja Joy facilitated the 2013 free ACIM DAILY Lesson Conference Calls along with Rev. Pamela Whitman.

As a registered Yoga Instructor, Rev. Reja Joy teaches through her RejaJoy-Yoga-Studio from the perspective of A Course in Miracles and hosts several social media groups for those who share this journey. Rev. Reja Joy currently resides with her loving husband Chris Green in Omaha, NE.

Vital Message of Forgiveness

May 28, 2015February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

VITAL MESSAGE OF FORGIVENESS

Graphic by ©Deposit Photos

Article by Rev Reja Janaki Joy Green*
~*~*~*~*~*~
AUDIO of ARTICLE [mp3]

Recently I’ve been asked, by many students of A Course in Miracles, for my response to a recent mass email from the author, Gary Renard, with the title: “A Vital Message From Gary Renard About The Editing Of A Course In Miracles”

My friends were curious to see how I would respond, especially since I am one of the co-founders of Course in Miracles Society [CIMS] and publisher of A Course in Miracles – Original Edition [ACIM OE], both of which were among the targets of the email from Gary.

It seems that the purpose of Gary Renard’s email was to respond to the remarks about the Original Edition and about the Foundation for Inner Peace[FIP] made by Rev. Tony Ponticello, at the recent 2015 ACIM Conference in New York City.

A friend had forwarded to me a second email she had received from Gary Renard with the subject, “Join Gary in England, and Save Money Before June 1^st”, and wrote:

“Joy,

When you go to his website, he has a link that’s called: Gary Renard on the Urtext
I think it is basically a copy of the mass-email.

I have such mixed feelings about someone who so poorly represents the Course… by purporting to love the Course and be the person who will show us how we all can come to know our True Selves and live on this Earth.

The catch-22 of being required to see Gary as someone calling out for Love without actually telling him he is ‘in error’ is really mind-blowing!

It is a strong lesson indeed!”

How to respond? How to answer this conundrum for myself? And yet to respond to this seeming attack feels like nothing less than a call to JOY! In fact, I told my husband that it feels as if it were related to the very reason for my Soul journey, actually for Our journey as the SonShip, in this illusory time and space.

If not now, when, oh Holy Child of God?

Along those lines, it also feels as though it is an opportunity to demonstrate the theme of the past Conference, which was: “The holiest of all the spots on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a PRESENT LOVE.” ACIM OE CH 26, X 82

Just now, I was preparing the Early Mailing of the Daily Lessons and Text Readings for May 18^th and reviewing the TEXT selection of the day for an opening QUOTE, when the choice made itself known. Many of the paragraphs caught my attention, as they usually do, and yet this one brought tears to my eyes.

²⁷Now has no meaning to the ego. The present merely reminds it of past hurts, and it reacts to the present as if it were the past. The ego cannot tolerate release from the past, and although the past is no more, the ego tries to preserve its image by responding as if it were present. Thus it dictates reactions to those you meet now from a past reference point, obscuring their present reality. In effect, if you follow the ego’s dictates, you will react to your brothers as though they were someone else, and this will surely prevent you from perceiving them as they are. And you will receive messages from them out of your own past because, by making it real in the present, you are forbidding yourself to let it go. You thus deny yourself the message of release that every brother offers you now. ACIM OE CH 12 IV

Why did I choose this paragraph? In fact, why did I choose this entire section, “Healing and Time”? Why was this the message that tugged at my heart in relation to the controversial comments by Rev Tony Ponticello and Gary Renard?

I believe that the drama of this controversy, and the messages in this section of the text, epitomize the message of A Course in Miracles. It demonstrates a challenge and a decision that I think we are ready for. Perhaps that is why Rev Tony Ponticello took the bold move to say words, he admitted later, would ‘Rile up the crowd’ and get a discussion going. Perhaps “All things are Lessons God would have me learn.” Lesson 193

The paragraph begins with,

²⁶ “Now has no meaning to the ego. The present merely reminds it of past hurts, and it reacts to the present as if it were the past.” ACIM OE CH 12 IV

Why does the Now have no meaning to the limited thought system? What does the Now hold that makes it of no use to the ego, except to remind us of the past? Could it be that it holds— “NOTHING?” And yet could it also be that it also holds —“EVERYTHING?!” The Now is empty of the past and the future, and yet it holds the essence of our BEING. In this chapter, we read:

³⁰ “It is in the reality of now, without past or future, that the beginning of the appreciation of eternity lies. For only now is here, and it presents the opportunities for the holy encounters in which salvation can be found.” ACIM OE CH 12 IV

The Now “presents the opportunities for the holy encounters in which Salvation can be found.” That’s why it is important to our Souls and demeaned by the ego. It is in the Now that we have the opportunity to release our illusion of separation and find our salvation.

If the ego is a thought of fear, born of separation and time, where is it, once the light of Truth and Love shine within the ‘Present Moment of Now’? There is no wonder the ego gives the Now no meaning. In the Now, if we don’t drag-in the past, the ego dissolves back into the nothingness from which it came. That’s exactly why the ego is attached to the past.

²⁶ “The ego has a very strange notion of time, and it is with this notion that your questioning might well begin. The ego invests heavily in the past and in the end believes that the past is the only aspect of time that is meaningful.” ACIM OE CH 12 IV

In the ego thought system, who needs the present when we can dredge up the past and make it continuous with the future?

²⁶ “For the ego uses the present only as a brief transition to the future, in which it brings the past to the future by interpreting the present in past terms.” ACIM OE CH 12 IV

I remember clearly the E.S.T. training I took three and a half decades ago, in which the trainer wrapped his foot under the rung of a chair and walked across the stage, dragging the chair. He was demonstrating how we hold onto the past and drag it with us into the present.

Thus, when we condemn a brother for doing anything, we are holding him to the ‘past’, whether it is something that occurred thirty years ago or last week.

And yet the message of the Course is that we are ONE SELF, united with our creator. To condemn a ‘part’ is to perpetuate the separation by seeing our brother as separate, and to see only the past is to lose sight of the only time there is. The ego uses the past to avoid the present at all costs.

When the ego emphasizes our guilt, it is making certain that the future will repeat the past, so we can avoid the present. How crazy is that!

²⁶ “You will remember that we said its emphasis on guilt enables it to ensure its continuity by making the future like the past and thus avoiding the present. By the notion of paying for the past in the future, the past becomes the determiner of the future, making them continuous without an intervening present.” ACIM OE CH 12 IV

What then are we making REAL for ourselves, when we recreate scenarios of the past, which weren’t real then and are equally unreal, in this moment of Now?

²⁷ “In effect, if you follow the ego’s dictates, you will react to your brothers as though they were someone else, and this will surely prevent you from perceiving them as they are. And you will receive messages from them out of your own past because, by making it real in the present, you are forbidding yourself to let it go. You thus deny yourself the message of release that every brother offers you now.” ACIM OE CH 12 IV

In the beginning of paragraph 27 we learn,

²⁷“The ego cannot tolerate release from the past, and although the past is no more, the ego tries to preserve its image by responding as if it were present. Thus it dictates reactions to those you meet now from a past reference point, obscuring their present reality.” ACIM OE CH 12 IV

At the 2015 ACIM Conference, there was a moment when Gary Renard and his wife were at the water fountain at the same time my husband and I were there. Gary seemed to recognize us and quickly grabbed his wife’s hand and began to run down the hall.

³⁰““The Holy Spirit teaches that you always meet yourself and the encounter is holy because you are.”
“The ego teaches that you always encounter your past, and because your dreams were not holy, the future cannot be, and the present is without meaning.” ACIM OE CH 12 IV

That moment was a chance for a holy encounter, and yet we missed our chance.

Later, in one of the presentations, the participants were asked to hug one another, and take three deep breaths. We were then asked to look into one another’s eyes, while getting in touch with who we are and who our brother is. The person behind me had Gary Renard as a partner and when the Presenter asked for volunteers to share their experience, she raised her hand. She shared how their bodies made a tent as they hugged and how they were unbalanced and almost fell over as they teetered. Later, at the end of the presentation, I turned around and found myself facing Gary Renard. I was aware of the temptation to perceive conflict and aware of the previous person’s sharing and even so, in that instant, there was only Love. We hugged closely and both of us melted, as I whispered, “I love you, Gary.”

Love is the only answer, as He tells us,

⁹⁰“A little knowledge is an all-encompassing thing. If you are grateful to each other, you are grateful to God for what He created. Through your gratitude, you can come to know each other, and one moment of real recognition makes all men your brothers because they are all of your Father. Love does not conquer all things, but it does set all things right.” ACIM OE CH 4 VII

Now I know why the last line of that original paragraph27 made me cry. Gary has offered me the message of release. He has given me the chance to release the past and open to the Now, in which “we can come to know each other.” He is my brother, because he is of our Father, and what is left of our past is but a blessing. ♥

========================================

*Reverend Reja Joy Green is one of the founding members of the Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]; She is the CIMS webmaster, eMagazine editor and producer of the Daily Lesson Mailings [example of mailings]. Rev. Reja Joy facilitates the Course in Miracles study group in Omaha and is ordained as a Community Miracles Center minister. Rev Reja Joy facilitated the 2013 free ACIM DAILY Lesson Conference Calls along with Rev. Pamela Whitman.

As a registered Yoga Instructor, Rev. Reja Joy teaches through her RejaJoy-Yoga-Studio from the perspective of A Course in Miracles and hosts several social media groups for those who share this journey. Rev. Reja Joy currently resides with her loving husband Chris Green in Omaha, NE.

Holy Spirit or the ego?

April 28, 2014February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

Questions and Answers
In Light of ACIM

By Rev Reja Janaki Joy Green

Graphic by ©Deposit Photos

The following is a question often asked by A Course in Miracle students:

QUESTION: “How do I know when I am actually hearing Guidance from my Right Mind, a.k.a. Holy Spirit and not the ego?”

ONE POSSIBLE ANSWER:

That’s the 64,000 dollar question. [Baby boomers will remember that TV Show. ;-] And the ANSWER for me is: “Know Thyself”.

When I listen to students of A Course in Miracles talk about the “Holy Spirit”, and when I listen to myself sometimes, I notice that often there is a reference to HS as if IT were a Being outside of ourselves and separate from who we are. Perhaps that is just a habit of ours, here in this seeming world of separate bodies. The Course, however, reminds us several times:

^{CH 5 HEALING AND WHOLENESS}^{, 9} The Holy Spirit is nothing more than your own right mind. He was also mine. The Bible says, “May the mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus,” and uses this as a blessing. It is the blessing of miracle-mindedness. It asks that you may think as I thought, joining with me in Christ-thinking.

Even though the above quote makes it clear that the Holy Spirit is our “own right mind”, and is present when we are “Christ-thinking”, the sentence before that quote makes it seem as though it comes from outside of us:

^{CH 5 HEALING AND WHOLENESS}^{, 9}I told you that I could reach up and bring the Holy Spirit down to you, but I can bring Him to you only at your own invitation.

If the first quote were true, and of course it is, then this bringing down of the Holy Spirit is in a figurative sense, and not literal. Our Elder Brother can open the way to our “own right mind”, but he is reminding us that it must be at our own invitation. “The Holy Spirit’s Voice is as loud as your willingness to listen.” ACIM CH 8, 78

If our Elder Brother could open the way to our “own right mind”, that could only mean that our Minds are joined and that there is one MIND and that the communication within this MIND is universal and internal.

^{CH 18 THE DREAM AND THE REALITY}^{, 56}The body is a limit imposed on the universal communication which is an eternal property of mind. But the communication is internal. [It is not made up of different parts which reach each other.] Mind reaches to itself. It does not go out. Within itself it has no limits, and there is nothing outside it. [It encompasses everything.] It encompasses you entirely; you within it, and it within you. There is nothing else, anywhere or ever.

Thus the Holy Spirit is Mind reaching to itself, pulling itself up by its own boot straps. We might call it the cosmic REBOOT. When all else fails REBOOT and if that fails: “Read the Manual”. LOL

^{CH 26 THE TRANSITION}^{, 49}Ideas are of the mind. What is projected out and seems to be external to the mind is not outside at all but an effect of what is in and has not left its source.

Again and again, one finds that our sense of identity is at the center of this Miraculous thought system offered through A Course in Miracles. Every truth we believe is in direct relationship to who we think we are and who we think our brothers are and Who we think Jesus and God are. Minds communicate in ideas. Our Source gave of itself in the idea of us and we are also able to give of ourselves, which is our selfhood. The Course keeps reminding us that we are an idea, in full communication with all that ever was, which has never left its Source.

^{CH 15 THE PURPOSE OF TIME}^{, 63} It is through us that peace will come. Join me in the idea of peace, for in ideas minds can communicate. If you would give yourself as your Father gives His Self, you will learn to understand selfhood. And therein is love’s meaning understood. But remember that understanding is of the mind and only of the mind. Knowledge is therefore of the mind, and its conditions are in the mind with it. If you were not only an idea and nothing else, you could not be in full communication with all that ever was. Yet as long as you prefer to be something else, or would attempt to be nothing else and something else together, the language of communication, which you know perfectly, you will not remember.

The Course is teaching or reminding us, of a radical new perspective, which is based on this language of communication we have forgotten. We have forgotten that MIND extends to itself, being all there is. Love is all there is and what is all-encompassing can have no opposite. VIOLA! No separation, unless we choose to separate ourselves away from our Reality through judgment and unforgiveness – a.k.a. ‘wrong-mindedness’, a.k.a. the ego. We are adrift until we make the choice to ‘think’ with our CHRIST MIND.

^{CH 5 HEALING AND WHOLENESS}^{, 11}The Holy Spirit is the Christ Mind, which senses the knowledge that lies beyond perception. It came into being with the separation as a protection, inspiring the beginning of the Atonement at the same time. Before that, there was no need for healing and no one was comfortless.

In any given instant I could ask myself: Are my thoughts the loving Thoughts of God? Are my thoughts those of my Source, which is LOVE? Do I see no separation between myself and my brother? “Every altar to God is part of your Soul because the light He created is one with Him.” ACIM CH 10, 33 Also, He tells us, “It is possible even in this world to hear only that Voice and no other. It takes effort and great willingness to learn. It is the final lesson that I learned, and God’s Sons are as equal as learners as they are as Souls.” ACIM CH 5, 20

Am I relating to the TRUTH within that KNOWS that I am whole and complete and still as God created me? Or am I relating to a separate self, with separate needs and desires? One sense of Self dwells in eternity and abundance and the other in time and scarcity. “Those who see themselves as whole make no demands.” ACIM LESSON 37, 2

In every instant I make that choice. Now is the only time there is. What am I choosing now? What am I identifying with? Is it the Voice for Love that sings within, waiting to be acknowledged and expressed or the dirge of the ego.

The original question was: How do I know when I am actually hearing Guidance from my Right Mind, a.k.a. “Holy Spirit”, and not the ego?

And the Answer is: Know ThySelf. If the guidance is aligned in the knowledge of Who you are in truth, that you are one with your Brother and one with your Source, then it is a reflection of Love and Reality. Your next thought, and the one after that, and the one after that, are either from your Christ Mind, a.k.a. the Holy Spirit, a.k.a. Love, and are healing or they come from a misperception of who you are, born of fear. When we feel that tinge of separateness in our heart and there is no peace, that’s not the Holy Spirit. That’s our call to choose once again. There is no judgment. Who you are hasn’t changed. You are always the sinless and guiltless Son of God and now you get to choose again in each new moment.

Ɲαɱα§ɫé ॐ

*Reverend Reja Joy Green is one of the founding members of the Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]; She is the CIMS webmaster, eMagazine editor and producer of the Daily Lesson Mailings [Daily Lesson Mailings]. Rev. Reja Joy facilitates the Course in Miracles study group in Omaha and is ordained as a Community Miracles Center minister.

As a registered Yoga Instructor, Rev. Reja Joy teaches through her RejaJoy-Yoga-Studio from the perspective of A Course in Miracles and hosts several social media groups for those who share this journey. Rev. Reja Joy currently resides with her loving husband Chris Green in Omaha, NE.

Our Creations

April 1, 2014February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

OUR CREATIONS

by Reja Janaki Joy Green*
~*~*~*~*~*~

Ah that word ‘Creation’ again. It has plagued Course students for decades. We think we know what it means and then we lose it again.

On the M-F ACIM TEXT Conference Call today we read the following. [By the way, the call is free and open to everyOne. More info is here: http://www.jcim.net/acim-conference-calls/]:

Chapter Eight The Journey Back VI. The Power of Joint Decision http://www.jcim.net/acim_us/TxtChap-8-6.php

⁴⁵ “You want your creations as He wants His. Your creations are your gift to the Holy Trinity, created in gratitude for your creation. They do not leave you, any more than you have left your Creator, but they extend your creation as God extended Himself to you. Can the creations of God Himself take joy in what is not real? And what is real except the creations of God and those which are created like His? Your creations love you as your Soul loves your Father for the gift of creation. There is no other gift which is eternal, and therefore there is no other gift which is true”. ACIM CH 8 VI

So we might question, “What are our CREATIONS?” Can we ‘see’ them. Can we take joy in them if they are not ‘real’? Ah perhaps that’s the key. Are they ‘Real’?

We perceive what is transient and finite. And we are learning that only what is Eternal is True and stems from Knowledge. So it would seem that the beauty of our ‘creations’ on this plane is merely an illusion. How could they be TRUE if they are perceptions.

And thus, in this Dream, it would seem we are learning that creation is impossible and that this world is an illusion.

Or is it?

I’m thinking that we might not be able to ‘understand’ what is meant by ‘our creations’ but we may very well ‘experience’ what is meant by them.

We read in today’s TEXT reading segment about ‘experience’:

⁵¹ “The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of where you are always and what you are forever. It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed. Truth can only be experienced. It cannot be described, and it cannot be explained. I can make you aware of the conditions of truth, but the experience is of God. Together we can meet its conditions, but truth will dawn upon you of itself. [emphasis is mine.]” ACIM CH 8 VI

Maybe we need to pause and step back to see it from outside of the usual way we think of ‘creation’ or anything-everything, for that matter.

I recall coming across this in “GOD I AM: From Tragic to Magic” by Peter O Erbe, a book that has been described as a mini-ACIM:

GOD I AM:“We should not lose heart when we are told that this world is an illusion. The tree, the lake, the lark and the sky or a crisp mountain morning-the delight of little ones chasing clumsily through meadows lift our hearts and thus point the way. The truth becomes reversed when these are seen as being apart from us.

“There is beauty here, indeed – in fact, the elation at the sight of creation seen as my Being, and not perceiving myself as being separate from it, reverses the known picture to the extent of beauty being All-There-Is. Nothing outwardly may have changed, but one’s seeing is now knowledge, not perception any more. In an instant one is transported into a higher dimension. One has come into one’s own. That now the outward scene adapts itself to one’s reality, should not come as a surprise.” Pg 161

This reminds me of Lesson 268 “Let all things be exactly as they are.” .

“1 Let me not be Your critic, Lord, today, and judge against You. Let me not attempt to interfere with Your creation and distort it into sickly forms. Let me be willing to withdraw my wishes from its unity and thus to let it be as You created it. For thus will I be able, too, to recognize my Self as You created me. In Love was I created, and in Love will I remain forever. What can frighten me when I let all things be exactly as they are?ACIM Lesson 268

We also learn in the Course that “Heaven is here. There is nowhere else. Heaven is now. There is no other time.” ACIM Manual for Teachers #24 And so it keeps dawning on me that we could awaken RIGHT NOW. Change can come in the twinkling of an eye, which is an idea expressed in this exquisite song created during those magical days at FINDHORN:

CHANGE CAN COME (Words and Music by Lark Batteau)

“Change can come in the twinkling of an eye,
In the ripple upon a lake.
Change can come in the color of a flower,
In the sparkle of morning dew.
When the Light catches you.
In that tiny moment, you are transformed.And the radiance of Christ Shines forth in reply
From within, and has made itself known,
And from the two is born A new world.

Come let us join Our many gold flickerings
And create one Light, Together, Forever.”

Orbe’s book continues on:

GOD I AM: “This is the awakening. One now sees all as it really is and the memory of one’s ‘normal’ state of mind in Social Consciousness seems like death itself. One has come home. And it is so natural. One experiencing this knows this to be the natural heritage of every soul on Earth. The thrill of joy, the excitation, and yet the absolute peace one IS, is too far beyond words. One is complete.” Pg 161 GoodReads Review

This brings to mind recounts of Near Death Experiences [NDE]: Anita Moorjani, Billy Fingers and Dr. Rajiv Parti, for example. The Dr shared that he experienced this change in perception during his NDE and when he regained consciousness he was filled with GRATITUDE! NDE Stories .

GOD I AM: “Such sight would be at a loss for words, for words for this have not been coined. One with such sight would weep with joy and utter only this: Thank you God for being God! Thank you for being the ME of me.

“Such one would see his brother as he truly is, as God created him. And if his brother be the meanest the world has known, capable of horrifying deeds – this one sees with eyes unveiled and what does He behold? He cannot share his sight in words, for there are none. In speechless wonder he beholds a radiant jewel, a beauty so divine, – his crystal SELF. He becomes witness to the living God. To him who sees with such sight, the true meaning of the Last Judgment is revealed And truly, there is such a thing as this. And He who speaks it, says: BEHOLD – MY SON IS INNOCENT! What else, I ask, could Love say to its own SELF?”

How powerful this is!

GOD I AM: “At this point we may have comprehended in depth already what this material is trying to bring to our awareness: our experience of life on Earth can be Heaven on Earth, if we allow it to be so. To allow means not to resist but to see life as a whole and not single out parts and value those as wholes in themselves. If we insist on our upside-down perception we fail our mission.

“Our brothers and the Earth itself with all its beauty are not the illusion But our perception of it is. Truth is not absent here, make no mistake, but it is certainly obscured.” Pg 161

Thank you God, for being GOD! Thank you for being the ME of me. ♥

I will let everything point the way Home! Everything can be an expression of Love – IS an expression of Love. I will be witness to the living GOD – right here and right now.

Om SHANTI!

Photo by Mitzi Condit ~ NM, USA

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*Reverend Reja Joy Green is one of the founding members of the Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]; She is the CIMS webmaster, eMagazine editor and producer of the Daily Lesson Mailings [example of mailings]. Rev. Reja Joy facilitates the Course in Miracles study group in Omaha and is ordained as a Community Miracles Center minister. Rev Reja Joy facilitated the 2013 free ACIM Daily LESSON Conference Calls along with Rev. Pamela Whitman.

As a registered Yoga Instructor, Rev. Reja Joy teaches through her RejaJoy-Yoga-Studio from the perspective of A Course in Miracles and hosts several social media groups for those who share this journey. Rev. Reja Joy currently resides with her loving husband Chris Green in Omaha, NE.

Perception versus Knowledge

March 5, 2014February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

Questions and Answers

In Light of ACIM

[as it appeared in the JAN FEB 2014 eMAGAZINE]

QUESTION: “How do we release our past conditioning which effects how we perceive everything in this world and keeps us stuck in illusion and away from knowledge?”

ANSWER: We begin with a definition of both perception and knowledge. This distinction will help us to understand the dynamics between them and their relationship to our Awakening. This Awakening is the release of our past conditioning.

Some people would define ‘perception’ as the end-result of the processing of our senses. For example, we process the feeling of the sun on our face by our sense of touch. The sun‘s rays touch our face and we process the sensation into a perception. We perceive its warmth.

Once we translate that sensation into a perception we relate it to our store of prior events which brings an understanding of what the perception is. We eventually come to comprehend that our sun which orbits our planet earth is radiating its light and warmth. However, is this later realization knowledge or ‘comprehension’?

Knowledge would likely be defined by most people as the end-result of the processing of our perceptions. In other words, we process the feeling of the sun on our face by our sense of touch into a perception. Then our mind analyzes the perception further into what we might consider as knowledge of the various attributes of the sun’s rays, the chemical processes on our skin, etc.

But, again, is this knowledge or is it merely ‘comprehension’?

In a remarkable book titled “GOD I AM: From Tragic to Magic”, channeled with the aid of Immanuel and St. Germain, scribe Peter O. Erbe writes:

“God can be known but not comprehended. Comprehension is perception with the mind. To perceive, I have to be apart from the perceived. This indicates division. Physicality is polarity. God is union, therefore not comprehensible by a polarized, that is divided, mind.”
“From within the realm of polarities we can only feel into the subject matter in a manner which induces the remembrance of an ancient knowing in our soul.” P. 17

And we find these complimentary thoughts from within A Course in Miracles:

¹² God honored even the miscreations of His Children because they had made them, but He also blessed them with a way of thinking that could raise their perceptions until they became so lofty that they could reach almost back to Him. The Holy Spirit is the Mind of the Atonement. It represents a state of mind that comes close enough to one-mindedness that transfer to it is at last possible. Transfer depends on common elements in the old learning and the new situation to which it is transferred. Perception is not knowledge, but it can be transferred to knowledge or cross over into it. It might even be more helpful here to use the literal meaning of “carried” over since the last step is taken by God. ACIM.OE.CH5.12 [bold emphasis is mine]

Perception can be lifted up and brought close to knowledge. Comprehension, of that which is perceived, gives way to that which cannot be perceived but only KNOWN. Oneness knows only Wholeness and Unity.

We are told that “From within the realm of polarities we can only feel into the subject matter…” which induces within us “the remembrance of an ancient knowing in our soul”.

From Chapter 21 of A Course in Miracles we find the following:

⁸ Listen-perhaps you catch a hint of an ancient state not quite forgotten; dim, perhaps, and yet not altogether unfamiliar, like a song whose name is long forgotten, and the circumstances in which you heard completely unremembered. Not the whole song has stayed with you, but just a little wisp of melody, attached not to a person or a place or anything particular. But you remember from just this little part how lovely was the song, how wonderful the setting where you heard it, and how you loved those who were there and listened with you. ACIM.OE.21.8

Recently in an ACIM Study Group, the discussion centered on how our perceptions stem from our prior conditioning and how very difficult it is to rid ourselves of what we have learned. This problem almost seems to be beyond healing and yet we are learning, in the Course, that healing is certain. Let’s look closely at the mechanism that is keeping us trapped within perception and away from Right Perception, which moves toward Knowing.

What is the nature of this TRAP?

“Repeated experience causes repeated judgment. This creates habits of perception. Habits of perception may be seen like grooves in the mind. The deeper the groove, the more fixed becomes our belief in what the groove contains. “ GOD I AM p.28

And the Course poignantly describes this dilemma as such:

⁶ The blind become accustomed to their world by their adjustments to it. They think they know their way about in it. They learned it, not through joyous lessons, but through the stern necessity of limits they believed they could not overcome. And still believing this, they hold those lessons dear and cling to them because they cannot see. They do not understand the lessons keep them blind. This they do not believe. And so they keep the world they learned to “see” in their imagination, believing that their choice is that or nothing. They hate the world they learned through pain. And everything they think is in it serves to remind them that they are incomplete and bitterly deprived. ACIM.OE.CH21.6

So we now see that our thoughts are trapped within the grooves of our mind, carved out by habits of perception. We could acquiesce to the way we think things are, believing there is no other choice, that it is this way or nothing. Or we could open our minds to a way to be released from bondage by believing that there is another way.

As long as we perceive ourselves within the groove, we are attached to the groove and we continue to blame the groove, viewing it as the CAUSE of our suffering.

“The form always represents the effect, not the CAUSE. Treatment of the effect, being only a symptom, can only displace or shift the symptom.” GOD I AM p. 28

A Course in Miracles describes it as such:

⁸ Today we seek to change our minds about the source of sickness, for we seek a cure for all illusions, not another shift among them. ACIM.OE.LESSON140.8

By focusing on the ‘grooves’ of our learned perceptions, we stay stuck. More than that, we ‘stabilize’ these perceptions rather than release them. So we might ask how do we stop this vicious cycle? How do we release the habit of thinking the grooves are the CAUSE of our unhappiness and believing we are unable to behave differently and thus deepening the grooves. Are we only solidifying our perceptions by our beliefs? Can we pick ourselves up out of the grooves by our own bootstraps. In other words, REBOOT using perception?

Yes, and the answer is the KEY to Happiness -> True Perception without judgment!

“To perceive without stabilization of perception, however, it becomes imperative to abandon the judgment of that which is perceived, for it is judgment that stabilizes perception. Yeshwa’s advise: ‘Judge not by appearances’ may be understood better in this light. Evaluating, that is judging what we perceive results always in False Perception.

“The thought then, logically and consequently thought to its end, is this: where judgment is not, accusation is absent. Where accusation is not, guilt is absent. Where guilt is not, forgiveness has no purpose and a state without a need for forgiveness must, of necessity, be a state of pure Being, of innocence, a state of enlightenment.” GOD I AM p.28

What is described here is Vision which is within us for the asking, or rather for the ‘allowing’. We were given this Vision at the same ‘time’ we chose to believe in the illusion of separation. We keep the grooves strong and in place and in fact deepen them by our insistence that correction lies in our perception and therefore ‘judgment’ of the grooves. The groove is not a CAUSE of our pain. It is the effect of our thinking that we are separate from our Source and alone.

We were given the Holy Spirit [our Right Mind] which is both able to ‘perceive’ and to ‘know’ and this is the bridge.

¹²What is a miracle but this remembering? And who is there in whom this memory lies not? The light in one awakens it in all. And when you see it in each other, you are remembering for everyone. ACIM.OE.CH21.12

The MIRACLE is the Shift out of this way of ‘thinking’ and into allowing the Thoughts we think with God to enter our most Holy Minds, for they have never left it. They have only been covered up by our belief in fear, our belief in lack and our belief in the grooves! We don’t need to ‘think’ our way out of our rut. We simply need do nothing which allows Love to enter of Its own accord. The Course teaches that ‘Love waits on welcome, not on time.”

“So the answer to the question of how to leave the groove is to wake up to Reality, the very purpose of the soul’s sojourn through the world of matter.” GOD I AM. p. 29

“True Perception [Forgiveness] of this illusion will set us free from the bondage of this dream. It allows the miracle in to heal. A miracle is devoid of degrees. It cares not what we perceive our problem to be, how big or small – it matters not. For where we see many problems, it only knows of one: Separation from Oneness. And to the one problem, it can only bring one answer, provided the miracle is invited and allowed in. For what we call a miracle is nothing else but the truth rushing in if we surrender our defenses.” GOD I AM p.29
[bold emphasis is mine]

“Change can come in the twinkling of an eye.
When the Light catches you.
In that tiny moment, you are transformed.

And the radiance of Christ
Shines forth in reply
From within, and has made itself known,
And from the two is born
A new world.”

~ Words and Music by Lark Batteau [See MUSIC ARTICLE]

Truth will come rushing in when we choose Love, for that is what we ARE. With faith, we come to Know that change can truly come in the twinkling of an eye. ♥
Question and Answer segment written by Rev Reja Joy Green ~ CIMS eMagazine editor

ARTICLE on CIMS Website

Le s s o n 243
Today I will judge nothing that occurs.

¹ I will be honest with myself today. I will not think that I already know what must remain beyond my present grasp. I will not think I understand the whole from bits of my perception, which are all that I can see. Today I recognize that this is so. And so I am relieved of judgment which I cannot make. Thus do I free myself and what I look upon, to be in peace as God created us.

² Father, today I leave creation free to be itself. I honor all its parts, in which I am included. We are one because each part contains Your memory, and truth must shine in all of us as one.

ACIM.OE.WB.243

Temptation to Disbelieve

July 29, 2013February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

TEMPTATION to Disbelieve in
A COURSE IN MIRACLES

Article by Rev Reja Janaki Joy Green*
~*~*~*~*~*~

What does it really mean to be ‘tempted’?

Webster’s Dictionary defines the word TEMPT as:

Definition of TEMPT

1 : to entice to do wrong by promise of pleasure or gain
[Tempted to go off my diet!; I’m tempted to reject these ideas since they seem to be telling me that I need to relinquish even the pleasure and joy I receive from loving those in my life .]

2 a : to make trial of : test [Evaluate so as to accept or reject]
b : provoke tempt fate> [To arouse a feeling or action]
c : to risk the dangers of [Some think that wet hair tempts a cold.]

3 a : to induce to do something [The pull was tempting.]
b : to cause to be strongly inclined <was>tempted to call it quits></was>

Origin of TEMPT

Middle English, from Anglo-French tempter, tenter, from Latin temptare, tentare to feel, try First Known Use: 13th century

Whatever we value intensely in our life we seem to identify with and if it were taken from us, we feel as though our life, as we know it, were over. It no longer seems worth living. Perhaps it is a son or daughter, a spouse, a title, a job, our health which might be or has been taken from us. Now life has no meaning. “That which I deeply valued and gave my life meaning, is gone!”

We might also value JOY in our lives, feeling as though it were our only hope of survival in a world made sick by fear. And if this JOY were threatened, then we feel as though our life were threatened as well. And when the threat seems to have occurred, we feel we have to respond in some way or the JOY will be gone and so will our Joie de vivre; our reason for being here.

And the response we choose is determined by what we think is TRUE about the JOY and what we think is TRUE about ourselves.

If we feel as though our JOY is something that can be threatened, we will be enticed to give up the offending thought system so as to protect our JOY. [This is the first item in the definition of being TEMPTED.] If we feel as though we are a mortal being, finite and at the mercy of the outside world, we will believe we need to protect ourselves.

We might feel as though the Thought system of the Holy Spirit, our Right Mind, A Course in Miracles, has put us on a restrictive regime, too harsh for us to continue. Especially if the regime means we are called to give up JOY!

Yet we are taught in A Course in Miracles that “The Holy Spirit is the spirit of JOY.” A If we trust the Voice for God, the Holy Spirit, the JOY in our hearts, would it ever tell us to release it? Wouldn’t our Holy Minds tell us that the JOY we feel in our lives is as eternal as we are?

“Joy is eternal. You can be sure indeed that any seeming happiness that does not last is really fear. Joy does not turn to sorrow, for the eternal cannot change. But sorrow can be turned to joy, for time gives way to the eternal.” ACIM-OE CH 22, par 18

JOY is not only what we HAVE, as a Gift of God, it’s what we truly ARE. When we are feeling JOYOUS, we are in our Right Mind! Never would we be counseled to reject this, for this is the only reality this dream has.

The second definition of TEMPT is to ‘make trial of; to test’. And so our minds may ask, “How could this curriculum be true when it asks me to give up JOY!” We put the curriculum on trial, test it and judge it. Then we listen to the ego, which knows nothing, as it tell us we are guilty if we feel JOY. It not only tells us this untruth, but then it tells us that this is what A Course in Miracles is teaching. It cautions us that we need to exchange this restrictive thought system for what is familiar to us and less threatening, or we’ll lose everything dear to us. It suggests that we’d rather be guilty than give up JOY! And love tells us to “Hear not this now!”

When we think that our relationships are beginning to bring us pain, we hear the ego tell us to get rid of them for something that will bring us JOY. When we think that our ‘thoughts’ are beginning to bring us pain, we again hear the ego tell us to get rid of them, in exchange for what will bring us JOY.

And the Voice for Love teaches us thus:

“Now the ego counsels thus-substitute for this another relationship to which your former goal was quite appropriate. You can escape from your distress only by getting rid of each other. You need not part entirely if you choose not to do so. But you must exclude major areas of fantasy from each other to save your sanity.

“Hear not this now! Have faith in Him Who answered you. He heard. Has He not been very explicit in His answer?

“Now He asks for faith a little longer, even in bewilderment. For this will go, and you will see the justification for your faith emerge to bring you shining conviction. Abandon Him not now, nor each other. This relationship has been reborn as holy. “ ACIM-OE Ch 17, par 49

We may ask ourselves, “Can our relationship with A Course in Miracles be reborn as holy? Can we have faith, ‘even in bewilderment?’ HE asks us to “Abandon Him not now, nor each other. ”

“In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity Christ calls to you and gently says, “My brother, choose again.” He would not leave one source of pain unhealed nor any image left to veil the truth. He would remove all misery from you, whom God created altars unto joy. He would not leave you comfortless, alone in dreams of hell, but would release your minds from everything that hides His face from you. His holiness is yours because He is the only power that is real in you. His strength is yours because He is the Self that God created as His only Son.” ACIM-OE Ch 31, par 87 ♥

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William Thetford’s Final Independence

July 4, 2013February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

WILLIAM THETFORD ~ Co-SCRIBE of ACIM
April 25, 1923 – July 4, 1988

Article by Rev Reja Janaki Joy Green*
~*~*~*~*~*~

The following is an EXCERPT from the NEW REALITIES interview of Bill Thetford Sept/Oct 1984 Issue:

NR: The authenticity. . ?

WT: Well, the material was something that transcended anything that either of us could possibly conceive of. And since the content was quite alien to our backgrounds, interests and training, it was obvious to me that it came from an inspired source. The quality of the material was very compelling, and its poetic beauty added to its impact.

NR: It seems quite unusual that you, an established psychologist holding two very prestigious positions, would even consider embracing such material, considering your training and the rigid tenets within academia to which you no doubt subscribed and adhered.

WT: I think if it had not been for many of the extraordinary experiences that occurred during the summer of 1965, neither Helen nor I would have been willing to accept the material she scribed. You have reported some of those experiences in these pages in the material from Robert Skutch’s new book “Journey Without Distance, The Story Behind A Course In Miracles“. However, our experience associated with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, was not reported in “New Realities.” Perhaps as much as anything, this series of events crystallized the whole new direction that we would take.

NR: The Mayo Clinic even occurred in September and didn’t the Course begin the next month in October?

WT: Yes. I had been asked to go to the Mayo Clinic and find out why they made money on their psychological service operations, while at Columbia-Presbyterian it seemed that we were always losing money. I thought I knew the answer to that question because we saw primarily clinic patients who couldn’t afford fees, and the patients at the Mayo Clinic were middle or upper class and able to pay. Nevertheless, it seemed this was an important trip to make and I asked Helen to accompany me. Just before we took off – I think it was the night before – Helen had this very vivid image of a church, which she described to me in great detail, she even made a sketch of it. It was an old church with a number of turrets and towers. She thought it was probably a Lutheran Church. She was convinced that somehow we would see that church from the airplane window as we were about to land in Rochester. That, of course, seemed rather unlikely, since the airports I know aren’t built near churches. Anyway, we kept our attention very closely focused on the windows during landing, and much to Helen’s disappointment and distress no such church was visible. In fact, Helen was so upset at not finding her church that I didn’t hold out much hope of accomplishing our business the next day unless she could somehow be reassured. Rather desperately I suggested to Helen that we hire a taxi and see if we could find her church anywhere in the Rochester metropolitan area.

So Helen and I went church hunting. At first we thought we would confine ourselves to Lutheran churches. I think there were two of those, and neither one was remotely like Helen’s image. Then we decided that we might as well see all the other churches while we were at it. I think there were twenty-seven altogether in the environs of Rochester. And not one of them bore any resemblance to Helen’s image. Obviously, she was pretty crushed, but we pulled ourselves together in preparation for the following day’s business.

The next day after we had successfully completed our survey, Helen and I prepared to leave our hotel. I went down to the lobby to wait for her with the luggage, and noticing a newsstand I decided to get a paper. Instead, I saw a little booklet entitled, “The History of the Mayo Clinic.” Thinking it would be nice to have a souvenir of our visit, I purchased it for a dollar.

As I leafed through it very quickly, I saw a picture of Helen’s old church, exactly as she had described it with all the turrets and towers. It was even a Lutheran church. The only problem was that it had been razed and the Mayo Clinic was actually built on the former site of this Lutheran church. It was a very dramatic moment, and I was eager to share it with Helen.

When she came down, I said quickly, “Helen you really weren’t out of your mind after all. Your church was there but it’s no longer around. When you thought you were looking down on it as from an airplane you were really looking back through time.”

Helen displayed a peculiar mixture of emotions. On the one hand, relief that she wasn’t totally crazy, on the other hand, it was clear that she was doing something which she regarded as highly paranormal, and this was an area that made her very uncomfortable.

On our way back to New York, we had to change planes in Chicago. While we were sitting in the waiting room, Helen spied a young woman in the corner reading a magazine and looking vaguely unhappy in the way people frequently do when they are waiting for planes in airports. I was surprised when Helen said to me, “See that young woman over there, she’s really in serious trouble – she’s got a lot of problems.” Helen insisted that she would go over and speak to this woman. As it turned out the woman, whose name was Charlotte, had never been on an airplane before. She had flown on Ozark Airlines to Chicago en-route to New York and was in a state of panic. She knew nothing about New York. We later found out that she was leaving her husband and two young children, and was in a state of great distress.

Charlotte was booked on the same plane as we. During the flight, we sat on either side of her, holding her hand, and trying to calm and soothe her. We asked where she was going to stay in New York since she didn’t know anyone. She said that since she was Lutheran, she thought she would contact a Lutheran church and somehow they would find a place for her in the city. It was at this point that Helen and I exchanged glances. The message was clear to both of us. Helen heard her inner voice saying, “And this is my true church, helping your brother who is in need; not the edifice you saw before.” The authority of this inner voice became increasingly familiar to both of us when the Course began a few weeks later in October.

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Article “Bill Thetford’s Independence Day”
https://cimsmiracles.wordpress.com/2010/07/04/bill-thetfords-independence-day/

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There is no cruelty in God

June 19, 2013February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

THERE IS NO CRUELTY IN GOD AND NONE IN ME.

ACIM LESSON 170

by Reja Janaki Joy Green*
~*~*~*~*~*~

¹ No one attacks without intent to hurt. This can have no exception. When you think that you attack in self-defense, you mean that to be cruel is protection; you are safe because of cruelty. You mean that you believe to hurt another brings you freedom. And you mean that to attack is to exchange the state in which you are for something better, safer, more secure from dangerous invasion and from fear.

² How thoroughly insane is the idea that to defend from fear is to attack! ACIM Lesson 170

HE tells us in this lesson that “No one attacks without intent to hurt. This can have no exception.” And yet we make exceptions almost immediately.

One exception might be a situation in which we would attack someone and feel justified. And what about ‘self defense’? Wouldn’t we, at the very least, attack in self-defense? How could we not? Doesn’t the god of fear tell us all that if we do not defend ourselves, we could be hurt? Doesn’t the god of fear tell us that our only protection and security, from a dangerous invasion and from fear, is to ATTACK in retaliation? And so we defend ourselves to keep what we have; or we attack another to get what we think we want. How could we possibly think that we could gain at another’s loss?

⁶⁰ The whole belief that someone loses but reflects the underlying tenet God must be insane. For in this world, it seems that one must gain because another lost. If this were true, then God is mad indeed! But what is this belief except a form of the more basic tenet, “Sin is real and rules the world“? For every little gain must someone lose and pay exact amount in blood and suffering. For otherwise would evil triumph and destruction be the total cost of any gain at all. You who believe that God is mad, look carefully at this and understand that it must be that either God or this must be insane, but hardly both. ACIM CH 25 VIII

A VISITOR to our ACIM Study Group recently shared that an incident had occurred in his home ACIM Study Group. He described the facilitator of his Group as very non-confrontational and accepting. And he described his group demographics as all women, except himself, who were over 60 years old.

A man, an INTRUDER, joined their group and announced that he was going to be taking over. Our VISITOR told us that this man hinted that he had a weapon.

That’s when our VISITOR made the decision, based on the inability of the Facilitator to protect the group and based on the vulnerability of the elderly women in the group, to proceed with a preemptive strike. He told the man that he was leaving and escorted him out by force. As he did so, someone had already called the police and the police took the INTRUDER away.

Our VISITOR reasoned that he was merely acting out the ‘dream’ of the INTRUDER. The INTRUDER was ‘dreaming’ that it was his job to attack the group and cause a reaction. And so our VISITOR was just giving him what he wanted. When he mentioned this, our group exploded in laughter! It seemed like a plausible scenario. The INTRUDER ‘wanted’ to go to jail!

And yet is there another way to see this?

This situation in the ACIM Study Group is a symbol for the many times we ‘see’ attack as real and our defense as justified. We judge what is real for us in any situation and then respond. HE tells us in ACIM Ch 3, VIII:

It does not matter in the end whether you judge right or wrong. Either way, you are placing your belief in the unreal. This cannot be avoided in any type of judgment because it implies the belief that reality is yours to choose from. ACIM CH 3 VIII paragraph 62

When we make a judgment from the belief that we can choose what is real in any situation, we are placing our belief in the unreal. “Nothing real can be threatened and nothing unreal exists”, from the ACIM Introduction. We separate ourselves into separate ‘bodies’ and then protect these bodies by mitigating a perceived attack.

In our Lessons we are being taught to ‘see’ holiness in everything. We are taught in Lesson 37: “My holiness blesses the world.” In this lesson HE tells us:

This idea contains the first glimmerings of your true function in the world or why you are here. Your purpose is to see the world through your own holiness. Thus are you and the world blessed together. No one loses; nothing is taken away from anyone; everyone gains through your holy vision. It signifies the end of sacrifice because it offers everyone his full due. And he is entitled to everything because it is his birthright as a Son of God. ACIM Lesson 37

Amazing!!! No one loses. Nothing is taken from anyone. Blessing everything and everyone with our holiness, with our sight of wholeness and perfection, is our salvation. That is why our brother is our Saviour! When we bless him, no matter what he is choosing to ‘act out’ from his nightmare, we teach the meaning of love.

Your holiness blesses him by asking nothing of him. Those who see themselves as whole make no demands. ACIM Lesson 37

How could we possibly ‘bless’ this INTRUDER, in this situation? He tells us “Your holiness blesses him by asking nothing of him.” In any attack, there is an opponent which is needed for the attack to have meaning. When there is no opposition, the attack fails. It returns to the nothingness from which it came. Its seeming ‘reality’ comes only from the defense it engenders. Without a ‘defense’ it becomes impotent.

He tells us you teach the world by “your quiet recognition that in your holiness are all things blessed.” ACIM Lesson 37 What could occur that does not warrant our quiet recognition of this holiness in all things?

Yet we may wonder how could we ever see that this seeming attack warrants our quiet recognition of ‘holiness’. If we do that, won’t we open ourselves to pain and suffering? Without our defense, wouldn’t there be chaos? And He tells us without the ego all would be Love.

He also tells us that in our defenselessness our safety lies. Attack and defense are two sides of a dance that has been re-enacted over and over since the beginning of our illusory time.

He also tells us that “If I defend myself I am attacked.” ACIM Lesson 37 The situation becomes an ATTACK only if and when I DEFEND myself.

I shared the following in my article, “Avatar and ACIM”:

In the book, “Creating Miracles” written by Carolyn Miller, PhD, there are many examples of those who were in the face of imminent death and yet in that moment they experienced a clarity and a peace and a sense of unconditional love and wholeness that encompassed everything, including the perpetrator. In that moment they became ONE with the perpetrator. The would-be murderer knew that they had been forgiven and released of their guilt and in that Holy Instant they were transformed.

“The strength of right perception is so great
that it brings the mind INTO accord with His
because it yields to His pull which is in all of you.” OrEd.Tx.5.36

So, how could this ‘situation’ have been different?

What could you not accept if you but knew that all events, past, present, and to come, are gently planned by One whose only purpose is your good? ACIM L135

A man comes into the group and announces he is taking over control. The reaction by those who are in the group is one of surprise and then perhaps gaiety! “Welcome dear one!! We’ve been awaiting your arrival. How blessed we are to have you with us today.” The group knows themselves, and the INTRUDER, as whole and complete and still as God created them and from this knowledge of their wholeness they make no demands.” Out of their Knowledge of Who they are and Who the INTRUDER is, they know they need only extend their love.

The INTRUDER is totally caught off guard and then the sinlessness in him recognizes the love that is being shared with him! He opens to the shared recognition of his wholeness and his light. Isn’t that what we all want as well? Isn’t that what we are all searching for?

You have no idea of the tremendous release and deep peace that comes from meeting yourselves and your brothers totally without judgment.

When you recognize what you and your brothers are, you will realize that judging them in any way is without meaning.

In fact, their meaning is lost to you precisely because you are judging them.

In the presence of knowledge, all judgment is automatically suspended, and this is the process which enables recognition to replace perception. ACIM CH 3 VIII paragraph 63

And so we lovingly bless this brother by seeing what is REAL in him. We need nothing from him. He need not be different. From our Wholeness we see him as Whole. We see him with the eyes of Love. And as we see him, we see ourselves. This is why we came here. This is our salvation.

Your holiness is the salvation of the world. It lets you teach the world that it is one with you, not by preaching to it, not by telling it anything, but merely by your quiet recognition that in your holiness are all things blessed, along with you. ACIM Lesson 37

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Our Attack Thoughts

February 13, 2013February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

Our Attack Thoughts Attack Our Invulnerability

BY REJA JOY GREEN*
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Recently I received a group email which was purported to be “An Actual Craig’s List Personals AD”.

The AD and my RESPONSE are below.

Craig’s list ad–Read it closely folks… a good one.

AN ACTUAL CRAIG’S LIST PERSONALS AD

To the Guy Who Tried to Mug Me in Downtown Savannah night before last.

Date: 2011-11-27, 1:43 am. E.S.T.

I was the guy wearing the black Burberry jacket that you demanded that I hand over, shortly after you pulled the knife on me and my girlfriend, threatening our lives. You also asked for my girlfriend’s purse and earrings. I can only hope that you somehow come across this rather important message.

First, I’d like to apologize for your embarrassment; I didn’t expect you to actually crap in your pants when I drew my pistol after you took my jacket.. The evening was not that cold, and I was wearing the jacket for a reason.. my girlfriend was happy that I just returned safely from my 2nd tour as a Combat Marine in Afghanistan .. She had just bought me that Kimber Custom Model 1911 .45 ACP pistol for my birthday, and we had picked up a shoulder holster for it that very evening. Obviously you agree that it is a very intimidating weapon when pointed at your head … isn’t it?!

I know it probably wasn’t fun walking back to wherever you’d come from with crap in your pants. I’m sure it was even worse walking bare-footed since I made you leave your shoes, cell phone, and wallet with me. [That prevented you from calling or running to your buddies to come help mug us again].

After I called your mother or “Momma” as you had her listed in your cell, I explained the entire episode of what you’d done. Then I went and filled up my gas tank as well as those of four other people in the gas station, — on your credit card. The guy with the big motor home took 153 gallons and was extremely grateful!

I gave your shoes to a homeless guy outside Vinnie Van Go Go’s, along with all the cash in your wallet. [That made his day!]

I then threw your wallet into the big pink “pimp mobile” that was parked at the curb ….. after I broke the windshield and side window and keyed the entire driver’s side of the car.

Earlier, I managed to get in two threatening phone calls to the DA’s office and one to the FBI, while mentioning President Obama as my possible target.

The FBI guy seemed really intense and we had a nice long chat (I guess while he traced your number etc.)

In a way, perhaps I should apologize for not killing you … but I feel this type of retribution is a far more appropriate punishment for your threatened crime. I wish you well as you try to sort through some of these rather immediate pressing issues, and can only hope that you have the opportunity to reflect upon, and perhaps reconsider, the career path you’ve chosen to pursue in life.. Remember, next time you might not be so lucky. Have a good day!

Thoughtfully yours, Semper fi,

Alex

Probably don’t have to ask you to forward this one, it is priceless!

Dearest Friend, This email is so incredibly mind blowing on so many levels. [Even if this email were not authentic, none of our thoughts are idle. They produce effects on some level. We should be asking ourselves, what DO we want to create?]

All I could think of, as I was reading it, were these words,

“In my defenselessness my safety lies.”ACIM Lesson 153

Today’s Lesson is “My holiness blesses the world.” And in the lesson HE tells us, “Those who see themselves as whole make no demands.”

In this morning’s Recorded CONFERENCE CALL I mentioned this email, just saying that I received it from a long time Student.

What came to mind was Les Miserables, where the Bishop told the police that he gave Val jean what he took but said he forgot the candlesticks.

I also remembered a story that KEN WAPNICK shares about how a robber came into his bedroom window to rob him. KEN saw him with the eyes of Christ and offered him more than he was wanting to take.

As the thief left he asked for Ken’s blessing!

“Those who see themselves as whole make no demands.”

Can we remove the idea of SACRIFICE in this world and not reinforce it. Holy Child of God, when will we learn that we are truly invulnerable and to attack our brothers in any way [even if we perceive that he is ‘attacking us’], is to attack our own invulnerability.

As the Son of God, WHO or what could BE attacked. There is nothing anyone could take from us. We are whole and complete and still as God created us. These aren’t just words. They are TRUTH. ♥

Today this was the paragraph that it was my turn to read. How synchronistic!

²There is no other way in which the idea of sacrifice can be removed from the world’s thinking. Any other way of seeing will inevitably demand payment of someone or something. As a result, the perceiver will lose. Nor will he have any idea why he is losing. Yet is his wholeness restored to his awareness through your vision. Your holiness blesses him by asking nothing of him. Those who see themselves as whole make no demands. ACIM Lesson 37

I bless you dear One, as the Son of God.

~Reja Janaki Joy Green
Omaha, NE

*Reja Janaki Joy Green [Reja_CIMS] is one of the founding members of the Course in Miracles Society [CIMS];

Forgiveness and Blaming the Victim

June 25, 2012February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

ACIM Q&A

Forgiveness and Blaming the Victim

BY REJA JOY GREEN
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The following is a question, posed on the new blog, “From Anxiety to Love: Finding Inner Peace with A Course in Miracles“. Corinne answered this question beautifully on her blog and a followup answer by Reja is below.

Question: “I don’t understand how forgiveness in the Course is different than blaming the victim. I know that abusive people can, and have, misused the Course and other spiritual teachings to act from ego and hurt others. However, I still see in the Course amongst its teachers that the person who was hurt must then forgive by “accepting that what you thought happened, didn’t” and realizing that one “chose to hurt oneself through the abuser” and other concepts.”

Thank you so much Corinne. The explanation you’ve given on your blog which is here-> http://bitly.com/ACIMQandA-BlamingVictim will resonate with a lot of Course students, I’m sure.

What I’d love to do is hear from other Course in Miracle students on how they would answer this question as well.

I felt the challenge to ask within my Self for how I would have answered this question if it were posed to me and so this Article was born.

~*~

The first part of the question stated:

“I don’t understand how forgiveness in the Course is different than blaming the victim.”

From the wording of this first part of the question, there seems to be a perception that blame is not only possible but that blame is actually occurring in the name of ‘forgiveness’, which makes it seem as though the ‘victim’ is being unfairly treated. And from the perspective of separation, this makes sense.

However we, as students of A Course in Miracles [ACIM], are learning to choose a different kind of ‘perspective’. And it’s a perspective to be used even here in this dream of physical space; even now, in our seeming experience of linear time. There IS NO OTHER Place or Time. The perspective of the Holy Spirit, of our Right Mind, of FORGIVENESS, will bring us to an experience of Peace and JOY ~ here and now! And this is the first step toward our awakening; the first step on this journey without distance to a goal that has never changed.

The whole crux of the solution then is to understand the perspective that ACIM is teaching us. And the answer is closer to us than our breath. It is truly our own BEING. It is the Love that we ARE.

When we choose to come from our Right Mind, which is actually a definition of ‘Forgiveness’, then we are literally coming from the part of our Mind referred to as the Holy Spirit, Higher Self, or Guidance. And this MIND shows us what is REALLY going on, past the limited perception of the ego which is based on separation. And that vision is what Forgiveness truly is.

From the perspective of LOVE [aka Holy Spirit, Higher Self, Guidance, whatever you may call it], blame is impossible. It’s impossible because there is no condemnation. And there is no condemnation because there is no belief in separation. The Course asks us many times who would we attack if we truly knew the ‘other‘ as our Self?

In order for attack to even take place we must first separate ourselves from the other. We must first think that we are different from them; that they are truly separate from us and then we decide whether they deserve either punishment or forgiveness.

From the alternate perspective of UNITY, there is not only no condemnation, there is no separation between the person ‘perceiving the other’ and the ‘other’. This alternate perspective allows us to ponder the idea that what is truly going on is so much more than what our limited minds are showing us. It allows for the idea that what our limited minds are showing us is not Reality. We are not different from our brothers. We are Spirit having a human experience and we are ALL facets of the ONE.

The Course is teaching us that MINDS are JOINED; That we share One Mind with God although we have divided that One mind in separate, warring parts that do not remember their Oneness. Our thoughts create the separation and then we react to it as if it were real.

The SHIFT away from the view that perpetuates ‘separation’ to one that allows the Reality of UNITY to come forward is the MIRACLE. The Course tells us that the miracle is when we remove the blocks to Love’s awareness. The Course tells us that everything that comes from Love is a Miracle.

Now, the next part of the question tells us that the questioner admits:

“I still see in the Course amongst its teachers that the person who was hurt must then forgive by ‘accepting that what you thought happened, didn’t’….”

In this statement we first of all see that the person ‘was hurt’ and then the person who ‘was hurt’ is being told they MUST FORGIVE by denying that it happened. This truly sounds ludicrous and yet there is more here than meets the eye.

If we first look at the idea that the person is HURT, it is agreed that the appropriate reaction is NOT to deny this person’s experience. That would be something the Course calls: ‘denying the DENIAL’ and the Course urges us NOT to do this. So what is DENIAL? DENIAL is occurring when anyone DENY’S their perfection. But our healing will never occur if we continue to deny that we are in DENIAL. J

Yes, the person is hurt. Or yes, I am hurt. We should not deny that feeling. But the HEALING of the DENIAL and the pain which the DENIAL causes is what the Course is teaching us. We hurt. Yes. But in Reality we are still as God created us. We are not the weak and vulnerable and separate person our egos want us to believe we are. That concept of ourselves can cause us to feel hurt but that is not who we are.

Actually, there is nothing outside of us. In reality there is One Mind and that Mind I share with God. Everything else is a call for help and healing, whether it’s from me or from the other person. Any concept of who I am that does not include my perfection and Eternal Being, is a concept supported by my vulnerable ego and will suffer pain.

The Course tells us “I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts.” We learn this so beautifully in Lesson 281 as He teaches us this prayer:

¹ Father, Your Son is perfect. When he thinks that he is hurt in any way, it is because he has forgotten who he is. And that he is as You created him. Your Thoughts can only bring me happiness. If ever I am sad or hurt or ill, I have forgotten what You think and put my little, meaningless ideas in place of where Your Thoughts belong and where They are. I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts. The Thoughts I think with You can only bless. The Thoughts I think with You alone are true.
ACIM Lesson 281

Nothing outside of us can hurt us or change our eternal Reality in any way. The Course is teaching us that we can ALWAYS choose again when we are in pain. No one can hurt us unless we give them the power to do so. In the very last few paragraphs of the Course, we are gently reminded that:

⁸⁷ Trials are but lessons which you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before, you now can make a better one and thus escape all pain which what you chose before has brought to you. In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity Christ calls to you and gently says, “My brother, choose again.” He would not leave one source of pain unhealed nor any image left to veil the truth. [He would remove all misery from you, whom God created altars unto joy.] He would not leave you comfortless, alone in dreams of hell, but would release your minds from everything that hides His face from you. His holiness is yours because He is the only power that is real in you. His strength is yours because He is the Self that God created as His only Son. ACIM OrEd.Tx.31.87

This is what we are learning. It is the concept that, as soon as we are feeling anything but JOY, there’s a RED FLAG that is there, letting us know that we need to ‘choose again’ and this time we choose for Reality and not what we thought was going on.

That’s where the next part of this question comes in: Once the person perceives themselves as hurt, it was thought that they must then

– “forgive by ‘accepting that what you thought happened, didn’t’….”

There’s that pesky word ‘FORGIVE’ again.

Forgive, in the Course’s use of the word, does not mean that we make some action or thought real and then forgive it so we can be absolved or the other person can feel better.

Forgive means to ‘see’ the action or thought with our Right Mind. It means to see it with the Mind of Christ. We will then know what is Really going on. What ‘didn’t happen’ is anything that could change our Eternal Reality as LOVE. Nothing can change that. When we identify with WHO we Truly ARE, nothing of substance has changed.

Yes, we make mistakes while we are coming from the perspective of separation and ego, but what is REAL cannot be changed by those mistakes. It’s as if they never happened. You thought that someone hurt you but they cannot. The only thing that can be hurt is a limited sense of who you are, which is the ego.

The Course tells us that our mission here is to demonstrate that we are not an EGO. And we demonstrate that by Knowing that no matter what anyone says or thinks or does they cannot change my Reality as a perfect Son of God nor change their Reality as a perfect Son of God.
“It didn’t happen”. 😉

The last part of this questions is:

“..and realizing that one “chose to hurt oneself through the abuser” and other concepts.”

When we use this new ‘perspective’, that we are learning as Course students, and view the ‘abuser’ we do not see anyone different from ourselves. We don’t continue to perpetuate the idea of separation which is not Real. They are the Son of God as we are. And they are either coming from Love or calling for Love, as we are. While they are calling for love, their Reality as the Son of God hasn’t change. That is their Eternal Being. It hasn’t changed even when it is not recognized by themselves or by others. The Love that you ARE waits on welcome, not on time. It will NEVER change.

Only our Thoughts can hurt us in anyway. How we ‘see’ our brother and how we ‘see’ ourselves will either be through the eyes of illusion and separation or through the eyes of Christ/Holy Spirit/Love. And this is our choice. We choose to hurt ourselves if we are choosing to ‘see’ our brother as an abuser and if we ‘see’ ourselves as someone who can be abused.

If I see someone as an abuser then I must be coming from the perspective of ‘separation’. If I am ‘hurt’ then I must be coming from the perspective of ‘separation’.

It all comes down to who I identify with and the Course is teaching us that we are LOVE. Nothing we have thought about ourselves has changed our True Identity as the Perfect Son of God. Nothing we have thought of anyone else has changed their identity as the Perfect Son of God.

When we keep coming back to Forgiveness, which is ‘seeing’ with Right Perception; with the eyes of Christ/Love, then all things fall into place. “Love doesn’t conquer all things but it does set all things right.”

Nothing REAL can be threatened.

Nothing unreal exists.

Herein lies the peace of God.

~Reja Janaki Joy Green
Omaha, NE

Do We Need the Ego?

December 3, 2011February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

WHAT IS THE EGO is the section of the Workbook that we recently listened to in our weekly ACIM Study Group. It is read by Maz Weber-Caspers along with his own exquisite music.

Afterwards we had a discussion on the ‘Ego’ and the following question arose:

QUESTION: DO WE NEED THE EGO?

ANSWER: This is a fantastic question because it most likely stems from our prior conditioning and training which has TAUGHT us that the ego is normal and natural and very much needed for us to exist in the world. And this is true if we believe that the world the ego has created is REAL. The ego makes the world and then dictates its own reality within that world. And yet HE tells us in A Course in Miracles this is “too ridiculous for anything but to be laughed away”. ♥

How willing are you to escape effects of all the dreams the world has ever had? Is it your wish to let no dream appear to be the cause of what it is you do?

No one asleep and dreaming in the world remembers his attack upon himself. No one believes there really was a time when he knew nothing of a body and could never have conceived this world as real. He would have seen at once that these ideas are one illusion, too ridiculous for anything but to be laughed away. How serious they now appear to be. And no one can remember when they would have met with laughter and with disbelief. ACIM OrEd.Tx.27. 78

‘WHO’ then is even asking this question? Most certainly it is the one who does not remember their initial attack upon themselves and does not remember that instant when time was carved from eternity and limitation placed upon wholeness. And since we don’t remember, we continue to ask a question, predicated on our separateness: “Do we need the ego?”

We have learned that the ego is defined as a sense of ‘self’ distinguished and separated from other selves and yet the entire study of A Course in Miracles is a process of bringing us back to the Knowledge that we are not our egos and back to the Knowledge that we are not separate from one another.

From loving minds there is no separation. And every thought in one brings gladness to the other because they are the same. ACIM OrEd.Tx.22.64

He tells us that the ego stems from a sense of division. Healing our sense of separation is actually the only goal we have while we still find ourselves in this ‘world’. HE tells us that there is only one problem and that there is only one solution. The ‘problem’ is our belief in separation and the solution is the REALITY of our Oneness.

The ego is the belief of the mind that it is completely on its own. Its ceaseless attempts to gain the Soul’s acknowledgment and thus to establish its own existence are utterly useless. ACIM OrEd.Tx.4.33

When I was 19 years old I tried to do just that. I read a book called Psycho-Cybernetics and was inspired to try to change my personality. I tried to re-create myself using the ego as guide. The only thing I succeeded in doing was to lose all sense of who I was and what the world was. At the time it was frightening and yet it was a kind of liberation. I was completely in the NOW. I lost a sense of my past and very little was defined for me. And yet there was a Core of Being within my heart that was at Peace and Knew that which was Real could not be threatened. In the following quote, HE tells us that we are part of reality and all we need do is “see it as it IS.” We don’t need to struggle with concepts or ideas. We can allow Reality to BE what it IS. This is one of the most beautiful parts of the Course and one of my favorites:

The ego tries to exploit all situations into forms of praise for itself in order to overcome its doubts. It will be doubtful forever, or rather as long as you believe in it. You who made it cannot trust it because you know it is not real. The only sane solution is not to try to change reality, which is indeed a fearful attempt, but to see it as it is. You are part of reality, which stands unchanged beyond the reach of your ego but within easy reach of your Soul. When you are afraid, be still and know that God is real and you are His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. Do not let your ego dispute this because the ego cannot know what is as far beyond its reach as you are. ACIM OrEd.Tx.4.15

It’s so soothing to hear HIM say, “YOU are part of reality, which stands unchanged beyond the reach of your ego but within easy reach of your Soul”. Thank God my ego has no effect on Who I truly AM. We also learn that the ego cannot know us because our true Reality is Soul. The ego cannot know what Soul is:

8 Nothing can reach the Soul from the ego, and nothing from the Soul can strengthen the ego or reduce the conflict within it. The ego is a contradiction. Man’s self and God’s Self are in opposition. They are opposed in creation, in will, and in outcome. They are fundamentally irreconcilable because the Soul cannot perceive and the ego cannot know. They are therefore not in communication and can never be in communication. Nevertheless, the ego can learn because its maker can be misguided but cannot make the totally lifeless out of the life-given. The Soul need not be taught, but the ego must. ACIM OrEd.Tx.4.8

And that is why we study A Course in Miracles. It is teaching us [and we are re-membering] that we can misguide ourselves into thinking the ego is real until the pain of that decision becomes unbearable. And then we can CHOOSE AGAIN.

Your mission is very simple. You have been chosen to live so as to demonstrate that you are not an ego. ACIM OrEd.Tx.4.89

HE tells us in the Course that the ego is quite literally a fearful thought. And so we can be certain that when we choose LOVE, the fear [and the ego] return to the nothingness from which they came. And with Love in us, we have no need but to extend it.
Reja Janaki Joy Green [Reja_CIMS] is one of the founding members of the Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]; She is the CIMS webmaster & social media manager, has facilitated Course in Miracles study groups since 1983, is in the 2nd year of the CMC Ministerial program and currently resides with her husband Chris Green in Omaha, NE.

http://www.acim-original.com/ <- More information about A COURSE IN MIRACLES

http://www.jcim.net

What is Revenge?

October 21, 2011February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

WHAT IS REVENGE?

Article by Rev Reja Janaki Joy Green*
~*~*~*~*~*~

Last MAY I wrote a Facebook NOTE after the death of Osama Bin Laden titled, “HOW COULD THE DEATH OF SOMEONE HURTFUL BRING JUSTICE” You can read it here: http://on.fb.me/DoesDeathBringJustice

[I’m posting this now because it’s just as applicable to the killing of Ommar Gaddafi. ]

The following is an answer to one of the private COMMENTS to that note which was:

“Something to think about. If Osama Bin Laden was captured alive, tried and found guilty in a court of law and sentenced to life imprisonment, would that be revenge?”

Thank you for asking this. It’s great to have a question that fosters further understanding.

When I sat in quiet with today’s Lesson 126 “All that I give is given to myself” I got a sense of our intimate connection with one another. Every ONE of us is part of the Sonship and is part of the Unity which is the One Reality. If we find ourselves in this 3D dream, in a body, in a society and separate and we know that we are responsible, then we get to use the body to WAKE UP.

The Course tells us it is not productive “To deny the denial”. This sounds confusing until we replace the word DENIAL with the word DREAM. It is not productive “To deny the dream”. And it is the ‘dream’ which is the denial of Reality. We can’t deny that we think we are in here in this dream. We are dreaming if we find ourselves anywhere but in eternity. The challenge is to realize that we are dreaming and wake up! And while we’re doing that we need to stop our vehicles at red lights and go when the light turns green. We’re IN the world, but not ‘OF it’. We are getting a sense of this and so we need to accept it and begin to heal the seeming separation.

In our APRIL Newsletter we had an article written by Rob Rideout about finding ACIM while in prison. http://jcim.net/Pages/MyPathToCourse.html which helped him to heal. [Select url, right click, copy, then paste into browser.]

In our MAY Newsletter we had an article by Corinne Zupko about the anxiety and panic attacks that were healed by using the principles of ACIM.

Both of these people took responsibility for their painful life experiences and received the Lessons that those experiences were there to bring.

If Bin Laden had been captured and placed in prison, that would have been the lesson he would have been presented with to learn. He was killed. That is the actual lesson he was presented with which to learn. “All things are lessons God would have me learn”. L193

It would sound ludicrous to say being killed were a lesson presented for his learning only if you believed that death were real. If you believed that there is no such thing as ‘death’ and that only the body, which is part of the dream, ceases to be while you [Spirit] continues, then indeed that experience is a lesson.

Many people have had near death experiences in which they experienced their ‘death’ and have come back with a renewed perception of ‘life’.

Only the Loving Thoughts of God are true. Everything else is an appeal for help and healing. Bin Laden is a Child of God. That is a Loving Thought of God. He thought he was separate and had unloving thoughts. That was an appeal for help and healing. His healing would have been an ‘option’ whether he had been incarcerated or killed. That’s the only option there is.

We continue on this journey without distance to a goal that has never changed. We are here to heal. And we either chose the option now or later. The end is inevitable. And once again today’s Lesson is: “All that I give is given to myself.”

When we realize our oneness which is the atonement or healing of the separation, then we know that we can ONLY give to ourselves. We are all in this together. We are all going home where we will once again Know there is only

GO(o)d. Only Love.

Until then the journey is our path and all our experiences are the lessons. In light of all of this, the concept of ‘revenge’ is not only not applicable, it just doesn’t make sense. ♥

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HEALING RELATIONSHIPS through ACIM

October 17, 2011February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

HEALING RELATIONSHIPS through A Course in Miracles

[TRANSCRIPT of Workshop given at the FESTIVAL of HEALING ARTS in Omaha NE October 15, 2011]

Hello ~ My name is Reja Joy Green and I’m with my husband, Chris Green. We are one of the founding members of COURSE IN MIRACLES SOCIETY [CIMS] a non-profit organization based here in Omaha which was formed in 2000 to publish the [at that time] newly discovered early 1972 manuscript of ACIM.

Show of HANDS, who is familiar with ACIM? For those who do not know of ACIM:

The Course is the result of the collaboration between two Columbia University psychologists: Dr. William T. Thetford and his colleague, Dr. Helen Schucman. They were both experiencing a tremendous amount of turmoil within their department and one day Dr. Thetford exclaimed, “There has got to be a better way of doing this.” To his surprise Helen said, “You are perfectly right Bill and I will help you find it.”

Shortly afterwards, in 1965, Helen experienced what she described as a Voice which spoke clearly in her mind, saying “This is a course in miracles. Please take notes.” Bill said “Well let’s take it down and if it’s gibberish, then no one needs to know.” She brought in what she had written the night before to show Bill and they both decided it was worth pursuing.

So with Dr. Thetford’s support and assistance in transcribing her shorthand notes, Dr. Schucman took down some 1,500 typewritten pages of A Course in Miracles over a period of seven years. Schucman did not claim to be the author of the material herself.

As she often explained, she heard a kind of inner dictation and she felt compelled to write it down, even though at times she disagreed with the content and resisted the process. The voice which spoke through Helen clearly identifies himself as Jesus.

This was disconcerting since Helen was born Jewish, looked into the Baptist religion and Catholicism and finally became a militant atheist.

The Course uses Christian terminology but you don’t need to be Christian to benefit from the teachings of the Course. In fact, traditional Christians often find the material somewhat startling and perhaps unbelievable. The religion of 90% of the people who initially brought forth the course was JEWISH.

The ‘original edition’ is the unabridged volume of the Course as it was completed by Schucman and Thetford in 1972 before subsequent editing by Helen and Dr. Ken Wapnick.

For more information regarding the various versions please visit this page on the CIMS “Links One” page:

Comparison between versions

Our workshop today is HEALING RELATIONSHIPS through A Course in Miracles.
SOURCE of UPSET – You Were There

* Have you ever noticed that whenever you were UPSET, every single time, with no exceptions, no matter what the circumstances and no matter what GREAT REASONS you had for being UPSET there was ALWAYS something that all the upsets had in common. Does anyone know what that was?

YOU WERE THERE! In other words ~ The one variable was-> YOU!

I’m remembering a show that used to come on Sunday Nights in the 70’s called YOU ARE THERE with Walter Cronkite!! And he always ended all his shows with: “What sort of day was it? A day like all days, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times… and you were there.” LOL

There’s one thing that unites all of those UPSETS and that’s YOU. And this is good news because only by changing your MIND can you change your reactions. That’s the MIRACLE. That’s the SHIFT in perception!

“To change your mind means to place it at the disposal of true Authority.” ACIM OrEd.Tx.1.69

“I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts.” Lesson 281
“I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt.” Lesson 284

NOT EVERYONE IS “UPSET”

* And have you ever noticed that there have been times when you were there…and YOU were UPSET by the circumstances but the person you were with WASN’T UPSET. What is that about? LOL!!

I remember traveling in a tiny 10 seat plane from Hyannis to NYC at night during a thunder and lightning storm. All the adults were white knuckled, trying to keep their dinner down and my son was sleeping peacefully! I kept imagining that I were he.

UPSETS ARE SQUIRRELY

*Have you ever noticed that some days there are more ‘morons’ on the roads than other days?

On one trip to work years ago I remember seeing that the roads were littered with IDIOTS! People were driving crazy!! I couldn’t believe it and then it hit me. Yesterday there weren’t ANY idiots on the road. Hummm………Very interesting.

Show of HANDS: How many people have heard of MARIANNE WILLIAMSON?

She’s written: A WOMAN’S WORTH; ILLUMINATA; THE HEALING OF AMERICA; THE AGE OF MIRACLES and more recently; “A COURSE IN WEIGHT-LOSS”. And her BEST seller is “RETURN TO LOVE: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles.”

Chapter 6 in RETURN TO LOVE is titled: “Relationships” and the subtitle is a quote from ACIM:

“The Holy Spirit’s temple is not a body, but a relationship.” ACIM OrEd.Tx.20.49

Marianne writes: “Before I read A Course in Miracles I studied many other spiritual and philosophical writings. It felt as though they led me up a huge flight of stairs to a giant cathedral inside my mind. But once I reached the top of the stairs, the door to the church was locked. The Course gave me the key that opened the door. The key, very simply, is – OTHER PEOPLE!”

She mentions next that the HEAVEN mentioned in the Course is not a CONDITION or a PLACE but the AWARENESS of our ONENESS. The Course has been given to us to heal the Mind of the erroneous idea of SEPARATION. We are not only our brother’s keeper, the Course tells us WE ARE OUR BROTHERS. Marianne begins her chapter with this quote:

“When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter.
As you see him, you will see yourself.
As you treat him, you will treat yourself.
As you think of him, you will think of yourself.
Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose sight of yourself.
Whenever two Sons of God meet,
they are given another chance at salvation.
Do not leave anyone without giving salvation to him
and receiving it yourself,
for I am always there with you in remembrance of you.”
ACIM OrEd.Tx.8.19

The most devastating pain of all is when we feel alienated and separate. But when we realize that ‘separation’ is just a fearful idea and that our Oneness is our Reality, we can then relax into our True Being. From that REALITY, nothing can hurt us. The first words that Helen took down to show Bill were:

Nothing Real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the Peace of God.

When he read these words Bill knew they had received something very beautiful and different.

We think of SELF-HELP programs as something we do to ourselves and that is true. However with ACIM we come to see that our Brothers are our Saviors. They are our TEACHERS. And awakening is a Collaborative Venture. All things are Lessons God would have me learn. Everyone is my TEACHER.

THE DISCONNECT

I use to meditate, wear mala beads around my neck, sit in full lotus doing my mantra and then get up and have a vicious fight with my sister. That relationship was my ticket HOME and I didn’t see it. It TRIGGERED something within me that was calling for FORGIVENESS which really means, RIGHT PERCEPTION. She is my TEACHER. I WAS BEING GIVEN ANOTHER CHANCE AT SALVATION but I didn’t realize it yet. Only appreciation is an appropriate response to your brother. Gratitude is due him for both his loving thoughts and his appeals for help, for both are capable of bringing love into your awareness if you perceive them truly. And all your sense of strain comes from your attempts not to do just this. Every encounter is holy and deserves our appreciation. My brother is either extending love or calling for love. There is nothing else going on. If I am in pain I am seeing something that is not there and I am calling for help and healing. If my sister is in pain, she is calling for help and healing.

No matter who is in front of us, the Course asks — Can we see the face of Christ instead of what the ego is presenting? AND wouldn’t we also want others to ‘see’ who we really are, behind our fears and behind our ego demonstrations?

Marianne Williamson writes: “There is a line in a song from the play “LES MISERABLES” that says, “to love another person is to see the face of God.” WHAT IS THE FACE OF CHRIST? READ FROM HER BOOK: “’The Face of Christ’ is the INNOCENCE and LOVE behind the masks we all wear, and seeing that face, touching it and loving it in ourselves and others, is the experience of God. It is our divine humanness. It is the high we all seek.”

A beautiful song by an ACIM troubadour Donna Marie Cary who will be at the 2013 ACIM Conference is called “Will’s Song”.

WILL’S SONG – Listen here

When you hear me laughing

Don’t always be fooled by my disguise

Don’t forget to look twice in my eyes

Hear what I’m really saying

I don’t always tell the truth

Embarrassed and ashamed of the past

Too afraid to ask for help

I need help

Won’t someone hear what I’m really saying

Will you be a light Shining through the dark

Will you be the Voice calling out

It’s OK ~ It’s Safe ~ You’re alright

Don’t forget to look twice in my eyes

It may appear I’m fighting you

I’m only tryin’ to claw my way out

Suffocating in this tomb of fear and doubt

When you hear me shout

Hear what I’m really saying

Don’t believe in what I do or say

I’m more than just the actor in the play

Look beyond and see what I truly AM

Help me remember

What I truly AM

Will you be a light Shining through the dark

Will you be the Voice calling out

It’s OK ~ It’s Safe ~ You’re alright

Don’t forget to look twice in my eyes

“Help me to REMEMBER what I truly AM.”

http://www.donnamariecary.com/

One of my favorite quotes from the Course is:

“From loving Minds there is no separation and every thought in one brings gladness to the other, because they are the same.” ACIM OrEd.Tx.22.64

ACIM teaches that Fear is nothing. Love is EVERYTHING. When you turn a light on, the darkness disappears into nothingness. The darkness was just the absence of Light. The Light is what is REAL. Love is what is real.

MY TEACHER

One time I had a horrendous fight with my sister who is definitely my TEACHER! Go figure. 🙂

By the way, the Course talks about levels of teachers: Chance encounters / Intense but short lived / and Life Long “who present unlimited opportunities for learning”. That’s my sister!

Our egos were really into it and there didn’t seem to be a way out. Each negative thought brought up more pain, more accusations, more guilt and anger. I finally remembered the COURSE and told myself “Only the Loving Thoughts of God are Real” and made the decision to ONLY let those Thoughts in. I’d kick any thought out that wasn’t in line with what God would think. And it was transformational! I no longer saw myself as hurt in anyway. I came to remember my wholeness AND I came to remember my sister’s wholeness. Her attack is a call for love as my unloving response is also a call for love. GIVE THE LOVE YOU ARE CALLING FOR! Only LOVE is REAL. What was REAL about the situation came to the foreground and all the nonsense of the ego disappeared. I knew that she loved me and that I loved her and nothing else really mattered. There was PEACE and JOINING because: “…every Thought in one brings gladness to the other because they are the same.”

I used to only be able to be around her for a few hours before our egos would engage. Recently my twin came to stay with me for a MONTH and we had a fantastic time. One day I heard her say, under her breath. “OK. What is lacking in any situation is what I have not brought to it.” a Quote from the Course!! So she was working, as I was, to see things differently and have a shift in perception which is the MIRACLE. ♥

There is only LOVE or Fear. One is REAL the other is an illusion. Jesus speaks to us of the Holy Spirit.

“Having taught you to accept only loving thoughts in others
and to regard everything else as an appeal for help,
He has taught you that fear is an appeal for help.
This is what recognizing it really means. If you do not protect it, He will reinterpret it.
That is the ultimate value to you in learning to perceive attack as a call for love.
We have learned surely that fear and attack are inevitably associated.
If only attack produces fear and if you see attack as the call for help that it is,
the unreality of fear must dawn upon you.
For fear is a call for love in unconscious recognition of what has been denied.
We give our thoughts all the power that they have.”
ACIM OrEd.Tx.11.10

In preparing for this workshop I was using our On-Line Searchable edition for “brother is my savior”. [The SEARCH goes through all 365 lessons, 600+ pages of the Text & Manual]. The search results were that this phrase only appears in one place! In one of the LESSONS. I saw that it was in the 200’s and knew that was toward the end of the year but didn’t notice anything in particular about it. Then I got goose bumps. I went over to my Study Guide to see what lesson everyone would be doing on the day of the workshop October 15th and it was THAT very same Lesson ~ Lesson 288, OMG I just started to cry! I love synchronicities!
Here is Lesson 288 read by maz Weber-Caspers, CIMS member & musician:

♪ ♫ LISTEN HERE – http://bitly.com/SonShipAUDIOLesson288 ♫ ♪

L e s s o n 288

Let me forget my brother’s past today.

This is the thought that leads the way to You,

and brings me to my goal. I cannot come

to You without my brother. And to know

my Source, I first must recognize what You

created one with me. My brother’s is

the hand that leads me on the way to You.

His sins are in the past along with mine.

And I am saved because the past is gone.

Let me not cherish it within my heart,

or I will lose the way to walk to You.

My brother is my Saviour. Let me not

attack the Saviour You have given me,

but let me honor him who bears Your Name,

and so remember that It is my own.

Forgive me, then, today. And you will know

you have forgiven me if you behold

your brother in the light of holiness.

He cannot be less holy than can I,

and you can not be holier than he.

~ Original Handscript of ACIM

Here’s one last song to leave with:

ECHOES IN THE SILENCE ~ Listen here

Beyond my thoughts, Beyond my dreams there is a VOICE calling.

TRUTH is what it speaks. LOVE is all it seeks.

Breaking down the walls around me.

And it echoes in the silence.

Rolling back the tides. Lighting up the night.

Opening up my eyes to LOVE.

Seeing what is REAL How it feels to know I’m only LOVE

And it echoes in the silence.

Beyond the world there is a HOME where we all live as ONE.

Angels sing a long forgotten SONG.

Singing us HOME. Can you hear them singing us HOME?

LOVE is revealed. I AM healed. Beyond the Silence.

Beyond my thoughts, Beyond my dreams.

The world I see.

And it echoes in the silence.

There are no accidents. Perhaps the Course is calling to you, beyond your thoughts, beyond your dreams. Angels are calling you HOME.

We are the Light of the World!

~Reja ૐ

Reja Janaki Joy Green [Reja_CIMS] is one of the founding members of the Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]; She is the CIMS webmaster & social media manager, facilitates a Course in Miracles study group in Omaha, NE along with her husband Chris, is an ordained minister of the Community Miracles Center and teaches Hatha Yoga.

Donna Marie Cary MUSIC

http://www.jcim.net

The Name of God

July 4, 2011February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

WHAT IS THE NAME OF GOD
and of HIS SON

Scribe’s Vision in the Cave

[Scribe’s Vision in the Cave http://www.jcim.net/Music/helen_cave.mp3 ]

Article by Rev Reja Janaki Joy Green*
~*~*~*~*~*~

A Course student recently sent ACIM Original the following question:

“The lessons for today and yesterday make reference to the name of God and the name of the Son? is it that more will be revealed, or am I missing something?”

We thank God for these questions since they are our questions as well. Since Minds are joined and HE tells us that there is only one thing going on, -MIND. IT within you and you within IT- then this question is within all of our minds, waiting to be answered by each of us, as we are all facets of the ONE.

In Lesson 183 “I call upon God’s Name and on my own.” HE tells us Paragraph 1,”God’s Name is holy, but no holier than yours. To call upon His Name is but to call upon your own.”

In Lesson 184 “The Name of God is my inheritance” HE tells us in paragraph 12, “God has no name. And yet His Name becomes the final lesson that all things are one.”

If indeed ‘God has no name’ then naturally we would ask, “How could His Name become the final lesson?”

Perhaps HE is saying that God has no name as we are ‘perceiving’ and using names, much like ‘this world does not exist’ is actually saying, ‘this world does not exist as we are perceiving and using it.’?

What if HIS NAME were truly an experience of the I AM? Not a symbol of IT but the REALITY of IT. If a NAME stands for what IT is, then the NAME is saying: TAT TVAM ASI Thou Art That

WIKI: Tat Tvam Asi (Sanskrit: तत् त्वम् असि or तत्त्वमसि), a Sanskrit sentence, translated variously as “That thou art,” “Thou art that,”…

This idea was inspired by this beautifully written an ARTICLE called “GOD IS NOT GOD’S NAME” http://www.yhwh.com/gingn.html Although the author is the first to tell us:

EXCERPT:

“The problem with God is not that He’s so far away that we can’t see Him. Rather, He is so close that we overlook Him. Our quest for God is just like fish in search of water. So don’t be surprised if you start to recognize God’s name everywhere.

Helping you do that is the purpose of this writing.

But God’s Real name is not in this document! How’s that for strange? Most of this document is about God’s personal name, which reveals His Real name, but God’s Real name can’t be written down in any book.”

ANOTHER EXCERPT:

“So there you have it. God’s personal name, as we translate its meaning in English, is “I am that I am.” Here are some other ways it has been translated:

He who is

The self-existent one

He who is ever becoming what He is

Is-ness is is-ness

The article goes on to say that it is our NAME as well.”

EXCERPTS:

“You have been created in the image of YHWH. [I AM THAT I AM].

YHWH is everywhere. Every person you see is a walking, talking YHWH! We are continually reminded of His presence by those around us. When I can recognize YHWH’s Real name, I can indeed see Him everywhere.”

[This correlates to Lesson 30: “God is in everything I see because God is in my mind.”]

“YHWH has revealed His name to us. He has given it to us to use. What is even more, He has given it to us to be!”

[Lesson 184 paragraph 9: “Repeat His Name, and you acknowledge Him as sole Creator of reality. And you acknowledge also that His Son is part of Him, creating in His Name.”]

———————————————–

So, we learn in A Course in Miracles that:

**Mind reaches to itself. It does not go out. Within itself it has no limits, and there is nothing outside it. [It encompasses everything.] It encompasses you entirely; you within it, and it within you. There is nothing else, anywhere or ever.”~ACIM original edition ch18,VII,56**

I AM THAT I AM which is the NAME of GOD as well as His SON . The “I AM” is the ALL THAT “IS”. And of beyond that, we cannot speak in words. ♥

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How Could the Death of Someone Hurtful Bring JUSTICE?

May 7, 2011February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

BIN LADEN is dead and some people are rejoicing. They are hoping his death will bring a sense of justice to his victims.

Reflections: How could the ‘death’ [which is ultimately unreal] of someone bring a sense of justice? The following is a quote from the Course in Miracles [original edition] that speaks of the Holy …Spirit’s Justice which is quite different from this world’s:

“Vengeance is alien to God’s Mind because He knows of justice To be just is to be fair and not be vengeful. Fairness and vengeance are impossible, for each one contradicts the other and denies that it is real. It is impossible for you to share the Holy Spirit’s justice with a mind that can conceive of specialness at all. Yet how could He be just if He condemns a sinner for the crimes he did not do but thinks he did? And where would justice be if He demanded of the ones obsessed with the idea of punishment that they lay it aside unaided and perceive it is not true? It is extremely hard for those who still believe sin meaningful to understand the Holy Spirit’s justice.

~ A Course in Miracles – oe CH 25 IX paragraph 67

Admittedly, it is extremely hard for those who believe in SIN to lay aside vengeance, condemnation, and punishment. A Brother can be mistaken and do horrible things in this world and yet his REALITY as a Son of God [no matter WHO HE IS] will not have changed one iota. If it would be, then yours would be as well. One Truth ~ We are the Son of our Creator. And in our true Reality, we are SINLESS ~ dreaming a dream of fear.

CHAPTER 25 is such a beautiful CHAPTER. Can we read it now, keeping all our Brother’s in mind [seeming perpetrators and seeming victims]. Do we truly understand what Jesus is saying here? Can we APPLY it to our lives TODAY ~ This day in which some of God’s children are dancing on the grave of their enemy and some are seeking vengeance. When does this drama end? He tells us … here in this Chapter.

“The Holy Spirit’s problem solving is the way in which the problem ends. It has been solved because it has been met with justice. Until it has, it will recur because it has not yet been solved. The principle that justice means no one can lose is crucial to this course. For miracles depend on justice. Not as it is seen through this world’s eyes, but as God knows it, and as knowledge is reflected in the sight the Holy Spirit gives.

“No one deserves to lose. And what would be unjust to him cannot occur. Healing must be for everyone because he does not merit an attack of any kind. What order can there be in miracles, unless someone deserves to suffer more and others less? And is this justice to the wholly innocent? A miracle is justice. It is not a special gift to some to be withheld from others as less worthy, more condemned, and thus apart from healing. Who is there who can be separate from salvation if its purpose is the end of specialness? Where is salvation’s justice if some errors are unforgivable and warrant vengeance in place of healing and return of peace?”

~A Course in Miracles CH 25 X paragraphs 82, 83

http://www.jcim.net/acim_us/TxtChap-25-10.php

RESPONSE to QUESTION

The following is an answer to a COMMENT from F.Weber:

“Something to think about. If Osama Bin Laden was captured alive, tried and found guilty in a court of law and sentenced to life imprisonment would that be revenge?”

Thank you for asking this. It’s great to have a question that fosters further understanding. When I sat in quiet with today’s Lesson 126 “All that I give is given to myself” I got a sense of our intimate connection with one another. Every ONE of us is part of the Sonship and is part of the Unity which is the One Reality. If we find ourselves in this 3D dream, in a body, in a society and separate and we know that we are responsible, then we get to use the body to WAKE UP. The Course tells us it is not productive “To deny the denial”. This sounds confusing until we replace the word DENIAL with the word DREAM. It is not productive “To deny the dream”. And it is the ‘dream’ which is the denial of Reality. We can’t deny that we think we are in here in this dream. We are dreaming if we find ourselves anywhere but in eternity. The challenge is to realize that we are dreaming and wake up! And while we’re doing that we need to stop our vehicles at red lights and go when the light turns green. We’re IN the world, but not ‘OF it’. We are getting a sense of this and so we need to accept it and begin to heal the seeming separation.

If Bin Laden had been captured and placed in prison, that would have been the lesson he would have been presented with to learn. He was killed. That is the actual lesson he was presented with which to learn. “All things are lessons God would have me learn”. L193 It would sound ludicrous to say being killed were a lesson presented for his learning only if you believed that death were real. If you believed that there is no such thing as ‘death’ and that only the body, which is part of the dream, ceases to be while you [Spirit] continues, then indeed that experience is a lesson. Many people have had near death experiences in which they experienced their ‘death’ and have come back with a renewed perception of ‘life’.

Only the Loving Thoughts of God are true. Everything else is an appeal for help and healing. Bin Laden is a Child of God. That is a Loving Thought of God. He thought he was separate and had unloving thoughts. That was an appeal for help and healing. His healing would have been an ‘option’ whether he had been incarcerated or killed. That’s the only option there is. We continue on this journey without distance to a goal that has never changed. We are here to heal. And we either chose the option now or later. The end is inevitable.

And once again today’s Lesson is: “All that I give is given to myself.” When we realize our oneness which is the atonement or healing of the separation, then we know that we can ONLY give to ourselves. We are all in this together. We are all going home where we will once again Know there is only GO(o)d. Only Love. Until then the journey is our path and all our experiences are the lessons. In light of all of this, the concept of ‘revenge’ is not only not applicable, it just doesn’t make sense.

Reja Janaki Joy Green

[~ Reja is one of the founding members of A Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]
publisher of the 1972 manuscript of A Course in Miracles http://www.jcim.net ]

James Arthur Ray Sweat Lodge ~ A Spiritual Perspective

April 25, 2011February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS] 5 Comments

by Reja Janaki Joy Green*

I identify with James Arthur Ray. Perhaps that is why I am very interested in this trial. The Course tells us ~ As you see your Brother you see yourself. The forgiveness you extend to your Brother you extend to yourself.

I’m learning to see that James Ray is a Sinless child of God, whole and complete as we ALL are. He is not his ego. The people who died and were injured are not their egos. There are no exceptions to the ‘vision’ of Who we ARE. Do we identify with our egos? Oh yes. Are we at the effect of our egos? Most definitely. Is that insanity? Yes indeed.

Let’s ask this question of James and of the other participants of the sweat lodge, and of you, and me – Who ARE we? What are we doing here? If we are here to heal the seeming separation then let us heal it in *every single situation*. The Course tells us, “I will forgive and this will disappear.” And for me, ‘forgive’ here means to see with Right Perception. To forgive is to perceive myself and my Brother as we REALLY are. We are not our bodies. We are still as God created us. James is still as God created him.

The Course also tells us that the ego is quite literally a fearful thought [CH 5 VII 61 acim oe] and we are to live here in such a way as to demonstrate that we are not an ego. If we make decisions based on the ego, we will be hurt and we will hurt others, much like the person wielding the knife in the dark. And when we shine a light on ourselves we see that we are Love. That we are having a nightmare. That this whole drama is a nightmare of our making and He asks us: When, oh Holy Child of God. When will you come out of the dark and come Home.

I was just having a discussion with my husband and he asked me if he had heard correctly? At the ACIM 2011 conference Chris thought he had heard the Presenter say that it’s ok to strike back if someone were hurting you. I told him, yes, that was what the Presenter said. And then we both just shook our heads. He tells us in the Course, “In my defenselessness my safety lie” although for most Course students that’s means only if I’m not being attacked. Yet, for us it means ‘especially when we’re being attacked’.

But Chris went a step further. He said that the Course reminds us that we are responsible for everything that happens to us. Knowing that, and being Course students, how likely is it that we will create someone wanting to harm us.

But even if we do, when it happens, then as Course students we would TAKE RESPONSIBILITY. We would know that everything that happens to us comes to us as we have asked.

“I am responsible for what I see.
I chose the feelings I experience, and I decided
on the goal I would achieve.
And everything that seems to happen to me
I asked for and received as I had asked.”

CH 21 III 15 acim-oe Text Reading Online

In April’s Newsletter, we had an article “MY PATH TO THE COURSE” written by Rob Rideout. His PATH started in 1969 and culminated many years later while he was serving a prison term. He used that time to awaken from his self-imposed hell.

This experience – for James and the participants and the observers and for ALL of us, is a chance to reaffirm why we are here; the chance to take responsibility for what we have asked to come into our lives; a chance to own it and then turn it over to our Right Mind [HS] to be healed.

And then Love is the way we walk in GRATITUDE.

Sent with much Love,

~Reja ૐ

Reja Janaki Joy Green [Reja_CIMS] is one of the founding members of the Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]; She is the CIMS webmaster, has facilitated Course in Miracles study groups since 1983 and currently resides with her husband Chris Green in Omaha, NE.

Know ThySELF

January 7, 2011February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

Know ThySELF
or
“Who Do You Think You Are Anyway”

By Reja Janaki Joy Green*
~*~*~*~*~*~

Socrates – (469 – 399 B.C.) of course, was the famous Greek philosopher who is attributed the quote, “Know Thyself” and was forced to drink poison for his transgression. Such is the fear and trepidation of his teaching.

What is this fear; where does it come from; and how do we dispel it?

The Course in Miracles teaches that we project outside of ourselves that which we disown and wish to get rid of and that this projection always perpetuates our sense of separation and isolation. I am not that. That is bad. That must be destroyed.

Yet in order to project something beyond ourselves we must first ‘identify’ the something, which is separate from who we are. And to do that we must first think we know who we are. Ah, and there’s the rub: Who Are We?

Know ThySelf! [Or “Who do you think you are, anyway?” ]

Every thought we have, each belief and every action we take, are all intimately related to who we think we are. If we think we are an ego, living in a body having the experience of coping in a world with other bodies, and trying to make the best of it until our time is up and we die, then this is what we will experience.

But what if we are wrong. What if we have been following a curriculum that has blinded us to the Truth of Where we Are and What we Are.

The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of where you are always and what you are forever.
It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed.
Truth can only be experienced. It cannot be described, and it cannot be explained.
I can make you aware of the conditions of truth, but the experience is of God.
Together we can meet its conditions,
but truth will dawn upon you of itself. CH 8 Sec VI, 51

It only makes sense that if we have been following a curriculum that has not brought us happiness and contentment, we need to make a change. And do we have the courage to make that change and to go in a totally new direction.

If that direction threatens who we think we are, we will project our fear onto it and we will refuse to go there. But if we get a glimpse, a hint that maybe we have been wrong about who we truly are, we may just have the courage to make the shift. And this shift is as dramatic as the people in Plato’s cave who only had to turn around to see the light and not the shadows.

What if, in making that shift, there were a power available to us that were ALL Powerful. It sounds fantastic and unreal and yet what if this were truly Reality, the ultimate Reality Show and we had only to open our eyes to its Truth.

When this Power has once been experienced, it is impossible to trust
one’s own petty strength again. Who would attempt to fly with the tiny wings
of a sparrow when the mighty power of an eagle has been given him? And who
would place his faith in the shabby offerings of the ego when the gifts of God
are laid before him? What is it that induces them to make the shift? Manual for Teachers, Trust, 4

There are those who have gone through near-death experiences and have shared, as best as words could describe, their experience of who they truly ARE. Afterwards, their fear of death is non-existent since they know, first hand, there is no death. They know they are not separate and that life is Eternal.

Do we need to wait until we no longer have our bodies to come to the knowledge of who we are or can we choose now, in this incredible instant, to know ourselves as the Will of our Source.

‘Thy Will, not mine, be done’ is not a sacrifice and merely becomes a statement of truth. There is no ‘mine’. There is only the One Will, in truth. We have dreamed a dream of separation and have been wrong. We have never separated from our Source and never will. We Are the Will of God.

When we come from that Knowledge, we release all the strange beliefs in sin and separation. There is only one thing going on: Mind – You within it and it within You. What joy there is to realize the nightmare is over. You are no longer a captive in your cave. The Light has come.

And what if all we had to do to realize this power were to do nothing at all.

“A Course in Miracles” teaches us to relinquish the BLOCKS to love’s awareness. We don’t create Truth or Love, we merely uncover them. Truth isn’t something we bring to the situation. It IS the situation. Love is, God is – when we do nothing and instead choose to accept our Reality.

Some of us may remember the Erhard Seminar Training [EST] created by Werner Erhard that had a major impact on thousands of people and helped increase their conscious awareness.

In one of the exercises of the EST Training, the men were asked to pretend they were women, change their voice and recite something only a woman would say; and the women were asked to do likewise; they needed to pretend they were men.

If the person were attached to their identity as a ‘man’ or ‘woman’ they had great difficulty in doing this exercise. They became angry and embarrassed. But if the person knew that they were not their body, they delighted in putting on an outrageous performance with glee!

Another exercise was called the TRUTH PROCESS, the rumor of which terrorized the participants beforehand. During this process, there were those who fainted, or cried, or laughed uncontrollably. Some people trembled and sweated profusely. And others were filled with Bliss.

What was the process? They were asked to stand on a stage and look out into the audience
and just………. BE. That was it. No other instructions. Just BE with nothing added.

It appears that in order to just BE, you need to be clear on who you ARE. If you think it’s up to you, you may become frightened, or embarrassed; ashamed or terrorized. And yet if you KNOW that you Are pure Being itself celebrating in that knowledge, you will only know BLISS. You will look out into the audience and see only yourSELF!

In a similar seminar, the participants were asked to sit in a circle and look into the eyes of the person across from them and just be with that person, with nothing added. Many people would soon find their eyelids becoming heavy and they would fall asleep, sitting up! The mind took protective maneuvers. It went to SLEEP.

And that’s where we find ourselves: Asleep and afraid to awaken to our Joy.

Give up gladly everything that would stand in the way of your remembering,
for God is in your memory, and His Voice will tell you that you are part of Him
when you are willing to remember Him and know your own reality again.
Let nothing in this world delay your remembering of Him,
for in this remembering is the knowledge of yourself. CH.9.IX.69

* Janaki Joy Green [Reja-Joy] is one of the founding members of the Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]; She has facilitated Course in Miracles study groups since 1983 and currently resides with her husband Chris Green in Omaha, NE.

Never Forget to Laugh

January 4, 2011February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

Never Forget to Laugh

Personal Recollections of Bill Thetford, Co-Scribe of A Course in Miracles

by Carol Howe

MORE INFORMATION

This book is magical!! It brings the life of Bill Thetford to our awareness in such a heartfelt and loving way.
After reading it you feel as if you knew him as your best friend and his spirit is still with you.

———————————————————————-

AMAZON BOOK REVIEW by Reja Janaki Joy Green

If you have read and enjoyed “The lives of Helen Schucman and William Thetford” by Neal Vahle then I recommend that you read Carol Howe’s book: “Never Forget To Laugh: Personal Recollections of Bill Thetford, Co-Scribe of A Course In Miracles“. Although Neal Vahle’s book is a well documented account of the lives of both scribes in which he includes Carol among the many people who had a major impact on Bill, Carol’s book adds the depth that comes from truly knowing someone, having personally participated in his life. Neal recounts how Judy Skutch remarked in 1979, shortly after meeting Carol, “I know why you are here. Bill needs to be socialized. I bequeath you Bill.” And thus began Carol’s friendship with Bill.

Even though some of the material in Neal’s book is also in Carol’s book, Never Forget To Laugh: Personal Recollections of Bill Thetford, Co-Scribe of A Course In Miracles is not simply a work of research. Carol brings a very unique perspective: Bill had been a house guest in Carol’s home; he had taken road trips with Carol, along with her husband Bob; and Bill had also participated with Carol at various Course events – as well as just simply meditating together.

Carol’s reflections gave me a very personal sense of Bill, as if I had known him all my life. If you are a A Course in Miracles student, then Bill has already touched your life. With this book, Carol has given all of us glimpses of another dimension of Bill. He is our Brother and our Friend and someone who will always be a part of our lives. Treat yourself to this gift from Carol and find your connection with the beautiful and gentle soul of Bill Thetford.

For reviews, articles, testimonials, and unpublished segments from the book visit http://www.neverforgettolaugh.com/

AVATAR

April 1, 2010February 27, 2023Course in Miracles Society [CIMS] 2 Comments

AVATAR AND THE EASTER MESSAGE
by Reja Janaki Joy Green*
~*~*~*~*~*~
[as it appeared in the April 2010 Newsletter]

“Avatar” is a movie that was written and directed by James Cameron and has earned more in sales than any other movie has ever earned in the history of movie making. It is a film depicting the clash of cultures: between an aboriginal society connected not only to one another but to all of nature as well, and a civilized culture disconnected and alienated from one another and nature and in desperate need of natural resources. As you can see, it’s actually an ancient scenario.

And yet, what if the conflict in James Cameron’s movie ‘AVATAR’ were one between the ego and the Son of God. In other words, a replay of the crucifixion which illustrates that the Son of God is not a body and cannot be destroyed AND, that the Son of God has only love and appreciation for everyONE, as taught in “A Course in Miracles”.

“The crucifixion was a complex of behaviors arising out of clearly opposed thought systems.
As such, it was the perfect symbol of conflict
between the ego and the Son of God.”
A Course in Miracles – original edition [CIMS] OrEd.Tx.6.23

What if Avatar were a ‘movie’ in which the ONE MIND is seemingly duped into accepting a thought system which believes in blame and punishment and condemnation. And the other part of the ONE MIND believes in what it IS, the Mind of God, which never condemns but instead demonstrates the Eternal Reality of the sinlessness of God’s Son.

“ANY concept of “punishment” involves the projection of blame
andREINFORCES the idea that blame is justified.
The behavior that results is aLESSON IN BLAME,
just as all behavior teaches the beliefs which motivate it.”OrEd.Tx.6.23

The Na’vi, in the current movie AVATAR, saw themselves as ‘separate’ and chose to PUNISH the Evil Ones who ‘attacked’ them, thus exercising their ‘projection of blame’. This behavior TEACHES that the belief in BLAME and PUNISHMENT and ATTACK is justified and that the separation is real. Their behavior teaches the belief in separation which motivates it.

And the Course in Miracles tells us the message of the crucifixion is:

“As the world judges these things, but NOT as God KNOWS them, I was betrayed, abandoned, beaten, torn, and finally killed.
It was perfectly clear that this was only because of the projection of others because I had not harmed anyone
and had healed many.”OrEd.Tx.6.13

What if the Na’vi were motivated by the belief in their sinlessness and Oneness of the Sonship instead of seeing themselves as persecuted. If these beliefs were their motivation, what would be the response to the Evil Ones, who are equally sinless and therefore deserving of love and appreciation simply because they are not separate?

The Course in Miracles teaches that the only response to your brother should be one of ‘appreciation’ since a brother is either extending the Love that he IS or CALLING for LOVE and in each instance is deserving of only your appreciation. We appreciate the opportunity to share in the Love they are extending or we appreciate the opportunity to give the love that they are calling for. “With Love in you, you have no need but to extend it.”

“APPRECIATION!”, the world will echo. “Are you saying there should be appreciation for attacking the Na’vi; appreciation for slaughtering them along with their children and destroying their sacred home!?”

“You are free to perceive yourselves as persecuted if you choose.
You might remember, however, when you DO choose to react that way,
that I WAS persecuted as the world judges and did NOT share this evaluation for myself.
And because I did not share it, I did not STRENGTHEN it.
I therefore offered aDIFFERENT interpretation of attack and one which I DO want to share with you.
If you willBELIEVE it, you will help me to TEACH IT.” OrEd.Tx.6.8

“I elected both for your sake AND mine to demonstrate
that the most outrageous assault as judged by the ego did not matter.”OrEd.Tx.6.13

I remember, when mentioning to my twin sister, that we were so devastatingly disappointed by James Cameron’s choices as illustrated by the Na’vi, she asked me, “But what could they have done? How could they have responded any other way? Their sacred homes were going to be destroyed?”

She was talking about that pivotal moment in the movie. That moment when we all held our breath as Avatar Jake, now a true Na’vi, stood in front of the very connected and harmonious community and announced they would …………ATTACK!

It was the INSTANT in which the hope evaporated, that somehow the ancient memory we all carry in our Souls of our Oneness would be made manifest, if not in our lives then perhaps on this celluloid projection screen.

Instead, what we saw presented was the idea, as if it were novel, of continuing down the same maze we’ve been going down since the beginning of time BUT this TIME, the cheese would magically be there; or would it? Was it?

What COULD they have done differently? There didn’t seem to be any other choice. The choice of condemnation, blame and punishment is all there is; or is it?

And so, we are presented with the opportunity to choose once again and this time to give the LOVE that is so obviously being called for and thus heal the separation. That’s what the Course in Miracles has to offer us. It offers us a SHIFT in perception, which is the MIRACLE. It’s a SHIFT out of the current mind-set of ‘US and THEM’ and back into our Right Minds and into our Oneness.

The one thing my husband and I have noticed as Course in Miracle students is our reluctance and increasing inability to see another brother as an ‘enemy’. Once you recognize the oneness of the Sonship, the concept is meaningless. Colonel Miles Quaritch, the main antagonist of the film, was appropriately stationed as the Chief of Security of Hell’s Gate on the planet Pandora. He was definitely evil personified but what joy could there be in his ‘suffering’ and death when you see him as yourSelf?

So let’s take a look at the ‘dramatic’ situation. What did the Evil Ones want? They wanted the very valuable ore called, oddly enough, UNOBTAINIUM, from the land of the Na’vi. That ‘material’ was important to the Evil Ones since it represented their PHYSICAL well being. It promised all the things that money could buy. And to get this ore, the Evil Ones had to destroy the sacred habitat of the Na’vi.

And what did the Na’vi cherish? Their Spirits connected so beautifully with the Spirits of the plants and animals and thus they lived almost as One. They chose, however, to build the ‘external’ to house the ‘ETERNAL’. They thought their Identity lay there and thus by thinking that the perishable were real, they were unable to release it.

What if the Na’vi demonstrated that they could NOT ‘BE’ ATTACKED as Jesus demonstrated on the Cross? What if they taught the belief that what is perishable and changeable is not REAL, as Jesus did?

They became ANGRY at the Evil Ones. But what if they knew that:

“Anger cannot occur unless you believe that you have been attacked,
that your attack was justified, and that you are in no way responsible.
Given these three wholly irrational premises,
the equally irrational conclusion
that a brother is worthy of attack rather than love follows.
What can be expected from insane premises except an insane conclusion?
OrEd.Tx.6.1

‘The Way to undo an insane conclusion is to consider
the sanity of the premises on which it rests.
You cannot be attacked;
attack has no justification;
and you are responsible for what you believe.”OrEd.Tx.6.2

You cannot be attacked because of what you ARE. You are not your body. You are still as God created you, Eternal SOUL. That was the demonstration of the Crucifixion and the RESURRECTION.

“The real meaning of the Crucifixion lies in the APPARENT intensity of the assault
of some of the Sons of God upon another.
This of course is impossible and must be fullyunderstood AS impossibility.” OrEd.Tx.6.6

“Assault can ultimately be made ONLY on the body.
There is little doubt that oneBODY can assault another and can even destroy it.
Yet if destructionITSELF is impossible, then anything that is destructible cannot be REAL.
Therefore its destruction doesNOT justify anger.” OrEd.Tx.6.7

“If you respond with anger, you must be equating yourself with the destructible
and are therefore regarding yourself insanely.”OrEd.Tx.6.7

The Na’vi had the choice of equating themselves with the destructible body or with the indestructible Soul, just as we all do. What if their religion were basedon the destructible but only on what is REAL ~ The Holy Thoughts of God.

The experience of the Na’vi resonated so beautifully with us. It was as if we were remembering a time when there was that intimate connection with the Soul of everyOne and everyThing. When they were flying, our Souls were flying too in sheer freedom and remembrance.

WHOLENESS was the belief of the Na’vi and their lives demonstrated the connectedness of everything. That connectedness, however, stopped at the perimeter of their world. “..what you project you disown and therefore DO NOT BELIEVE IS YOURS.” The judgment is that something can be ‘other’ and also that it can be wrong.

“Projection will always hurt you.
It reinforces your belief in your own split mind,
and its only purpose isTO KEEP THE SEPARATION GOING.
It is solely a device of the ego to make you feel different from your brothers and separated from them.
The ego justifies this on the wholly spurious grounds that it makes you seem “better” than they are,
thus obscuring your equality with them still further.
Projection and attack are inevitably related
because projection is always a means of justifying attack.
Anger without projection is impossible.”OrEd.Tx.6.27

We make ourselves feel better than the Iraqi’s; better than the American Indian; better than the person of color; better than the Na’vi savages; AND better than the Evil Ones who are coming to take our ore. All belief in separation obscures our EQUALITY.

But there is HOPE.

“Every ability of the ego has a better counterpart
because its abilities are directed by the mind which has a better Voice.” OrEd.Tx.6.28

“The Holy Spirit begins by perceiving YOU as perfect.
KNOWING this perfection is shared,
He recognizes it in others, thus strengthening it in both.
Instead of anger, this arouses love for bothBECAUSE IT ESTABLISHES INCLUSION.” OrEd.Tx.6.29

This kind of perceiving is the way HOME. To perceive with the Vision of the Holy Spirit brings us back to sanity and Reality. The challenge then is to look on what we have projected, with the Vision of the Holy Spirit and see its perfection.

“The only REAL safety lies in projecting only the Holy Spirit because,
as you see His gentleness in others,
yourOWN mind perceives ITSELF as totally harmless.
Once it can accept this fully, it doesNOT see the need to PROTECT ITSELF.” OrEd.Tx.6.42

The Na’vi had a choice, as we all do. They could have ‘seen’ the Evil Ones as separate from themselves and with the ability to harm them or they could have ‘seen’ the Evil Ones as themSelves; simply the Son of God dreaming a dream of separation and deserving only of Love and appreciation and the healing that comes from right perception.

And in their defenselessness, their safety lies. Truth needs no defense. What if the Na’vi truly knew where their Treasure lies. They would have no resistance to the Evil Ones. What if they knew that any attack thoughts would only attack their invulnerability! What if they KNEW they are safe and cannot be destroyed. They ARE Eternal Spirit. They are the Light of the World. They are still as God created them – and so are the Evil Ones.

Have you ever witnessed the miracle that comes when there is an attack and yet there is no defense? Attack gets its strength from the defense it engenders. Without that defense, it is impotent.

“The strength of right perception is so great
that it brings the mindINTO accord with His
because it yields to His pull which is in all of you.”OrEd.Tx.5.36

What if the most important TREASURE of the Na’vi was the RESURRECTION and not ‘crucifixion’. That is, to see their brothers as sinless and deserving of unconditional love. What if they knew there is One Mind, they within it and it within them.

“The dispirited are depressed because they believe that they are literally “WITHOUT THE SPIRIT,”
which is an illusion. You do notPUT the Spirit in them by inspiring them
because that would be magic and therefore would not be real healing.
YouDO, however, recognize the Spirit that is ALREADY there
and therebyREAWAKEN it.
This is why the healer is part of theresurrection and the LIFE.
The Spirit is not asleep in the minds of the sick,
but the part of the mind that can perceive it and be gladIS.” OrEd.Tx.7.31

The RESURRECTION then is not of the ‘body’ but the reawakening of the Spirit that is ALREADY THERE.

And what if the result were a healing of the seeming separation and a return of Heaven on Earth. That could have been the choice of the Na’vi and that could be our choice as well.

So now it’s left to us to leave the movie theatre and dream our own movie. We are the writer and director. What will our screenplay BE?

The choice is ours.

“Remember that the Holy Spirit is the communication link between God the Father and His separated Sons.
If you will listen to His Voice,
you will know thatyou cannot either hurt or be hurt
and that many need your blessing to help themhear this for themselves.

When you perceive ONLY this need in them and do not respond to ANY other,
you will have learned of me and will be as eager to share your learning as I am.

The crucifixion CANNOT be shared because it is the symbol of projection,
but the resurrection is the symbol of SHARING
because the reawakening of every Son of God is necessary to enable the Sonship to know its wholeness.
Only this is knowledge.

The message of the crucifixion is perfectly clear:

Teach ONLY love, for that is what you ARE.” OrEd.Tx.6.16-18

Janaki Joy Green [Reja-Joy] is one of the founding members of the Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]; She is the CIMS webmaster, has facilitated Course in Miracles study groups since 1983, is in the Community Miracles Center ministerial program and currently resides with her loving husband Chris Green in Omaha, NE.

Reja currently resides with her loving husband Chris Green in Omaha, NE.

Course in Miracles Society [CIMS]

ACIM Original Edition

Category FROM the DESK of Rev Reja Joy

The Journey Back

The Journey Back

Awaken from the Dream

Awaken from the Dream

There is No Judgment

There is No Judgment

The Purpose Given You

The Purpose Given You

ACIM and the Unseen Guest

A Course in Miracles and Our Unseen Guest

Thy Kingdom Come

The Eternal Now

Vital Message of Forgiveness

Holy Spirit or the ego?

Our Creations

Perception versus Knowledge

Temptation to Disbelieve

William Thetford’s Final Independence

There is no cruelty in God

THERE IS NO CRUELTY IN GOD AND NONE IN ME.

Our Attack Thoughts

Forgiveness and Blaming the Victim

Do We Need the Ego?

What is Revenge?

HEALING RELATIONSHIPS through ACIM

The Name of God

How Could the Death of Someone Hurtful Bring JUSTICE?

James Arthur Ray Sweat Lodge ~ A Spiritual Perspective

Know ThySELF

Know ThySELF
or
“Who Do You Think You Are Anyway”

Never Forget to Laugh

Never Forget to Laugh

Personal Recollections of Bill Thetford, Co-Scribe of A Course in Miracles

by Carol Howe

AVATAR

The Journey Back

Awaken from the Dream

There is No Judgment

The Purpose Given You

A Course in Miracles and Our Unseen Guest

THERE IS NO CRUELTY IN GOD AND NONE IN ME.

Know ThySELF or “Who Do You Think You Are Anyway”

Never Forget to Laugh

Personal Recollections of Bill Thetford, Co-Scribe of A Course in Miracles

by Carol Howe

Know ThySELF
or
“Who Do You Think You Are Anyway”