In this video recording of a class (given for the School For A Course In Miracles (SFACIM) curriculum hosted by Lyn Corona and Tim Wise) we begin with a review of Workbook Lesson 265: Creation’s gentleness is all I see from A Course In Miracles (ACIM.) (I highly recommend Lyn and Tim’s almost daily zoom classes!) This lesson emphasizes the importance of choosing Holy Spirit’s thought system NOW, never some “other time” … NOW is the only time we have … to forgive, to accept the Atonement for our Selves, to remove the barriers to the awareness of Love’s Presence. There is no other time. It begins with:
“I have indeed misunderstood the world, because I laid my sins on it and saw them looking back at me. ²How fierce they seemed! ³And how deceived was I to think that what I feared was in the world, instead of in my mind alone. ⁴Today I see the world in the celestial gentleness with which creation shines. ⁵There is no fear in it.” (ACIM, W-265.1:1-5)
We explore the idea of using time gently on behalf of peace. NOW is the only time we have … to forgive, to accept the Atonement for our Selves, to remove the barriers to the awareness of Love’s Presence. As we keep looking – without judgment – at those barriers with our Inner Kindness Teacher, they dissolve and we realize we already have the help we need in our mind – our real need!
“The secret of true prayer is to forget the things you think you need. ²To ask for the specific is much the same as to look on sin and then forgive it. ³Also in the same way, in prayer you overlook your specific needs as you see them, and let them go into God’s Hands. ⁴There they become your gifts to Him, for they tell Him that you would have no gods before Him; no love but His. ⁵What could His answer be but your remembrance of Him? ⁶Can this be traded for a bit of trifling advice about a problem of an instant’s duration? ⁷God answers only for eternity. ⁸But still all little answers are contained in this.” (ACIM, S-1.I.4:1-8)
There are 923 instances of the word “now” in ACIM, and “present” appears 181 times – so being present in the present moment … with Holy Spirit is essential! Ultimately, choosing HS’s sanity more and more consistently eventually returns us to the peaceful eternity we merely dreamed we abandoned.
We’re asked by Holy Spirit to consider undoing the belief in separation – carrying our Shared Identity in our hearts and minds – now! Here are links to the “I Carry Your Heart” E. E. Cummings poem, and Michael Hedges musical versions (both live in concert and studio album) … I had the good fortune to hear him in concert a couple of times and this song is one of my faves. :-)
A closely related section in ACIM’s pure non-dual curriculum is The Immediacy of Salvation (ACIM, T-26.VIII). Here’s the first paragraph from that section in the text:
“The one remaining problem that you have is that you see an interval between the time when you forgive, and will receive the benefits of trusting in your brother. ²This but reflects the little you would keep between you and your brother, that you and he might be a little separate. ³For time and space are one illusion, which takes different forms. ⁴If it has been projected beyond your mind you think of it as time. ⁵The nearer it is brought to where it is, the more you think of it in terms of space.” (ACIM, T-26.VIII.1:1-5)
Related ideas about the illusory nature – tiny, mad idea – of time … and space … yet we need all those specifics that seem to occur in spacetime to get back to our right minds with Holy Spirit’s help:
“For time and space are one illusion, which takes different forms.” (ACIM, T-26.VIII.1:3)
“And you cannot believe that trust would settle every problem now.” (ACIM, T-26.VIII.2:3)
“Salvation is immediate. ²Unless you so perceive it, you will be afraid of it, believing that the risk of loss is great between the time its purpose is made yours and its effects will come to you.” (ACIM, T-26.VIII.3:1-2)
Because we believe it takes time to experience peace, we keep asking Holy Spirit for a tracking number for the delivery … yet it’s already waiting on the threshold of our mind!
Ego uses time and space as weapons:
“If you would keep a little space between you and your brother still, you then would want a little time in which forgiveness is withheld a little while.” (ACIM, T-26.VIII.3:8)
… whereas Holy Spirit uses time and space on behalf of undoing the belief in separation. Egos do NOT want to hear this:
“Future loss is not your fear. ⁴But present joining is your dread.” (ACIM, T-26.VIII.4:3-4)
We need to be patient with ourselves … and our projections of ourselves … which seem to be slow learners!
“The working out of all correction takes no time at all. ²Yet the acceptance of the working out can seem to take forever.” (ACIM, T-26.VIII.6:1-2)
In the remainder of this session, we explore Workbook Lesson 164 Now are we one with Him Who is our Source. (ACIM, W-164) Here is the opening paragraph of that lesson:
“What time but now can truth be recognized? ²The present is the only time there is. ³And so today, this instant, now, we come to look upon what is forever there; not in our sight, but in the eyes of Christ. ⁴He looks past time, and sees eternity as represented there. ⁵He hears the sounds the senseless, busy world engenders, yet He hears them faintly. ⁶For beyond them all He hears the song of Heaven, and the Voice for God more clear, more meaningful, more near.” (ACIM, W-164.1:1-6)
Further on in Lesson 164, we’re reminded again that the salvation of our forgiving thoughts – the healing of the belief in separation – is immediate, even if the world of time and space sometimes doesn’t seem to reflect that choice in the mind.
“And what is worthy of your love receives your love, while nothing to be feared remains.” (ACIM, W-164.6:5)
The implication here is clearly that fear is valueless and not worthy of our attention or identification, but what stands in the way of this we need to give to HS to help us undo.
“Open the curtain in your practicing by merely letting go all things you think you want.” (ACIM, W-164.8:1)
We made up the idea of contingencies; the belief that our complete and unending happiness (if possible at all ) must be apart from us in time and space; separated by these dimensions and the symbolic people, things, circumstances, and events that seem to hold that peace off and away from our minds. Yet how could what is eternally True be absent, except in a silly forgivable dream? Our egos never believe peace is possible, although it continually claims its strivings might attain at least a cease-fire via maladaptive approaches to fixing dreamt dramas. Fortunately, our Inner Kindness Teacher (a.k.a. Holy Spirit) offers peace now… always available when we simply ask for help by wanting to happily be wrong; our ego didn’t work out, but merely need to choose forgiveness NOW!
This video was recorded on September 22, 2021.
“There is a silence into which the world can not intrude. ²There is an ancient peace you carry in your heart and have not lost. ³There is a sense of holiness in you the thought of sin has never touched. ⁴All this today you will remember. ⁵Faithfulness in practicing today will bring rewards so great and so completely different from all things you sought before, that you will know that here your treasure is, and here your rest.” (ACIM, W-164.4:1-5)