Jackie Lora Jones and Bruce Rawles continue their conversations about A Course In Miracles (ACIM) in this video about Undoing of Fear: The Present Memory. Jackie began with a recent anecdote about a hummingbird that provided a helpful reminder for recalling that everyone (including other species as we think of them) are part of our projected classroom to undo the belief in separation and forgive ourselves for fomenting foolish fear and needless worries. We’re undoing our investment in thinking we have to fix the dream of duality that we made up. This doesn’t mean that we don’t respond appropriately (like any normal compassionate citizen) on the level of form, but rather that we consistently question ego’s misinterpretations of everything that insist that our peace of mind is at the mercy of the events of our spacetime dreams. We can unsubscribe to ego’s propaganda machine at any time and become merciful to all – including ourselves, of course! – instead of at the mercy of all that our ego mind hurls at us out of context.
Here is the first paragraph of “The Present Memory” that we read and commented on:
“The miracle does nothing.²All it does is to undo.³And thus it cancels out the interference to what has been done.⁴It does not add, but merely takes away.⁵And what it takes away is long since gone, but being kept in memory appears to have immediate effects.⁶This world was over long ago.⁷The thoughts that made it are no longer in the mind that thought of them and loved them for a little while.⁸The miracle but shows the past is gone, and what has truly gone has no effects.⁹Remembering a cause can but produce illusions of its presence, not effects.” (ACIM, T-28.I.1:1-9)
Another quote that relates to the insight that we can – with a LOT of practice – look without blame (either internal or external) at our dysfunctional divided minds:
“The Christ as revealed to you now has no past, for He is changeless, and in His changelessness lies your release. ³For if He is as He was created, there is no guilt in Him. ⁴No cloud of guilt has risen to obscure Him, and He stands revealed in everyone you meet because you see Him through Himself. ⁵To be born again is to let the past go, and look without condemnation upon the present.” (ACIM, T-13.VI.3:2-5)
When we can look without the tumult of attaching ourselves needlessly to grievances, we can look at devastation (including, for example, the fires in southern California that were “close to home” for Jackie this past month:
“Yet there will always be this place of rest to which you can return. ²And you will be more aware of this quiet center of the storm than all its raging activity. ³This quiet center, in which you do nothing, will remain with you, giving you rest in the midst of every busy doing on which you are sent. ⁴For from this center will you be directed how to use the body sinlessly. ⁵It is this center, from which the body is absent, that will keep it so in your awareness of it.” (ACIM, T-18.VII.8:1-5)
We also referred to the ACIM “Calendar Lesson” for the day we recorded this conversation: “I am not the victim of the world I see.” (ACIM, W-31)
It’s so easy to forget that everything that seems to happen in our material world – the elaborate ephemeral events and challenging changes in our dream of space and time – have had absolutely no impact on our real, eternal identity. We’re learning to shift our identity from the ephemeral back to the eternal; we never left eternity except in our dreams of sin, guilt, fear, destruction and death.
There’s really just “…One problem, one solution.” (ACIM, W-80.1:5) – we chose the wrong (polarizing, fragmenting, divisive) teacher (ego):
“If you are willing to recognize your problems, you will recognize that you have no problems. ²Your one central problem has been answered, and you have no other. ³Therefore, you must be at peace. ⁴Salvation thus depends on recognizing this one problem, and understanding that it has been solved. ⁵One problem, one solution. ⁶Salvation is accomplished. ⁷Freedom from conflict has been given you. ⁸Accept that fact, and you are ready to take your rightful place in God’s plan for salvation.” (ACIM, W-80.1:1-8)
We can simultaneously bring together in our mind juxtaposing the two thought systems (fighting ego and calm Holy Spirit) to see how completely antithetical and mutually exclusive they are:
“Our emphasis has been on bringing what is undesirable to the desirable; what you do not want to what you do.²You will realize that salvation must come to you this way, if you consider what dissociation is.³Dissociation is a distorted process of thinking whereby two systems of belief which cannot coexist are both maintained.⁴If they are brought together, their joint acceptance becomes impossible.⁵But if one is kept in darkness from the other, their separation seems to keep them both alive and equal in their reality.⁶Their joining thus becomes the source of fear, for if they meet, acceptance must be withdrawn from one of them.⁷You cannot have them both, for each denies the other.⁸Apart, this fact is lost from sight, for each in a separate place can be endowed with firm belief.⁹Bring them together, and the fact of their complete incompatibility is instantly apparent.¹⁰One will go, because the other is seen in the same place.” (ACIM, T-14.VII.4:1-10)
We need this contrast – this stark comparison – to choose against ego’s problem propaganda and for Holy Spirit’s sane solution as a prior post points out: Beyond this Thought System is One I Want: Holy Spirit’s Marketing Brochure.
As Jackie pointed out, we never need to know what to do when we’re in our right mind, when we’ve chosen our Inner Kindness Teacher (a.k.a. Holy Spirit or Jesus of ACIM or any other ego-free symbol) as the peace will direct us and we will no longer obsess about outcomes in our dream of a dysfunctional world.
An oft-repeated favorite Course quote for both of us is in boldface below:
“How is the peace of God retained, once it is found? ²Returning anger, in whatever form, will drop the heavy curtain once again, and the belief that peace cannot exist will certainly return. ³War is again accepted as the one reality. ⁴Now must you once again lay down your sword, although you do not recognize that you have picked it up again. ⁵But you will learn, as you remember even faintly now what happiness was yours without it, that you must have taken it again as your defense. ⁶Stop for a moment now and think of this: Is conflict what you want, or is God’s peace the better choice? ⁷Which gives you more? ⁸A tranquil mind is not a little gift. ⁹Would you not rather live than choose to die?” (ACIM, M-20.4:1-9)
This video recording was recorded on Thursday, January 31, 2025.
Jackie (and colleagues from a prior ACIMblog posts: Leon Joel Russell, who also has an excellent “May The Course Be With You” YouTube channel and Facebook Group on ACIM – and musician Neda Boin) will be two of the many featured speakers at the Remembering The Kingdom ACIM Festival, Derbyshire, UK, 11-14 September 2025.
Check out Jackie’s True Forgiveness Teachings podcast here. These readings provide a platform to discuss a variety of helpful ideas and practices from the non-dual metaphysics of A Course in Miracles. Jackie has conducted insightful video interviews with Gary Renard and numerous others. She and her sister, Cindy Lora-Renard, facilitate classes on ACIM in addition to equally highly-regarded workshops on “The Course.” Jackie’s first book, All Peace, No Pieces – now available in audiobook form – is a valuable addition to any Course student’s library, regardless of their level of familiarity with the Course’s ideas, with some particularly fun and insightful metaphors from the Wizard of Oz movie. Here are more ACIM-related conversations with Jackie Lora Jones and Bruce Rawles.
Jackie Lora Jones