Section 27 from ACIM‘s Manual for Teachers “What is Death?” is the topic of this video with Susan Dugan and Bruce Rawles. The non-dual Course curriculum suggests that our Real Life is unbroken and unaffected by temporal events such as birth, death or anything that suggests that change is possible for our eternally innocent, shared being. However, in order to not identify with ego’s insane thought system that uses every means available to anchor us to a dysfunctional thought system with it’s “Pandora’s box of horrors” – as Susan noted – we need to be kind, gentle and compassionate with ourselves and everyone we interact with (in our minds or in person) as we gracefully release everyone from our maladaptive dream. Looking – with our Inner Kindness Teacher – without condemnation or any assessment of others or ourselves provides the practical mind training which allows us to forgive ourselves for even the most challenging projected situations.
The first paragraph from this section appears below:
“Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem. Is it not madness to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end? We have asked this question before, but now we need to consider it more carefully. It is the one fixed, unchangeable belief of the world that all things in it are born only to die. This is regarded as “the way of nature,” not to be raised to question, but to be accepted as the “natural” law of life. The cyclical, the changing and unsure; the undependable and the unsteady, waxing and waning in a certain way upon a certain path,-all this is taken as the Will of God. And no one asks if a benign Creator could will this.”
– M-27.1
We talked about how Mr. (Fred) Rogers was vigilant against demeaning thoughts about anyone and inspired many with his example as documented in “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” which attests to the eternal attribute of gentle loving kindness which is essential for transcending the pettiness of dualistic dreams.
We also referred to a portion of Gary Renard’s 4th book on the bottom of page 97 about how J was consistent in his refusal to identify with the ego and bodily identification as evidenced by this quote:
“ARTEN: During the crucifixion, the Roman soldiers were angry and fearful because J wasn’t suffering. One of them screamed at him, ‘Man, why don’t you feel any pain?’ J said, ‘If there is no guilt in your mind, there is no pain.’ The soldier stuck a spear in his side, but J didn’t react at all. The soldier then became even more frightened and ran away.”
Susan writes frequently and eloquently about A Course in Miracles in her very engaging blog, ForaysInForgiveness.
(This video was recorded on August 22, 2018.)