A Course In Miracles – San Jose Karl J Vidt, ACIM Student/Teacher

Monthly Archives: July 2013

You are browsing the site archives by month.

ACIM T-5.II The Voice for God

July 30, 2013 6:00 pm ⋅

abstract background withe sea sunriseJuly 30, 2013

The Course tells us that healing is reparative, or restorative.  Healing restores the mind to its original whole way of thinking.  Healing returns our mind to the awareness of our right minded way of thinking.  I am reminded of the 23rd Psalm where it talks about restoring our soul.  In that Psalm we are guided to lie down in green pastures and to walk by the still waters, restoring our souls.  How peaceful and comforting this sounds.  Indeed healing is a return to the awareness of our true being, whole, One with God, peaceful, and divine.

 

The separation occurred when we made an incorrect choice to see ourselves as separate from Source.  We are created with the ability to create, but we also can miss-create by choosing to use our creative power guided by our mind that sees us separated from Source.  Once we chose to make this separated thought system and thus remove ourselves from communication with Source, we were given the Holy Spirit to guide us in our choices and perceptions.  The Holy Spirit was placed within our minds as a reminder of who we really are. Spirit calls to us constantly, waiting for us to let go of our self made thought system and follow Spirit’s guidance.  Once we chose to believe the wrong-minded thought system we made up, it blocks the awareness of our true mind and thought system.  The Holy Spirit is the Voice for God, calling us and reminding us of who we really are.  It is our willingness to allow ourselves to hear this call that will bring us to the path of healing our mind and returning to the awareness of who we are.

 

The Holy Spirit is God’s response to the separation.  Once we perceived ourselves as separate and complete apart from God and thus incorrectly, God placed Sprit in our minds to guide us back to our true wholeness.  Spirit is joy.  And it reminds us of the joy within our being we have blocked from our awareness.  Joyousness is our natural state of being.  Joyousness comes from the awareness of the radiant joy and light within us.  Even as we chose a darkness that blocks our awareness of the divine light within, God begins calling us back using Spirit to call and remind us of our true nature.  Allow your mind to be quiet for a moment.  Lie down in that green pasture.  Contemplate the still waters.  Allow the Peace of God to well up within you.

 

Listen to Spirit’s guidance as It leads you in changing your thought system.  Miracle-mindedness allows the door of willingness to open just enough to let the call of Spirit in.  The Divine light of Oneness follows in its wake.  No more do we need to be overwhelmed by the worries and trials of the world, for Spirit guides us to the awareness of a right-minded world where correct perception flows through us as guided by Spirit.  It is possible to hear only that Voice that calls to us and no other.  The guidance of Spirit makes that possible.  And our lives even in this world of form revel in the joyousness of Heaven on earth.  Let it be so.

Posted in: ACIM Ch. 05 - Healing and Wholeness

ACIM T-5.I The Invitation to the Holy Spirit

July 23, 2013 5:52 pm ⋅

abstract background withe sea sunriseJuly 23, 2013

Healing – healing of the mind – is a thought by which two minds perceive their oneness and become glad – wholly joyous.  This gladness or joy calls to every part of Creation to rejoice with them and extends the Love of God to and through every speck of Creation.  This is true healing.  Healing is a shift in our thought system from separate individual thinking to thinking with the Mind of God.  Peace, Love, Light, and Joy come flowing out of all because it just can’t be contained.  It is our choice who we choose to be.  Do we choose to think and be according to the laws of Spirit, or do we choose to be separate?  It’s our choice, though one would wonder why we would want to be anything other than who we really are.  To Spirit, having and being are the same.  Oneness – or Wholeness – is our true state of being.

 

Thoughts are meant to be shared.  When we share a thought with another, we still have the whole thought, and another has the whole thought, too.  This is the concept of extending that increases Creation, for reality is the Mind of Source.  As we allow our minds to be healed, we join with each other in One-mindedness and with the One Mind.  So how do we get to this One-mindedness in our life in this world of form?  Everything appears so separate.  Everything seems so rigid and locked in to what we each think it is.  And we all think so differently about everything.

 

The narrator – teacher – of the Course tells us that they can bring us the Holy Spirit, but only at our own invitation.  We are created as extensions of God, like God in every way.  God honors our creative abilities and so honors our choice, no matter how separating it may be.  But the Teacher is always with us, waiting with Spirit for us to extend the invitation for guidance.  Being willing to change our thoughts, our perceptions, is the opening Spirit is waiting for.  Spirit knows us intimately and has always been within us watching and waiting for us to tire of the way of separation.  It may take more than tiring for us to be willing to change our thinking.  It may even take a catastrophe or a life changing event.  But when we are ready, Spirit will help us realize that we can see things differently.  Spirit will help us see peace instead of whatever we think we see.

 

Spirit will guide us to the thought system step by step in increments we can handle to build a new thought system.  Spirit will guide us to a thought system that perceives so close to reality that we are carried across the gap to rejoin the awareness of our Oneness with the One Mind.  And what joy we experience at that joining.  We are wholly joyous.  We always have been wholly joyous.  We simply blocked our awareness of our wholly joyous state of being.  And what joy we bring as we share that joy in its infinite abundance with each other.  Begin today.  Choose to be willing to perceive Oneness in yours and another’s minds.  This is the miracle we each are seeking. Be who you really are and be wholly joyous.

Posted in: ACIM Ch. 05 - Healing and Wholeness

ACIM T-5.in Introduction

July 16, 2013 5:39 pm ⋅

abstract background withe sea sunriseJuly 16, 2013

To heal is to make happy.  Healing is to change our thoughts about ourselves from separation to the recognition of who we really are, whole, divine, and happy.  To change our thoughts is to gladden.  Whether we change our thoughts about ourselves or another we are still moving our minds to happiness.  This isn’t a fleeting happiness, a happiness that is spurred by some experience or event outside of ourselves.  This is a happiness that comes from deep with our being.   It comes from tapping the true state of being that is who we are.  It taps the divine Oneness that is within us, that never goes away, that is always our true Self living in wholeness whether or not we are aware of it.  Pure joy is at the core of our being.  We are wholly joyful at all times for eternity.  If we don’t feel wholly joyous we must be blocking our awareness of our natural joy.

 

Feeling wholly joyous, we cannot help being wholehearted.  Total healing requires wholeheartedness.  We know that fear and love cannot coexist.  Love is real.  Fear is not real.  However, if there is nothing but fear there is nothing at all since fear does not exist!  Therefore there can be only love if we exist at all.  As long as we allow our minds to recognize fear we deny our wholeheartedness, for the mind is divided and therefore we cannot be aware of our wholly joyous nature.  It takes a lot of effort to keep up the pretense of a split mind and thus deny ourselves the awareness of our whole divine nature.  Hence we deny many opportunities to gladden ourselves and thus our brothers and sisters, too.

 

The joy of offering healing and happiness to ourselves or another is that it brings Oneness with it.  Healing the mind, which is the only real healing, makes us One.  It opens the awareness of our true Divine Oneness.  We are unified, we are in Unity, and we are One.  This awareness is our ultimate healing.  This is our wholehearted joyous state of being.  As we extend healing and forgiveness we extend the Love of wholeness with all of Creation.  We remember who we really are.  We re-member the unity of all the Source’s creations.  We bless each other and in turn are blessed by each other and Spirit.  How could we feel anything but gratitude; to each other and to the Creator?  The light of love and joy radiates from us as we allow the awareness of our wholeness rise in our mind.  We cannot help but love another as we love ourselves.  This love is dynamic and cannot help but be shared.

 

So say this prayer today with each thought and encounter.  Affirm this truth in anyone you encounter.  Let healing, happiness, and wholeness fill the world in which you place your trust.

 

“Let me know this one as I know myself.”

(ACIM T-5.in.3.8)

 

Posted in: ACIM Ch. 05 - Healing and Wholeness

ACIM T-4.VII Creation and Communication

July 9, 2013 4:48 am ⋅ Leave a Comment ⋅

abstract background withe sea sunriseJuly 9, 2013

The Course tells us that Creation and Communication are synonyms.  We probably don’t think this way in our accustomed way of thinking.  We generally think that creating is concrete – things – and communication is not concrete – ideas and thought.  The world of form is the world we think is real and therefore concrete or solid.  Our idea about our identity is primarily based on this idea.  It involves a body we believe we are, physical things and needs we have, other people we interact with and either love and care for or wish they would get out of our lives, and a God “out there somewhere” we want or don’t want to intervene in our physical world.  This “concrete” world is the egoic world, the world of form, the separate world that is the ego’s existence.  This world we identify as real is not the actual physical world, but the world we perceive with our separated or split mind governed by the ego.  The egoic mind perceives each thing or idea as a separate whole that has no relationship to anything else, thus making everything appear separate unless it is in the ego’s interest to see some benefit to that relationship.

 

The Realm of God – the real world – is the opposite of this.  Spirit reacts the same to all that is true and real and does not respond to anything else.  In Truth, nothing unreal exists.  Spirit knows that all that is true is everything created by the Creator.  Everything true is in direct and complete communication with all of creation and thus the Creator and Spirit.  The Creator creates every mind by communicating the One Mind to each of us, thus establishing a permanent natural channel of communicating the One Mind and Will.  This is our natural order of being and we cannot lose this.  It is always our natural state of being whether or not we are aware of it.  Allowing our mind to believe we are separate from the reality of who we are blocks our awareness of who we really are, but it doesn’t change our natural order of being.

 

The Creator created us with everything, both in Oneness and individually, with the natural desire to share all of what we have.  Nothing real can be increased except by sharing.  Divine Abstraction takes joy in sharing.  The Realm of Heaven is not about the physical world at all.  It is about an abstract world, a world that is perceived by the mind.  It is our choice whether we perceive with the split or separate mind or the One Mind.  The One Mind is the connected Mind.  It is the Mind in communication with Source and all of Creation.  It is the Mind we were created from and to be.  Our state on being is certainly abstract.  It is not determined by our circumstances, conditions, or experiences.  Our state of being is determined by our state of mind and the belief and thought system to which we hold allegiance.

 

The Realm of Heaven rises in our mind whenever we learn to be wholly helpful and thus harmless.  The Miracle Workers’ Prayer in Chapter 2 of the Course sums it up; “I am here only to be truly helpful.”  This is our purpose in this world.  We raise our mind’s vibration to the transforming perception of Spirit that moves us into the awareness of who we really are allowed by our mind’s willingness to let the blocks to our awareness of our true being fall away.  Yes, it takes practice.  Yes, we will try, succeed, and then fall back again.  But we always carry with us our true and natural state of being that we truly are.  Our memory of that will bring us back to the awareness of who we really are again and again.  Meanwhile we share and multiply the Peace, Love, and Joy of our One Mind all along the journey.

Posted in: ACIM Ch. 04 The Illusion of the Ego

ACIM T-4.VI The Rewards of God

July 2, 2013 4:44 am ⋅

abstract background withe sea sunriseJuly 2, 2013

Our real life has continued without interruption, and has been and always will be unaffected by our attempts to dissociate from our true Self.  Our Divine real life cannot be interrupted or diminished in any way by our attempts at separation.  We can and do dissociate form it and block it from our awareness in an attempt to create an individual identity separate from God.  In essence we are living two lives; one in peace and joy in Communication with God, and one in separation fraught with feelings of fear and lack.  No wonder we’re confused.

 

The ego is not an entity that attacks us.  It is an idea in our mind made by our dissociation with who we really are.  We made it.  It didn’t invade us.  We have given that idea – albeit a mistaken idea – the power to govern our thinking – our mind.  We have given a mistaken idea power over our thoughts and believed it.  The mistaken thought system has no power unless we give it power.  And, we have become so accustomed to this mistaken thought system that we find it difficult if not impossible to let go of it, especially on our own.  We also have convinced ourselves that we could not possibly be who we really are.

 

We are inherently indebted to each other.  I perceive this indebtedness as responsibility.  Or, we are responsible to each other and for each other.  We are certainly responsible for what and how we think about each other.  We are responsible to each other by seeing the truth about who our brothers and sisters really are.  If we throw this responsibility away, we throw away the graciousness of each other’s Divinity including dignity; theirs and ours.  Thus we throw away – ignore – the holy perception our loving thoughts would produce.  Holy perception comes as close to knowledge as perception can.  The gap is so small at this point that knowledge easily flows across the gap, obliterating it forever.  It’s our choice to allow our thought system to be guided to change.

 

We really are the perfect creations of God we are created to be.  There are no ifs, and, or buts about it.  We are and have always been and always will be Divine.  We are to simply wake up and smell whatever we are meant to smell and be who we really are.  Whatever thought system is keeping you blocked from the awareness of who you really are can be offered to Spirit for evaluation.  What is mistaken will fall away.  What is mistaken cannot exist in the light of the divine.  Look in another’s eyes and see the Divine withu.  Let what is not Divine and therefore not real fall away.  The joy of the Realm of Heaven is awaiting your awakening.  We exist in the peace, love, and joy of Heaven and nowhere else.  Be where you really are and be who you really are.

Posted in: ACIM Ch. 04 The Illusion of the Ego