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

ACIM T-2.V The Function of the Miracle Worker

abstract background withe sea sunriseDecember 4, 2012

This section begins with the statement – none of our errors are meaningful because the miscreations of the mind do not really exist.  If none of our errors or miscreations really exists, there is nothing to fear.  If there is nothing to fear, we are no longer held captive by our fears, mistakes, errors, or miscreations.  We are free.  We are unlimited.  We are in the midst of God’s love, peace, joy, and abundance.  We are “protected” by the recognition that we cannot be harmed.  This is correction at the level of our confusion.  Any correction we need comes at the thought level, no other level.  This is the correction that prepares us for our function in this world.

 

Our function in this world of form is to be miracle workers.  Yes, that’s right, miracle workers.  Sound daunting?  Probably, but that’s our function.  However, we don not perform miracles on our own.  We are never asked to do anything “on our own”.  The Course tells us miracles are expressions of miracle mindedness, and miracle mindedness is right-mindedness!  The miracle is the shift in thought that moves us from wrong-mindedness to right-mindedness.  It is the movement from the idea that we are separate to the idea that we are One, that we are joined, that we are in unity.  This is the Atonement – At-One-ment.  The recognition of our Oneness is our healing.  This realization of our Oneness transforms how we see ad perceive the world, ourselves, and each other.

 

This shift in awareness dissolves all fear, releases all guilt, and frees all restraints that we may have been limiting us in our thoughts.  The light of Spirit that is within us comes rushing up to shine brightly from the Divine Presence within us.  Nothing unreal can remain in that divine light.  Any error in perception simply fades away in the light of Truth.  To share our function as a miracle worker simply requires that we accept the Atonement for ourselves.  Simply release all the mistaken thoughts we carry with us to the light of Spirit within us.  Jesus said, “My load is easy and my burden is light.”  We’re carrying much more than Jesus ever intended.  The Course asks us to release the burden of our misperceived ideas and carry with all of Creation the light already within us and let it shine forth.

 

From this awareness the miracle is expressed through our soft eyes of Spirit, through the soothing voice of Spirit, and through the warm touch of unconditional love.  Accept the Atonement for yourself.  And let your true function express the perfect miracle to another.  Spirit will guide you every step of the way.  And you will walk together into the light that shines from within both of you.  Let it be so.

ACIM T-2.IV Healing as Release from Fear

abstract background withe sea sunriseNovember 27, 2012

This week we will be talking about healing and what healing really is.  I think healing is one of the most misunderstood concepts in spirituality.  The Course tells us that miracles are the means, the Atonement is the principle, and healing is the result.  It goes on to clarify that healing is not a miracle, healing is a result of miracles.  The Course tells us there is no such thing as a miraculous healing!  We must remember that a miracle is a change in our thoughts to a more correct way of thinking.  Healing is moving, as a result of a change in thought in alignment with the principle of Atonement, into a state of Grace, a state of Oneness with God and all of creation.

 

We have mistakenly thought that spiritual healing is a physical healing.  We spiritual beings living from the mistaken idea that we are physical human beings want to focus on the physical world, the world of illusion, the temporal world and make it all that reality is.  The physical world has a purpose as a learning device that is used to teach us who we really are.  It is used to teach us what is real and what is made up and to help us choose reality in the place of non-reality.  We discussed last week that the body merely houses the altar of our Divine reality within us.  The body is weak and can be destroyed, but our Divine Presence cannot be hurt in any way.  We are One with God.  Everything God is, we are and are One with, impervious to anyone or anything that would harm or damage us. This is our strength.  This is our reality.  But somehow we have lost touch with it and forgotten it whether to a lesser or greater degree.

 

The miracle, guided by spirit, is the opening of a little willingness of our mind to think we might be something other than the flesh and blood human being we appear to be.  We can be just a little willing to think that all the ideas we hold so dear about our identity may just be mistaken.  We might somehow be something infinitely greater than our split mind can fathom at the moment.  We plant, within our consciousness, the seeds of the desire of awareness of who we really are.  We allow Spirit to guide our decisions, to guide our sight, and guide our hearing.  The allowance of this shift of perception propels us into the miracle Spirit holds for us, bringing a glimpse of the Oneness that is our natural state of being.

 

Arriving at the full awareness of who we really are and resting in that infinite peace, love, and joy is the healing Spirit has waiting for our acceptance.  As we arrive in the awareness of that Divine healing, some change may or may not appear in our physical life.  A physical healing might occur.  Or it might not because that physical condition may be a learning device for another one who is on their path to remembering who they really are.  Refrain from letting any appearance of anything get in the way of our spiritual vision, that sight which God gave us at our creation.  Real healing is of the mind and sprit, not anywhere in the physical world.  However, that healing of the mind and spirit will certainly transform the appearance of the world as we see it with our spirit eyes.  Forgive, release all attachment, and let Spirit guide every decision and thought in you life.  The peace, love and joy of God are within you waiting to be released to shine brightly.  Be the light that you already are.

ACIM T-2.III The Altar of God

abstract background withe sea sunriseNovember 20, 2012

At this time of Thanksgiving, I am so grateful to know that we cannot defile our holiness.  We cannot do anything to change who we really are.  We cannot think anything that can touch our inherent Divinity which we were created as.  All we are capable of in our effort to separate from God and the awareness of who we really are is to hide our wholeness from our consciousness.  And even for this, God has given us a remedy, a way to return, a way to remember who we really are and return to that awareness whenever we choose to do so.  Many of us wait until we are hopelessly frustrated and cannot see a way our of our self-created perception of our world and life.  We may even reach the crash and burn state of thinking where we cannot even make up any perception that works for us.

 

When we are ready to allow our perception to change, God has the Atonement waiting for us.  It’s already within us, the answer to all the problems we think we have.  The Atonement lies deep within us at the altar of our being waiting to ride the light that will shine forth if we will just let it shine.  We’ve expended a great deal f effort to keep the lamp of our soul closed.  It wants to open and illuminate our lives, but we continue to hold it closed.  Our true essence is a light and love that cannot be extinguished.  Bit it is our task to let it shine, to remove the shutters and shades that keep it locked inside our bodies trying to prevent it form being seen.

 

Our true will is to be in the full awareness and peace of who we really are.  Yet, we continue to suppress our true will and keep the truth hidden.  We expend great effort to achieve this result.  But there will come a time that this effort is intolerable.  Eventually each of us will come to a conclusion where we realize bit by bit there must be a better way.  This is the turning point that ultimately leads to the reawakening of spiritual vision, that vision that is and always has been within us, just unrecognized and unused.  As spiritual sight awakens within us physical appearances become less and less important.  We experience the miracles within us and our perception changes to raise the appearance of our would to a higher level.

 

The light of the Atonement illuminates the altar within and lets its light shine from deep within us.  We see ourselves, each other, God, and the world in a different light.  We see everything with spiritual sight.  We now perceive all of Creation differently.  We become aware of the divine purpose of every little thing in our experience.  We begin to see how we are all One in this grand Presence of the One.  Learn to look upon the world as a means of healing the separation.  Sprit will guide our sight if we are willing.  The Atonement is our guarantee from God that we will ultimately succeed.  Be willing to succeed and we will be successful.  Let it be so.

ACIM T-2.II The Atonement as Defense

abstract background withe sea sunriseNovember 13, 2012

We have the ability and power to do whatever Spirit asks of us.  We are God’s creations and thus are One with God.  All God is we are.  The miracles we are asked to perform are natural to God’s creations.  So what’s the hitch?  Why do we doubt?  Why are we afraid?  We are all God created us to be!  But we do doubt who we are and we fear to even try to be what God created us to be.  We have spent a lifetime building the idea and belief that we are separate from God and denying the reality of our Divine Self, who we really are.  What went wrong along the way?  We simply made a mistake.  We simply thought incorrectly.  No worry, there’s a fix.  There’s a way back.

 

Being in the midst and awareness of miracle mindedness takes a commitment of our belief in our true nature.  We must believe that we are One with God.  We must believe that we are One with each other, that we are all as we are created.  It’s a tall order as we embark on this journey back to the awareness of who we really are.  This journey without distance we have set our mind on.  The journey doesn’t even require we totally believe before we begin.  Spirit asks we be just a little willing to believe we are who we really are.  This will get us started.  Be willing to learn the lessons Spirit places in our path.  Each lesson has a core of love in it.  Each lesson has good in it if we will just let Spirit reveal it to us.

 

We tend to want to defend ourselves from many things and from many ideas that we think can harm us.  In reality we cannot be harmed.  Nothing harmful can befall us.  What appears to be harmful is merely an illusion, a mistaken thought.  However, while we are in this mindset of separation for this temporary time on our journey, we have the one useful defense thought at our disposal.  This is the Atonement.  The Atonement is the idea that we are all One and One with God.  “At-One-ment.”  This idea is actually a Truth, but for now it is an idea we can carry with us on this journey.

 

We can begin to entertain the idea that we are One with God, and that this is our natural state of being.  As we begin to place our faith in and believe this idea, we will feel the Presence of God welling up in us.  We will begin experiencing the peace, love, and joy of God deep within us.  We will begin to realize it has always been there, merely suppressed, hidden, and forgotten.  We have learned to be in denial of who we really are.  But, the Atonement is the only useful use of denial, the denial of separation.  Let the light of Spirit shine from deep within and let it shine away the doubts and fears that have accumulated over the course of our journey to this point.  God has a plan for us to return to the joy and peace of the awareness of who we really are.  This is our destiny.  This is our Divinity.  Let it be so.

ACIM T-2.I The Origin of Separation

abstract background withe sea sunriseNovember 6, 2012

This section talks about how separation came to be and what it really is, though it is not real.  To understand separation, we need to understand something about who we really are and at least be willing to entertain that truth.  We are God’s creation, an extension of God.  We are created with all that God is within us.  That creation is the essence of our being.  We have all the power of creation that God has.  And we hold, in partnership with God and each other, all the power and love of the universe.  In a nutshell, we are created perfect.  And there is no emptiness in us.  As God created us, we also have free will to create as God does.

 

The ability to create is inherent in all of us, and cannot be lost.  However the ability to create can be used inappropriately when we project rather than extend.  This inappropriate use of extension, or projection, happens when we believe there is some emptiness or lack within us that we think we can fill with our own misperceived ideas rather than truth.  This belief that we have any kind of lack or that we have needs that must be filled from outside ourselves is the cause of our idea of a separate self that we see as lacking.  None of this existed before separation and it certainly doesn’t exist now even, though it seems very real to us.  God’s creation is always whole and perfect and it cannot be otherwise.  But we can think and believe it otherwise and be thrust into a world of illusion and fear.

 

Look at the 4 steps outlined in paragraph 2 of this section and see how we have led ourselves to a misperceived existence of separation, unaware of who we really are because of a simple error of perception.  We have simply believed an untrue thought and built our illusory world on that thought and all the other misperceived thoughts since that first one.  We are simply dreaming a dream in a spiritual sleep from which we haven’t awakened.  Perhaps it’s time we awaken from that dream

 

The Atonement is the escape for this misperceived illusory world we seem to be caught in.  It is the awakening from the dream f this world we have mistakenly made up.  The dream certainly seems to be real and not made up, but we have not been looking at it from an awakened spirit mind.  We’ve been looking through the distorted lens of separation and thus fear.  Miracles are the release from this world of illusion.  They are freely given to us, in fact are always within us.  These miracles show us a new thought, a correction of thought that opens our spirit vision and shows us the reality of who we really are.  The awareness of our connection to God through extension brings an awareness of peace deep within us.  It brings the extension of Love flooding through us in such abundant waves it cannot be contained or held on to, but floods forth to all we encounter and beyond.  This is all within each and every one of us.  This is the Divine core of our being.  It can never be lost or taken away.  The truth abbot ourselves is there for the seeing.  Open your eyes, that you may see.  You will find the truth about yourself and rejoice in that truth.

ACIM T-1.VII Distortions of Miracle Impulses

abstract background withe sea sunriseOctober 30, 2012

This section talks about miracle impulses. Do we understand what miracle impulses are? They are constantly happening within our mind. These may be the impulses of correct ideas that are always within our One Mind, the Mind we share with God and each other that has never seen or been separate. We just don’t recognize these ideas as rational because we perceive them with a split mind, an egoic mind. Holy or Divine ideas and thoughts will never make sense to us from the perception of a mind attached to its separate ideas. All the perceptions we have made up over our life by trying to rationalize our life experiences and lessons from a belief in a separated reality (illusion) dominate and confuse the mind we think is our real mind. Our separated egoic thinking dulls, distorts, and clouds our perception, making it very difficult to correctly perceive the miracle impulses within our minds.

 

Thus, we miss the messages and miracles the Voice for God, Spirit is quietly constantly communicating to us.

“Child of God, you were created to create the good, the beautiful, and the holy.

Do not forget this. The Love of God, for a little while, must still be expressed through one body to another, because vision is still so dim.”

ACIM T-1.VII.2.1-3

This is the purpose of our time here in form, in this world of illusion that often makes little sense to us. Miracles are a correction in our thinking. It’s not so difficult to change our mind. We do it all the time, but usually from one misperception to another misperception. But since we are created One with God and share the Mind of God, we have the capacity to correct our mind. It seems difficult and haphazard when we try to comprehend this shift in our separated egoic mind, but God has given us Spirit to guide our corrections, our shifts in thinking. We simply let go of the ideas and thinking we are so attached to and let Spirit guide our minds. Soon enough we will experience glimpses of hope, moments of peace, the glowing of love extended to us from another or to another. In these miracle minded moments we find the awareness of who we really are welling up within us.

 

The Course takes us on a journey to help us learn the Truth about ourselves and each other. The Course has provided the wisdom of a big brother who knows our path to guide us on our way. This big brother comes in many forms over the journey of our life. Each one we encounter is a manifestation of Spirit offering us an opportunity to let go of some belief or idea we cling to with desperate attachment afraid to let go of. But that encounter offers us an extension of Love, a moment of peace, a remembrance of our whole Divine Self. Let go of everything at that moment. Let the presence of Spirit wash over you in that beautiful peaceful moment. Your mind will be changed. The awareness of the Divine within will well up within you even if just a bit. The ancient call of your true identity will echo in your mind. The door to the awareness of who you really are will open just a bit more, letting in the peace, love and joy already within you arise to the level of your mind.

 

Take the steps you are led to take. Trust Spirit to guide you well. The joy of living in the awareness of who you really are will shine as a bright light, a beacon to all who want to be aware that they are ion the place you are. You see, they are already there, as you are. They just don’t recognize it due to their cloudy perception. Allow the unclouding of your perception and bring the same to the ones around you. Take the steps, learn the lessons, and let Spirit transform your awareness. You’ll wonder how you could have ever seen otherwise. It is so.

ACIM T-1.VII Distortions of Miracle Impulses

abstract background withe sea sunriseOctober 23, 2012

Each and every one of us wans to be at peace and experience love, joy, and happiness in our lives. The Course helps us to retrain our mind, correct our thoughts, and lead us to the awareness of the Divine Self we all are. We haven’t lost peace or love. We don’t have to find it somewhere and bring it into our lives. We can’t buy it. We can’t take it from someone else. What we are looking for is already ours. It is already deep within us. We may not be aware of it at this particular moment, but it is definitely within us and always has been within us. We’ve simply lost sight of it by focusing our attention and beliefs on temporary and illusory fixes.

 

We can all recognize the thought of “if only I had this then I’ll be happy.” Or perhaps if only this one would change I would be peaceful. The Truth is that peace, happiness, and love are and always have been within us. Our job is to refocus our mind to the Holy core within us and recognize the Divine Presence within we are inseparable from. Our mind certainly has a lot of noisy thinking going on, but Spirit is with us to help us see past the noise and hear the quiet voice that rests at the core of our being. We are whole. God creates us whole. Our wholeness is indestructible. No matter where or when we are, we have this divine essence within that is our true Self. It waits within for us to allow it to come forth and transform our thinking and let our natural state of being come forward and show itself.

 

Sometimes we think we need this or that to find what we seek. We think we have to forcibly change something to make ourselves something else. But no, we have all we need. Any need we think we need is an illusion, a mistaken thought. We do not need to get any thoughts out of our head. We don’t need to genuflect or climb the mountain or any other feat. We simply let go of our needs and allow the Divine self within to surface. That divinity is buoyant. It will always float to the surface when we allow it. We can expend a great deal of effort holding it under, but the minute we let go. Our divinity bobs to the surface. It just can’t be kept down.

 

Our life is full of signals to let us know how we are doing. When we experience rear, guilt, hate, anger, it is a signal to let go of whatever we are focused on and look within to our own divinity. It may be difficult at first. It may not seem to have any results, but with practice it will come. Do the daily lessons. Remember to change your focus to the divine within whenever it occurs to you. Recognize the feelings that distract you and transform them into the signals that remind you to think differently. Let them remind you of who you really are and who your brothers and sisters really are. Allow the blessing of peace, love, and joy to well up within you and remove the shade to let the light of wholeness shine from within you. The light emanating from within us will guide us and each other in Divine Oneness. Rest in the Divine and it is so.

ACIM T-1.VII Distortions of Miracle Impulses

abstract background withe sea sunriseOctober 16, 2012

The way we have perceived the world we think we see, through being taught by others and teaching ourselves, has produced a dense cover in our minds that obscures our awareness of who w e really are. We believe so strongly in what we have perceived, that we think anything that disagrees with it is not possible. So who we really are continues deep within us, but rarely rises to the surface of our awareness. Our purpose here in this world of form is to use everything we encounter and experience in this world to unlearn the misperceptions on which we have based our concept of our selves. It’s as simple as altering our perception, and as complicated as we make altering our perception.

 

How willing are we to question just a little of what we have come to believe? Are we willing to hold all our perceptions to the light? Are we willing to surrender all we have worked so hard to perceive and make sense of even if it doesn’t make sense? We, who identify as human beings, separate and defined by a body and past experiences, are very reluctant to let go of anything we have worked so hard for. We are even reluctant to let go of our perception of our needs that we think we lack. This deep seated conviction of who we think we are has stood the test of time. We’ve gotten used to it. We’ve even come to think it brings us peace, love, and happiness just because it’s familiar. And the unfamiliar throttles us with fear. And thus we remain immersed in our mistaken perceptions of who we think we are.

 

There is a Divine plan for us. There is another way to perceive ourselves. It’s lying right beneath all the thoughts that we are so attached to. It’s waiting there full of light, love, and happiness we have obscured from our awareness by all the other perceptions we have learned and believed. Are we ready to entertain a new belief? This new belief will release us from all incorrect beliefs. Step by step we can walk with the guidance of Spirit releasing the mis-beliefs and misperceptions that fade away in the light of pure Spirit. The love and laughter of wholeness is there within us waiting to be remembered and recognized as we join with the Mind of God and recognize the divine in ourselves and each other. In this Divine Oneness are we reunited in our Oneness.

 

In this section we are told:

“Child of God, you were created to create the good, the beautiful, and the holy.

Do not forget this.”

ACIM T-1.VII.2.1-2

Through our bodies and this temporal illusory world we are called to extend the Love of God to each other, calling each one to the awareness of who we really are. Remember that miracles are all around us and within us. Only our dense cover of misperception keeps them out of our awareness. Pull aside the veil of misperception and mis-belief. “Let the light of Truth burn off the fog of illusion. Spiritual sight is there waiting for us to abandon our total reliance on our body’s eyes and see what is already ours.

ACIM T-1.VI The Illusion of Needs

abstract background withe sea sunriseOctober 9, 2012

Section VI begins with the following words: “You who want peace can find it only by complete forgiveness. No learning is acquired by anyone unless they want to learn it and believe in some way that they need it. While lack does not exist in the creation of God, it is very apparent in what you have made.” (ACIM T-1.VI.1-3) Getting, accepting, and believing the idea that lack does not exist in the realm of God is one of the essential lessons we need to learn. But – there’s another need! Though there are no needs in God’s creation, a need such as this has a purpose in Spirit’s plan for our return to the awareness of who we really are, our salvation, our freedom. Sprit uses the world we have made though our specific perceptions to bring about our transformation and the transformation of the world we see and perceive.

 

Do we think we would be better off in a state other than the state we are in? Uf yes, then we perceive and believe that we have needs. In our creation, we are created with no needs at all – we lack nothing. Needs arise only when we deprive ourselves with our thoughts and perception of something we already have. We determine our own order of needs according to who we think we are. No matter what needs and level of needs we have determined for ourselves, the only lack we need correct is our perception that we are separate from God. This must be corrected before the error of perceiving levels of need can be corrected. While we believe our perception of levels, correct our must be introduced vertically from the bottom up. Though the temporal world of space and time is made up by perception, it is the world we perceive ourselves in and so Spirit works with what we see as real to unlearn the unreal perceptions we believe and raise our awareness of who we really are to what is True about ourselves.

 

The real purpose of the world is to use it to correct our unbelief in reality, our Divinity, and wholeness. God gives us the freedom to choose what we believe. And so whatever we choose to believe we will see as real. We believe what we perceive in the world because we gave it control over us by believing what we made up. If we make fear, we believe fear. Belief produces the acceptance of existence. This is why we all have different perceptions of what is true and real. Spirit uses this same ability to help us change our belief of who we are to correct our error in perception. We can decide to change what we believe. Spirit will guide our minds, if we allow, to a more correct perception and the release from the chains of our mistaken beliefs.

 

Are we willing to subject the beliefs we hold true to a reality test? Our degree of willingness to do so determines the extent to which our perception can be corrected right now. To sort the false from the true, the miracle proceeds along these lines:

Perfect love casts out fear.

If fear exists, then there is not perfect love.

But: Only perfect love exists.

If there is fear, it produces a state of mind that does not exist.

ACIM T-1.VI.5-8

Change your mind. Test each idea you believe. Spirit has given us this solution to the errors of our perception. Freedom from our perceived lack is waiting for us to be willing to change our belief about who we really are. Let it be so now. There is no better time than the present moment.

ACIM T-1.V Wholeness and Spirit

abstract background withe sea sunriseOctober 2, 2012

Wholeness and Spirit go hand in hand. They are inseparable. Our reconnecting to Spirit within us is the path to the awareness of our inherent wholeness. We have never not been whole. We just lost our awareness of the wholeness that is a characteristic of our creation. It can never be lost, only forgotten or buried, only to be rediscovered again when we are ready. Reestablishing our communication with God and Spirit is the purpose of our journey here in this world we have made. This week’s ACIM Weekly Thought from the Foundation for Inner Peace was from Principle 11:

Prayer is the medium of miracles. It is a means of communication of the created with the Creator. Through prayer love is received, and through miracles love is expressed.

ACIM T-1.I.11

Prayer, in whatever form works for each of us, is an effective way to reopen that communication with Spirit and thus God.

 

The miracle is a learning aid for us to begin and step up on our journey back to the awareness of who we really are. Once our journey is complete, there will be no need of further miracles as there will be no need for the body. But their use is the means that all God’s Creations return to the awareness of who we really are. It is our willingness to listen to Spirit and act on its guidance that opens our eyes and mind. We naturally have Spiritual sight, but we’ve closed those wise eyes and fallen into a deep spiritual sleep. With Spirit’s guidance, we wake level by level to higher and higher levels of awareness. We discover new and wonderful things about ourselves and our true identity as we are lifted on this path. As we allow our journey to progress, it is like being carried on the wings of angels as we leave what is holding us back behind and move on to our next discovery.

 

We have all the tools we need for our journey. Our journey is uniquely ours yet it is also all of ours for we take it together. Look for Love as we move along on this journey. Communicate with Spirit through whatever prayer form feels open and right. Keep an open mind and listen for Sprit’s guidance. Love is received through this open communication and through the resulting miracles Love is expressed to all God’s creations. We are created by God and thus have been given everything that is. We don’t see that right now, for we have closed our minds to that awareness. But as we open our minds to accept a new awareness of ourselves we begin to see how we have limited ourselves and each other and imprisoned ourselves merely by our limited thinking. As the truth about ourselves becomes stronger in our minds we begin to release ourselves and each other from the imaginary limitations our minds have made up. We begin to feel the freedom of our true nature and the truth about who we really are. What are you waiting for? Take that step. Open the door of prayer and communication with Spirit. Take off in the freedom of Truth and soon we will find we are soaring like an eagle in the awareness of who we really are.