The Key to Happiness

“You made this up.  It is a picture of what you think you are; of how you see yourself… Have you not wondered what the world is really like; how it would look through happy eyes?  The world you see is but a judgment on yourself.  It is not there at all.” – A Course in Miracles; Chapter 20, Section III, 4:3-4, 5:1-3

A friend recently asked me about the practice of forgiveness as the Course teaches it.  It’s not really forgiveness as the world thinks about it, because it’s not about anything ‘out there’ at all.  It’s a mental process, because everything I experience is in my mind, and then projected outward.  And while our minds appear to sleep, there is a great need for reminders that the nightmares we project have no real effects.  “What God has created follows His Laws, and His alone.  Nor is it possible for those who follow them to suffer the results of any other source.” (ACIM 20, IV, 3:6-7)  This means our insane projections, though scary, can have no real effects.  Of course, as long as we’re asleep, we’re stuck in a nightmare thinking it’s really happening.  So forgiveness is the way out of the dream.

Forgiveness as the Course teaches it makes use of the Holy Instant, the “little breath of eternity that runs through time like golden Light that is all the same; nothing before it, nothing afterwards.”  The reality of God and the Holy Spirit (which is our reality) is always, now, and forever.  “The past takes nothing from it, and the future will add no more.  Here then, is everything.  This gift returns the laws of God to your remembrance.” 

Because our reality in God is already perfect, whole, and complete, there really is only one purpose to everything… to awaken from the dream we made up.  So the Course reminds us repeatedly that forgiveness is our only function.  Don’t bother judging the seeming situation, since trying to judge a dream is insane… it’s all made up.  Practice forgiveness, and wake up to Perfection.  Practice forgiveness, and be Happy.

“God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.” --  A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 101

Here is an example of how the function of forgiveness unfolds in the mind.  Use your own words, and be specific and thorough with each individual person, situation, or feeling you are examining.  Once you experience the deep peace this process brings, don't try and fill the clean and open space with concepts and stories again.  Remember that it’s the false concepts and beliefs in your mind that project as the world you think you see.  So step back and let Truth arise and lead the way.  Ask the Holy Spirit whenever you need to make a decision.  BE peace.

This feeling (fear, anger, hurt, pride, jealousy, frustration, pain, hopelessness or whatever the unsettling emotion may be) that I feel toward and about you and this situation seems to be about:

(Take time to be honest about this, in detail)
 

I see that every aspect of this is a projection of my belief that I am separate from God and everyone and everything, which means I think I’m separate from this situation and from the All, the Everything that is God, which includes all Goodness and Love and Perfection and Completeness.  Because I think I’m separate, I’m projecting false images of conflict and pain and lack instead of radiating the Wholeness and Peace that I am.  I’m projecting false images of lack and limitation instead of radiating the perfect Love and Completeness that I am.
 

I see that it’s impossible to be separate from the Love of God, which is Everything and All.   I have never been separate and my fear is all made up and projected as false images.  Everyone and everything that seems to be involved is also eternally One with the Love of God, and so everyone and everything that seems to be in conflict is actually all Good and only Good, Perfect, Innocent and Complete.
 

And so I forgive myself and everyone and everything for what never even happened!  I let it go, and overlook all the seeming ‘evidence’ of lack and pain and suffering.  I look instead to the Holy Spirit, and I give all these images to the Holy Spirit to be dissolved in my perception throughout imaginary space and time.
 

I know that as I release these images to the Holy Spirit, they are completely undone throughout the dream (past, present, and future… which are all made up, too)... the false concepts and images dissolve in the Light like the dreams they are, and now I know none of it ever happened in reality.  All that remains is the Holy Instant of Light and Love.  There is only God, only innocence and peace, only the clean and open space of Spirit… the Light, Perfection, Peace, Love, and Joy that is our eternal Home. 
 

By being honest about our thoughts and feelings in this way, and giving them to the Holy Spirit, we let Truth correct all such errors in our minds (which is where it all appears to be happening!).  We can then step back and let our Wholeness (holiness) lead the way, and the symbols and projections in the dream we call life begin to reflect this Wholeness.  Innocence and Peace, Joy and Happiness… these are the Reality behind everything.  And forgiveness is the way to remember the Reality behind it all. 
 

“Forgiveness is the key to happiness.”  A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 121
 

Please join us for ACIM Teleclasses every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. central time.

Real Freedom...

"There is no death.  The Son of God is free.  Death is a thought that takes on many forms, often unrecognized.  It may appear as sadness, fear, anxiety or doubt; as anger, faithlessness, and lack of trust; concern for bodies, envy, and all forms in which the wish to be as you are not may come to tempt you. All such thoughts are reflections of the worshipping of death as savior and as giver of release." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 163, 1:1-3

It takes some quiet reflection to really take in the truth of this passage from ACIM.  "Death takes many forms, often unrecognized."  And it's all in the mind... the mind that imagines itself separate and vulnerable and at effect with the world around it.  The mind that imagines that it would be somehow better off if someone or something were different.  We want to delete whole parts of our lives and replace them with others.  We want to delete some people, and acquire others.  All of these things are the out-picturing of the idea of death, because they involve the coming and going of the transitory and inevitably unfulfilled.  They all involve the serial adventures of a separate body that doesn't have a lot of time here on earth, so hey, we better make the most of it.

"There is no death.  The Son of God is free."  We are already the Son of God.  We don't need to change the world around us for that to be true, or to escape from someone or some situation in order to realize it.  The world is just the out-picturing of the belief we're not free.  That we're imprisoned in a body, at the mercy of a separate world and a capricious God.  There is no such world, except in our tortured minds and perceptions.  Because as long as we cling to the notion of separateness and separate interests, we believe in death.  We believe and experience as true that someone or something has to die so that someone or something else can live.  Eat or be eaten.  Stand up for yourself.  You and me against the world.  There are many versions of the story of me.

The Course tells us that "It's impossible to worship death in any form and still select a few you would not cherish and would yet avoid, while still believing in the rest.  For death is total.  Either all things die, or else they live and cannot die.  No compromise is possible." What this means is that we are either aware of ourselves as One Mind and Spirit, the Sons of God, or we are believing that we're separate bodies in a dog eat dog world.  We can't have it both ways. 

There is no death, because God is All, and there is nothing and nowhere else.  Where would death be?  Outside of All?  There is no death, because we live and move and have our being in and as this All.  There is no death because there is One Infinite Self that we share for all eternity. 

"What time but now can Truth be recognized?  The present is the only time there is.  And so today, this instant, now, we come to look upon what is forever True." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 164, 1:1-3

Poverty

"Projection occurs when you believe that some emptiness or lack exists in you, and that you can fill it with your own ideas instead of Truth... you believe that what is perfect can be rendered imperfect or lacking." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 2, Section I, 1:7, 10

Poverty is defined as the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support.  It implies scantiness and insufficiency in worldly terms.  And there has long been a notion that taking a vow of poverty in the world helps one more easily attain heavenly riches or enlightenment, oneness with God.  Since it doesn't seem to work (religious orders are not known for their enlightened teachers or members), we might do well to question the whole premise, don't you think?

As the above quote from A Course in Miracles reminds us, the appearance of lack in all its disguises is the projection of a belief about ourselves... that we are apart from God, our True Self, and all of creation, and that we have and do lack wholeness because of it.  We deeply cling to the belief that we can and do regularly make wrong choices and screw things up.  And so this is projected over and over in the world as apparent poverty of mind, body, and spirit... in ourselves, and in the world around us.  There simply isn't any difference.  There's only one Son of God dreaming of separation and lack and crucifixion over and over and over again, in millions of seemingly different forms and personas.

There is One Mind, One Self, and so the way we see ourselves is how we out-picture the apparent world.  And how we see the world and those who populate our phenomenal world is clearly a mirror of the beliefs we hold dear.  Since those beliefs are untruths, it's a hell of a mirror.  

"Salvation is for the mind, and it is attained through peace.  This is the only thing that can be saved and the only way to save it.  Never lose sight of this, and never allow yourself to believe, even for an instant, that there is another answer.  For you will surely place yourself among the poor, who do not understand that they dwell in abundance and that salvation is come.  To identify with the ego is to attack yourself and make yourself poor.  That is why everyone who identifies with the ego feels deprived.  He does not realize that he makes this world, for there is no world outside of him." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 12, Section III, 5:1-2, 4-5, 6:1, 7

The Truth is we are One with everything we think we lack. And what could be missing from Oneness, which is Whole and Complete in every way? 

"Perfect security and complete fulfillment are my inheritance." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 56; 1:5