Beginning Again

"Behold, I make all things new." -- Revelation 21:5

Beginning again each day, each newborn day, we carry with us an entire world of past associations.  We know how to brush our teeth, how to shower, how to make our tea, from memories of our childhood, or from our dentist, or from our parents or grandparents.  Everything we do carries ghosts of the past.  We're not really beginning again.  We're repeating the past, with twists and turns, day after day.  We're reacting to our own conditioned beliefs and ideas, our own mental constructs about how the day should be, what we should be doing, and who we should be doing it with.  It's the wheel of endless action and reaction.  We may resolve something today, but tomorrow it will rise again in a slightly different form.  The grass will need cutting again.  The dishes always need washing.  And our teeth always need brushing. 

How do we find peace in a world that is an endless chain of reaction to form and belief and thought?  How do we begin again?

Over 2000 years ago Jeshua ben Joseph said, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." (John 3:3) How are we born again?  How do we begin again?  Let's read more of this same passage: "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.  That which is born of the flesh is flesh; that which is born of the Spirit, is Spirit." (John:5-6) It's clear that we are talking about consciousness here... being born again in consciousness.  The spirit is invisible, and unattended to by the physical, material man.  Being born again, really beginning anew is an act forgiveness and release of the past, an act of consciousness.  It doesn't have anything to do with the forms that seem to populate our world, although the forms will reflect these shifts in awareness.

A Course in Miracles teaches that all such shifts in perception come through forgiveness, through letting go of all past referral.  The miracles that result are actually perceptual shifts that occur as our mind is changed.  ACIM puts it this way: "To be born again is to let the past go, and look without condemnation on the present.  If you would have it past and gone, you must not see it now."   How the heck do we do that???  ACIM goes on: "Time can release as well as imprison, depending on whose interpretation of it you use.  Past, present, and future are not continuous, unless you force continuity on them.  You can perceive them as continuous, and make them so for you.  But do not be deceived, and then believe that this is how it is.  You would anticipate the future on the basis of your past experience, and plan for it accordingly.  Yet by doing so you are aligning past and future, and not allowing the miracle, which could intervene between them, to free you to be born again.  The miracle enables you to see your brother [and thus yourself] without his past, and so perceive him [and yourself] as born again." - ACIM Chapter 13, Section VI, 3:5-6 and 4:1-7, 5:1

Beginning again is a conscious act of forgiveness... but the release and perceptual shifts that result from our conscious acts of forgiveness are effortless and free.

"Judgment and condemnation are behind you, and unless you bring them with you, you will see that you are free of them.  Look lovingly upon the present, for it holds the only things that are forever true." - ACIM Chapter 13, Section VI, 6:1