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Holy relationships are the home of miracles.
The Holy Spirit, as the Course explains, is the part of your mind united with divine wisdom. It is bigger, smarter, clearer, and stronger than any difficulty the ego can conjure or any of the ego’s attempted solutions. The Holy Spirit will resolve your relationship issues in miraculous ways.
A Course in Miracles does not ask us to give up special relationships. Attractions and preferences come with the human package.
ACIM also acknowledges that you have a special function (T-25.VI). There is a unique path for you, based on your talents, visions, desires, and inclinations. This special function is inspired and guided by Higher Power, Who wants you to fulfill it.
Special relationships, challenging as they can be, provide the most fertile ground for transformation. When you turn a special relationship into a holy relationship, you have done the work of a lifetime.
The world is fascinated with frames more than pictures, form more than essence.
Frames are useful if they magnify the beauty of the subject they highlight. The subject is you. The frame is the world. Keep them in order.
Use everything you have in the service of Spirit, and Higher Power will take care of the details.
Bodies and things are not evil, and we do not need to punish or demean them.
Waging war on your body only glorifies it. “Do not fight yourself” (T-30.I.1:7). Beating yourself up physically or emotionally saps love from the world. Treating yourself gently, gracefully, and respectfully brings more light to humanity. The only question worth asking about any act is, “Does this bring more joy into the world, or does it diminish joy in the world?” Here you have the simplest yet the most effective guide to all life choices.
You can’t legislate higher consciousness. You can only live it.
Truth nourishes; illusions kill. “Nothing can be apart from Him and live” (W-156.2:9).
The universe is set up to prosper what is sourced by Spirit, and to disintegrate what is ego driven.
If your endeavors are founded in life-sustaining values, they will thrive. If life force is absent, they will die.
Alignment with universal principles is all the alignment you will ever need.
A Course in Miracles tells us repeatedly that death is not real. There is only life; death exists only at the surface level of forms and appearances. Death is the universe’s way of clearing out what has served its purpose, to make way for the next act of purpose. When the body has completed its mission, it will gently be laid aside (W-294.1:7). Death forces us to confront the mortality of the body and inquire more deeply as to who we truly are and what we are here for.
“I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me” (W, Lesson 201), and “There is no death. The Son of God is free” (W, Lesson 163).
Your true nature is that of infinite spirit.
God reaches us in terms we can understand.
The Course serves as a correction to what Christianity has become. Although Jesus delivered a pure healing message, the religion that grew up in his name has often been infused with fear, guilt, threats, punishment, and mass murder.
Jesus dictated A Course in Miracles to get Christianity back on track with its true purpose of healing.
A Course in Miracles acknowledges and celebrates the God in all people, no matter their faith.
ACIM is not for everyone, but it is not against anyone. The Course does not call students to evangelize, proselytize, or dislodge anyone from their chosen path. It simply calls us, each and all, to be the light of the world.
you and I are certainly capable of offering magnanimity of heart when faced with the challenges of our daily lives.
ACIM’s assertion that your primary responsibility as a miracle worker is to allow your mind to be healed (T-2.V.5) is so crucial. When you refuse to be a pawn of fear, you reduce the ability of insane illusions to run your life and contaminate the lives of others.
A Course in Miracles identifies the ego as the source of human suffering.
The ego is a severely limited idea about who and what you are. It defines you as a body only, confined within the boundaries of your flesh, subject to all the laws and experiences that affect bodies.
There was a time when you were not a body or an ego. You were a powerful spiritual being united with God and the entire universe. You knew who you were and enjoyed all the benefits of a divine being. Then a moment came when you ceased to know yourself as a spirit, and you began to regard yourself as a body. That moment occurred in the womb, at the time of your birth, or soon thereafter. You underwent a crucial identity shift. You did not cease to be a spiritual being; you ceased to know yourself as a spiritual being.
Your identity as a spirit became blurry and your identity as a body became sharp. In that moment you “became” a body. You did not really change your Self, since your spiritual nature cannot be compromised. But you can come to think of yourself as a body, and a body only. Welcome to planet Earth.
The cure for the dream of sin is awakening.
When we identify with the body only, animal attributes come to the fore and the world becomes a jungle.
At our worst, we act like wild animals. We compete for food, are driven by hormones, wage war over territory, and operate from a survival mentality.
At our core we are love. All acts of kindness, art, and creativity spring from our inherent holiness. We ennoble the world by allowing our godly selves to shine.
When you live as if you are an eternal, invulnerable soul, you raise the bar for all humanity. You transform the world to reflect the dignity it was created to express.
Your assignment is the piece of the world you touch. All acts of compassion bring the world closer to heaven. The body is the means by which God’s Son returns to sanity.
The Son of God extends his hand to reach his brother, and to help him walk along the road with him. Now is the body holy.
the Spirit finds a positive use for the ego.
the mind can be transformed from an instrument of destruction to one of healing.
When the intellect is employed in service of Spirit, it figures out how to relieve suffering rather than increase it.
To master your ego, give it projects that uplift you and others.
Rather than killing your ego, subdue it and keep it in its proper place.
Holy Spirit, the part of your mind that remains connected to higher wisdom while you live in the world of separation. Employ the ego to carry out the decisions you make at the level of Spirit. Then all parts of you will be doing what they are supposed to do and everything will get done.
Turn the ego into a miracle worker. It cannot work miracles by itself, but the Holy Spirit can work miracles through it. Then fear will cease to have a hold on you, and you will be at peace.
“How do I contribute to end the suffering of humanity?” is the most important question you will ever ask. The answer to that question begins with your answer to the question, “How do I end my own suffering?” If you can find your own way out of pain, you will know how to help other people out of their pain. Until then your efforts are hollow.
Stop doing what hurts you and start doing what heals you.
When you live from your divine nature, suffering will fall away.
When your arms and shoulders are taken up carrying a cross, you can’t give the love you are capable of sharing when they are free. Self-imposed suffering is not a gift to the world. It renders you less capable of loving, not more.
By a bizarre twist of reason, pain has been forged into a breastplate for the downtrodden. A Course in Miracles finds no purpose in pain. It tells us that there is no virtue in suffering, and you cannot redeem hardship for liberation.
The message of the crucifixion is perfectly clear: Teach only love, for that is what you are. If you interpret the crucifixion in any other way, you are using it as a weapon for assault rather than as the call for peace for which it was intended.
In genuine healing, the healer loses nothing and both healer and patient benefit. “[Miracles] bring more love both to the giver and the receiver” (T-1.I.9:3).
