After many years "seeking" to find what is real, A Course in Miracles presented itself to me some years ago. Since then I've been a student of the Course and would like to share some of my learning in hopes that others will find value and help in their personal search for God and what is Real.
I don't claim to have any special knowledge or insights that others have not already shared. Yet the journey toward undoing the ego and choosing God and Love over fear and ego has given me a new and different perspective on life.
I now understand, at least intellectually, that all seven billion of us are but one Sonship, created by God as He extended Himself, creating "us" from His Love that cannot possibly be adequately described or explained. We are now and always have been with God, although we seem to have chosen to separate from God to try out this physical universe of form.
As a result, we carry guilt and fear of God for having done so, just as if a child tells its parents that it's running away from a home filled with love, kindness, caring and all that one could ever dream, wish or hope of finding anywhere else. That child might, for a while, find excitement, stimulation and what it believes is love as it travels this world of form. Yet running away from home is a childish act that assumes our little ego minds can be a substitute for what God has freely given in infinite Love and Blessings to each of us.
Returning home, like the prodigal son, is my goal. I want to know that I have re-joined God and "undone" this ego world of form. As the Course teaches, when the Sonship had the tiny, mad idea that it would be interesting to separate from God, at the very same nanosecond, that thought was undone. The separation never happened, even though is surely seems that we are all individual bodies living a life full of what Buddhists call duhkha.
In his excellent book Buddhism Plain and Simple, Steve Hagen explains that duhkha is often described as suffering or dissatisfaction with life. He goes on to clarify that duhkha can best be likened to a wagon wheel that's out of round. It bumps and jumps on each rotation and gives the rider a sense that something is out of alignment, out of kilter. And so it seems that life here is out of alignment. Perhaps a philosopher would call is "existential" fear. We are afraid of many things. We worry about events, people and situations that may never happen, which is yet another form of fear. We try to "get" love from others rather than knowing that giving Love freely is among our greatest natural and magnamimous acts, for it returns God's Love to us in immeasurable quantity (as if the "quantity" of Love could even be measured).
I feel sad to read, in Chapter Two, Section III, that "God is lonely without His Sons, and they are lonely without Him." How could we so thoroughly discount, ignore and even come to fear a Father of such magnificence and indescribable Love by choosing to separate from Him? So, eventually, in my searching, I returned to Chapter Two of ACIM and found that "Here is the real basis for your escape from fear [and return to God]. The escape is brought about by your acceptance of the Atonement, which enables you to realize that your errors never really occurred." (Text 2.1.4)
The Atonement. I struggled with what "atonement" means for a time. It simply means that one can reach a point in one's mind that fully accepts that we never did separate from God. That the tiny, mad idea was undone by God the very same instant it seemed to appear in the mind of the Sonship. Being so, we now only need to learn to discount our physical bodies and our world of form that seems so real, and thoroughly know that we are still with God; that this seeming life we have is all illusion.
If and when one can do that, fear is banished. The ego is undone. We rejoin God in His kingdom. We know that God has given us all the abilities to create that God Himself has. That there is no longer any duality -- no hot and cold, happy and sad, past and future. When we accept the atonement in fullness, we return to God just as the prodigal son returned to his home and was welcomed without judgment, without sin, but only with Love that surpasses all comprehension and understanding.
Father, I pray for your help -- not in releasing me from fear -- but in knowing that I am with you, have always been with you and will be with you forever more in that "place" that has no place and in that "time" where time does not exist. Thank you for helping me along the path that leads to your altar where all my errors will be corrected and overlooked and I will rejoice in your company for eternity.
I don't claim to have any special knowledge or insights that others have not already shared. Yet the journey toward undoing the ego and choosing God and Love over fear and ego has given me a new and different perspective on life.
I now understand, at least intellectually, that all seven billion of us are but one Sonship, created by God as He extended Himself, creating "us" from His Love that cannot possibly be adequately described or explained. We are now and always have been with God, although we seem to have chosen to separate from God to try out this physical universe of form.
As a result, we carry guilt and fear of God for having done so, just as if a child tells its parents that it's running away from a home filled with love, kindness, caring and all that one could ever dream, wish or hope of finding anywhere else. That child might, for a while, find excitement, stimulation and what it believes is love as it travels this world of form. Yet running away from home is a childish act that assumes our little ego minds can be a substitute for what God has freely given in infinite Love and Blessings to each of us.
Returning home, like the prodigal son, is my goal. I want to know that I have re-joined God and "undone" this ego world of form. As the Course teaches, when the Sonship had the tiny, mad idea that it would be interesting to separate from God, at the very same nanosecond, that thought was undone. The separation never happened, even though is surely seems that we are all individual bodies living a life full of what Buddhists call duhkha.
In his excellent book Buddhism Plain and Simple, Steve Hagen explains that duhkha is often described as suffering or dissatisfaction with life. He goes on to clarify that duhkha can best be likened to a wagon wheel that's out of round. It bumps and jumps on each rotation and gives the rider a sense that something is out of alignment, out of kilter. And so it seems that life here is out of alignment. Perhaps a philosopher would call is "existential" fear. We are afraid of many things. We worry about events, people and situations that may never happen, which is yet another form of fear. We try to "get" love from others rather than knowing that giving Love freely is among our greatest natural and magnamimous acts, for it returns God's Love to us in immeasurable quantity (as if the "quantity" of Love could even be measured).
I feel sad to read, in Chapter Two, Section III, that "God is lonely without His Sons, and they are lonely without Him." How could we so thoroughly discount, ignore and even come to fear a Father of such magnificence and indescribable Love by choosing to separate from Him? So, eventually, in my searching, I returned to Chapter Two of ACIM and found that "Here is the real basis for your escape from fear [and return to God]. The escape is brought about by your acceptance of the Atonement, which enables you to realize that your errors never really occurred." (Text 2.1.4)
The Atonement. I struggled with what "atonement" means for a time. It simply means that one can reach a point in one's mind that fully accepts that we never did separate from God. That the tiny, mad idea was undone by God the very same instant it seemed to appear in the mind of the Sonship. Being so, we now only need to learn to discount our physical bodies and our world of form that seems so real, and thoroughly know that we are still with God; that this seeming life we have is all illusion.
If and when one can do that, fear is banished. The ego is undone. We rejoin God in His kingdom. We know that God has given us all the abilities to create that God Himself has. That there is no longer any duality -- no hot and cold, happy and sad, past and future. When we accept the atonement in fullness, we return to God just as the prodigal son returned to his home and was welcomed without judgment, without sin, but only with Love that surpasses all comprehension and understanding.
Father, I pray for your help -- not in releasing me from fear -- but in knowing that I am with you, have always been with you and will be with you forever more in that "place" that has no place and in that "time" where time does not exist. Thank you for helping me along the path that leads to your altar where all my errors will be corrected and overlooked and I will rejoice in your company for eternity.