We say, "In the beginning was God," because in our limited linear thinking we can not conceive of anything without a beginning and an ending. But in actual fact "God" had no beginning and has no ending. Also, it is incorrect to say "was God" which indicates a past tense. All we can say is that God always and forever IS. No beginning - no end.
We also say, "God extended Himself and created His One Son." That too implies a time in the past, a situation which is not correct. God is continuous. His Creation goes on all the time and always has. So He "extends" Himself continuously, giving all His Power and Thought to His Extension, which, in the narrow sense, is us.
So there you have it. All of Everything That Is consists of God, His Extension and Heaven, going on creating eternally, infinitely and totally, outside of time and space. This is the Condition called Heaven and exists within the "Mind of God." If God thinks It, It is. ACIM© tells us we are some of God's Thoughts, which in total are numbers infinite. All this is completely beyond the understanding of our ego mind. Our spirit mind does not need to understand it, and simply accepts it in perfect faith, knowing it to be true. To have to "prove" God is to remain in ego thinking which has no resolution possible. So we have a choice. We either accept God, or wander around in our ego, looking for an explanation of Heaven from our perception within our world.
That Condition of God - His Extension, Christ, and Heaven is all there is. Outside of that is nothing wandering in a world of nothing. So under that Condition, we draw a line and say, "That is All that Is, that is Everything," and rest in the reflection of that knowledge.
God is not a man in spite of all our attempts to make Him one, with all our attributes and thoughts. We have tried to give Him our feelings, emotions, desires and even failings, all to no avail. God is simply THE Idea of Perfect Oneness. His Name is Oneness, and His Word is Oneness. Outside the ONE there is nothing.
God is our Father, and we are his Child. In our creation, God endowed us with all His Power, Capability and Desire. But as a little Child we also had the curiosity to explore our Self and our new-found Power. While most of Us were quite content to go on creating in Heaven, a very small percentage of us wondered what it would be like to be better than perfect and have more than everything. We then "remembered not to laugh" at this quite insane thought, and took it seriously, which made it possible of accomplishment and began the process of our dream of our galaxies, our world and our bodies.
It must be remembered that this never happened, of course, remaining as a curious thought, a mistaken dream. But here we are, experiencing our thought in all its forms in what we call "life." Actually it is DEATH because it signifies a suspension of our true LIFE as part of God's Son, The Christ, in Heaven. As we go 'round and 'round our many incarnations within our dream, we experience what we now call "life" and "death." These are all simply phases of our dream choice within our illusion.
But God realizes we are having a small problem employing all the Power He gave us, and so has sent His Correction, Holy Spirit, to bring us back to sane thought. Holy Spirit has appointed Jesus as his manifestation within our world of form and bodies. Jesus has written a book about what we did, are doing and how we can correct it. That book is called "A Course In Miracles©" and is a complete course of instruction in how we can recognize and correct our mistaken thought and get back to our Self. There are, and always have been other paths back to Sanity, but ACIM© says of itself that it is the most direct, and will save us hundreds, perhaps thousands of years of trial, error and misery if we decide to learn it and follow its instruction. It is a book for our time and for our present situation. It is beyond what served others well in the past and will lead us directly Home.
In summary, ACIM© tells us our way home is through FORGIVENESS. This means forgiving ourself for what we thought was so, and ASKING our Guide, Holy Spirit, to show us our way. He will suit His instruction to our situation and our capability of understanding until that understanding becomes one with God's.
We must understand that we were the one who chose to be here. When we made that choice, we understood we had lessons to learn, what they were, and where we could best learn them. So we chose to be in that situation. Then once arriving here, we forgot we had made the choice or what it was we had appointed for ourself to learn. so here we are, apparently lost and wandering around in circles wondering what in hell we are doing. But there is One that remembers for us and He is our Holy Spirit. Does it not then seem logical to ASK the One Who knows? Our one prayer then should be only to Holy Spirit (or Jesus, or God, or Great Spirit) to guide us to remember what and where we truly are forever, which ACIM© calls our Atonement. It says the miracle worker's one responsibility is to accept Atonement for himself! Not to make the world a better place, not to cure what we see as ills, not to force our brothers to be wise and/or as "spiritual" as we. They are all on their self-chosen lessons too which they must go through and learn, even if we can't understand their process, or want to help remove their "pain."
Everything that happens around us is either love being sent or a call for love being asked. In either case, our only reply is to send our love, in whatever form is appropriate in any given situation. The fine line distinction is to determine when it is being asked for and when we are simply trying administer out of our own need. Since we often can not make that distinction, it is necessary in every case to ASK our Holy Spirit for his guidance in our decision. He can not and will not decide for us, but He will guide us to decide correctly if we listen really carefully and do not argue or miss the guidance.
Whether we have listened to Holy Spirit or ego, will be determined in a short while by the results of our thought on the matter. In the more immediate, we will feel peaceful about it, and remain at peace. When we have been able to forgive ourself continuously about everything, we will remain in a permanently peaceful place called "a state of grace." We will then know that everything is absolutely O.K. just as it is as we walk home together with our brother.
As we forgive, we will see only the Christ in all our brothers and in ourself, and thus remember God, our Self and Heaven. Remembering it is still not being there, so we go to the real world of the Holy Spirit to wait upon the "lawns of heaven" for God's last step in lifting us home. If He did not know we were absent from His Heart, He would not know He had to lift us Home. God wants the flow of His Love through us returned to Him. He knows something has interrupted the continuous flow back to Him and has "sent" Holy Spirit to us to correct the situation and restore the flow.
In our creation, God gave us all His infinite Peace, Love, Joy and Eternal Life of His Oneness. He never took it away. We still have it fully. The only thing that keeps us from recognizing it, are all the many blocks to the "awareness of love's presence" that we have erected. Therefore, it is necessary for us to look at these blocks, one-by-one with the help of our Guidance, recognize them and let them go back to the nothingness from which we made them. Every last bit of darkness must be uncovered. We can not keep any one tiny bit as too valuable, too horrible or too personal. We made them, and only we can release them. But we can't do it alone. We have to ASK our Guidance to show us the way and then DO IT. One at a time. One after the other. Our burden becomes lighter and our light becomes brighter. It is a process. It is not done all at once, and it is not done for us. As with any journey, the first step is always hardest as we make the commitment to begin and have the willingness to be shown. ACIM© says, "Of yourself you can do nothing, but with your Self you can do everything."
Since nothing was ever lost, there is nothing to find.
We already have it. Since nothing ever got sick, there is nothing
to heal. We are already perfect. Since we never left
Heaven, we are already there. All we have to do is remember.
That is the end of our "journey," our "peace" and our "joy."
So it is a matter of awakening from our dream and realizing what
and where we are, and have been always. And so the journey closes
before it began, we are Home before we left, and we are perfect before
we thought we were less than God created us.
As all minds are one (God created but One Son), when any one mind perfectly realized his atonement and returned, all "other" minds did it simultaneously. That is why Jesus says, "When I resurrected, you were with me." And so it is; and so it has been done. We are simply here watching and re-watching the replay over and over because we became so heavily invested in it that we don't want to give it up. Like the man who was imprisoned in the Bastille for most of his life, who when the gates were finally opened and his saviours said, "You're free! You're free," stumbled out into the sunlight, blinked at the brightness, hesitated, and stumbled back into his cell, we, too, have gotten so used to our dream, we can not now leave it or see any "Life" outside of it.
But we are free! We are redeemed! We are saved! All
it requires now is for us to wake up to that fact and be back Home, where
God would have us be!
He then wrote out a prescription for pills to help correct your condition. You thanked him, got the prescription filled, took the bottle of pills home and put them on your bureau, saying, "Yes, there are the pills, I will have to start taking them someday."
The doctor did his part; his diagnosis let you understand your condition. But nothing will happen until you take the pills, one a day, and observe the doctor's other recommendations. It is no good to take half the pills either; you have to take them all to the end of the prescribed time.
ACIM© is like our visit to the doctor. We have recognized there is something wrong with our thought and our life, and have been led to find the Course. God, through his appointed channels, Holy Spirit and Jesus, in the Text of ACIM© has diagnosed our condition, told us how we got that way, and what we can do to correct the error. He has then prescribed a Workbook of 365 lessons to be "taken" one-a-day for a year. They will not aid our "cure" if we leave them sitting on the bureau and never look at them. They will not have full force and effect for us if we only do part, skip around or miss days. This should not be difficult for us to understand. We have our visit to the doctor as our example.
As we begin to reach an understanding of our Self, and what and where we truly are forever, we accept our Atonement and awaken to our Reality. The Workbook Lesson Pills have worked and we are awake, where God would have us be. His flow of love is being returned to Him as it is His Will. Our adventure into specialness is ended as we re-enter the Kingdom of His Oneness.
When we need reassurance and explanation of our spiritual process,
we can turn to the Manual of ACIM© and its Clarification of Terms
which will help us recognize our journey and our Home. There is no
doubt about our arrival there as God willed it before we ever began the
journey.
When we will do it is still our free will to decide.
All paths lead home, and we are all on a path whether we realize it or
not.
STAY ON COURSE - YOUR DESTINATION IS SURE!
“I AM ABOUT MY FATHER'S BUSINESS”