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A Course in Miracles
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Last Post 1/14/2009 11:35 PM by Jerry Jordan. 3 Replies.
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The Garden-Now
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1/09/2009 9:40 PM

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Joan Haber
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1/14/2009 3:25 AM

Good Morning!

Today's lesson carries us one step further by telling us that God did not create the meaningless world that we see.  What God did not create does not exist.  As the lesson tells us, today's practice may lead us directly into fear.  If God did not create war, cancer, airplane crashes, etc., then WHO did?  Taking personal responsibility for making up this insane world is quite fearful and can provoke anxiety and anger within.  We don't really want this responsibility, do we!  But accept it we must and by doing so, we are actually liberated.  Why?  Because we can choose again; we can change our thoughts and extend love to our brothers and to ourselves.  We can be co-creators with God.

The 50th Miracle Principle in A Course in Miracles (in the text, Chapter 1, Section 1) says:  The miracle compares what you have made with creation, accepting what is in accord with it as true, and rejecting what is out of accord as false.  Remember that God creates and we are co-creators with God.  We are either choosing to "make" war or we are choosing to create love with God.  We are choosing to extend forgiveness or we are choosing to harbor a grievance.  God creates, ego makes.

Notice in paragraph 6 of the lesson, that not only do we have a "personal repertory of horrors" but we also have shared illusions with our brothers.  It would seem that these are two separate kinds of horrors but no - we are told that they are all the same.  So within - so without, as the saying goes. 

Remember, we are taking small steps with these lessons.  Go easy on yourself.  Ask for the Miracle.

Joan

Alien
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1/14/2009 9:25 PM
I believe this is one of the most difficult lessons, at least at the beginning, and at least it was for me two years ago.  One could always ask: What about the atrocities in Africa, what about concentration camps in Europe, 9/11, etc., etc. Or: Why God created so much suffering if He is pure love?
Well, as we know by now, God didn’t create it. But what’s more interesting, God didn’t create what we consider beautiful, successful, pleasant, at all that neither.
Listen to an unknown Taoist sage from the Ming dynasty (XIV-XVII century): “When you seek the mind in the past, present, and future, the mind is not there. When you look for delusion in the heart, delusion is originally not there. In that original nonbeing is enlightenment.”  And what is this world, if not a creation of this mind, this ego of ours? So, the mind isn’t anywhere to be found. So, going farther, we can say that all we see, the whole world is like a bubble; the soap it is made of is our mind.
Only when we can see through the delusion, we will sense our own and everything else’s state of nonbeing. And in that “nonbeing” resides God. (At least this is what I think :)
 
Jerry Jordan
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1/14/2009 11:35 PM

Yes,and who is the one sensing this "non-being"? And who is the "me" that is doing the exercises? This lesson for me comes down to the fact that God could not create this world because it would be the opposite of God. Everything in this world of form is changing and dying. That would be outside of God and therefore does not exist. The ultimate paradox is exactly as you said that the search for the true "self" ultimately reveals that there isn't one. And that tends to create fear and resistance in my separated self. I also love the reference to shared illusions. The fact that they are shared doesn't make them real.

"Nothing so blinding as perception of form." (T-22.III.6:7). Amen, Brother!

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