ACIM Reality

Personal Statistics: I ran a 31 mile race on Sunday and have no lingering effects. Too bad I have to go to Texas on Sunday or I'd sign up for another race. Yesterday I had two runs of 5 and 4 miles, morning and evening. Today, my plan is to go for a 7 mile run after work on a new trail I found near my house. I've been diligently lifting weights several times a week, including a good 20 minutes on core exercises. It is actually sunny today.

This morning, I read in A Course in Miracles (ACIM) text 21.II:

“Say only this, but mean it with no reservations, for here the power of salvation lies:

I am responsible for what I see. I choose the feelings I experience, and I decide upon the goal I would achieve. And everything that seems to happen to me I ask for, and receive as I have asked.

…Suffer, and you decided sin was your goal. Be happy, and you gave the power of decision to Him Who must decide for God for you.”

The implications are big: my life is my fault. My life is my entire perception. Wow! That is big!

Many of us have heard “you create your own reality.” To actually take responsibility and do something about my thought choices is what ACIM asks. It seems to be asking a lot, impossible even, to take responsibility for my feelings. More than that is to take responsibility for making the projection in the world which I blame for my feelings. Here is where I need help from Something Greater than me, the Holy Spirit. Turning my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand him is AA’s Third Step. Surrendering to God is a basic tenet of most religions. It is not a new idea in ACIM. Jesus in ACIM merely enlarges the picture of what exactly I must turn over. My perception is mine and totally insane. I know this because I don’t see all things as one or love or peace; which is what God created.

The reward for the effort of changing my thinking is inner peace, remembering God, really fulfilling my role in the Son of God; best of all is the end of ego prison. Ego prison is where I want to see others guilty and sinful rather than innocent and sinless. Ego prison is where I perceive others as individual bodies and judge them. Ego prison is my place of fear and anger and failure.

I meditate. I sit and listen to the great beyond which is within. This morning, I realized how lazy I feel regarding awakening. Dragging myself out of the ego prison into the awakened Sunlight seems terribly difficult. My mind wants to go back to sleep and not be bothered.
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Here is a vision from chapter 21:

“Listen—perhaps you catch a hint of an ancient state not quite forgotten; dim, perhaps, and yet not altogether unfamiliar, like a song whose name is long forgotten; and the circumstances in which you heard completely unremembered. Not the whole song has stayed with you, but just a little wisp of melody, attached not to a person or a place or anything particular. But you remember, from just this little part, how lovely was the song, how wonderful the setting where you heard it, and how you loved those who were there and listened with you.
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The notes are nothing. Yet you have kept them with you, not for themselves, but as a soft reminder of what would make you weep if you remembered how dear it was to you. You could remember, yet you are afraid, believing you would lose the world you learned since then. And yet you know that nothing in the world you learned is half so dear as this. Listen, and see if you remember an ancient song you knew so long ago and held more dear than any melody you taught yourself to cherish since.

Beyond the body, beyond the sun and stars, past everything you see and yet somehow familiar, is an arc of golden light that stretches as you look into a great and shining circle. And all the circle fills with light before your eyes. The edges of the circle disappear, and what is in it is no longer contained at all. The light expands and covers everything, extending to infinity forever shining and with no break or limit anywhere. Within it everything is joined in perfect continuity. Nor is it possible to imagine that anything could be outside, for there is nowhere that this light is not.

This is the vision of the Son of God, whom you know well. Here is the sight of him who knows his Father. Here is the memory of what you are; a part of this, with all of it within, and joined to all as surely as all is joined in you. Accept the vision that can show you this, and not the body. You know the ancient song, and know it well. Nothing will ever be as dear to you as is this ancient hymn the Son of God sings to his Father still.

And now the blind can see, for that same song they sing in honor of their Creator gives praise to them as well. The blindness that they made will not withstand the memory of this song. And they will look upon the vision of the Son of God, remembering who he is they sing of. What is a miracle but this remembering? And who is there in whom this memory lies not? The light in one awakens it in all. And when you see it in your brother, you are remembering for everyone.”