Reflections 295 to 308
295/ Receiving the Miracle
16th August 2025
“Every word has consequences. Every silence, too.” Jean-Paul Sartre.
His Voice awaits your silence, for His Word can not be heard until your mind is quiet for a while, and meaningless desires have been stilled. (ACIM, W-125.6:2)
***
Lesson 295. The Holy Spirit looks through me today (ACIM, W-295). Yesterday: My body is a wholly neutral thing - this was the lesson - which meant that my mind must have been on auto pilot. I made judgements about myself and others that, although minor, made the body feel either important or unimportant. I am not sure it ever felt neutral. Today: As I was sitting with this lesson, I remembered that I used to cry a lot as a child. I asked the Holy Spirit to help me see this differently and the feeling I got was that I was lost. I was looking for an older brother to protect me and so Jesus is now my older brother - at least in a different form to what I perceived as a child, which was one of blood and suffering.
Why would you not perceive it as release from suffering to learn that you are free? Why would you not acclaim the truth instead of looking on it as an enemy? Why does an easy path, so clearly marked it is impossible to lose the way, seem thorny, rough and far too difficult for you to follow? Is it not because you see it as the road to hell instead of looking on it as a simple way, without a sacrifice or any loss, to find yourself in Heaven and in God? (ACIM, T-29.II.1:1-4)
We clearly have choice, if we read the four questions that are posed above. What appears to be stopping us from choosing love instead of fear is our uncertainty.
If we are free, why does it hurt? Why does the truth seem so distant? Where does the path lead to, if it isn’t pain? And what is Heaven, when all around us appears to crumble and fall?
A Course in Miracles solves these questions through the simple act of forgiveness. And it is here that what the world teaches disappears. Forgiveness is not done by us; forgiveness is always done to us.
God always takes the final step. Peace always comes to us when we are ready, and being ready simply means being present.
We’ve become such a master at inventing a world that it would be an absolute miracle if we could just uninvent it. All we need to do, then, is to quietly forgive and the miracle is always given to us.
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296/ Love of God
17th August 2025
“The whole world is simply my story, projected back to me on the screen of my own awareness. All of it.” Byron Katie.
For love asks only that you be happy, and will give you everything that makes for happiness. (ACIM, T-16.II.8:8)
***
Lesson 296. The Holy Spirit speaks through me today (ACIM, W-296). Yesterday: The lesson stated that fear comes in many forms, but love is one. It was about the Holy Spirit being our eyes and ears. There were a few hours - from about 10a.m. until the early afternoon - that I forgot the lesson completely, but then I remembered and the practice continued. My goal was to be the best version of myself that I could be. Today: I had to get up earlier than normal this morning and so I found myself nodding off during my meditation. And this is the reminder I need to set the timer on my phone. I will be teaching a yoga class this morning and then we have a friend coming to stay, and so it will be easy to get distracted as the day progresses.
Within the dream of bodies and of death is yet one theme of truth; no more, perhaps, than just a tiny spark, a space of light created in the dark, where God still shines. You cannot wake yourself. Yet you can let yourself be wakened. You can overlook your brother’s dreams. So perfectly can you forgive him his illusions he becomes your savior from your dreams. (ACIM, T-29.III.3:1-5)
We awaken by choosing to see light instead of darkness, joy instead of pain, and love instead of fear. It is always a choice.
A Course in Miracles wants us to make way for the attributes of God. We didn’t create God but God created us. We are all entitled to God’s Love because Love is what we are.
Therefore, as stated above, we cannot wake ourselves. We have to see God’s qualities everywhere, which means in everyone we meet. By awakening to our Source, it means that all minds awaken.
Minds are not separate, only bodies are. There is just the one mind and this sits happily within the Mind of our Creator.
To awaken to this requires diligence, determination and desire. We have to want nothing else and this is because God’s Son does not need anything else. He only wants the Love of God.
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18th August 2025
“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.” Sigmund Freud.
Guilt hides Christ from your sight, for it is the denial of the blamelessness of God’s Son. (ACIM, T-13.I.1:5)
***
Lesson 297. Forgiveness is the only gift I give (ACIM, W-297). Yesterday: The lesson was about the Holy Spirit speaking through me. In the morning, I felt triggered by a new person who I spoke to after my yoga class - it was the way she spoke and for how long we spoke, and also the type of questions she asked about me; and then, later, I picked up a friend who was coming to stay for a few nights and it was about how tired I was, about how much chatting my friend and my wife were doing, and how excluded I felt. In both incidents, I was asking the Holy Spirit for guidance and was listening for what to do and say. Today: I’ve just kept repeating this lesson for fifteen minutes as a maelstrom of thoughts crashed around in my mind, and it was soothing. None of the thoughts meant anything anyway.
Could it be some dreams are kept, and others wakened from? The choice is not between which dreams to keep, but only if you want to live in dreams or to awaken from them. Thus it is the miracle does not select some dreams to leave untouched by its beneficence. You cannot dream some dreams and wake from some, for you are either sleeping or awake. And dreaming goes with only one of these. (ACIM, T-29.IV.1:4-8)
We are either asleep or awake. What does this mean?
Being asleep means we are lost in illusion. Nothing we see means anything. Everyone and anyone are all dream figures. We are lost in a nightmare that is entirely of our own making.
Being awake means we are entirely alert to the present moment. There is no past or future. We don’t see the body but the light beyond the body. We are alert to everything that life can give us.
Reality, then, becomes a state of mind with only two options. One is fearful and the other is loving, although there are multiple variations thereof.
Fear demands our attention but the love does not. The question then arises: which one do we want?
19th August 2025
“Learning to live is learning to let go.” Sogyal Rinpoche.
To be born again is to let the past go, and look without condemnation upon the present. (ACIM, T-13.VI.3:5)
***
Lesson 298. I love you, Father, and I love Your Son (ACIM, W-298). Yesterday: The lesson - “forgiveness is the only gift I give” - mentioned both salvation and Atonement in the first few lines and so I felt I had to really concentrate even to get some insight into its meaning. Our friend was staying which meant I preferred to be more discrete with my study and so the amount of time I could really concentrate on the lesson was limited. Today: I liked the way the lesson describes our need for senseless journeys, mad careers and artificial values. This is the linchpin of the ego - that we are seen as being a success in the world.
There is a place in you where this whole world has been forgotten; where no memory of sin and of illusion lingers still. There is a place in you which time has left, and echoes of eternity are heard. There is a resting place so still no sound except a hymn to Heaven rises up to gladden God the Father and the Son. Where Both abide are They remembered, Both. And where They are is Heaven and is peace. (ACIM, T-29.V.1:1-5)
Each person we meet has the Kingdom of Heaven within him or her - except there is just one of us. Heaven means the Oneness of God and of His Son.
This is what we are working our way back to - except we have never left.
And this is what what we all are searching for - except we will never find it with our eyes.
The truth is in the mystery. What we can’t see is what we are.
What we are is peace, except we have to try to be peaceful; what we are is love, except its hard to be loving; what we are is perfect, except we feel thoroughly imperfect.
And so we need forgiveness simply to return to what we have never left. This is the Kingdom of Heaven and it means there are no barriers or boundaries of any kind.
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299/ Lucidity Is important
20th August 2025
“No one is more worthy of your kindness and compassion than you are.” Thich Nhat Hanh.
If love created you like itself, this Self must be in you. (ACIM, W-67.3:2)
***
Lesson 299. Eternal holiness abides in me (ACIM, W-299). Yesterday: The theme of the lesson was to become at ease with the Father and the Son. We went to the coast for the day and it began with a swim - I don’t know of anything that is better for cleansing mind, body and spirit than cold water - and then a hot drink and the promise of a good meal. For me, all of the above are the pleasures of life as a body but I also need the tired and hungry times to really appreciate what the lesson was teaching me. Today: This lesson tells me that God created holiness and that holiness is what I am. A nice feeling, then, spread over me as I sat with this lesson for fifteen minutes, and this was despite a mass of unholy thoughts about one thing or another.
This world will bind your feet and tie your hands and kill your body only if you think that it was made to crucify God’s Son. For even though it was a dream of death, you need not let it stand for this to you. Let this be changed, and nothing in the world but must be changed as well. For nothing here but is defined as what you see it for. (ACIM, T-29.VI.5:1-4)
What we think, then, reflects how we perceive this world. The world is a projection from the mind.
Jesus, the Voice of A Course in Miracles, mentions the signs of torture in the passage above, but only because he knows that the body is an image in the mind. All that we do is always done to our self.
Only the true Self can extend love and this is Its purpose. Hence, when we come to see the real world, all the attributes of a split mind immediately disappear.
And the real world is still a part the dream - except it is a happy dream. Everything within the dream reflects the beauty and wonder of the mind of the beholder.
And the false world reflects all our internal dross and discomfort, in which occasional nice things do happen before it yet again implodes into the nightmare.
This is why we want to be peaceful. Lucidity is important - at least until we awaken from the dream.
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300/ Eternal Sky
21st August 2025
“The mind that perceives the limitation is the limitation.” Buddha.
Healing is a thought by which two minds perceive their oneness and become glad. (ACIM, T-5.I.1:1)
***
Lesson 300. Only an instant does this world endure (ACIM, W-300). Yesterday: The lesson told me that eternal holiness abides in me. It was a difficult day, in the sense that the ego flared up when I heard our guest speaking to my wife in a way that didn’t feel appropriate, and offended her. This resolved itself and, in the evening, I decided to do my meditation outside and as a break from a walk. Half way through, a dog nuzzled my knee and I had a very interesting conversation with its owner who was walking by. Words have power, in more ways than one. Today: I feel tired, subdued, but I like the way that this lesson describes false perception as being “no more than a passing cloud upon a sky eternally serene”. This reassures me.
Seek not outside yourself. For it will fail, and you will weep each time an idol falls. Heaven cannot be found where it is not, and there can be no peace excepting there. Each idol that you worship when God calls will never answer in His place. There is no other answer you can substitute, and find the happiness His answer brings. (ACIM, T-29.VII.1:1-5)
A Course in Miracles asks us whether we prefer to be right or happy?
Happiness depends on going within. It comes from a silence that is not of this world. We come to experience it through choosing light over darkness, and peace over agitation.
By bringing ourselves to a peaceful centre time and time again, thought will evaporate. The serene sky, as mentioned about, will embrace our attention.
And all the pitiful thoughts will be forgotten. We become the sun blazing in the eternal sky.
Peter Panagore’s near-death experience has left him with a lifelong yearning to be back in the Light. The Light came to him as he was dying from hypothermia but he chose not to stay. There was no sense of time but it changed him completely. He now tells us to go inwards for answers, not out.
301/
Perfection of Presence
22nd August 2025
“In everything, love simplicity.” Saint Francis de Sales.
Salvation is simple, being of God, and therefore very easy to understand. (ACIM, T-15.X.9:6)
***
Lesson 301. And God Himself shall wipe away all tears (ACIM, W-301). Yesterday: I never quite understood the lesson “only an instant does this world endure” but it was probably because I was reading it with the ego. My mind never really felt settled, and nor did it feel calm enough to savour the words. Today: This lesson has to show me the difference between the false world and the real world (as opposed to the total oneness of Heaven). And the world I see with my body’s eyes can be extremely tearful, that is for sure.
All idols of this world were made to keep the truth within from being known to you, and to maintain allegiance to the dream that you must find what is outside yourself to be complete and happy. It is vain to worship idols in the hope of peace. God dwells within, and your completion lies in Him. No idol takes His place. Look not to idols. Do not seek outside yourself. (ACIM, T-29.VII.6:1-6)
A Course in Miracles tells us that anyone who comes into this world must think that something outside of themselves can bring them peace and happiness. This is labelled as an ‘idol’.
For example, the body is an idol. We feed it, bathe it and jet it off to exotic places in the hope that it will make us happy. And it might, momentarily, but ultimately it won’t and likewise with any idol that the body seeks.
The idol represents a mini death and this is why we are in this world. It is to die.
All life exists within the mind. And, because it is beyond thought, the future and the past simply arise due to unnecessary thinking. By becoming present, we know that all life is eternal.
The holy instant reveals eternal life in a way that touches us. It is the purpose of any meditation.
And every answer that arises from this presence is always perfect. We will never find any solution outside of ourselves. Only within the mind do idols die and we become alive.
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302/ Guiding Us Home
23rd August 2025
“In order to see, you have to stop being in the middle of the picture.” Sri Aurobindo.
God established His relationship with you to make you happy, and nothing you do that does not share His purpose can be real. (ACIM, T-17.IV.1:1)
***
Lesson 302. Where darkness was I look upon the light (ACIM, W-302). Yesterday: The lesson used the metaphor of tears to describe our separation from God (“and God Himself shall wipe away all tears”). On first reading, my impulse was to think that it was overly dramatic but now, on reflection, I feel it was perfect. There is a continuing tearfulness within me that is covered up by belligerent thought. Today: This lesson tells me I either see darkness or I see light. As I was sitting with this for fifteen minutes, I felt that the light was there but it was as if a million things were distracting me from it.
God has not many Sons, but only One. Who can have more, and who be given less? In Heaven would the Son of God but laugh, if idols could intrude upon his peace. It is for him the Holy Spirit speaks, and tells you idols have no purpose here. For more than Heaven can you never have. (ACIM, T-29.VIII.9:1-5)
A Course in Miracles tells us that Heaven is within. It is the reminder that God gave us all there is. Therefore, the conclusion we should make is that nothing else is needed.
We learn that an idol is a substitute - sought for when we believe that we are lost. We feel that something else will give us what we want and so we seek for it externally. For a moment, it might pacify us but the thirst always returns.
Clearly, the body does need something - food, shelter and a sense of safety - but A Course in Miracles is not about the body. It is about the mind. And it is always to the mind that we turn.
Going inwards requires us to face our demons. We need to look at every aspect of our hurt; and being apart God does hurt. It feels awful.
The Holy Spirit has been put into the mind to bring us back to sanity. It is not an idle thought or a whim, but a definite fact. The Love of God is within us all and it is the Voice for God that is guiding us home.
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303/ What Is Truth
24th August 2025
“Knowledge leads to unity, but ignorance to diversity.” Ramakrishna.
The knowledge that illuminates not only sets you free, but also shows you clearly that you are free. (ACIM, T-2.I.4:9)
***
Lesson 303. The holy Christ is born in me today (ACIM, W-303). Yesterday: I remember when I did my final meditation on the lesson last night (“where darkness was I look upon the light”) I had World War III going on in my mind. It began with angry, violent thoughts and ended with even angrier and more violent thoughts, and I still feel that anger as I write this this morning - except I also know that it’s not actually ‘me’ at all - it is just a bunch of thoughts. Today: The lesson ends by saying that “it is not Christ that can be crucified”. Meanwhile, in the final chapter of the Text, it also mentions how our identities are all just made-up concepts, as the world is also just a concept. Who ‘i’ am, then, means absolutely nothing because only the Self has any reality.
A dream of judgment came into the mind that God created perfect as Himself. And in that dream was Heaven changed to hell, and God made enemy unto His Son. How can God’s Son awaken from the dream? It is a dream of judgment. So must he judge not, and he will waken. For the dream will seem to last while he is part of it. (ACIM, T-29.IX.2:1-6)
A Course in Miracles tells us that we are dreaming. Forgiving dreams become the process whereby we replace the dream of judgement.
Forgiveness undoes everything, even though there is nothing to forgive. As stated above, we are the mind that God created as perfect as Himself.
It is hard to believe this as we look at our face in the mirror, or remember how we acted yesterday, and what we said. The body feels solid and dense, and we can’t deny that it is not.
And so, to undo this belief in form and the reality of the body, we have to look into the mind. We have to look at ever shred of evidence that we know and think about, and validate it as true.
The Self shines through everything. It is just asking to be witnessed. It is what we are and not the bunch of thoughts that keep telling us what to do and what not to do. Our true Self is blameless and, by forgiving this dreaming aspect of the mind, we come to accept that only truth is true.
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304/ Decision for Sight
25th August 2025
“An ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory.” Swami Sivananda.
For only “now” is here, and only “now” presents the opportunities for the holy encounters in which salvation can be found. (ACIM, T-13.IV.7:7)
***
Lesson 304. Let not my world obscure the face of Christ (ACIM, W-304). Yesterday: The lessons are all about stillness, about being present. My mind felt quite agitated and so, as I was reading the lesson throughout the day, the meaning obviously became blurred. And as I re-read it a few moments ago (today), the ego was laughing. None of it made any sense at all. Today: This lesson reminds me that what I look upon is my state of mind projected outwards. This is perfect and just what I want to hear. It provides me with the continued motivation to find the face of Christ in everyone that I meet.
Your day is not at random. It is set by what you choose to live it with, and how the friend whose counsel you have sought perceives your happiness. You always ask advice before you can decide for anything. Let this be understood, and you can see there cannot be coercion here, nor grounds for opposition that you may be free. (ACIM, T-30.I.15:1-4)
A Course in Miracles tells us that we either make decisions with idols or with God - with the anti-Christ or with Christ.
Or, to put it another way, we choose the ego or the Holy Spirit - illusions or the truth.
An anti-Christ is any thought that attacks. It is anger projected outwards. The anti-Christ completely dissolves our peace because it is impossible that the ego could ever exist within God’s peace.
Christ is pure, undiluted love. It can have no opposite because it starts and ends in God.
We have to forget all the Christian interpretations of what Christ is. For example, the Bible and A Course in Miracles part company on the first page. God did not make the world.
The world we perceive arises from the mind. It therefore becomes our responsibility solely to heal the cause of the world in the mind. We are the decision makers in all that we see.
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305/ God’s Certainty
26th August 2025
“Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it. What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.” Ramana Maharshi.
Outside the Kingdom, the law that prevails inside is adapted to “What you project you believe.” (ACIM, T-7.II.3:1)
***
Lesson 305. There is a peace that Christ bestows on us (ACIM, W-305). Yesterday: In the afternoon, I was on my way to look after my mother when I suddenly realised I had to make a decision about what line of traffic I should be in and took the wrong one. I’d been distracted and began heading back in the direction from which I was coming. The mistake was because I was still mulling over an ‘incident’ that had happened almost a week ago and this meant that the lesson I was practising - “let not my world obscure the face of Christ” - clearly wasn’t being applied. Today: The contrast between what this lesson offers (the peace of Christ) and what the ego offers (currently, a lot of angry thoughts) is staggering. During my first fifteen-minute practice with the lesson (just finished), I had to keep reminding myself of this.
How wonderful it is to do your will! For that is freedom. There is nothing else that ever should be called by freedom’s name. Unless you do your will you are not free. And would God leave His Son without what he has chosen for himself? God but ensured that you would never lose your will when He gave you His perfect Answer. (ACIM, T-30.II.2:1-6)
God’s Will is Love. There is nothing else.
The ego’s will is separation, fear and conflict. It disguises this under the veneer of love.
And God’s Answer is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit mediates between illusions and the truth.
Illusions are hell. We shouldn’t be distracted by biblical references but merely use it as a metaphor for the flames of fear we feed within the mind. The flames simply need to be extinguished.
And truth is Heaven. Quite simply, the Kingdom of Heaven is within us and this means perfect peace.
We can douse the flames or keep the fire. God’s certainty never needs protecting. It is always there.
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306/ Looking at Symbols
27th August 2025
“Yoga is an eternal peace. All the rest is just a circus.” K. Pattabhi Jois.
Eternity and peace are as closely related as are time and war. (ACIM, T-5.III.8:13)
***
Lesson 306. The gift of Christ is all I seek today (ACIM, W-306). Yesterday: The lesson showed me that the peace of Christ is mine to keep. I’ve been researching videos for next year’s reflections and one that I listened to was a webinar in which the topic discussed was death. It really highlighted the point of practising the lesson because the stories told just proved how we all, at some stage, always have to come to terms with intense suffering. Today: This lesson made me realise how much I daydream. I read through it a couple of times but my mind was full of stuff, and so I had to slow down and really concentrate. Ultimately, my mind was in the grip of the past and this is where the face of Christ can’t be seen.
Where could the Thought God holds of you exist but where you are? Is your reality a thing apart from you, and in a world which your reality knows nothing of? Outside you there is no eternal sky, no changeless star and no reality. The mind of Heaven’s Son in Heaven is, for there the Mind of Father and of Son joined in creation which can have no end. (ACIM, T-30.III.11:1-4)
A Course in Miracles is quite specific. We don’t have two realities, just the one.
We either think with God or we think with the ego. It should be a no-brainer.
What we are is the holy Son of God Himself. This means we are not a body.
The holy Son of God is distorted by fear. The mind has become terrified and invented a ‘me’. The truth of the ‘I’ is veiled by a curtain of fear.
None of it, though, means anything. Fear has simply become a bunch of symbols within the mind.
These symbols mean we are misperceiving reality as it is.
And, by looking past the symbols, they simply disappear. We might be surprised at what we find.
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307/ Entirely Defenceless
28th August 2025
“Stillness within one individual can affect society beyond measure.” Bede Griffiths.
You are the light of the world with me. Rest does not come from sleeping but from waking. (ACIM, T-5.II.10:3-4)
***
Lesson 307. Conflicting wishes cannot be my will (ACIM, W-307). Yesterday: The lesson essentially told me that “today I can forget the world I made”. It was about seeking the gift of Christ. In my mind, I was somewhere in between, seeking one by remembering the other. The world seemed real but only in my perception; Christ didn’t seem real but only because of my perception. Today: I’ve just been sitting with this lesson for fifteen minutes and, for a while, I really began to realise how tiny all my thoughts were in comparison to the hugeness of God. But, in between that feeling, I also felt twitchy and a little bit restless.
You always fight illusions. For the truth behind them is so lovely and so still in loving gentleness, were you aware of it you would forget defensiveness entirely, and rush to its embrace. The truth could never be attacked. And this you knew when you made idols. They were made that this might be forgotten. (ACIM, T-30.IV.1:2-6)
A Course in Miracles tells us that it is in defencelessness that our safety lies.
As a body, we feel the need to strive for what we want; life becomes a charge towards the finishing life. As spirit, we know that everything will be provided as and when we need it; if that means so-called challenging situations, then so be it.
We wouldn’t be in the world if we knew what defencelessness was. Therefore, we have to learn it.
And the near-death experience proves this entirely. Our spirit merges with the Love of God.
Ragnar Ericson’s near-death experience was life-altering. He fell through ice, took in water and experienced a sense of oneness. His individual consciousness was connected to the whole of eternity. He went from the dark to the light and realized that everything exists in one singular point.
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308/ Love Has no Opposite
29th August 2025
“We do not have a fear of the unknown. What we fear is giving up the known.” Anthony de Mello.
All fear is ultimately reducible to the basic misperception that you have the ability to usurp the power of God. (ACIM, T-2.I.4:1)
***
Lesson 308. This instant is the only time there is (ACIM, W-308). Yesterday: I was travelling back in the evening, having given my sister a break from looking after my mother, when my hourly reminder went off. Jesus asks us to look at the lesson immediately, whenever we forget, but maybe not at 60mph on a dual carriage way? I was able to pull over a little later and it was about two hours after that that I finally did my final fifteen-minute meditation. The theme of the lesson was about conflicting wishes not being my will. It feels like my mind is conflicted all the time. Today: Thought and time are completely intertwined. I was thinking a lot as I sat with this lesson and had to keep coming back to the holy instant. What is now seems so clear and yet so distant.
Salvation is a paradox indeed! What could it be except a happy dream? It asks you but that you forgive all things that no one ever did; to overlook what is not there, and not to look upon the unreal as reality. You are but asked to let your will be done, and seek no longer for the things you do not want. (ACIM, T-30.IV.7:1-4)
A Course in Miracles states that salvation asks nothing of reality. It simply asks that forgiveness becomes the substitute for fear.
Forgiveness allows the happy dream to rise within the mind. It shows us our innocence. Who we thought we were - this identity with all its nonsense - is really just a bunch of thoughts.
The happy dream is love projected outwards. The mind is perceiving reality without the distortion of the ego. This is right mindedness - we are seeing reality as it is.
Salvation therefore asks nothing of us. It is merely a simple reminder that nothing is wrong and that everything is right.
We are complete and whole and perfect, and forgiven of everything we could ever think that we have done. Love has no opposite and this means that God knows us only now.
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