A Course In Miracles: CHAPTER 8: THE JOURNEY BACK
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A Course In Miracles
CHAPTER 8: THE JOURNEY BACK
I. The Direction of the Curriculum
“Knowledge is not the motivation for learning this course. Peace is.” (1:1-2)
“The distractions of the ego may seem to interfere with your learning, but the ego has no power to distract you unless you give it the power to do so.” (2:1)
“You are merely asked to evaluate them in terms of their results to you. If you do not want them on the basis of loss of peace, they will be removed from your mind for you.” (2:5-6)
“Every response to the ego is a call to war, and war does deprive you of peace.” (3:1)
“Those whom you perceive as opponents are part of your peace, which you are giving up by attacking them.” (3:4)
“Your past learning must have taught you the wrong things, simply because it has not made you happy. On this basis alone its value should be questioned.” (4:1-2)
“The curriculum of the Atonement is the opposite of the curriculum you have established for yourself, but so is its outcome. If the outcome of yours has made you unhappy, and if you want a different one, a change in the curriculum is obviously necessary. The first change to be introduced is a change in direction.” (5:1-3)
“You cannot learn simultaneously from two teachers who are in total disagreement about everything.” (6:2)
“Your reality is unaffected by both, but if you listen to both, your mind will be split about what your reality is.” (6:5)
In summary, section 1: “The Direction of the Curriculum” is saying:
The ego’s voice may seem to be the dominant teacher in our minds, but we can choose against it just as easily as for it. We withdraw our support from its voice when we notice a loss of peace; a clear sign we are listening to the wrong teacher. Every person is a part of our peace, being that we are created as one. Therefore, to allow unpeaceful thoughts about others to dominate our minds is to support the ego’s teaching. We cannot learn from both the ego and the Holy Spirit at the same time – we know from experience it is impossible to travel in opposite directions simultaneously. Therefore, we must constantly be vigilant over our thoughts in order to maintain the direction the Holy Spirit would have us travel. The direction that leads us to our peace and Home. Until we learn to hear only the Voice for God, our minds will remain split between the ego and the Holy Spirit, as will what we experience as our reality.
II. The Difference Between Imprisonment and Freedom
“There is a rationale for choice. Only one Teacher knows what your reality is.” (1:1-2)
“Even if you could disregard the Holy Spirit entirely, which is impossible, you could still learn nothing from the ego, because the ego knows nothing.” (1:9)
“The ego has never given you a sensible answer to anything. Simply on the grounds of your own experience with its teaching, should not this alone disqualify it as your future teacher?” (2:4-5)
“The ego tries to teach that you want to oppose God’s Will. This unnatural lesson cannot be learned, and the attempt to learn it is a violation of your own freedom, making you afraid of your will because it is free.” (4:1-2)
“The Holy Spirit leads you steadily along the path of freedom, teaching you how to disregard or look beyond everything that would hold you back.” (4:4)
“The Holy Spirit’s teaching takes only one direction and has only one goal. His direction is freedom and His goal is God.” (6:1-2)
“To what else except all power and glory can the Holy Spirit appeal to restore God’s Kingdom? His appeal, then, is merely to what the Kingdom is, and for its own acknowledgment of what it is.” (8:1-2)
In summary, section 2: “The Difference between Imprisonment and Freedom” is saying:
The ego would have us believe that freedom comes from striking out on our own and going our own separate ways. However, we have learned that this is a lonely path filled with fear, pain and unhappiness. We are actually trapped and isolated through seeking for independence from one another and God. This is the opposite of what true freedom is. True freedom is the discovery of our true Identity and rejoining all those whom we thought were lost. It is the remembrance of our Oneness. The Holy Spirit simply asks that we desire this state of peace and love above all else the world has to offer. His only request is that we acknowledge the truth we have forgotten; we are free in Unity and bound in pain by separation. Only this truth can set us free from the ego chains that bind us.
III. The Holy Encounter
“Ask and it shall be given you, because it has already been given. Ask for light and learn that you arelight.” (1:2-3)
“To fulfill the Will of God perfectly is the only joy and peace that can be fully known, because it is the only function that can be fully experienced.” (2:1)
“Yet the wish for other experience will block its accomplishment, because God’s Will cannot be forced upon you, being an experience of total willingness.” (2:3)
“When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him you will see yourself. As you treat him you will treat yourself. As you think of him you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself of lose yourself. Whenever two Sons of God meet, they are given another chance at salvation. Do not leave anyone without giving salvation to him and receiving it yourself. For I am always there with you, in remembrance of you.” (4:1-8)
“The goal of the curriculum, regardless of the teacher you choose, is “Know thyself.” There is nothing else to seek.” (5:1-2)
“Whenever you are with anyone, you have another opportunity to find them. Your power and glory are in him because they are yours.” (5:4-5)
“Give him his place in the Kingdom and you will have yours.” (5:12)
“To achieve the goal of the curriculum, then, you cannot listen to the ego, whose purpose is to defeat its own goal.” (6:2)
“You cannot be powerless to do this, because this is your power. Glory is God’s gift to you, because that is what He is. See this glory everywhere to remember what you are.” (8:6-8)
In summary, section 3: “The Holy Encounter” is saying:
Whenever you meet or even think of another, it is a holy encounter because you are meeting or thinking of an aspect of your Oneself Who is also One with God. You are therefore encountering God in everyone all the time. The problem then becomes one of recognition. Do you see a body and all its works, or will you be able to remember Who is hidden behind the body and seeks your recognition? Ask to see the Light within another and it shall be given. And in your asking you will also learn the Light is you. In this way, you learn to know your true Self. But in order to achieve this goal in learning, you cannot listen to the ego for it will never support the idea of your unity in God’s light and love. It will insist the body you see is guilty and warrants only your hate and fear. You are not powerless against such thoughts. In fact, you were born to overcome them. See the glory, light and love of God in every holy encounter and learn the truth of Who You Are.
IV. The Gift of Freedom
“If God’s Will for you is complete peace and joy, unless you experience only this you must be refusing to acknowledge His Will.” (1:1)
“You cannot exempt yourself from His laws, although you can disobey them. Yet if you do, and only if you do, you will feel lonely and helpless, because you are denying yourself everything.” (1:7-8)
“If I am with you in the loneliness of the world, the loneliness is gone. You cannot maintain the illusion of loneliness if you are not alone. My purpose, then, is still to overcome the world. I do not attack it, but my light must dispel it because of what it is. Light does not attack darkness, but it does shine it away.” (2:6-10)
“Dispelling it is salvation, and in this sense I am the salvation of the world. The world must therefore despise and reject me, because the world is the belief that love is impossible. If you will accept the fact that I am with you, you are denying the world and accepting God.” (3:6-8)
“Do you not think the world needs peace as much as you do? Do you not want to give it to the world as much as you want to receive it?” (4:1-2)
“For unless you do, you will not receive it. If you want to have it of me, you must give it. Healing does not come from anyone else.” (4:3-5)
“Healing reflects our joint will.” (5:1)
“Healing is the way in which the separation is overcome. Separation is overcome by union.” (4:3-4)
“Your mind is the means by which you determine your own condition, because mind is the mechanism of decision. It is the power by which you separate or join, and experience pain or joy accordingly.” (5:7-8)
“Nothing God created can oppose your decision, as nothing God created can oppose His Will. God gave your will its power, which I can only acknowledge in honor of His.” (6:1-2)
“If you want to be different, I will wait until you change your mind.” (6:4)
“Freedom is the only gift you can offer to God’s Sons, being an acknowledgment of what they are and what He is.” (8:1)
“When you imprison yourself you are losing sight of your true identification with me and with the Father.” (8:5)
In summary, section 4: “The Gift of Freedom” is saying:
In this world we can either experience the imprisonment of the ego’s pain and suffering or the joyous freedom of God’s Will. We have total freedom of choice between either mindset. God will not thwart our gift of freedom to choose. He will simply wait until we are ready for His peace. God’s peace comes from the knowing that the separation we currently see in this world is not the truth. We can all enjoy a big sigh of peaceful relief over this knowledge! The next step then is to actively join God’s Will by allowing the peace of this truth to not be tarnished by any belief in separation. Give the world your peace, and peace will be yours. To give it, you must simply walk through this reality acknowledging Who walks with you in everyone you meet or think of. With this recognition, you free everyone from their ego-identity. If you see them otherwise, you imprison them in the identity of the body, and you will be imprisoned with them. Give the gift of freedom equally to all people and you will live free of the ego yourself.
V. The Undivided Will of the Sonship
“Can you be separated from your identification and be at peace? Dissociation is not a solution; it is a delusion.” (1:1-2)
“Alone we can do nothing, but together our minds fuse into something whose power is far beyond the power of its separate parts.” (1:6)
“The undivided will of the Sonship is the perfect creator, being wholly in the likeness of God, Whose will it is.” (2:1)
“By the belief that your will is separate from mine, you are exempting yourself from the Will of God which is yourself. Yet to heal is still to make whole. Therefore, to heal is to unite with those who are like you, because perceiving this likeness is to recognize the Father.” (2:3-5)
“When you unite with me you are uniting without the ego, because I have renounced the ego in myself and therefore cannot unite with yours. Our union is therefore the way to renounce the ego in you.” (4:1-2)
“On this journey. You have chosen me as your companion instead of the ego. Do not attempt to hold on to both, or you will try to go in different directions and will lose the way.” (5:8-9)
“Let us not lose sight of His direction through illusions, for only illusions of another direction can obscure the one for which God’s Voice speaks in all of us. Never accord the ego the power to interfere with the journey.” (6:3-4)
“Leave all illusions behind, and reach beyond all attempts of the ego to hold you back. I go before you because I am beyond the ego. Reach, therefore, for my hand because you want to transcend the ego.” (6:6-8)
In summary, section 5: “The Undivided Will of the Sonship” is saying:
You cannot recognize both God and the ego as the true identity of anyone, including yourself. No one can be two things at the same time. Therefore, if we are part of God’s Identity, then the ego must be false. To identify only with your Identity in Him is then the same as renouncing the ego in yourself. In truth, we remain undivided by anything the ego may show us, and to accept this is to heal our mind of all division between God and the ego. Let us not lose sight of our will to join with God’s Will for us to remember our Union in Him. Let us not be tempted by anything we see outside of us to interfere with this belief. When we feel sad, alone, and fully identified with our bodies, let us reach then for the Hand of God, because we want to transcend what the ego is showing us.
VI. The Treasure of God
“We begin the journey back by setting out together, and gather in our brothers as we continue together.” (1:2)
“The world can add nothing to the power and the glory of God and His holy Sons, but it can blind the Sons to the Father if they behold it. You cannot behold the world and know God. Only one is true.” (2:1-2)
“No one created by God can find joy in anything except the eternal; not because he is deprived of anything else, but because nothing else is worthy of him.” (3:2)
“Listen to the story of the prodigal son, and learn what God’s treasure is and yours: This son of a loving father left his home and thought he had squandered everything for nothing of any value, although he had not understood its worthlessness at the time. He was ashamed to return to his father, because he thought he had hurt him. Yet when he came home the father welcomed him with joy, because the son himself was his father’s treasure. He wanted nothing else.” (4:1-4)
“You made neither yourself nor your function. You made only the decision to be unworthy of both. Yet you cannot make yourself unworthy because you are the treasure of God, and what He values is valuable.” (5:11-12)
“His joy lay in creating you, and He extends His Fatherhood to you so that you can extend yourself as He did.” (6:5)
“God would not have us be alone because He does not will to be alone. That is why He created His Son, and gave him the power to create with Him.” (8:6-7)
“The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of where you are always, and what you are forever. It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed. Truth can only be experienced. It cannot be described and it cannot be explained.” (9:6-9)
“What God has willed for you is yours.” (10:1)
“Your heart lies where your treasure is, as His does. You who are beloved of God are wholly blessed. Learn this of me, and free the holy will of all those who are as blessed as you are.” (10:3-5)
In summary, section 6: “The Treasure of God” is saying:
We are God’s treasure, but we do not know it. In fact, the last thing we feel like is anybody’s “treasure,” much less God’s. But the truth remains, you are everything to God. We are His everything. It is important that we remember our value to God, because by so doing, we remember our value to each other. It is a reawakening to our oneness and the important part we each play in such unity for the completion of our wholeness. We are each other’s treasure. Remembering this may seem like a long and difficult journey, but it is a journey without distance because the truth is already true. We have only to accept the truth, and the experience of God and all we walked away from like prodigal sons, will return to our freed and open minds. Let your heart rest where your treasure is – let it rest in God and know you are everything to Him.
VII. The Body as a Means of Communication
“Attack is always physical. When attack in any form enters your mind you are equating yourself with a body, since this is the ego’s interpretation of the body.” (1:1-2)
“When you equate yourself with a body you will always experience depression.” (1:6)
“Remember that the Holy Spirit interprets the body only as a means of communication.” (2:1)
“The ego separates through the body. The Holy Spirit reaches through it to others.” (2:3-4)
“If you use it only to reach the minds of those who believe they are bodies, and teach them through the body that this is not so, you will understand the power of the mind that is in you.” (3:2)
“In the service of uniting it becomes a beautiful lesson in communion, which has value until communion is.” (3:4)
“If the body becomes a means you give to the Holy Spirit to use on behalf of union of the Sonship, you will not see anything physical except as what it is.” (4:5)
“Healing is the result of using the body solely for communication.” (10:1)
“All mind is whole, and the belief that part of it is physical, or not mind, is a fragmented or sick interpretation.” (10:3)
“By reaching out, the mind extends itself. It does not stop at the body, for if it does it is blocked in its purpose.” (10:5-6)
“The removal of blocks, then, is the only way to guarantee help and healing.” (11:1)
“Perceiving the body as a separate entity cannot but foster illness, because it is not true.” (11:4)
“Learning must lead beyond the body to the re-establishment of the power of the mind in it. This can be accomplished only if the mind extends to other minds, and does not arrest itself in its extension. This arrest is the cause of all illness, because only extension is the mind’s function.” (12:6-8)
“To see a body as anything except a means of communication is to limit your mind and to hurt yourself.” (13:3)
“Whenever you see another as limited to or by the body, you are imposing this limit on yourself.” (14:3)
“Freedom from illusions lies only in not believing them. There is no attack, but there is unlimited communication and therefore unlimited power and wholeness. The power of wholeness is extension. Do not arrest your thought in this world, and you will open your mind to creation in God.” (16:5-8)
In summary, section 7: “The Body as a Means of Communication” is saying:
The ego uses the body as a “separation device,” which in its service only promotes fear and attack upon one another. We must switch allegiance from the ego and place our bodies under the service of the Holy Spirit, Who would only use the body to communicate God’s Love. God’s Love sees us all as one; unlimited and not restricted to being mere bodies. Our minds have the power to extend this loving thought to all other minds. In fact, this is our natural function as a creation of God. God creates by extending His loving thoughts and we create like Him, being of Him. Therefore, extend only love and do not restrict your thoughts to that of being a mere body. Think bigger! Think beyond what your eyes see and learn to heal all illusions about our false selves through your disbelief in them. Through doing so you communicate, or extend, only love from your body to others.
VIII. The Body as Means or End
“The body exists in a world that seems to contain two voices fighting for its possession. In this perceived constellation the body is seen as capable of shifting its allegiance from one to the other, making the concepts of both health and sickness meaningful.” (2:1-3)
“You must have noticed an outstanding characteristic of every end that the ego has accepted as its own. When you have achieved it, it has not satisfied you. This is why the ego is forced to shift ceaselessly from one goal to another, so that you will continue to hope it can yet offer you something.” (2:5-7)
“The ego has a profound investment in sickness. If you are sick, how can you object to the ego’s firm belief that you are not invulnerable?” (3:2-3)
“Sickness is a way of demonstrating that you can be hurt. It is a witness to your frailty, your vulnerability, and your extreme need to depend on external guidance. The ego uses this as its best argument for your need for its guidance. It dictates endless prescriptions for avoiding catastrophic outcomes. The Holy Spirit, perfectly aware of the same situation, does not bother to analyze it at all. If data are meaningless there is no point in analyzing them. The function of truth is to collect information that is true. Any way you handle error results in nothing.” (6:1-8)
“You might well ask how the voice of something that does not exist can be so insistent. Have you thought about the distorting power of something you want, even if it is not real?” (8:1-2)
“The Holy Spirit’s Voice is as loud as your willingness to listen.” (8:7)
“The Holy Spirit teaches you to use your body only to reach your brothers, so He can teach His message through you.” (9:1)
“Health is the result of relinquishing all attempts to use the body lovelessly. Health is the beginning of the proper perspective on life under the guidance of the one Teacher Who knows what life is, being the Voice for Life Itself.” (9:9-10)
In summary, section 8: “The Body as Means or End” is saying:
The ego part of our mind uses the body as a means to attain what it thinks is important to it, namely, things of this physical world it thinks will make it happy. This may include material things, other bodies and the health of our own. This is an unfortunate and unhealthy mindset, for as many of us have noticed, attaining things of this world do not actually make us happy. Even so, the ego is undeterred by this fact, and relentlessly pursues its hopeless dreams, occupying our mind with a near constant state of planning for the future or lamenting the past. It’s constantly analyzing what it should or shouldn’t do next. This is the sickness of the mind the ego induces in us. The Holy Spirit on the other hand, would heal us of this mindset once and for all by accepting this single fact: none of what you’re worrying about, striving for, or in pain over is true. None of it is the real world as all of it lacks eternal qualities. All of it will pass away in time, regardless of what you do. The Holy Spirit therefore teaches us there is no point in letting any of it pollute our mind. Clearing your mind of all this clutter results in mental health. Mental health is the result of letting go of all thoughts that are attempts to use the body for what will only bring you pain and suffering. It is the beginning of learning proper perspective as directed by the Holy Spirit.
IX. Healing as Corrected Perception
“I have said before that the Holy Spirit is the Answer.” (1:1)
“When the ego tempts you to sickness do not ask the Holy Spirit to heal the body, for this would merely be to accept the ego’s belief that the body is the proper aim of healing. Ask, rather, that the Holy Spirit teach you the right perception of the body, for perception alone can be distorted. Only perception can be sick, because only perception can be wrong.” (1:5-7)
“Wrong perception is the wish that things be as they are not.” (2:1)
“You do not have to seek reality. It will seek you and find you when you meet its conditions.” (2:4-5)
“All forms of sickness, even unto death, are physical expressions of the fear of awakening.” (3:2)
“ “Rest in peace” is a blessing for the living, not the dead, because rest comes from waking, not from sleeping.” (3:5)
“The decision to wake is the reflection of the will to love, since all healing involves replacing fear with love.” (5:2)
“The Name of God’s Son is one, and you are enjoined to do the works of love because we share this Oneness. Our minds are whole because they are one. If you are sick you are withdrawing from me.” (7:3-5)
“When you limit yourself we are not of one mind, and that is sickness. Yet sickness is not of the body, but of the mind. All forms of sickness are signs that the mind is split, and does not accept a unified purpose.” (8:5-7)
“The unification of purpose, then, is the Holy Spirit’s only way of healing.” (9:1)
“Your healing, then, is part of His health, since it is part of His Wholeness. He cannot lose this, but you can not know it. Yet it is still His Will for you, and His Will must stand forever and in all things.” (6-8)
In summary, section 9: “Healing as Corrected Perception” is saying:
Our body is never truly sick. Only the mind that directs it can be sick or misperceiving the body as something it is not. When our body is sick, it is the manifestation of our fear of waking from the dream of sickness. The decision to wake is merely a change of mind – the reflection of the will to love instead of fear. How do we meet these conditions? How do decide for love over fear? The Answer lies in the meaning behind Who the Holy Spirit IS. He is the idea of our Oneness, and He is in our mind, waiting but for us to choose this mindset over separation. If we are sick, we have chosen to be something separated from God, if our heart “rests in peace” we know we have chosen to identify only with the Unity of the Holy Spirit. This healing can happen whether the body appears to be well or not. Choosing Oneness over separation may not automatically grow you a new pair of legs, heal your cancer or raise someone’s body from the dead. This is a healing of the mind that brings about the peace of God; a peace that surpasses all else that may assail you in this world. And once achieved, don’t rule out walking on water or growing new limbs as a result of such inner healing. Do not limit your identity to a body. This is the perception of the sick-minded and separated. Choose to believe you are part of God’s healthy one-minded Wholeness. This fact is already true – we have only to choose to believe it. This is the only healed and correct perception we can have, and it is the belief that will lead us on our journey back to God and His Kingdom.
This concludes CHAPTER 8: THE JOURNEY BACK
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