A PAST LIFE AND A LESSON FROM ACIM
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A PAST LIFE AND A LESSON FROM A COURSE IN MIRACLES
By, Beth Geer
On May 13th, 2024, I had what I believe was a dream about a past life I had back in the 1870s. My name was Emmaline Fischer and I lived on a cattle ranch with my parents in the southwestern United States. I was the eldest of 4 children, with two younger brothers and a sister.
Our ranch also had several hired hands that lived on or nearby the ranch homestead, one of whom came aboard when I was about 12 years old. His name was Burton Sauer.
I didn’t pay much attention to any of the ranch hands as a child, other than exchanging words when working cattle or calling them in for a meal.
However, around the time I turned 16 or 17 Burton began a curious habit. Whenever I would wave hello or greet him in any way, he would close his fist and lightly touch it to his heart twice instead of waving to me. I knew this gesture meant that I “had his heart,” but he did it with such a big grin on his face that I never knew if he was joking or serious.
I decided that if he was just joking, that was fine.
But if he was serious, there was no way he’d ever have me. I had plans to move to a big city as soon as I was old enough and find myself a well-to-do business man to whisk me away from ranch life.
It was then that my dream shifted and flitted through all the many moments that Burton had done his “heart beat” gesture towards me. We’d had this exchange so many times, that it was often comical. Once his arms were full of tools and all he could do was squeeze the grease can two pumps and got some on the ground. I found the sight hilarious. Another time he was holding dusty rags and beat his fist against his chest, releasing an astronomical plume of dirt and dust, which caused us both to burst out laughing.
Over the next 2 to 3 years, this gesture came to be “our thing” and I didn’t give it much thought other than that Burton was a kind man towards me.
Once I turned 19, against my parent’s advice that I stay on at the ranch, I left to go find my dreams and a “well-to-do business man” in the big city.
Or at least I tried to.
I was back in just over 8 months. The city was not what I had expected, and neither were the business men. Nothing was as I’d hoped, and I soon found I missed the peace and quiet of the ranch and our simple routines. The work was hard but felt satisfying. I just couldn’t find my place in the city, so I came back home.
A few days after I’d returned, I was standing outside on a low hill, overlooking the cattle pasture. There down below, was Burton, with his back to me, pumping water into the cattle trough.
I realized I’d never really taken a good look at him. He was a giant of a man, easily standing 6 foot 5 inches tall, with broad shoulders and a lean frame. I never really thought of him as either good or bad looking one way or the other, but now I realized he was quite handsome. He was 6 years older than me, but now I was 20 and he was 26 and I looked at him through more mature eyes.
I also realized he was a rare man among men. He was nothing like the city men I’d met. He was filled with the depth and strength of a life of hard physical work, and that builds character.
I also had always thought of him as perhaps a bit uneducated or lacking in intelligence, but now as I stood watching him, I thought about how we always knew when Burton had fixed or built something, because it was done to perfection. If the fence was fixed, we knew Burton had done it, because it was always perfect and often better than before. He took pride in everything he did and did it to the best of his ability no matter how small the task. I realized he wasn’t unintelligent, he was just a quiet person, who mainly kept to himself. He was filled with knowledge and know-how; he just didn’t brag about it.
I also thought about how kind he was to the farm animals, and the extra care he gave them, ensuring they had enough food, water, and shelter. His primary concern was always their comfort.
It occurred to me that Burton was a kind and good man in every way, and my heart swelled with love for him because of it. I realized that I’d never really seen him for who he truly was.
And I finally saw that this man had loved me for years, but I could never see it, because my mind was made up with plans for a future of my own design. I marveled at his patience and respect for me.
I also realized that I’d missed him while I was away, and that his very qualities were what I’d gone to the big city to search for. Unthinkingly, every man I’d met, I compared to him, and none of them measured up.
It was then that I went down to him and stood silently behind him while he continued pumping the well handle, filling the stock tank. At last, he turned around and saw me standing there, and said, “Well hello there you! What can I do for you?”
I didn’t say a word, but took two steps towards him, closing the gap between us and wrapped him in my arms in the most loving hug I had ever given anyone.
He hesitantly, but happily returned the hug; I had never done such a thing before, and he was slightly confused by my actions.
I then turned the hug into a deep kiss. And I could feel shock and disbelief reverberate throughout his entire being from this unexpected turn of events.
After a few moments he pulled slightly away from my face to look into my eyes and softly said in his deep, gentle voice, “I thought this day would never come.”
And I replied, “It is here, and I’m never going to leave your side. I see you.”
And with that, I woke up.
My first thought upon waking was, “What a dream!” I knew instantly that it was from a past life and could feel the sameness of the energy of Burton that my present-day husband had, and knew they were one and the same. He and I had clearly spent this past life together in the 1870s.
But such dreams do not come to me for no reason. There is always something to be learned or understood more deeply.
That morning, as I turned to my daily lesson in “A Course In Miracles,” I had my answer. The lesson for the day was Lesson 135: If I Defend Myself I Am Attacked.
This lesson was always difficult for me to understand on a deep level. I mean, of course I’m attacked if I defend myself; I’m being attacked!
However, in light of the past life dream I’d had the night before, this lesson took on new meaning, and I finally understood it at last.
As I read the lesson, it became extremely clear to me that one of our ego’s “defenses” against the truth of our Unity and Perfection in God, was making “future plans” according to this lesson. We are “defending” against the truth of our Perfection and Wholeness in God when we make future plans for the body’s safety. In essence, we are saying that God is wrong – we are not safe and must make our own separate plans for our future happiness. In truth, there is nothing in all Creation that can threaten our safety, because we are not bodies. We are indestructible beings of Light and Love.
The lesson makes perfect sense when the word “defense” is substituted with “plans for my future bodily safety.”
Here then are a few quotes from the lesson read in this way:
“Defense (making our own plans for the future) is frightening. It stems from fear, increasing fear as each defense (or plan) is made. You think it offers safety. Yet it speaks of fear made real and terror justified. Is it not strange you do not pause to ask, as you elaborate your plans and make your armor thicker and your locks more tight, what you defend, (why you need such plans) and how, and against what?
What but the body has such frailty that constant care and watchful, deep concern are needful to protect its little life? What but the body falters and must fail to serve the Son of God as worthy host?
The “self” that needs protection is not real. The body, valueless and hardly worth the least defense, (or future plans for its safety) need merely be perceived as quite apart from you, and it becomes a healthy, serviceable instrument through which the mind can operate until its usefulness is over.
Defend (or make plans for) the body and you have attacked your mind. For you have seen in it the faults, the weaknesses, the limits and the lacks from which you think the body must be saved.
These are the thoughts in need of healing, and the body will respond with health when they have been corrected and replaced with truth. This is the body’s only real defense. (The only real plan we can make is God’s Plan, which is that we awaken to our Oneness; bodiless and without needs of any kind).
A healed mind does not plan. It carries out the plans that it receives through listening to Wisdom that is not its own. It waits until it has been taught what should be done, and then proceeds to do it.
A healed mind is relieved of the belief that it must plan, although it cannot know the outcome which is best, the means by which it is achieved, nor how to recognize the problem that the plan is made to solve.
The mind engaged in planning for itself is occupied in setting up control of future happenings. It does not think that it will be provided for, unless it makes its own provisions.
Defenses are the plans you undertake to make against the truth. (If you make plans out of worry for your bodily safety, you are undermining the truth of your autonomy, perfection, and Oneness, which can have no needs, being complete unto your Self). (Such plans) aim is to select what you approve, and disregard what you consider incompatible with your beliefs of your reality.
Your present trust in Him is the defense (the only plan) that promises a future undisturbed, without a trace of sorrow, and with joy that constantly increases, as this life becomes a holy instant, set in time, but heeding only immortality. Let no defenses (fear based plans) but your present trust (in our Oneness with God) direct the future, and this life becomes a meaningful encounter with the truth that only your defenses (bodily plans) would conceal.” (ACIM Workbook Lesson 135)
So how does this lesson relate to my newly revealed past life experience?
In that life, I had tried to make my own future plans, or defenses for my future safety, thinking that life in the big city would be better for me. I tried to ensure a “safe” future by seeking out a man of material success.
What I hadn’t realized until I returned, was that I needn’t have made any plans at all. All my hopes and dreams were unfolding before my very eyes, right there on the ranch, but I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see Burton for the man he was.
My own plans were not in my best interests – I had laid them as a defense against any future unhappiness. And I nearly missed the even better, much happier plans that were already laid before me by a Higher Power.
Isn’t that what we’re doing here now, in this earthly life? Haven’t we “left” or forgotten our Oneness in God, thinking we can find something better, apart from Him here in the physical? And now this lesson from “A Course In Miracles” asks that we practice trust and faith in the truth of our Oneness. And in this way, the unseen can become the seen, and the best Plan ever laid before us can become manifest. So let us relinquish our plans for anything, other than knowing our Unity and Love in God, through the guidance of Voice of the Holy Spirit within us.
And when we recognize the Christ in ourselves and one another; when we finally see Him at last, we will rush into the Light, His arms, and say to Him, “I thought this day would never come. It is here, and I’m never going to leave your side. I see you.”
Text Chapter 14: Teaching for Truth
IV. Your Function in the Atonement
“Atonement becomes real and visible to those who use it. On earth this is your only function, and you must learn that it is all you want to learn.” (ACIM T.14 IV.3:6-7)
“Decide that God is right and you are wrong about yourself. He created you out of Himself, but still within Him. He knows what you are.” (ACIM T.14 IV.4:5-7)
“Fail not in your function of loving in a loveless place made out of darkness and deceit, for thus are darkness and deceit undone.” (ACIM T.14 IV.4:10)
“Your function here is only to decide against deciding what you want, in recognition that you do not know. How, then, can you decide what you should do? Leave all decisions to the One Who speaks for God, (the Holy Spirit) and for your function as He knows it.” (ACIM T.14 IV.5:2-4)
“When you have learned how to decide with God, all decisions become as right and easy as breathing. There is no effort, and you will be led as gently as if you were being carried down a quiet path in summer. Only your own volition seems to make deciding hard. The Holy Spirit will not delay in answering your every question what to do. He knows. And He will tell you, and then do it for you. You who are tired will find this is more restful than sleep. For you can bring your guilt into sleeping, but not into this.” (ACIM T.14 IV.6:1-8)
“You cannot understand how much your Father loves you, for there is no parallel in your experience of the world to help you understand it. There is nothing on earth with which it can compare, and nothing you have ever felt apart from Him resembles it ever so faintly.” (ACIM T.14 IV.8:4-5)
“The children of Heaven live in the light of the blessing of their Father, because they know that they are sinless (or bodiless and Whole).” (ACIM T.14 IV.9:1)
Beth Geer is the author of "Awakening To One Love," a compilation of inner conversations with the Holy Spirit, as well as "Awakening Humanity: Our Place Among Extraterrestrials and Angels," and "The Light Has Come! Divinely Guided Chapter Summaries from “A Course In Miracles.” YOU CAN FIND THESE AND MORE HERE: https://www.bethgeer.com