 a course in miracles live day by day, moment by moment, going through the mind training, workbook lessons of a course in miracles, walking with Jesus, holding his hand, letting him carry us through the day, lifting our mind higher and higher beyond the darkness of the ego, the darkness of the world, and taking us towards what he calls true empathy to to stay with what is real and what is true and open up our hearts and minds to the Holy Spirit and the vision of Christ to actually to pure pure pure innocence and wow what a what a calling this is and what a trip what what an adventure to watch time and space drifting past us with our five senses seemingly taking it in is real to our consciousness but actually Jesus is saying no your five senses are part of the projection of trying to get rid of unconscious guilt and see it as if it's acted out in the world in terms of victimization and stories of mistreatment and all kinds of things the teachings of Jesus are that 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 completely logically tight no room for the fault game no room for the blame game no room for perceiving disaster and thinking that that has nothing to do with the thoughts that cross my mind and so we've been going through these workbook lessons up now we're into the early 70s but some of you remember yeah lesson 23 I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts well there's the key right there love holds no grievances no matter what you think you're perceiving is just an interpretation of whatever is being thought and when we join our thoughts with Jesus in the Holy Spirit we can perceive the perfection of right-minded seeing we can also feel the joy and the love and the laughter and the peace of being lined up with our Creator thank you Holy Spirit thank you Jesus for this so today we're rolling on into lesson 72 holding grievances is an attack on God's plan for salvation while we have recognized that the ego's plan for salvation is the opposite of God's we have not yet emphasized that it is an an active attack on his plan and a deliberate attempt to destroy it in the attack God is assigned the attributes which are actually associated with the ego while the ego appears to take on the attributes of God the ego's fundamental wish is to replace God in fact the ego is the physical embodiment of that wish for it is that wish that seems to surround the mind with a body keeping it separate and alone and unable to reach other minds except through the body that was made to imprison it the limit on communication cannot be best means to expand communication okay yet the ego would have you believed that it is so he's talking about the body i'll read those sentences again because it's pretty strong where it is that wish that seems to surround the mind with the body keeping it separate and alone and unable to reach other minds except through the body that was made to imprison it the limit on communication cannot be the best means to expand communication that the ego would have you believe that it is although the attempt to keep the limitations that a body would impose is obvious here it is perhaps not so apparent why holding grievances is an attack on God's plan for salvation but let us consider the kinds of things you are up to hold grievances for are they not always associated with something a body does a person says something you do not like he does something that displeases you he betrays his hostile thoughts in his behavior you are not dealing here with what the person is on the contrary you are exclusively concerned with what he does in a body you are doing more than failing to help him in freeing him from the body's limitations you are actively trying to hold him to it by confusing it with him and judging them as one herein is God attacked for if his son is only a body so must he be as well a creator wholly unlike his creation is inconceivable so when he says you are not dealing here with what the person is you know the bible says god is no respecter of persons it's actually what the person is is spirit behind the veil of of flesh behind the veil of perception is the light of truth and that is spirit the i am presence before Abraham was i am before linear time appeared to be i am i am as god created me i am one with god i am one with my source who created me that's that's all prior to time so when you are not dealing here with what the person is on the contrary you are exclusively concerned with what he does in a body if you call your brother your sister a human being you're concerned with the human part and not with the being part the being is spirit the being is eternal the being is the christ and the body is the veil of forgetfulness the body is the projection of the ego the body is the limit you know it's like surrounding the mind with with the body that we just read and that's where the real depression comes in the sadness but a creator wholly unlike his creation is inconceivable a creator of spirit wholly like his creation which is also spirit is inconceivable if you say that god created the body then you're saying the eternal creates the temporary why why why would why would the eternal create the temporary it doesn't god creates in spirit eternity creates eternity creates eternity God creates Christ creates creations that are spirit created by Christ it's it's a continuous line of creation in spirit if god is a body what must his plan for salvation be what could it be but death in trying to present himself as the author of life and not death he is a liar and a deceiver full of false promises and offering illusions in place of truth the body's apparent reality makes this view of god quite convincing in fact if the body were real it would be difficult indeed to escape this conclusion that's what atheism is about it's like looking at the world and saying the body the world the divisions the conflict the competition the war the disease all seem real so it seems like there is no god and here we go jesus is basically saying the body's apparent reality makes this view of god quite convincing and and this is an anthropomorphic view of god as if god had something to do with time and space god had something to do with birth and death that god had something to do with past present future nope in fact if the body were real it would be difficult indeed to escape this conclusion and every grievance that you hold insist that the body is real it overlooks entirely what your brother is which is spirit it reinforces your belief that he is a body and condemns him for it and it asserts that his salvation must be death projecting this attack on to god and holding him responsible for it to this carefully prepared arena where angry animals seek for pray and mercy cannot enter the ego comes to save you the ego says god made you a body very well let us accept this and be glad as a body do not let yourself be deprived of what the body offers take the little you can get god gave you nothing the body is your only savior it is the death of god and your salvation so jesus is really talking tongue-in-cheek but he's basically saying describing the world describing the the cosmos to this carefully prepared arena this projected arena of time and space where angry animals seek for pray and mercy cannot enter the ego comes to save you with a new theology god made you a body very well and then he goes on to say let us accept this and be glad you know it's like that line in the bible eat drink and be married for one day we shall die not the most optimistic line from the bible sounds kind of dark actually if you really look at it but basically jesus is saying here the ego is just saying you know no just as a body do not let yourself be deprived of what the body offers eat drink and be married take the little that you can get god gave you nothing the ego says the body is your only savior the ego says it is the death of god and your salvation so it's like putting salvation putting redemption putting the correction on to the very thing that's a projection of the error the body and and we can try to turn the body into a hero the ego wants us to make the body into a hero make it into some kind of glorious image and people will say love your body as a way to counteract the hatred that is felt in the mind for the body but but loving the body or hating the body just reinforces the error or the belief that the body is real it's just a puff of nothing and jesus is giving us the the ego's plan underneath and that's why all these grievances get projected on to bodies target practice for the ego to see the cause of of sin and guilt and pain and sickness and suffering as external to the mind and oh the body is the culprit this is the universal belief of the world you see some hate the body and try to hurt and humiliate it others love the body and try to glorify and exalt it but while the body stands at the center of your concept of yourself you are attacking god's plan for salvation and holding your grievances against him and his creation that you may not hear the voice of truth and welcome it as friends your chosen savior takes his place instead it is your friend he meaning god is your enemy so so it's if it's a universal belief to try to make the body be something more than nothing it's a dancing shadow as part of a shadow land of beliefs it's a it's a projection of dark thoughts of shadow thoughts of attack thoughts of a private and private thoughts and yet if it's the center of of the self concept and that is an attack on god's plan for salvation and holding grievances against him and his creation is just what comes from seeing the body as real and identifying with it we will try today to stop these senseless attacks on salvation we will try to welcome it instead your upside down perception has been ruinous to your peace of mind you have seen yourself in a body and the truth outside you locked away from your awareness by the body's limitations now we are going to try to see this differently the light of truth is in us where it was placed by god it is the body that is outside us and is not our concern to be without a body is to be in our natural state to recognize the light of truth in us is to recognize ourselves as we are to see our christ self as separate from the body is to end the attack on god's plan for salvation and to accept it instead and wherever his plan is accepted it is accomplished already our goal in the longer practice periods today is to become aware that god's plan for salvation has already been accomplished in us to achieve this goal we must replace attack with acceptance as long as we attack it we cannot understand what god's plan for us is we are therefore attacking what we do not recognize now we are going to try to lay judgment aside and ask what god's plan for us is what is salvation father i do not know tell me that i may understand then we will wait in quiet for his answer we have attacked god's plan for salvation without waiting to hear what it is we have shouted our grievances so loudly that we have not listened to his voice we have used our grievances to close our eyes and stop our ears now we would see and hear and learn what is salvation father ask and you will be answered seek and you will find we are no longer asking the ego what salvation is and where to find it we are asking it of truth be certain then that the answer will be true because of whom you ask whenever you feel your confidence wane and your hope of success flicker and go out repeat your question and your request remembering that you are asking of the infinite creator of infinity who created you like himself what is salvation father i do not know tell me that i may understand he will answer be determined to hear one or perhaps two shorter practice periods an hour will be enough for today since they will be somewhat longer than usual these exercises should begin with this holding grievances is an attack on god's plan for salvation let me accept it instead what is salvation father then wait a minute or so in silence preferably with your eyes closed and listen for his answer holding grievances is an attack on god's plan for salvation yeah take that in that's really taking it into our heart gossip is an attack on god's plan for salvation stories positive stories negative stories linear stories they're an attack on god's plan for salvation and then we we call upon the holy spirit to just use what the ego made use the the body or the stories as inspiration for for miraculous ways of perceiving and and just come to the presence of true empathy to not buy into any gossip any judgment any opinions what are gossip grievances judgments opinions based on but that the body what a body said what a body did what a body didn't say what a body didn't do his ego is a clever puff of nothingness that tries to make and justify holding grievances holding judgments beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful well let's turn in the text for some support for today's idea again holding grievances is an attack on god's plan for salvation and to support us in really accepting this and and releasing the ego we have from chapter 21 reason and perception we have section one the forgotten song never forget the world the sightless sea must be imagined for what it really looks like is unknown to them they must infer what could be seen from evidence forever indirect and reconstruct their inferences as they stumble and fall because of what they did not recognize or walk unharmed through open doorways that they thought were closed and so it is with you you do not see your cues for inference are wrong and so you stumble and fall down upon the stones you did not recognize but fail to be aware you can go through the doors you thought were closed but which stand open before unseeing eyes waiting to welcome you how foolish is it to attempt to judge what could be seen instead it is not necessary to imagine what the world must look like it must be seen before you recognize it for what it is you can be shown which doors are open and you can see where safety lies and which way leads to darkness which to light judgment will always give you false direction but vision shows you where to go why should you guess there is no need to learn through pain and gentle lessons are acquired joyously and are remembered gladly what gives you happiness you want to learn and not forget it is not this you would deny your question is whether the means by which this course is learned will bring to you the joy it promises if you believed it would the learning of it would be no problem you are not a happy learner yet because you still remain uncertain that vision gives you more than judgment does and you have learned that both you cannot have the blind become accustomed to their world by their adjustments to it they think they know their way about in it they learned it not through joyous lessons but through the stern necessity of limits they believe they could not overcome and still believing this they hold those lessons dear and cling to them because they cannot see they do not understand the lessons keep them blind this they do not believe and so they keep the world they learn to see in their imagination believing that their choice is that or nothing they hate the world they learn through pain and everything they think is in it serves to remind them that they are incomplete and bitterly deprived thus they define their life and where they live adjusting to it as they think they must afraid to lose the little that they have and so it is with all those who see the body as all they have and all their brothers have they try to reach each other and they fail and fail again and they adjust to loneliness believing that to keep the body is to save the little that they have listen and try to think if you remember what we will speak of now 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 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 nor 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 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 light 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 him of love 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 wow the forgotten song very very deep very very precious precious precious yeah in my prayers today this morning i i was in deep prayer and and i became aware of the intensity of the temptations that some of you are reporting now it's it says if your mind is dropping deeper and deeper down through the rabbit hole down through the unconscious darkness and you're just like spinning down deeper and deeper toward the light and and the intensity of the approach of the beginning of the source the beginning with a capital B the eternal nature of love and light is is just so so intense it just feels like uh yeah the destruction of of your thought system it feels like a totally dismantling experience kind of like in the wizard of ours when the flying monkeys come and they take all the straw out of the scarecrow and just leave bits and pieces of of the scarecrow's clothes and the straw is sprung out spread out all over the yellow brick road and and and dismantled and discombobulated the scarecrow is it needs help and it does feel that way when you drop through the ring of fear and you go toward the light i've had calls this week with friends who just poured their heart out said wow i deep down i know i'm the son of god and and i know god loves me but but everything the fear is coming up and it doesn't seem to have any reason to it it doesn't have any like anything i can point to it's just it feels fearful like like uh almost like you're when the body has nausea the body feels like it's going to throw up and and this is like the mind going through the nausea of the unconscious darkness and coming down st john of the cross called it the dark night of the soul and so many of you are reporting calling texting saying that you're going through this uh it's like an extreme temptation to to believe in the body to believe in the ego to believe in the world so this morning with all this upon us as as we go deep into the light of truth and love and and really start to approach that that unbound explosion of light and love that that is god that we feel deep within us as we're going through the the ring of fear the ring of gossip the ring of opinions and judgments we're going down down through it's like you're you're approaching saturn and you have to go through the ring of saturn and all there's all these these rocks and debris and you're just bouncing around as you go closer and closer to saturn as you come closer to the light in the mind then yeah it's very very intense it's it's very very distressing because as long as the mind believes in the ego the ego is experiencing it's undoing it's coming more to that place where it's being shown that the light is real and the ego is not so love is real and the ego does not exist and this is the big dismantling the big letting go that's going on i have a friend who i played a song recently from her album in every heartbeat her name's alissa more it's just got so many great great course of miracles lessons but in this time of great need for the intensity and the intense distress that that is happening as the ego is experiencing is it's being undone in the light of truth i have a song from alissa more that i'm going to play and it's called only an instant does this world endure it's actually taken from workbook lesson 300 and i know we're just on workbook lesson 72 but but a lot of my brothers and sisters are just calling out crying out for some help and in this lesson jesus is really laying bare that that everything that's in the perceived world of the cosmos of time and space it seems to be over millennium of time and space and what we would call history and the future and all of the construct basically is all one instant and in the course jesus refers to this instant as the unholding instant it's the tiny tick of terror it's the belief the tiny gap in the mind where the belief in separation seems to exist and within that tiny instant is all of time and space all of the horror of the belief in separation and all of the projections are all in one instant and that instant is called the unholding instant and then jesus told us in the text that when the belief in separation seemed to arise it was instantly immediately answered by the holy spirit so so you might think of the unholding instant and the holy instant the the answer is an eclipse where the holy instant is what we're opening to that's why in chapter 15 jesus says if you would know and have perfect communication with everyone and everything you must hold no private thoughts and in the sense he's saying you must desire and accept the holy instant this is the instant of atonement this is the instant of correction see this finger is the belief in separation one instant and here comes instantly simultaneously immediately the holy spirit and now it's in a totally eclipse of the heart the holy instant now has taken over it has it has shown the impossibility of the belief in separation it is it is literally replaced the belief in separation and jesus is saying this in workbook lesson 158 you know we but look back at the journey from where it ended imagining that we're making the journey imagining these bodies imagining these these buildings and these streets and cities and countries imagining this this cosmos imagining these galaxies imagining imagining looking back from a point where it ended where the holy instant took the place of the unholding instant and and jesus is saying rejoice be glad i've overcome the world he's talking about the holy instant replacing completely replacing the belief in separation so yeah i'm going to play a song from that from derived from workbook lesson 300 that my friend alisa more and you can feel the intensity of the song because in it he's giving us salvation he's really laying the holy instant and redemption atonement salvation on a silver platter and he's saying it has already replaced the separation so please accept this instant and and and remember eternity and and even if you have to feel the intensity of of approaching this holy instant just remember that the that the holy instant has replaced the belief in separation so eternity is real and time is not in your time okay so here we go this is very intense song but i was just listening to it this morning in meditation and when i was praying and and thinking back to this week where all these calls for help have been just coming coming crying out coming coming you know crumming to me i have a heavy heart i i have extreme distress i have i have a gnashing of teeth i i have i have a extreme intensity then this song is like a healing bomb that's calling us past the unholy instant past shadow land past the darkness and into the light of eternity so let's enjoy beautiful voice of alisa amore raindrops to the storm at the beginning thunder okay okay god is real love is real the truth is true and the only only the truth is true beautiful have a blessed day enough said