Author: cchellew

Lesson 54: Review of Lessons 16 – 20

Here are the main ideas from Lessons 16 – 20:

16. I have no neutral thoughts
17. I see no neutral things.
18. I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing.
19. I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts.
20. I am determined to see.

One of the main thoughts the ego likes to keep going through our heads is how we are alone in this world. It has a lot of evidence to back that up. Right now, as I type, I am alone in my home office, except for the dogs and the cats, of course. But, no other human is here, so I can say that I am truly alone, physically, in this moment.

That physical world is where the ego wants us to focus, because if we do, then I will notice that when I see another person later today, I will see them as separate – someone with their own lives, their own worries, their own joys, their own thoughts.

This is where the Course asks us to be willing to see differently – to realize there are no private thoughts. That doesn’t mean I can read the minds of those around me, but I can understand that we share thoughts, because those shared thoughts have become beliefs that we have used, collectively, to shape the world we see.

Continue reading “AYoMW: Feb. 23, 2020 — Get a room!”

Lesson 53: Review of Lessons 11-15

“I am grateful that this world is not real, and that I need not see it at all unless I choose to value it,” today’s lesson states. This is one of those lines that gets tossed around by those who see the A Course in Miracles as some form of spiritual bypass.

“All you ‘New Thought’ people just put your fingers in your ears and close your eyes and say, ‘this world is not real,’ and absolve yourself from all responsibility to change it,” they say. It would be a fair cop, of course, if that was what the Course taught. But, that’s not what it teaches.

When it says “this world is not real,” it means that Reality, with a capital “R,” has no suffering, no strife, no duality and no fear. There is only Love – which is the only thing that is real – so there is only joy and a peace that surpasses the understanding of this world. It’s a place we can get to in this world, not by fighting or resisting this world, but by looking more deeply at it – looking beyond its egoic constructs into the very heart of the beings that created it.

We are real – not in our bodily form, but in spirit. We are thoughts in the mind of God who have forgotten to laugh – we have forgotten that we were brought forth in pure joy and Love. As such, we created this bodily world with its ideas of death, suffering, greed, hatred, fear and finally death. We created this dream world because we have forgotten who we truly are. This is now our classroom – a place for us to remember who we are by remembering our function in this bodily world – to be instruments of God’s love, peace and forgiveness.

Continue reading “AYoMW: Feb. 22, 2020 — It don’t mean a thing …”

Lesson 52: Review of Lessons 6-10

“Reality is never frightening. It is impossible that it could upset me. Reality brings only perfect peace.”

All I feel when I read those words is either a deep anxiety or a deep longing. The Course would tell me it’s all because I am fully invested in my ego. If I weren’t those words would be a relief – an acknowledgement of the deep knowledge of peace that I already possess within my Divine Self.

Let’s just say I am a long way from enlightenment – and almost there. It’s the paradox of the Course. Time, just like this bodily world, is an illusion – a construct we believe in because we are fully invested in our belief in the separation. Today’s review of lessons 6-10 tries to remind us of all of this by helping us see that what we think of as our “past” is no more real that what we believe is “reality” – with a little “r” – that we see in this moment.

Continue reading “AYoMW: Feb. 21, 2020 — Saddling the Universe”

Lesson 51: Review of the first 5 lessons

When you’re on a long journey, sometimes it’s good to take a break, pull over at a rest stop, review your progress so far and continue to map out your trip. The Course understands this and gives us frequent review periods during our journey in the workbook. Today, we begin a review of the first 50 lessons that we have supposedly mastered by now. (Right?)

We begin by reviewing the main ideas from the first 5 lessons:

1. Nothing I see means anything.
2. I have given what I see all the meaning it has for me.
3. I do not understand anything I see.
4. These thoughts do not mean anything.
5. I am never upset for the reason I think.

The common thread through all of these lessons is about meaning – what it is and where the things in our world get their meaning. The answer is: We give the world its meaning through our thoughts, beliefs, actions and reactions.

Every one of us was raised in a different context – some of us had loving families, some had distant or abusive families. Some of us were raised in a religion of some sort, some of us were not. Some of us were raised to be politically active, others were not. We were all weaned on different musical genres – or no music at all. We all went to different types of schools and learned at a different pace than those around us.

Continue reading “AYoMW: Feb. 20, 2020 – What color is your ocean?”

Lesson 50: I am sustained by the Love of God.

“Sustainability” is a big word in the business world these days. Corporations are seeking ways to do business without furthering or increasing their harm to the environment. Some are even seeking a “circular” economy where waste is minimized by either recycling products wholesale or by the piece, or selling off used items at lower costs instead of scraping them.

They all seek to make their businesses sustainable in some way – so they can survive economic downturns or supply chain interruptions that are currently plaguing businesses due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The ego, too, seeks sustainability. It knows that the key to its lasting power to create a “circular” economy, too, where it keeps us in a circular train of thought, doggedly pursuing the answer to questions it will not allow us to find answers to. We chase our tails, wondering if this spiritual stuff is real or if it’s all just the same crap we’ve believed and rejected throughout our lives. Circular logic is the key to the ego’s sustainability.

The only thing that sustains us, though, is Love – and not the world’s romanticized, watered-down idea of love as something that happens to us personally or is conditioned on whether or not people meet our expectations of them. The Love of God is the only thing that is real – and nothing that unreal can truly sustain any of us.

Continue reading “AYoMW: Feb. 19, 2020 — Won’t you be my neighbor?”

Lesson 49: God’s Voice speaks to me all through the day.

Several years ago, I owned a house in Atlanta that I rented out. One day, a woman called inquiring about renting the home and in the back of my head, like someone standing behind me, I heard a Voice say, “Tell her it’s rented. Tell her it’s rented.”

“It’s still available,” I heard my voice say into the phone.

“Arrrghh!” the Voice behind me said in frustration.

Several months later I was in a battle to evict this renter and had to repair the damage she had done to the house during her short, but traumatic residency.

Some may say that the voice I heard was “intuition.” Call it what you will, but I say it was the Voice of God trying to save me from a world of hurt. The voice I did listen to was the ego’s, because it wanted the house rented and a steady income from the property. Guess which voice was right?

Continue reading “AYoMW: Feb. 18, 2020 – Hungry like the wolf”

Lesson 48: There is nothing to fear.

Today’s lesson makes me laugh – or it makes my ego laugh anyway – manically, in fact. My ego tells me there is absolutely everything to fear in this bodily realm: death, taxes, homelessness, illness, bill collectors, rejection, loneliness, unworthiness, depression. The ego has an endless list of fears it can parade in front of our mind’s eye in every moment of our existence.

I call this the “Yeah, but …” parade, because every time I say, “There’s nothing to fear,” my ego sends a float by emblazoned with “Yeah, but …” what about this or that? What about the fear that you’ll never be able to afford to retire? What about the fear that your bank account will be wiped out by one big, or even one little illness? What about the fear that your government will go fascist and you sat on your butt and typed out thoughts about a spiritual book?

The “Yeah, but …” parade is frightening, and it’s meant to be, because as long as I remain in fear, then the ego has me firmly in its clutches. The ego’s parade tells me stories about how I’ve been done wrong in the past and how those wrongs will continue into the future if I don’t trust it’s plans and take refuge in its “strength” to protect me.

Continue reading “AYoMW: Feb. 17, 2020: Yeah, but …”

Lesson 47: God is the strength in which I trust.

The first three steps in Alcoholics Anonymous can provide a great outline on how to approach today’s lesson. They are:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.

Most people come into 12-step programs after they have hit their so-called “rock bottom,” where they realize, as one program slogan goes, “Your best thinking got you here.”

Continue reading “AYoMW: Feb. 16, 2020 — Your best thinking got you here”

Lesson 46: God is the Love in which I forgive.

As I stood before my father’s grave 20 years ago, intent on forgiving him for the divorce of my mother, his abandonment of our family, and the years of anger, rage and cynicism it had bred within me, I faltered. I had prepared for this moment with my therapist and by reading about forgiveness and release. But, in that moment, my grievance with him outweighed my intended forgiveness.

I let loose on him. I stood before that headstone and listed all of my grievances – the keen sense of abandonment, betrayal and anger his actions had stirred in me. My entire identity had been wrapped up in that moment when my father left our home, only to reappear through phone calls and infrequent in-person visits. My rage at him was palpable in that moment.

I knew nothing about A Course in Miracles during this time, but I believe that I was finally able to forgive my father through God’s Love and not my own. My own petty, small, conditional love could never reach a place of forgiveness for the man I blamed for my hard, cynical life that followed in his wake of betrayal and abandonment.

In that moment, even though I did not consciously know about this metaphysical law, God was the Love that enabled me to forgive.

Continue reading “AYoMW: Feb. 15, 2020 — Father forgive me …”

Lesson 45: God is the Mind with which I think.

I admit, most of the time, I am not in my right mind. I believe all the thoughts that pass through my head in any given moment. I believe the thought that someone I love is mad at me, or the thought that my boss is plotting my demise because some other thought told me that I should feel guilty for screwing up an assignment. Other thoughts tell me that the world is on fire and I can’t do anything about it and that all leaders are liars and cheats anyway and the world would be better off without humans.

So many thoughts, sparking so many worthless anxieties, fears and doubts. Sure, there are some happy thoughts in the mix, but they are usually overwhelmed by fear-  or guilt-based thoughts that seem to take root much more quickly in my psyche.

“Salvation,” A Course in Miracles says in chapter 4, “is nothing more than ‘right-mindedness,’ which is not the One-mindedness of the Holy Spirit, but which must be achieved before One-mindedness is restored.”

Continue reading “AYoMW: Feb. 14, 2020 — I must be outta my mind!”