Love's Beginning

I received guidance to review all 365 lessons upon completing the calendar lessons in the ACIM Workbook, so this will have multiple parts.

Chapter 6: The Lessons of Love
VI. The Lessons of the Holy Spirit
A. To Have, Give All to All

“The body neither lives nor dies, because it cannot contain you who are life.” 💚

There is a difference between laughing at the idea that separation could ever be real and laughing separate aspects of a separation that you believe is real. The difference is feeling–the one thing you are capable of judging. In the first case, your laughter releases you into reality. In the second case, you believe that there is something particularly unfortunate about fantasy, treating fantasy as if it is real. When you laugh at the idea that separation could be real, here you Are, safe at Home in Reality. When you laugh at an aspect of the illusion while believing you’re in it, you keep yourself believing it is real.

Meet sameness and safety everywhere you go today. Behind every surface that you see, the sameness here is your safety and the safety of all. Ego judgments are always positive and negative evaluations of surfaces in comparison with each other. Your only peace is beyond all comparison and separation, and it is always available to you and all. Rest here because the invitation to do so is always open.

Ego's positive and negative emotional offerings fail to disturb when you remember how powerful and helpful Reality is 💚

When you follow the only thing that is Real, you flow with what is Real in everyone and everything. Keep your eyes and heart open to what is Real and present in everyone and everything. You are connected with it forever, as are all. From this foundation of what is Real, you will be shown the way. As you are shown, all are shown.

Ego gives you a separate and limited definition of self to fall back on and make your home, and it calls this security. Whenever you feel any degree of tension or stress, this is what is happening–you are attempting to use thought to find a home that can never be your true home. It may seem to be that a person “out there” has a very wrong and unfair view, and this is the cause of your tension, but this is not so. Here you are, separate from that one, with a more accurate view. Here is the limited home of your separate identity you are trying to make safe, but it can never be safe.

How are you going to see someone as they Are when you’re busy defending who they aren’t? Whenever you are busy judging or analyzing someone as separate, whether the judgment seems to be positive or negative, you have lost sight of who they Are. Having lost sight of who they Are, you have lost sight of who you Are because you are the same forever.

Your mind projects things for you to perceive, and then ego offers you thoughts that interpret what you are perceiving. Behind all this, the light is always shining. You are learning to place your primary focus upon and trust in this light. This light guides. This light is what you are, what loves that one called other, and what that other actually is. The reality is always behind the surface. The ego will label surfaces–some good, and some bad. Then you see a drama enacted based upon interpretations of good and bad. Look behind the drama. Here is the light.

Picture this: Two missiles, airborne, one seeming to zoom from point A to point B, and one seeming to zoom from point B to point A. Look at them seeming to hold the clear blue sky together in one moment of stillness. You do not know anything about these objects. You do not know where they have been, where they are going, or what they are used for. They just seem to be here, suspended in sky. That’s it. Nothing else. You know nothing about them.

Unconditional love is what you Are and what all others Are always. If you see anything else in the way, it’s just blocking what is actually here. Whatever is blocking what is actually here always, you made it up. You see in your world what you made up.

Judgments can be undone when they are exposed. Any feeling of tension or stress indicates that you have believed a judgment ego delivered to you. Your best option, always, is to notice the thought that ego offered and that you believed. Taking responsibility for the belief, you can then give it to Spirit. Into the spaciousness revealed by giving ego thought to Spirit, genuinely helpful thoughts can occur to you–ones that are effortless to follow.

Your hatred of or pushing against anyone who seems to be here on Earth is your hatred of and pushing against the nonphysical helpers who are here to assist you. Essentially, it is your hatred of yourself and God. You can’t hate yourself without hating God, because you and God are inextricably joined forever. “Knowing better” than someone is hatred. Being able to analyze someone or their motives is hatred. Breaking down a whole into separate parts that never existed–hatred. Hatred seems to oppose the wholeness of us, but that is all it can do. It can only seem to oppose 💚

Ego doesn’t know anything about anything. It manufactures perception based on the thoughts you believe. When you feel troubled, remember that the cause is manufactured perception. It is never anything real, no matter how real it seems. Remember that there is a force with you, by your side, that can, as you allow it, show you goodness-without-opposite undistorted.

There is only one thing about you that is Real, and that thing is the same thing that is Real about every being without exception. Go inward until you cannot go inward any more, and you are resting in this one real thing, this true dwelling place of all. Your job is to learn how to take all direction from this inward, shared place.

Take your ease in what is actually Here. Nothing of time-space is actually here. This is what you have dreamed into apparent existence. The only thing that can truly be here is goodness-without-opposite, peace unending, and love ever-present. If you are seeing anything else, it means that there is still an impulse to cover up what is Real, what can never be damaged or hurt.

All of the grief you think you see in the world is actually a reflection of all the pain you’ve been holding onto. It seems very real, but the pain and the grief can never be more real than love. They are that which covers up ever-present love, and it is good to feel them because that means you have noticed your attachment to them. When you have noticed your attachment to pain and grief, you can take responsibility for this attachment.

You don’t have to attempt to change a separate self to please someone or to avoid displeasing someone. You are not a separate self, and you gain no value from the pretend separateness, positively or negatively judged, of any self seen through this distorted lens. The one you would please or displease is also seen as separate, which cannot ever be. Focus on what is actual here–that which joins you with the one you would please or displease right now, and all struggle to make an impression on anyone vanishes.

Notice your address. Home is everywhere in everything. Whenever you feel the least twinge of stress or tension, this is ego telling you that your home is in time and space, and your job is to find a form of safety in these limits. What you are learning to do now is to maintain your awareness that all are at Home in light and love right now, despite what senses report.

The only tyranny you can experience is the tyranny you have imposed upon yourself. No matter what the world seems to be doing, no matter what others seem to be doing, it is only an illusion that came at your request. It’s not anything you can judge or analyze, but you can remember that it came at your request, and there is always a higher power to which you can apply.

The world can’t show you anything you lack. It can reflect back a symbol of what you already have. You are here to allow the entire world to reflect back in symbols of peace. Peace is what you Are, and if it is what you Are, it is what everyone you call else Is and always has been, too. Peace is what you all always will be. You cannot escape it, but you can attempt to deny it by distracting yourselves with illusions.

Everything you see and experience is made to order. It is made by you. You can make what you see and experience in time and space under the guidance of what you Are, or you can make it while believing that you are subject to time and space, and that separate aspects of time and space can attack you and others. This is the basic choice of every moment. Trust the guidance of what you Are, and time and space are merely helpers on the way Home, no longer the uncontrollable monsters or granters of wishes that you have believed them to be.

The light is behind everything. The ego sees opposing surfaces and judges them. The ego sees and evaluates surfaces, sorting them into “I want” and “I don’t want.” These are actually the same thing–attachment to and valuing the manufactured surfaces you see in a world. When you are valuing a surface, you are ignoring a shared nature.

Instead of depending on the perception of separate others, you can depend on God. God can inspire all, so what you see is a loving constellation. You are accustomed to depending upon your own perception, the one you invented, the one that can only come from disorder. You perceive nothing real, and you keep yourself in torment because of this.

God provides a script we can follow. There is always a path to follow that holds no distress, no tension, and no judgment. For a while,you think the path of judgment and tension gives you something reality can’t, so you attempt to follow it. As you feel through the layers of lies to which you attached, you begin to see that what you want is not to be right about something in a world of false perception that you made up. You want to be happy, and you want this happiness for everyone.

Resolution of problems is a service you allow to be performed for you. If there is any sense of a separate you with a burden of a problem–a problem you must solve–then rest for a moment and remember that solutions are plentiful and are given to all freely. Solutions are made obvious. Every seeming problem is a chance to see that solutions are made obvious for you because you are always loved. You must go past the perception of your separate autonomy to accept all the solutions available to you now.

Knowing will carry you. It’s not your knowing–a knowing that belongs to a separate you or a separate anyone else. It’s a knowing from Spirit–from our unified identity, that can be expressed through anyone or anything as you allow it. Depending on this universal knowing is always safe.

Wanting someone’s approval is wanting judgment. If you want anyone at all to see you in a specific way, you are asking them to see you as separate. Then it is guaranteed that you will see them as separate. You cannot yearn for approval without the presence of tension, so let your awareness of tension tell you what you are up to in thought. When you become aware that you are seeing something unreal–something that connects two or more separate selves, but not all separate selves, you can remember Reality. The Reality is all perceived selves are joined as one right now.