r/ACIM

Salvation lies in the simple fact that illusions are not fearful because they are not TRUE. They but seem to be fearful to the extent to which you fail to recognize them for what they are, and you WILL fail to do this to the extent to which you WANT them to be true. And to the same extent you are DENYING truth, and so are making yourself unable to make the simple choice between truth and illusion; God and fantasy. Remember this, and you will have no difficulty in perceiving the decision as just what it IS, and nothing more.

Does anyone here listen to podcasts and/or YouTube ACIM content? What have you found to be the best, most uplifting, ones, staying close to the Course?

Anyone they know for sure they communicate with the Holy Spirit if so how do you know it’s the Holy Spirit and not yourself ? I’ve been trying but I don’t know if it’s me or the Holy Spirit thanks 🙏

Can I heal someone who doesn't seem to want to be healed? is my basic question and if so how?

Can I heal someone who seems to want to hang on to the identity of sickness?

...so I kind of get seeing someone through their sickness, although this can be difficult when living with someone who takes a lot of medication and needs assistance sometimes with basic things.

and I guess it would be me projecting that they want the identity of being sick? or can I separate their true self from their ego? and comment and see what the ego is doing?

In any situation is this right thinking? can I see another's ego and true self or is truly seeing someone's true self, looking past ego behavior and only seeing them.

LESSON 230.
Now will I seek and find the peace of God.
In peace I was created. And in peace do I remain. It is not given me to change my Self. How merciful is God my Father, that when He created me He gave me peace forever. Now I ask but to be what I am. And can this be denied me, when it is forever true?
Father, I seek the peace You gave as mine in my creation. What was given then must be here now, for my creation was apart from time, and still remains beyond all change. The peace in which Your Son was born into Your Mind is shining there unchanged. I am as You created me. I need but call on You to find the peace You gave. It is Your Will that gave it to Your Son.

Only Love can warm the Spirit.
Only Love can melt fear.
Only Love can bring understanding to all grievances and resentments.

Love ourselves.
Forgive ourselves.
Accept ourselves.
Embrace ourselves with Forgiveness, compassion, and warmth.
Bless ourselves.
Embrace ourselves.

And then, with a heart that has learned to warm and embrace itself, embrace everyone.

This is the aspiration for renunciation.

At every moment, in every situation, embrace your karmic habits and feelings with the purity of Forgiveness and unconditional Love, allowing your body, mind, and Spirit to remain in a state of boundless warmth and the purity of eternal Love.

Love has forgotten no one.

LESSON 229.
Love, which created me, is what I am.
I seek my own Identity, and find It in these words: “Love, which created me, is what I am.” Now need I seek no more. Love has prevailed. So still It waited for my coming home, that I will turn away no longer from the holy face of Christ. And what I look upon attests the truth of the Identity I sought to lose, but which my Father has kept safe for me.
Father, my thanks to You for what I am; for keeping my Identity untouched and sinless, in the midst of all the thoughts of sin my foolish mind made up. And thanks to You for saving me from them. Amen.

LESSON 227.
This is my holy instant of release.
Father, it is today that I am free, because my will is Yours. I thought to make another will. Yet nothing that I thought apart from You exists. And I am free because I was mistaken, and did not affect my own reality at all by my illusions. Now I give them up, and lay them down before the feet of truth, to be removed forever from my mind. This is my holy instant of release. Father, I know my will is one with Yours.
And so today we find our glad return to Heaven, which we never really left. The Son of God this day lays down his dreams. The Son of God this day comes home again, released from sin and clad in holiness, with his right mind restored to him at last.

Let us look past the soothing language for a moment and examine the foundational mechanics of A Course in Miracles through a lens of rigorous skepticism. When one reads the text, several profound and deeply problematic questions arise that seem to demand a serious defense from those who take it seriously. First, what are we to make of the historical timeline? If this represents the authentic voice and wisdom of Jesus, why the staggering, millennia-long silence? Why did the supposed author withhold this vital reality through centuries of unrelenting human plague, war, and misery, only to finally transmit it in the twentieth century through the stenography of Helen Schucman? Second, how does one navigate an epistemological system that appears entirely immune to falsification? By asserting that we are already asleep in heaven and that all human reasoning, science, and empirical observation are merely products of an illusory ego, ACIM builds an airtight fortress. If every counter-argument or piece of contrary evidence is automatically diagnosed as a symptom of the illusion itself, how is a thinking person supposed to evaluate the claim? What external standard of truth is left if all verification tools are discarded from the start? Finally, what are the real-world moral implications of this worldview? When physical agony and tangible human suffering are categorized not as objective realities to be fought and alleviated, but as unreal projections of a sleeping mind, does this not risk sliding into a profound moral evasion? How do practitioners ensure that viewing suffering as an illusion does not inadvertently minimize the actual, screaming pain of the world that demands our intervention? I am genuinely curious how students of the Course address these three pillars: the historical delay, the unfalsifiable premise, and the ethical weight of calling reality a phantom.

Ramana Maharshi advocated a spiritual practice called self-inquiry, asking the question, “Who am I?” I believe many people have heard of this practice, and perhaps some have even tried it, only to find that it didn't seem to bring them much.

I encountered this practice even before I encountered ACIM. That was more than ten years ago. I tried it briefly at the time, but nothing much seemed to happen. The first time I truly experienced its effect was a few months ago. I was feeling very unhappy, and my mind seemed to be completely tangled up in itself. Then I suddenly remembered this practice and gave it a try. My distress disappeared surprisingly quickly, and I went from feeling depressed and troubled to feeling joyful and happy.

After that, I still didn't pay much attention to the practice. Then, about a week ago, I found myself in another state of intense inner conflict. I tried self-inquiry again, and once again my emotions improved very quickly. So I have been practicing it throughout this past week, and the experience has been very good. Eventually, I started wondering why it seemed to work so well.

It seems to me that spiritual practices can roughly be divided into two categories: those that deal with thoughts directly, and those that deal with thoughts indirectly.

By directly dealing with thoughts, I mean approaches such as ACIM, where we replace old ways of thinking with new ones, or Byron Katie's The Work, where we question the beliefs we have taken for granted.

Indirect approaches, on the other hand, leave our existing belief system aside for the moment. Instead, through practices such as chanting the name of Buddha, engaging in repetitive or rhythmic movements, or asking “Who am I?”, we turn toward the Self. In this process, the Self itself seems to take care of the thoughts.

One difficulty with approaches that work directly on thoughts is that they can easily lead to trying too hard. We may unconsciously force ourselves to be mindful. In practicing ACIM, for example, we may force ourselves to forgive. When we are not in a good state, we may try even harder to think in the “right” way. But in doing so, we may actually be struggling with the ego.

I have experienced this kind of inner struggle many times before. And what makes it particularly difficult is that, while it is happening, it can be very hard to recognize that we are actually fighting with ourselves.

I think this kind of suppression and inner struggle can easily arise in many spiritual traditions. According to a particular teaching, we are supposed to live in a certain way or think in a certain way. But very often, there is an element of self-suppression and inner conflict involved. Perhaps this is also one reason why ACIM places so much emphasis on the Holy Spirit. The ego is incredibly subtle and cunning, and even the best spiritual teachings can be distorted by the ego to some degree.

But following the guidance of the Holy Spirit is not necessarily easy. Among all the students of A Course in Miracles, it seems that very few people are able to hear the Holy Spirit's guidance directly. The only person I know of who describes this kind of experience is David Hoffmeister, who began hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit after about two years of practice.

For a long time, I wished that I could be like David. If I could hear the Holy Spirit directly, then I would know what I should do and what I should say. But unfortunately, that hasn't happened for me. And sometimes this makes forgiveness feel like a responsibility that I have to carry entirely on my own.

Of course, I have gained a great deal from practicing forgiveness. But from time to time, it can also feel heavy. Sometimes I feel that I haven't forgiven enough. Sometimes I feel that something shouldn't be forgiven. And then these different thoughts start fighting with each other.

After I started practicing self-inquiry, I would simply ask myself, “Who am I?”

It is a strange question, because you don't really get an answer. And yet, somehow, it seems to dissolve the ego.

We usually think of our negative thoughts as belonging to the ego. But what is easy to overlook is that the thought that wants to change those negative thoughts is also part of the ego.

For example, I might feel guilty about something. Then I use the teachings of ACIM to try to get rid of that guilt. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. Perhaps the reason is that both the guilt and the thought trying to eliminate the guilt are arising within the ego.

But when I practice self-inquiry, I seem to step outside that whole framework. I ask, “Who is it that feels guilty?”

I don't know.

And I simply keep asking from time to time.

Somehow, I seem to become free from both the guilt and the need to forgive the guilt. And what remains is a sense of lightness and joy.
I don't know exactly why this happens. Perhaps it is because all problems arise from the ego, When you question the ego itself, the ego disappears, and the problem disappears with it. But if you try to improve the ego at the level of the ego, the problem only becomes more complicated and harder to resolve. As Einstein supposedly said, “You cannot solve a problem at the same level of thinking at which it was created.”

Forgiveness requires the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit, forgiveness can easily become another activity of the ego. But if you feel that you are unable to connect with the Holy Spirit, you might want to try the practice of self-inquiry.

LESSON 226.
My home awaits me. I will hasten there.
If I so choose, I can depart this world entirely. It is not death which makes this possible, but it is change of mind about the purpose of the world. If I believe it has a value as I see it now, so will it still remain for me. But if I see no value in the world as I behold it, nothing that I want to keep as mine or search for as a goal, it will depart from me. For I have not sought for illusions to replace the truth.
Father, my home awaits my glad return. Your Arms are open and I hear Your Voice. What need have I to linger in a place of vain desires and of shattered dreams, when Heaven can so easily be mine?

When I pray I ask for something ... I think it usually stems from something that I don't like happening in my life? But I don't "pray" to a higher being but ask Jesus, my brother.

I then remember where I really am, that I am dreaming, and forgive what's bothering me. I guess I try to let go if it happens or not.

I see my forgiveness as collapsing time and suffering, but the results of collapse I may not see. I believe Jesus says all forgiveness has some effect but you may or may not see the effect in the physical world.

Does anyone have any thoughts or feedback on this?

The special relationship is a strange and unnatural ego device for joining hell and Heaven, and making them indistinguishable. And the attempt to find the imagined “best” of both worlds has merely led to fantasies on both, and to the inability to perceive either one as it is. The special relationship is the triumph of this confusion. It is a kind of union from which union is EXCLUDED, and the basis for the ATTEMPT at union rests on exclusion. What better example could there be of the ego’s maxim, “Seek and do not find?”

Nothing to add.

We welcomed a baby girl in March, and I hope to have her baptized. Really, I want a ceremony in a beautiful setting whereby God’s eternal love can be called in via a ceremony. I am considering speaking with a local church (UCC, where I was baptized as a teen) about their openness to baptizing her. I am curious if there are other ACIM parents who had this desire and how it manifested?