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ACIM Website For Japanese Course Students
Calling All Japanese Course Students:
Here is a wonderful website to help in understanding and applying…
“A Course in Miracles”
(click here)
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And for JACIM.com youtube channel…
(click here)
Thursdays @ 6pm Mt. : Classes on Dr. Kenneth Wapnick Books on ACIM
Online Zoom Classes on Ken Wapnick’s books on A Course in Miracles:
Click here for the Weekly Class Schedule.
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The video replays of these classes is available to all SFACIM monthly donors… for details, click here.
We suggest getting hard copies of the books, and not the download version… to be able to more easily follow along in class… The quickest way to get a hard copy of each book is on Amazon Prime.
Ken Wapnick’s Books on Thursdays
Next Book starting on June 1st, 2023:
from Amazon…
“To Judge or Not To Judge”
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from FACIM.org:
click here
Happy Thanksgiving: Be grateful! Our sinlessness is an… “Already-Done-Deal !”
Yet our own redemption is done already, and unless you give all that you have received you will not know that you have awakened with him, your brother… already.
(Text p.209, par. 9)
One of the striking differences between ACIM and traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and most New Age spiritualities is that… A Course in Miracles takes an ‘already-done-deal’ approach.
Most western religious and spiritual paths assume something is really wrong to begin with, and then go about trying to fix it or evolve beyond it. To them, sin and separation are devastatingly real. The Course specifically sets up its version of the Atonement (that nothing happened), right in its Introduction to the Text on page 1.
This Intro immediately spells out that this is not a course about love, loving, or evolving somehow towards love, or even making the world a better place in which to live… but on letting go of our own judgements of others and ourselves which block our awareness that we are still beings of Love:
“The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim however at removing the blocks to the (our) awareness of love’s presence, which is our natural inheritance.” (Text, p.1)
So then, this is simply a course about undoing those blocks, in our minds, to realizing that love is already a done deal, and our true Identity is still part of that Love… period. We are God’s children, always have been, always will be. The Course shows us how to stop pretending that we’re not eternally part of God’s Love… insisting in our criticizing, fixing, and sometimes even ‘helping,’ that we are not ‘still’ as God created us.
“But when I willingly and gladly go the way my Father’s plan appointed me to go, then will I recognize salvation is already here, already given all my brothers and already mine as well.” (Les.#317)
So what’s my Father’s plan? In the Course’s 1300 plus pages, Jesus is always encouraging us to look at each other differently by asking the Holy Spirit for help ‘to see beyond the veil,’ see beyond the differences we think we see and even cherish. Early on in the Course he also states that this course is not about behavior (Text p.29, par.2-3). It is not about what we do or don’t do, but about how we “see” each other.
And more to the point: with whom are we seeing or perceiving… our ego or the Holy Spirit? Jesus tells us we have this internal place called the mind, where we are constantly choosing between one of these two teachers or inner guides. (NB: This internal place is not what the world calls our brain, but a deep place within us the Course describes as the ‘mind.’) When we choose the ego as our teacher, we see separation and blame. When we choose the Holy Spirit, we experience the Atonement, that nothing happened and our true Identity is still intact.
Problem is, when we are choosing the ego, we’re not really conscious of that choice… but we do feel its effects. We are irritable, judgmental, and certainly not peaceful. We are quick to point out that our discontent is not our responsibility, but we easily finger-point the culprit as something or somebody else. It’s amazing when we go thru the course of our day, and begin to realize… how many times each and every day we are blaming, and how much we are on high alert to find a new drama where we can find and accuse others of robbing us of our peace.
However, choosing to ask the Holy Spirit to perceive and experience people and things differently is a very conscious and vigilant effort. We first honestly look at how hateful our thinking and seeing is, and even tho we believe we are right, we admit how painful it is to hold onto that righteousness. (Would I rather be right or happy?) This becomes the motivation to hope that ‘there must be a better way,’ and I begin to be a little more willing to find and try that ‘better way’. The better way for Course students is the Course’s process of forgiveness, ie. learning to ‘see’ differently. We forgive, or let go, of our way of viewing the world full of victims and victimizers. Then we allow, or let, the Holy Spirit’s vision, of what we truly are, take its place.
(Lesson Titles #31-35)
Forgiveness in the Course is a return to the awareness of the “Done Deal.” Whatever our eyes might be telling us, we ask for the Holy Spirit’s gift of vision to see/experience that our brother’s innocence (and ultimately our own) is still intact… already there and present, no matter what they are doing or not. This doesn’t mean, in terms of behavior, that we don’t do the next appropriate and helpful thing. But it does mean that while we are doing whatever our chosen behavior is, in our heart of hearts, we come to know we are each already ok, already saved, and already God’s one Son.
This is not some pie-in-the-sky made up fantasy. For those of us who have practiced the Course’s forgiveness, we experience that this is the reality behind all the seeming facades that ’cause’ us to blame and condemn. We actually begin to feel and know, about ourselves and others, what Jesus consistently tells us in Lessons #201 thru 220:
“I am not a body. I am free. I am still (already) as God created me.”
Thank you Jesus!
and Happy Thanksgiving!
This Thurs. 11/23 @ 10am Mountain Time
Special Online Thanksgiving Celebration
with Tim & Lyn
Replay of video from SFACIM on a discussion of “gratitude”:
click here
Also a five minute youtube clip on Ken Wapnick speaking about our gratitude to Jesus for giving us his Course in Miracles:
Click here
Coming soon…
Six Month Online
The Immersion 2024
Musings: On ‘Idols’ in “A Course in Miracles”
Idols & Idolatry
(The word ‘idol’ is used 172 times in the Course)
Definitions of “Idol” from Ken Wapnick’s Glossary of Course Terms:
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A false belief that there can be something or someone other than God or more than God.
- Symbol of the substitution of the ego for our one true Self or God.
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A belief in separation projected onto special relationships with things, people, or ideas.
- The Anti-Christ
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The first idol we made-up in our minds (and in a sense worshipped) was our belief that we could be a separated Son of God, autonomous and distinct from our Father in Heaven. The Course calls that “new” identity/idol ego. This silly belief gets projected onto time and space, with all our worldly idols a reflection of that original mistaken error.
These ‘idols’ includes all our special love and hate relationships, with things and people we like, and things and people we don’t like. All those “idols” are simply mirrors of that believed separation within us in our mind. That is their purpose in the world… to keep us involved in all the worldly drama, and not realize their source.
The way out, of taking this seemingly gigantic hallucination seriously, is to see past those worldly idols and be willing to have an experience beyond them (with Jesus and the Holy Spirit’s help), to the true innocence of others and ourselves as God’s One Son, still intact. The Course calls that willingness forgiveness.
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Use of Word “Idols” in the Course:
- Ch. 10, Sec. III, p.185, par. 1 & 5 “The God of Sickness”… on idol of sickness:
“A sick god must be an idol...that is exactly what the ego does perceive in a Son of God….a sick god, self-created, self-sufficient, very vicious and vulnerable.”
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- Ch. 20, Sec. VI, p.436 “The Temple of the Holy Spirit” … on bodies as idols:
“The body is the ego’s idol...a wall of flesh around the mind.”
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- Ch. 29, Sec. VII, p.617. par. 6 “Seek not Outside Yourself” … on idol of death:
“Idols must fail/fall because they have no life…you came to die…and you see death and disappointment everywhere.”
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- Ch. 29, Sec. VIII, p.619 “The Anti-Christ” … on the idol of Anti-Christ:
“What is an idol? Nothing… Where is an idol? Nowhere.”
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- Ch.29, Sec. IX, p.622 “The Forgiving Dream” … on idols as nightmarish toys:
“Whenever you feel fear in any form… be sure you have made an idol, and believe it will betray you.”
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- Ch. 30, Sec. III, p.630 “Beyond All Idols”… on seeking idols to complete us:
“This is the purpose of an idol: that you will not look beyond (your needing) it, to the source of the belief that you are incomplete.”
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- Ch. 30, Sec. IV, p.633 “The Truth behind Illusions”… more on idols as toys:
“The wearying, dissatisfying gods you made are blown-up children’s toys…The rules he (the child) made for boxes and for bears have failed him…and he is afraid.”
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- Ch. 30, Sec. V, p.635 “The Only Purpose”… on idols as blocks to the real world:
Our experience of the Real World takes place… “when we learn how easily our idols go when not wanted any more.”
Ken Wapnick You Tube Videos… on “Christmas and The New Year”
Five minute youtube clips on Ken Wapnick speaking about Christmas:
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and the New Year:
Also…
A New Kind of New Year’s Resolution :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feQXDh-H-6M
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“On Ken’s Relationship with Helen”,” 10 minutes, (click here);
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One Hour Interview with Ken Wapnick By Ken Bok... click here
See latest book release from FACIM based on Ken’s writings: click here
And… A Tribute to Ken upon His Passing:
Ken was my teacher, living example of the Course and dear friend. My first experience of Ken was hearing a cassette of “this guy from New York who edited that course” explaining why I’d immediately forget the paragraph in the text that I just read. My last experience of Ken was at the Foundation workshop I attended last year where he once again illuminated the Course’s holy trinity: Forgiveness, Love and Joining.
I was overjoyed when the Foundation relocated to Temecula, and I could get my heart and soul refreshed and reawakened in The Oasis of Peace that Ken made the Foundation. I delighted in watching him welcome new and veteran Course students with smiles, hugs, the occasional prank and always loving attentiveness to each of us.
Ken truly brought the Course to life. I sought his help when I was in a desperate heart of darkness period. This was just one of the many conversations we had during that dark time. Through tears I said, “Ken, I feel as if I’ve painted myself into a corner and can’t get out.” Ken reflected a moment, and looking at me lovingly with his familiar impish smile said, “You don’t have to wait for the paint to dry.” I see his smile and feel his love now and always.
Musings… How Could the Separation Ever Have Happened??
(by Tim Wise)
In the 1980’s the Talking Heads rock group had a song that kept repeating the line… “Well, how did I get here?”
Probably the most often question ever asked by both new and ongoing Course students is this: How did we/why would we ever leave the oneness and the peace of Heaven, and then separate into something else… if oneness is our true reality.
What is the Course’s short and quick answer to “How did the impossible happen?”… It didn’t!
There are actually three ways the Course approaches and doesn’t answer this ego-based inquiry:
(1) It’s An Assertion, Not a Question
1) It’s not really an innocent question, the Course explains, but rather a statement masquerading as a question. We have already wrongly defined ourselves as separated beings. Now we are similar to two year olds throwing a fit and stamping our feet, insisting on something not real or helpful. We are demanding an explanation from God as to how that exodus from Heaven took place. As with any loving and caring father dealing with a tantrum, there’s not a lot He can say… but simply quietly wait for the tantrum to stop. (Text: p. 376, par.4 & The Quiet Answer p. 574-6)
“Who asks you to define the ego and explain how it arose can be but he who thinks it real, and seeks by definition to ensure that its illusive nature is concealed behind the words that seem to make it so” (Man. p. 81 par. 2).
(2) It’s Not Only in the Past- It’s Happening Now Too!
2) At one point Jesus said to Bill Thetford, when Bill asked him about how the separation happened… “why are you asking about something that seemingly happened in the past (The Big Separation from God), when you believe you are doing it right now?” In any given moment there is only one of two thoughts being projected into our awareness in time and space… either separation (and it’s not our fault), or forgiveness (the Course’s Atonement principle which says separation never did happen, and isn’t happening even now). That all solely depends on which internal teacher we are choosing in this very second, the ego or the Holy Spirit. (Text p.85, par. 6 & p.179, par. 11-12)
“It is reasonable to ask how the mind could ever have made the ego. In fact, it is the best question you could ask. (Because, the ‘best’ answer is…. it din’t.) There is, however, no point in giving an answer in terms of the past because the past does not matter, and history would not exist if the same errors were not being repeated in the present” (Ch. 4, p. 56, Sec. II, par. 1).
(3) Ask for An Experience, Not An Explanation
3) And finally the most comforting description of this process of addressing this belief… Jesus says that when we practice forgiveness in our minds with others and ourselves, this question/belief will simply fade away, into the unreality from which it came. In other words, an experience of our true connection and identity as one Son of God is the direct result of forgiveness. We will know the disconnect never happened, despite the separated images we still seem to see. Then the question “well, how did I get here” becomes irrelevant, and we totally lose our investment in needing an impossible answer to a silly question. The simple answer to the question “how did the the separation ever happen?” is… it didn’t. (Manual p. 77, par. 3-4)
“The ego will demand many answers that this course does not give. It does not recognize as questions the mere form of a question to which an answer is impossible. The ego may ask, ‘How did the impossible occur?’, ‘To what did the impossible happen?’, and may ask this in many forms. Yet there is no answer; only an experience. Seek only this, and do not let theology delay you.” (Man. p. 77 par.4)
https://youtu.be/_lQYJCYIIsA
For further discussion of our ‘leaving Heaven’
see Ken Wapnick’s CD set or MP3 download on
“The Four Splits” (click here),
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For an SFACIM post on the ‘way back’ to Heaven thru
“The 3 Steps of Forgiveness”: click here
Musings: on Gratitude… and Thanksgiving
“Love makes no comparisons.
And gratitude can only be sincere if it be joined to love.”
(by Lyn Corona)
First, I want to make sure that we know what the ego is and the way that it sees the world.
The ego is the belief in separated, locatable self. The mind mistakenly identifies with the body believing it to be its home. Specialness is the main attribute of the ego, meaning that it sees the world and everything in it from a self-centered point of view. It’s all about ” me”.
From the ego’s point of view the world is one of two things: a prison house or a playground. As long as any perception supports the idea of a separate self, winner or loser, the ego is happy.
This lesson contrasts the ego’s notion of gratitude, which is based on differences and comparison, with the true and only reason to be grateful: love that is not of this world.
The lesson invites us to change our thinking so that our gratitude reflects truth. We can only be grateful for what is real. Love is truth and truth is Oneness. “Love makes no comparisons. And gratitude can only be sincere if it be joined to love.”
Our addiction to specialness (the disease of the ego) is exposed throughout the lessons of A Course in Miracles. This is not to shame us into changing behavior, but to help us see what needs seeing. What remains hidden from our awareness cannot be gone beyond. It remains as a “block to the awareness of love’s presence.”
Specialness is sickness. It is insanity and it is necessary to admit that we are insane before we can become happy learners. Separation is simply a wild idea in the mind that is taken seriously.
“Love Is the Way I Walk in Gratitude” also shows us the way we would see if we accepted Atonement which is the Course’s correction for insanity. What Atonement means is that we never separated from Oneness, never made a body, were never born and can never die. It means that the thought of separation in our mind had no effect.
Hear this: the thought of separation had no effect because it was not God’s Thought. God’s is the original thought and we cannot think apart from Him. The thought of separation is a secret, private thought that we believe to be true, therefore, we are the only ones that can change it.
Our only spiritual responsibility is to accept that the thought of separation had no effect, and that we have no power over God.
God is Love and Love has been defined by Him. The ego’s version of love is specialness. It is the belief that we can and did triumph over God.
Gratitude is to God because we could not/did not succeed in changing ourselves or reality. When this is accepted, as this lesson points out, we will be truly grateful. The ego’s version of gratitude– to be grateful because you are better off than someone else– is “pitiful and deprecating”.
Note: A Course in Miracles uses metaphor—images and symbols—to help us understand our situation. For example, in this lesson it mentions “escape from prison.” These images and symbols refer to a condition in our mind.
Similarly the story of the Holy Spirit descending from God and blanketing us in love and whispering in our ear until we accept that we are loving and lovable is a story. The purpose is to open our minds and hearts to the possibility that love is all there is and has no opposite.
SFACIM Videos on
Thanksgiving & Gratitude:
Also, click here for Jim on Les. 123
“I thank my Father for His gifts to me” :
https://youtu.be/cBT1KxpYyhc
Happy New Year 2023 !!!
(by Lyn Corona)
“Make This Year Different by Making It All the Same.”
A new year’s resolution…
Jesus knows he is speaking to a ‘drowning man’ in A Course in Miracles. Every sentence is a lifeline. This one, “Make this year different by making all the same,” is given as a command. It will save us if we grab it, understand it, and do what he says.
The Course’s new year’s resolution comes at the end of Chapter 15, The Holy Instant, the holy instant being the time in which minds are joined in Christ’s love without body identity interference. It is also the chapter in which Jesus speaks about “the season” (Christmas) of his birth, and how we should celebrate it by joining him in holiness. Why not? What have we got to lose?
There always seems to be some justification for the lack of love we feel…some exception we would rather cling to than grab the lifeline of forgiveness. I could feel love if it weren’t for that situation, that person, that event, etc. That’s what we tell ourselves.
I recently attended a concert in which one of the songs was Meatloaf’s “I Will Do Anything for Love.” It’s a powerful thought, but the chorus went like this:
“I will do anything for love, but I won’t do that THAT !”
Jesus’ New Year’s resolution requires that we look at all the “thats”. They are all the people that we won’t release to the Holy Spirit, but would prefer to use them to imprison ourselves as bodies, and them along with us. That will surely keep us from the love we say we would do anything for. That will surely keep us from our holiness.
Jesus introduces the resolution with this poignant recognition of our mutual imprisonment as bodies and our joint release in the holy instant in which there are no bodies. It goes like this:
“I give you (name of person) to the Holy Spirit as part of myself.
I know that you will be released, unless I want to use you to imprison myself.
In the name of my freedom I choose your release, because
I recognize that we will be released together.”
We either release or imprison. There is nothing in between. All our relationships could be made holy by giving them to the Holy Spirit who knows how to make of them something beautiful and fulfilling in contrast to the ego’s use to hurt and blame ourselves.
Image the the world in our minds if we were willing to not make any exceptions. What if everyone was seen the same… worthy of being released to love. It would indeed be a different world. This is what Jesus means when he says, “make this year different by making it all the same.” He asks us to give all our relationships, especially the ones we are using to victimize ourselves, to The One Who can show us our shared reality of holiness instead.
“Make this year different by making it all the same. And let all your relationships be made holy for you. This is our will. Amen.”
Happy New Year!
Lyn
Online Course Immersion One
Six Month Intensive from January thru June, 2023,
2nd & 4th Sundays @ 9:30am-12pm Mt. Time
Designed for New “A Course in Miracles” Students…
and anyone desiring to immerse themselves in a profound understanding and practice of the Course.
Click here for info
What is my real purpose for this new year?
click here
Ken Wapnick Videos on Death & Tim’s Recommended Movies about Death
Ken Wapnick 5 minute videos on “Death”:
(click refresh if videos don’t appear)
click here
For Ken’s Foundation’s Youtube channel with over 200 (ten minute or less) videos:
click here
Some thought-provoking movies about death and dying and the afterlife:
1) Ghost… the classic with Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, and Whoopi Goldberg
*** 2) Coco…. beautiful animated CGI flick about Day of the Dead
*** 3) Departures… wonderful Japanese movie about forgiveness and respect
* 4) Hearts and Souls… funny and insightful with Robert Downey Jr, where 4 dead souls “haunt” him and work out their unresolved issues thru him.
5) What Dreams May Come… Robin Williams looking for his wife in the afterlife
* 6) Meet Joe Black… Anthony Hopkins as the dying man and Brad Pitt as “Death,” who has come to get him.
** 7) Flatliners… unusual movie about a group of med students who take turns taking their lives and bringing each other back, and in so doing learn some powerful forgiveness lessons, with very young Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, and Julia Roberts.
*** 8) Six Feet Under TV series… one of the best tv series ever! It’s about a family running a funeral home in LA and their many conversations with the dead folks they are working on…
* 9) All of Me… funny movie about souls inhabiting other bodies after death, with Lily Tomlin (the inhabiter) and Steve Martin (the inhabited)
10) One for The Angels… another classic: Ed Wynn meets Mr. Death in a 1959 Twilight Zone Show (Season 1, #2) on Netflix… click here
*** 11) Collateral Beauty… Ed Norton hires three actors to play Death (H. Mirren), Time, and Love to help his friend Will Smith get past his grieving. (A Tim & Lyn favorite!)
12) The Seventh Seal… Ingmar Bergman at his best, about a knight returning from Crusades and his interactions and conversations and chess game with Death.
13) Two X-Files Shows… [1]”Tithonus” (6th Season, Eps. 10) about a photographer who can’t die: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B001DCEK96/ref=atv_dp_season_select_s6
* 14) [2] “How The Ghost Stole Christmas” :(6th Season, Eps. 6)
Ed Asner and Lily Tomlin as two dead souls that haunt Mulder and Scully on Xmas Eve : https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001DCEKAU
15) Heaven Can Wait… clever and funny, with Warren Beatty as dead soul mistakenly taken and James Mason as angel-in-charge.
** 16) Sixth Sense… part horror flick/part moving drama about afterlife, with Bruce Willis (nominated for 6 Academy Awards)
* 17) Brand New Testament… Very very quirky movie where God’s daughter releases (on everyone’s cell phone) the date they are going to die….
* 18) A Little Bit of Heaven… with Kate Hudson as woman who finds out she is terminally ill.
19) PS I Love You… Wife finds letters (with helpful suggestions for her) from her dying husband to her… after he dies, with Hillary Swank, Gerald Butler, and Kathy Bates.
** 20) Biutiful….Inarritu directs, Bardem stars as the dying man
*** 21) Amour… touching movie about love between elderly French couple. It won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated in four other categories: Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, and Best Director.
** 22 & 23) Dead Man Walking & The Green Mile… two very great movies about death row.
*** 24) Kodachrome… on Netflix, movie with Ed Harris as disgruntled dying parent on road trip with his estranged son.
25) Whose Life Is It Anyway?… Richard Dreyfus as man who fights for his right to die.
(The above starred *** shows are particularly recommended!)
School for A Course in Miracles
You Tube Channel:
(Please Subscribe!… thanks.)
(click here)
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