Being human is hard or at least, it is for me. Oftentimes, I feel like I do not belong here, in this world. I feel like my home is elsewhere. How can I belong to a world that is so unfeeling, so lacking in compassion and acceptance, so callous? Everywhere I look, I see the devastation – not just in wars and physical destruction but in the eyes of every soul I meet. And yet I also love being here – I love the adventure, the creativity, the exploration and the Love that it has to offer. Everywhere I look, I also see Love in all its forms – the smile of a child, the chirping of birds, the playfulness in young beings, both human and animal. I feel gratitude for being able to witness this and be a part of this Earth. I have found that, for most of humanity, being human is a difficult thing, a challenge, a hurdle to be overcome and yet it is also a joy in so many ways. This is what it means to be in a dualistic world – to experience the range of emotions so that you can walk towards what you want. How can you know what you want unless you know what you don’t want?
We all long for peace and we all want joy and freedom. These are the things we crave, yet we chase after success in the form of material things, only to find that it cannot give us what we so crave. We all want to find peace and joy and all things nice and wonderful but life has a way of throwing you curve balls that shock your soul and leave you feeling vulnerable and full of swirling emotions you want nothing to do with.
In pursuit of peace, I decided I was going to try meditation. I had meditated on and off over the years but did not have a consistent practice. Initially, I meditated for only half an hour a day in the hope of quieting my mind and finding peace. Peace became, and still is, my ultimate goal. As I meditated daily, I found that I was less irritable, less prone to thinking about the things that really bothered me and when I did think about these things, they irritated me less than before. Make no mistake, they still irritated me but the emotional charge was not as strong. I was amazed. Clearly something was working.
About three months later I found a Channeler and Scribe called Tina Louise Spalding. Tina, channels her guides named Ananda (Bliss) and Jesus. I devoured her YouTube Videos and her books. The information contained therein was phenomenal and it really resonated with me. I began to consider that there may be some truth to the information that was coming through Tina and if so, I realized that I was looking at the world and my life in a way that was not serving me.
This is when I was introduced to ‘A COURSE IN MIRACLES” – a text channeled by Jesus through Scribe Helen Schucman. The principal idea behind the text is Forgiveness. It is the central theme in the course and the lessons are all based around this theme in varying degrees.
The first time I did the workbook (365 days of practicing the lessons), I honestly did not understand it. It was baffling and completely not logical. I persevered though, because my desire for peace was so strong that I was willing to endure almost anything to find it.
Over the year and half (yes it took me one and half years to complete the 365 days of lessons) that I did the lessons and listened to the guidance provided by the books and videos that Tina has channeled, I was beginning to change the way I looked at the world and found a semblance of peace. Even in the depths of despair, I can now find a way to view circumstances in ways that are helpful and deeply enriching.
Here is what I have learnt from practicing forgiveness as taught in A Course in Miracles.
- Free Will
I have free will and I chose to come to Earth to chase the idols that I wanted to chase, to learn more about myself as a soul to grow and expand my consciousness. In our modern society, we are deeply disconnected from the natural world. Observe the natural world and you will see that stillness is a beautiful thing. It allows you to breathe and blankets you with a calm that is rarely found in the world that we have created for ourselves. Our devices and media keep us entertained but truly we stop growing as human beings, we stop thinking for ourselves and adopt the ideas and beliefs that are given to us by the many influences we have in our lives. Then as we believe these ideas to be true, they manifest themselves into people, places, things and circumstances in our lives.
However, this is a choice, I realized. Do I want to be free of such influences? I did, of course, given the deep unhappiness I was feeling. ACIM has given me this freedom and allowed me to understand that choices are not thrust upon me. I always have a choice, even when I am feeling pressure to make a choice I do not want – I always have a choice. Personal responsibility and ownership of choices has allowed me to let go of the illusion that someone or something else is responsible for the choices I make.
- Thoughts, Feelings and Vibration
Science has already established that everything is energy and energy vibrates at different frequencies. It must therefore be true that thoughts carry a vibration which generate feelings and these feelings generate vibration. This vibration is emanated from your core to attract people, places, things and experiences to you. Therefore everything that you can feel, touch, taste, smell and hear is a reflection of your vibration. In other words, your life is a reflection of your vibration. If you want to change your life then you need to change your vibration and to do that you must change your thoughts.
- Knowledge or lack of it!
Our consciousness is vast and what we understand ourselves to be is a small part of who we truly are. In order to know ourselves, we have to embark on a journey of self enquiry. A journey that will reveal to you who you truly are if you are willing to be brave enough to face the shadows that haunt you.
When we agreed to come to Earth, we agreed to allow the forgetting of who we truly are so that we could discover more of ourselves. In Neale Doald Walsh’s book, there is a beautiful analogy where you are asked to imagine yourself in a white room. Everything in that room is white as are you. How do you know you are white? You don’t until you bring a contrasting color into the room and at that point you realise that you are white.
In this same manner, you cannot know who you are until you have experienced contrast.
- I am not alone
Not one of us is alone. Each one of us has a team on the Spirit side. They are truly on our side, our very own cheerleaders who always want the best for us and love us so unconditionally that they allow us to make mistakes and learn from them. Much like the prodigal son, we return to them, often in moments of utter despair, and they invariably comfort us and give us strength.
Each one of us can consciously cultivate a connection with our spirit guides and most of us already do so, without conscious knowledge. That feeling you get when you know you want to do something no matter what or that you don’t want to be around someone – those feelings need to be paid attention to. This is how they communicate with you.
Know that your spirit guides are there to guide you and your feelings are how they communicate with you.
One rule you should be aware of is that Earth is a free will zone and so your guides are not allowed to interfere with your free will. Their prompts are very subtle and if you need help then you must ask for it. They cannot help you if you don’t ask.
- Feelings and GPS
I have learnt to pay close attention to how I feel in any given moment. This is not an easy task for our modern society has truly tried to shut this down by encouraging a lack of emotion in everything. What we have forgotten is that we are social beings and feelings are how we communicate with each other. It is the energy contained in these feelings and emotions that tell the others what you wish to communicate. It is passion and desire that drives us and motivates us.
Your feelings are your GPS – a good feeling means that you are on track and a bad feeling means that you are off track – either you are looking at the situation incorrectly and hence generating negative feelings or that situation is one you need to walk away from. Discerning the difference is your job and self enquiry then becomes critical.
- Love and Forgiveness
You are made by Love, from Love and for Love. This is a statement that is repeatedly sung by Tina’s guides and Jesus, who channel through her. You are Love and a study and practice of “A Course in Miracles” will remove the blocks that are hiding the Love that you are.
In order to remove the blocks to Love’s presence, you must practice forgiveness. Forgiveness does not mean that you perfunctorily forgive the person who hurt you but that you understand on a deep level that there is nothing to forgive because you are all playing roles and earth is a huge playground. It is like a play where we are all actors and when we pass from this world, we will better understand the lessons that we have learnt and take these lessons with us to the next incarnation.
Ultimately, there is only one consciousness and each one of us makes up that consciousness and offers varying perspectives. From a non-duality point of view, there is only Unity Consciousness and separation is literally a figment of our imagination.
In my practice of these principles, I have found that forgiveness is not as easy as all that, especially when the same things keep happening with the same person over and over again. However, I have also found that with true forgiveness magical things happen, miracles in fact. I have great faith in this text and I will persevere to practice its principles because my single-minded pursuit is peace. That is all I truly want – Peace.
I have been practicing the lessons in A Course in Miracles for about 4 years now and I have found it both challenging and rewarding. I have found myself oscillating between complete faith in its teaching and skepticism in its execution. However, ultimately, the end result is what determines the efficacy of any treatment and I can confidently say that “A course in Miracles” has changed me and given me opportunities that I would never have had otherwise. It has allowed me understand that only I am responsible for my life and its contents. It has brought to me a connection with myself that I would never have cultivated otherwise and It has brought me closer to Peace and closer to God than I have ever felt.
My intention for writing this piece is to encourage you to explore this text and consider studying it. If you would like to cultivate more loving relationships and heal current relationships which are fraught with negativity, feel more connected to Source Energy or God (whatever term you prefer), feel more peaceful even in challenging circumstances and truly master your mind then I would strongly urge you to make the commitment to study this text and cultivate the miracle that it offers you – that of true peace.
As the introduction to the course says
This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time. 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 awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.
This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
Links
Channeled Videos by Tina Louise Spalding including 365 videos giving guidance for the daily lessons
Web Version of the Course in Miracles by Foundation of Inner Peace