Not true

"Salvation lies in the simple fact that illusions are not fearful because they are not true."
- ACIM chapter 16

"To lift the veil that seems so dark and heavy, it is only needful to value truth beyond all fantasy, and to be entirely unwilling to settle for illusion in place of truth."
ACIM chapter 16

Another great quote.
It always seemed to me that if anything is valuable, it's truth. And ultimate truth will be ultimate value.

Occasionally when the ego kicks in, whimpering in fear about losing its individual existence, I think about how yes, that seems scary, but if that existence is not true? No matter how desirable something seems from this viewpoint, if it's not true, I don't want it.
(And of course if it should turn out that individual existence is true, then it can't be destroyed, and there's nothing to fear.)

Attempt at a bulwark

"The special love relationship is not seen as a value in itself, but as a place of safety from which hatred is split off and kept apart."
ACIM, chapter 16

Perfect communication

"The holy instant is a time in which you give and receive perfect communication."
- ACIM chapter 15.

Wow, this may be my favorite ACIM quote ever.

Book scholarship

Announcement

During February 2008: if you want to get The Disappearance Of The Universe by Gary Renard, but can't afford it, I will pay for one for you.

Write in comments, or e-mail me at eolake [at] gmail [dot] com

Vacation

"No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one."
-- Elbert Hubbard

Ain't it the truth? But why? I think it's because "work" is one of the main ways of running from the Ego and the Guilt. When you suddenly have time, they turn up and smack you in the face.

Appearing

"Such is the irresistible nature of truth that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing."
-- Thomas Paine

Postpartum Depression

A thought occurred to me: why is Postpartum Depression (after birth) so common in new mothers?

Because it's post partum. "After separation". It's symbolic of the seeming separation from Source.

Devoted to misery

"You who are steadfastly devoted to misery must first recognize that you are miserable and not happy. The Holy Spirit cannot teach without this contrast..."
ACIM chapter 14

This explains why you can't show the way out to somebody who considers himself happy in this universe.

Judith Skutch Interview

Here is a cool audio interview with Judith Skutch Whitson. She is a pleasure to listen to, and the interview tells many interesting things about Helen and Bill which I did not know before, despite me having read a lot about them before. For example Bill's humor, and his ability to pull up miracles at will, even in the world of form.

Core mistake

"The core mistake is underestimating the ego, not recognizing how much we are identified with it. That leads to the idea that we can just set the ego aside and give it to the Holy Spirit. People try to skip over steps. And one of the important steps is learning to look at the ego without judgment."
- Ken Wapnick interview
------

And here is another very interesting interview with Ken.
...it is the first I ever hear that Ken was led to mysticism/God through music!
This is highly relevant to me, since I've at times been wondering whether my earlier belief was wrong, that art can lead to Source. (Though surely not as effectively as the Course.)

Becoming invulnerable

"Yes, the time will eventually come when you will never suffer. That is one of the long-term payoffs of this spiritual path. Even while you still appear to be in your body, it is possible for you to attain phychological invulnerability."
- The Disappearance Of The Universe by Gary Renard, page 111

Don't prejudge answers

Note from J, regarding asking the HS for advice (from Absence From Felicity):

"Prejudge His answer not, for if you do, you will not hear it."

Slow trees

The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.
-- Moliere

This resonates with me, as a person, and an artist, and a Course student. I may once have felt a little pang of jealousy at the people who become millionaires at 24, but I now realize that even when you do things and grow as effectively as you can, the best things just Take Time.

Pithy quotes

"A Course In Miracles is not a religion."
- The Disappearance Of The Universe by Gary Renard, page 101
(This whole sentence is italized in the book, for emphasis.)

"The Course has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the physical world."
- The Disappearance Of The Universe by Gary Renard, page 99

How Fear Works

How Fear Works.

All The Same

"Even judgement in its most basic form, such as to label something as good or bad, would be to differentiate between things that are actually the same due to their unreality. Thus, it is not really valid to judge anything." 

- The Disappearance Of The Universe by Gary Renard

Expressions are legion

"...it's not the form but the content. And the content of God's Will is present in everyone. The forms in which it is expressed are legion. To pull out certain ones as being more special than others or holier than others or more God's word than others is to make the mistake of spiritual specialness."

Ken Wapnick interview.

We Love Mysteries

"In our steadfast devotion to understanding that which cannot be understood, we express our devotion to the ego. We enjoy complexity and unsolvable riddles, especially of the metaphysical variety, for they proclaim the ego real and offer wonderful opportunities for distraction and delay from the simplicity of salvation."

- from article by "ACIM monk"

Paths

"Don't take another's path as your own, but neither should you judge it."
- Ken Wapnick, quoting J talking to Helen

Ch-ch-changes

Isn't it funny how things, or ourselves, can change without us noticing it?

For example, I had not noticed this change: until a few months ago, I was quite concerned about how long it would take until the whole world becomes enlightened. And very interested in how long it will take for the whole universe to do so, and thus disappearing.
Now I find I don't care at all. It will happen, it has happened, and it's only happening in a dream.

Fear of Love

"Your fear of attack is nothing compared to your fear of love."
- ACIM chapter 13

This is another quote which I would have expected to see all over the place. It's simply stated and a profound truth. Yet I don't find it quoted anywhere on the web, not a single place. This is interesting. I am guessing it's just too fearful to face.

It's very much been my own experience for the last two decades that this is so. Things turned after a big spiritual breakthrough in the eighties, and I found myself being much more disturbed by love and beauty than by Evil.

It is one of the good examples of the big counterintuitive-ness of A Course In Miracles. Because "everybody knows" that what we really want is Love. And yet if we look, it is clear that we don't. When we get love, we kill it as fast as we can.

Unilateral surrender

Many years ago, a friend (hi Rene) told me about a colleague he had: there was a big personality clash between them, and it was a problem for him.

He wanted to talk to her, and what he did was write down a list of bad points she had that he would wish she would change. And he wrote down a list of her good points also, to balance it.

Then for some reason he decided to just throw out the list of bad points, and he read her the list of her good points.

He told me that she totally changed after that. Even her voice changed.

I think the pure application of forgiveness is total unilateral surrender. You completely give up attack, and you don't hinge it in the least on whether the other party changes or takes responsibility. You accept that there is a chance that you might "lose" the war because you give it up. Of course what usually happens is that the war goes away, not that you lose it.

Humor

"My guess is that there aren't a hundred top-flight professional comedians, male and female, in the whole world. They are a much rarer and far more valuable commodity than all the gold and precious stones in the world. But because we are laughed at, I don't think people really understand how essential we are to their sanity." - Groucho Marx

Humor is one of the most important tools of the human spirit. (DU)

Old saying

There's so much good in the worst of us
and so much bad in the best of us
that it's ill advised any of us
to speak against the rest of us

Fear and keeping apart

I had a realization the other day:
Fear has nothing to do with what may happen to us, it's just a mechanism for keeping up apart.

One illustration is how irrational it is. For example I'm afraid of spiders (not much though). No spider has ever harmed me. Another one is fear of terrorism. Almost nobody dies from terrorism compared to traffic and illness.

Copilot

Here's a line from the TV show Studio 60:

"My mom would say, if Jesus is your copilot, you should switch seats."