A Course In Miracles - Chapter 14, Section IX
ACIM is read one section at a time. It is a guidebook leading us back to our true natures, as we open to the awareness of love's presence. All quoted material is from A Course in Miracles, copyright ©1992, 1999, 2007 by the Foundation for Inner Peace, publisher, and the copyright holder. This material is used with permission. Glossary-Index for a Course In Miracles, 8th edition, Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D.
Transcript
Hi,
I'm Teresa Hubbard.
Welcome back to our continued reading of the text to A Course in Miracles.
We continue today in Chapter 14,
Teaching for Truth,
Section 9,
The Reflection of Holiness.
To summarize my takeaways,
In Section 9 of Chapter 14,
We are reminded that the Atonement does not make us holy.
We were created holy.
The Atonement merely brings unholiness to holiness,
Or what we made to what we are.
We are taught here that we can become a spotless mirror in this world,
In which the holiness of our Creator shines forth from us to all around us.
Because of this,
We can reflect heaven here on earth.
We must then clean the mirror so that the message that shines forth from what the mirror holds out for everyone to see,
No one can fail to understand.
For it is the message that the Holy Spirit is holding to the mirror that is in each of us.
We recognize it because we know our need for it,
But we forget where to look to find it.
We must then let others see it in us and share it with us.
If we could but realize for a single instant the power of healing that the reflection of God shining in us can bring to all the world,
We could not wait to make the mirror of our mind clean to receive the image of the holiness that heals the world.
We all must bring our different problems to its healing light.
For all problems find but healing there.
God's creations,
As part of Him,
Hold Him in us,
In truth.
We do not merely reflect truth,
For we are truth.
I invite you to keep a few things in mind as you listen to the reading.
The course uses male pronouns,
Yet this is simply a way of pointing to the spiritual being,
Having no gender.
The course is written in first person,
And although not introduced directly to the reader,
It becomes clear that the words are from Jesus,
Often quoting from the Bible.
The course uses traditional Christian terms in a non-traditional manner.
These words are simply pointers to truth,
Nothing more.
A few terms you will hear within this reading.
Atonement.
The Holy Spirit's plan of correction.
Healing our minds from the earthly world of illusion to God's world of truth.
The two teachers are the ego and the Holy Spirit.
The ego is our belief in the separated or false self that we made as a substitute for the self that God created.
Holy Spirit is the communication link between God and us,
Bridging the gap between the mind of Christ and our human minds,
The voice for God.
God,
The creator,
The source of all being or life.
God's essence is spirit,
Which is shared with all creation.
Yet the word God can be limiting,
Since universal energy and life are infinitely vast and cannot be contained in a word.
Knowledge,
Also referred to as heaven or the real world.
It is the pre-separation world of God and his unified creation,
In which there are no differences in form and therefore exclusive of the world of perception.
Altar,
Not an external structure,
But an attitude.
It represents the part of our minds that choose the world of God,
Truth,
Or choose instead the earthly world,
Illusion.
Whatever attitude we choose,
That is our altar.
Heaven,
The real world where God and his creations dwell in perfect unity.
And now,
On to the reading.
A Course in Miracles Chapter 14 Teaching for Truth Section 9 The Reflection of Holiness The atonement does not make holy.
You were created holy.
It merely brings unholiness to holiness,
Or what you made to what you are.
Bringing illusion to truth,
Or the ego to God,
Is the Holy Spirit's only function.
Keep not your making from your Father,
For hiding it has cost you knowledge of him and of yourself.
The knowledge is safe,
But where is your safety apart from it?
The making of time to take the place of timelessness lay in the decision to be not as you are.
Thus truth was made past,
And the present was dedicated to illusion.
And the past,
Too,
Is changed and interposed between what always was and now.
The past that you remember never was,
And represents only the denial of what always was.
Bringing the ego to God is but to bring error to truth,
Where it stands corrected because it is the opposite of what it meets.
It is undone because the contradiction can no longer stand.
How long can contradiction stand when its impossible nature is clearly revealed?
What disappears in light is not attacked.
It merely vanishes because it is not true.
Different realities are meaningless,
For reality must be one.
It cannot change with time,
Or mood,
Or chance.
Its changelessness is what makes it real.
This cannot be undone.
Undoing is for unreality,
And this reality will do for you.
Merely by being what it is,
Does truth release you from everything that it is not.
The Atonement is so gentle,
You need but whisper to it,
And all its power will rush to your assistance and support.
You are not frail with God beside you.
Yet without Him,
You are nothing.
The Atonement offers you God.
The gift that you refused is held by Him in you.
The Holy Spirit holds it there for you.
God has not left His altar,
Though His worshipers placed other gods upon it.
The temple still is holy,
For the Presence that dwells within it is holiness.
In the temple,
Holiness waits quietly for the return of them that love it.
The Presence knows they will return to purity and to grace.
The graciousness of God will take them gently in,
And cover all their sense of pain and loss with the immortal assurance of their Father's love.
Their fear of death will be replaced with joy of life,
For God is life,
And they abide in life.
Life is as holy as the holiness by which it was created.
The Presence of holiness lives in everything that lives,
For holiness created life,
And leaves not what it created holy as itself.
In this world,
You can become a spotless mirror,
In which the holiness of your Creator shines forth from you to all around you.
You can reflect heaven here.
Yet no reflections of the images of other gods must dim the mirror that would hold God's reflection in it.
Earth can reflect heaven or hell,
God or the ego.
You need but leave the mirror clean and clear of all the images of hidden darkness you have drawn upon it.
God will shine upon it of Himself.
Only the clear reflection of Himself can be perceived upon it.
Reflections are seen in light.
In darkness they are obscure,
And their meaning seems to lie only in shifting interpretations,
Rather than in themselves.
The reflection of God needs no interpretation.
It is clear.
Clean but the mirror,
And the message that shines forth from what the mirror holds out for everyone to see,
No one can fail to understand.
It is the message that the Holy Spirit is holding to the mirror that is in Him.
He recognizes it because He has been taught His need for it,
But knows not where to look to find it.
Let Him then see it in you,
And share it with you.
Could you but realize for a single instant the power of healing that the reflection of God,
Shining in you,
Can bring to all the world.
You could not wait to make the mirror of your mind clean,
To receive the image of the holiness that heals the world.
The image of holiness that shines in your mind is not obscure,
And will not change.
Its meaning to those who look upon it is not obscure,
For everyone perceives it as the same.
All bring their different problems to its healing light,
And all their problems find but healing there.
The response of holiness to any form of error is always the same.
There is no contradiction in what holiness calls forth.
Its one response is healing,
Without regard for what is brought to it.
Those who have learned to offer only healing,
Because of the reflection of holiness in them,
Are ready at last for heaven.
There,
Holiness is not a reflection,
But rather the actual condition of what was but reflected to them here.
God is no image,
And His creations,
As part of Him,
Hold Him in them in truth.
They do not merely reflect truth,
For they are truth.
