The interesting thing about all blocks to awareness, is that there is always love behind them. The block is there to hide the love. The block also makes it seem like the love is not there. But if you were to remove the block, you would return to the awareness of love's presence, which has been there all along. This is why behind every grievance there is a miracle of love.
"The miracle behind this grievance will resolve it for me."
"The answer to this problem is the miracle which it conceals."
We began in love and we love everyone and everything. But then along comes ego stuff, grievances, hates, judgements, blame, anger, fear, guilt, sinfulness, darkness, to blot out the love and cover it up. But we truly do simply "cover it over" with a layer of untruth, to disguise it and make it seem like it's not there.
This means that no matter who you seem to be angry towards, you actually do love them behind that anger. Behind all physical objects there is also love. Behind the body there is love. Behind all attacks and judgements you love the thing you are attacking and judging. Underneath your hatred there is love. And beyond every layer of self condemnation there is love. It's already there, because it's your love of God which nothing can remove.
The course says that grievances and miracles are opposite. That a grievance hides a miracle. And if you apply forgiveness to the grievance to undo it, you will become aware of the miracle instead. ie if you remove the block to love, the love is revealed. It's kind of like removing the clouds so that the sun can shine. The sun is always there behind the clouds.
It's not as if, when you're in a grievance, there is no love anywhere. It does seem that way because a grievance is a denial of love, it's an attack and a belief in sin. Every grievance attacks love and attacks God and the sonship. But it does this only in an attempt to make it go away, which ultimately is a form of denial. You can't make love go away because love is permanent. All you can do in truth is hide it from your awareness and pretend it's not there. Like burying your head in the sand.
If you can remember that behind every grievance there is a miracle of love, then you know that the purpose of every grievance is to hide the love. And that means every grievance implies there is love there, a love which you're trying to use the grievance to hide. The grievance is serving a purpose of avoiding the truth. Admitting to the truth and waking up to reality exposes you to love again.
To do that you need to recognize the attack is there to serve a purpose. You aren't just attacking for no reason, or even just because you want to get rid of your sin and guilt. You're doing it to achieve a goal of keeping God away. Every attack upon yourself and every projected attack upon others, is only there to serve the goal of separation from God. You use it for that reason alone. You want to keep the separation going so that you will not be exposed to love.
"Projection will ALWAYS hurt you. It reinforces your belief in your own split mind, and its ONLY purpose is to KEEP THE SEPARATION GOING."
The removal of the blocks to love's presence, is merely the removal of all attempts to attack. Attack is sin, and also insanity. You can only attack yourself, so each time you are attacking you are trying to hurt yourself. Doing that hides your awareness from love, and is really the purpose of the attack. The aim of all attack is to resist the truth, to shut God out, to hide from reality, and to assert that you are not immortal. But without attack, only the truth of love remains.
You who were created by Love like Itself can hold no grievances and know your Self. To hold a grievance is to forget who you are. To hold a grievance is to see yourself as a body. It is the decision to let the ego rule your mind, and to condemn the body to death. Perhaps you do not yet fully realize just what holding grievances does to your awareness. It seems to split you off from your Source, and make you unlike Him. It makes you believe that He is like what you think you have become, for no one can conceive of his Creator as unlike himself.
Shut off from your Self, Who remains aware of His likeness to His Creator, your Self seems to sleep, while the part of your mind that weaves illusions in its sleep appears to be awake. Can all this arise from holding grievances? Oh yes! For he who holds grievances denies he was created by Love, and his Creator has become fearful to him in his dreams of hate. Who can dream of hatred and not fear God?
It is as sure that those who hold grievances will redefine God in their own image as it is certain that God created them like Himself and defined them as part of Him. It is as sure that those who hold grievances will suffer guilt as it is certain that those who forgive will find peace. It is as sure that those who hold grievances will forget who they are as it is certain that those who forgive will remember.
Would you not be willing to relinquish your grievances if you believed all this were so? Perhaps you do not think that you can let all your grievances go. That, however, is simply a question of motivation. Today we will try to find out how you would feel without them. If you succeed even by ever so little, there will never be a problem in motivation ever again.
Begin today's extended practice period by searching your mind for those against whom you hold what you regard as major grievances. Some of these will be quite easy to find. Then think of the seemingly minor grievances you hold against those you like, and even think you love. It will quickly become apparent that there is no one against whom you do not cherish grievances of some sort. This has left you alone in all the universe in your perception of yourself.
Determine now to see all these people as friends. Say to them all, collectively, thinking of each one in turn as you do so:
"I would see you as my friend,
that I may remember you are part of me,
and come to know myself."
Spend the remainder of the practice period trying to think of yourself as completely at peace with everyone and everything, safe in a world which protects you and loves you, and which you love in return.
Try to feel safety surrounding you, hovering over you, and holding you up. Try to believe, however briefly, that nothing can harm you in any way. At the end of the practice period tell yourself:
"Love holds no grievances.
when I let all my grievances go,
I will know I am perfectly safe."
The short practice periods should include a quick application of today's ideas in this form, whenever any thought of grievance arises against anyone, physically present or not:
"Love holds no grievances.
Let me not betray my Self."
In addition, repeat the idea several times an hour in this form:
"Love holds no grievances.
I would wake to my Self
by laying all my grievances aside
and wakening in Him."
Perhaps it is not yet quite clear to you that each decision that you make is one between a grievance and a miracle. Each grievance stands like a dark shield of hate before the miracle it would conceal. And as you raise it up before your eyes, you will not see the miracle beyond. Yet all the while it waits for you in light, but you behold your grievances instead.
Today we go beyond the grievances, to look upon the miracle instead. We will reverse the way you see by not allowing sight to stop before it sees. We will not wait before the shield of hate, but lay it down and gently lift our eyes in silence, to behold the Son of God.
He waits for you behind your grievances, and as you lay them down he will appear in shining light where each one stood before. For every grievance is a block to sight, and as it lifts, you see the Son of God where he has always been. He stands in light, but you were in the dark. Each grievance made the darkness deeper, and you could not see. Today we will attempt to see God's Son. We will not let ourselves be blind to him; we will not look upon our grievances. So is the seeing of the world reversed, as we look out toward truth, away from fear.
We will select one person you have used as target for your grievances, and lay the grievances aside, and look at him. Someone, perhaps, you fear and even hate; someone you think you love who angers you; someone you call a friend, but whom you see as difficult at times, or hard to please; demanding, irritating, or untrue to the ideal he should accept as his according to the role you set for him.
You know the one to choose; his name has crossed your mind already. He will be the one of whom we ask God's Son be shown to us. Through seeing him behind the grievances that we have held against him, you will learn that what lay hidden while you saw him not is there in everyone, and can be seen. He who was enemy is more than friend when he is freed to take the holy role the Holy Spirit has assigned to him. Let him be Savior unto you today. Such is his role in God your Father's plan.
Our longer practice periods today will see him in this role. We will attempt to hold him in our mind, first as you now consider him. We will review his faults, the difficulties you have had with him, the pain he caused you, his neglect, and all the little and the larger hurts he gave. We will regard his body with its flaws and better points as well, as we will think of his mistakes and even of his "sins."
Then let us ask of Him who knows this Son of God in his reality and truth, that we may look on him a different way, and see our Savior shining in the light of true forgiveness, given unto us. We ask Him in the Holy Name of God and of His Son, as holy as Himself:
"Let me behold my Savior in this one
You have appointed as the One for me
To ask to lead me to the holy light
In which he stands, that I may join with him."
The body's eyes are closed, and as you think of him who grieved you, let your mind be shown the light in him beyond your grievances.
What you have asked for cannot be denied. Your Savior has been waiting long for this. He would be free, and make his freedom yours. The Holy Spirit leans from him to you, seeing no separation in God's Son. And what you see through Him will free you both. Be very quiet now, and look upon your shining Savior. No dark grievances obscure the sight of him. You have allowed the Holy Spirit to express through him the role God gave Him, that you might be saved.
God thanks you for these quiet times today, in which you laid your images aside, and looked upon the miracle of love the Holy Spirit showed you in their place. The world and Heaven join in thanking you, for not one Thought of God but must rejoice as you are saved, and all the world with you.
We will remember this throughout the day, and take the role assigned to us as part of God's salvation plan, and not our own. Temptation falls away when we allow each one we meet to save us, and refuse to hide his light behind our grievances. To everyone you meet, and to the ones you think of, or remember from the past, allow the role of Savior to be given, that you may share it with them. For you both, and all the sightless ones as well, we pray:
"Let miracles replace all grievances."
While we have recognized that the ego's plan for salvation is the opposite of God's, we have not yet emphasized that it is an active attack on His plan, and a deliberate attempt to destroy it. In the attack, God is assigned the attributes which are actually associated with the ego, while the ego appears to take on the attributes of God.
The ego's fundamental wish is to replace God. In fact, the ego is the physical embodiment of this wish. For it is this wish which seems to surround the mind with a body, keeping it separate and alone, and unable to reach other minds except through the body which was made to imprison it. The limit on communication cannot be the best means to expand communication. Yet the ego would have you believe that it is.
Although the attempt to keep the limitations which a body would impose is obvious here, it is perhaps not so apparent why holding grievances is an attack on God's plan for salvation. But let us consider the kinds of things which you are apt to hold grievances for. Are they not always associated with something a body does? A person says something we do not like; he does something that displeases us; he "betrays" his hostile thoughts in his behavior.
We are not dealing here with what the person is. On the contrary, we are exclusively concerned with what he does in a body. We are doing more than failing to help in freeing him from its limitations. We are actively trying to hold him to it by confusing it with him, and judging them as one. Herein is God attacked, for if His Son is only a body, so must He be as well. A creator wholly unlike his creation is inconceivable.
If God is a body, what must His plan for salvation be? What could it be but death? In trying to present Himself as the Author of life and not of death, He is a liar and a deceiver, full of false promises, and offering illusions in place of truth. The body's apparent reality makes this view of God quite convincing. In fact, if the body were real, it would be difficult indeed to escape this conclusion. And every grievance that you hold insists that the body is real. It overlooks entirely what your brother is. It reinforces your belief that he is a body, and condemns him for it. And it asserts that his salvation must be death, projecting this attack onto God, and holding Him responsible for it.
To this carefully prepared arena, where angry animals seek for prey and mercy cannot enter, the ego comes to save you. God made you a body. Very well. Let us accept this and be glad. As a body, do not let yourself be deprived of what the body offers. Take the little you can get. God gave you nothing. The body is your only savior. It is the death of God and your salvation. This is the universal belief of the world you see.
Some hate the body, and try to hurt and humiliate it. Others love the body, and try to glorify and exalt it. But while it stands at the center of your concept of yourself, you are attacking God's plan for salvation, and holding your grievances against Him and His creations, that you may not hear the Voice of truth and welcome it as Friend. Your chosen Savior takes His place instead. It is your friend; He is your enemy. We will try today to stop these senseless attacks on salvation. We will try to welcome it instead.
Our upside-down perception has been ruinous to our peace of mind. We have seen ourselves in a body and the truth outside us, locked away from our awareness by the body's limitations. Now we are going to try to see this differently. The light of truth is in us, where it was placed by God. It is the body that is outside us, and is not our concern. To be without a body is to be in our natural state. To recognize the light of truth in us is to recognize ourselves as we are. To see our Self as separate from the body is to end the attack on God's plan for salvation, and to accept it instead. And wherever it is accepted it is accomplished already.
Our goal in the longer practice periods today is to become aware that God's plan for salvation has already been accomplished in us. To achieve this goal, we must replace attack with acceptance. As long as we attack it, we cannot understand what God's plan for us is. We are therefore attacking what we do not recognize. Now we are going to try to lay judgment aside, and ask what God's plan for us is:
"What is salvation, Father?
I do not know.
Tell me, that I may understand."
Then we will wait in quiet for His answer.
We have attacked God's plan for salvation, without waiting to hear what it is. We have shouted our grievances so loudly that we have not listened to His Voice. We have used our grievances to close our eyes and stop our ears. Now we would see and hear and learn. "What is salvation, Father?" Ask and you will be answered. Seek and you will find.
We are no longer asking the ego what salvation is and where to find it. We are asking it of truth. Be certain, then, that the answer will be true because of Whom you ask. Whenever you feel your confidence wane and your hope of success flicker and go out, repeat your question and your request, remembering that you are asking them of the infinite Creator of infinity, Who created you like Himself:
"What is salvation, Father?
I do not know.
Tell me, that I may understand."
He will answer. Be determined to hear.
One or perhaps two shorter practice periods an hour will be enough for today, since they will be somewhat longer than usual. The exercises are as follows:
"Holding grievances is an attack on God's plan for salvation.
Let me accept it instead.
What is salvation, Father?"
Then wait a minute or so in silence, preferably with your eyes closed, and listen for His answer.
No one can look upon what your grievances conceal. Because your grievances are hiding the light of the world in you, everyone stands in darkness, and you beside him. But as the veil of your grievances is lifted, you are released with him. Share your salvation now with him who stood beside you when you were in hell. He is your brother in the light of the world which saves you both.
Today let us make another real attempt to reach the light in you. Before we undertake this in our more extended practice period, let us devote several minutes in thinking about what we are trying to do. We are literally attempting to get in touch with the salvation of the world. We are trying to see past the veil of darkness that keeps it concealed. We are trying to let the veil be lifted, and see the tears of God's Son disappear in the sunlight.
Let us begin our longer practice period today with the full realization of all this, and real determination to reach what is dearer to us than all else. Salvation is our only need. There is no other purpose here, and no other function to fulfill. Learning salvation is our only goal. Let us end the ancient search today, by finding the light in us and holding it up for everyone who searches with us to look upon and rejoice.
Very quietly now, with your eyes closed, try to let all the content which generally occupies your consciousness go. Think of your mind as a vast round area, surrounded by a layer of heavy dark clouds. You can see only the clouds because you seem to be standing outside the whole area, and quite apart from it. From where you stand, you can see no reason to believe there is a brilliant light hidden by the clouds. The clouds seem to be the only reality. They seem to be all there is to see. Therefore you do not attempt to go through them and past them, which is the only way in which you would be really convinced of their lack of substance. We will make this attempt today.
After you have thought about the importance of what you are trying to do for yourself and the world, try to settle in perfect stillness, remembering only how much you want to reach the light in you today, - now. Determine to go past the clouds. Reach out and touch them in your mind. Brush them aside with your hand; feel them resting on your cheeks and forehead and eyelids as you go through them. Go on; clouds cannot stop you.
If you are doing the exercises properly, you will begin to feel a sense of being lifted up and carried ahead. Your little effort and small determination call on the power of the universe to help you, and God Himself will raise you from darkness into light. You are in accord with His Will. You cannot fail because your will is His.
Have confidence in your Father today, and be certain that He has heard you and has answered you. You may not recognize His answer yet, but you can indeed be sure that it is given you, and you will yet receive it. Try, as you attempt to go through the clouds to the light, to hold this confidence in your mind. Try to remember that you are at last joining your will to God's. Try to keep the thought clearly in mind that what you undertake with God must succeed. Then let the power of God work in you and through you, that His Will and yours may be done.
In the shorter practice periods, which you will want to do as often as possible in view of the importance of today's idea to you and your happiness, remind yourself that your grievances are hiding the light of the world from your awareness. Remind yourself also that you are not searching for it alone, and that you do know where to look for it. Say, then:
"My grievances hide the light of the world in me.
I cannot see what I have hidden.
Yet I want to let it be revealed to me
for my salvation and the salvation of the world."
Also, be sure to tell yourself:
"If I hold this grievance, the light of the world will be hidden from me,"
if you are tempted to hold anything against anyone today.
Whatever you're upset about, it's not about anyone else, NO MATTER how much it seems to be someone else's fault.
Where is the upset located? Is your upset inside someone else's body? No, it's inside your body.
All of your feelings are inside your own body. All of your thoughts are inside of yourself as well. All of your beliefs and judgements and opinions and viewpoints are all inside of you.
Ideas leave not their source.
The way you feel, these are your feelings. They're not someone else's feelings.
Part of your upset entails an energetic link between you and another person in which you experience your upset feelings as though they are 'connected to' the other person. Or in other words, your belief that your are upset "because of them" links your emotional reactions to the other person as though the two of you are joined together by it.
But if you can remember and own your own feelings - these feelings you're having are YOUR feelings, nobody else's. This is how YOU feel. You are the one having these feelings. These aren't anyone else's feelings. You are the one who is feeling upset. This is isn't outside your body and it's not in another person.
If you can get to that point and say that with any amount of conviction, you might be surprised that suddenly the seeming energetic 'link' or 'vulnerability' that you felt in relation to the other person, suddenly disappears. Much of the feeling that you had wrapped up in the perception of 'this is what they did to me', disappears also. You detach.
Your detachment allows you to come back to yourself. And then you can admit to yourself, and own for yourself, that how you are feeling, how you are reacting, what you are experiencing, is all YOURS. It's got nothing whatsoever to do with anyone else. There are NO CAUSES outside of you that have created this feeling or reaction or upset. That person didn't put it there. That person didn't make you feel this way.
YOU CHOSE to feel this way. These are your feelings, not theirs. These are your reactions, not theirs. These feelings are inside your own self and are a part of your own experience. That means they are under your 'control'. Or at the very least, under your ownership. They sure do not belong to anyone else. And if nobody else has created them in you, and you are detached from the other person knowing they did not cause these feelings, then you have to realize that you quite literally decided to have these feelings.
You chose to experience these feelings. You decided to have this reaction. You decided to create this energetic emotional response within yourself, when you thought you were stimulated by that other person. They didn't cause the reaction, they just acted as a neutral reflection. And in that reflection you saw something that brought up some feelings inside yourself that had NOTHING to do with the other person. They didn't make you feel this way, YOU decided to feel this way ABOUT what they appeared to do. So you chose your reaction and your experience and everything you feel.
You will find quite often that if you will claim ownership and responsibility for all of your own experience, in this way, is not only drops and disarms the ego perception of your experience being 'caused by' someone outside of you, it also correctly identifies that YOU are in a position of responsibility, meaning you are NOT A VICTIM, and therefore you are FREE of a sense of victimhood and all perceptions relating to it. This sets you free as well. And you will find if you do this - take back your power and reclaim ownership of responsibility for EVERYTHING you are experiencing - you will often find these feelings suddenly transmute all by themselves and just dissolve and deflate and disappear into nothing. And in their place, is often a tremendous laughter.
Being unlocked from seeing yourself as victimized or caused by others is the key here. If you take full responsibility for everything then nobody can have allegedly been responsible FOR something happening to you. And when you believe others are responsible for stuff happening to you, for or against you, you basically are being irresponsible for your own life and are CLAIMING that someone else is responsible FOR YOUR LIFE, for you.
Nobody else is responsible for your life. Nobody else is responsible for owning your true identity. Nobody else is responsible for the feelings, reactions, emotions and expressions that you are experiencing. Nobody. There is nobody to shovel your 'Self' off onto. Nobody to claim they are supposed to be living your life FOR you, or waking you up FOR you, or changing to what you prefer FOR you. This is YOUR life, not theirs, that you are living. YOU are meant to be fully and completely and squarely in the clear awareness and ownership of WHO YOU ARE, in full responsibility and identification with and operating out of your True Self.
You are invulnerable when you stop believing in victimhood.
No matter what you do you are innocent!
This is true, but it is grossly misunderstood and misused by the ego.
In order for this truth to apply, you have to BE in your innocence. It can't be intellectual. You can't use it to justify murder.
You first have to get yourself into your innocence, so that your innocent isn't just an informational fact, it's an experiential fact. And in order to experience innocence, that places you in the mind and being of LOVE.
It is not possible to experience such innocence without aligning yourself with love.
Therefore, once you ARE aligned with love, you are in your innocence, and whatever you do WILL be innocent. Or to put it another way, no matter what you do, it WILL be loving - and it will never prove you are guilty.
It's only when you take this fact and try to apply it to life without the experience/alignment with its truth (truth is an experience not intellectual information!), that you distort it and then use to justify actions that you perform not based on love, such as that it is okay to hurt someone or "do bad things" etc.
When you do that, you have "level confusion". You've attempted to take something that it is a truth on a higher level of metaphysics, which can only be *experiential*, and are attempting to apply it to a level of existence that is not experiential, where there is separation between you and the truth. And that's why it turns into justification for war. And this is also why religions have led to more wars than most any other cause.
No matter what you do, you are innocent, free, forgiven, loved and loving. But if you're not truly authentically living from such a state of being, then beware your ego's misuse of it.
67) "Love created me like Itself."
I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss, and I cannot die. I am not a body. I would recognize my reality today. I will worship no idols, nor raise my own self-concepts to replace my Self. I am in the likeness of my Creator. Love created me like Itself.
You might find these specific forms helpful in applying the idea:
"Let me not see an illusion of myself in this."
"As I look on this, let me remember my Creator."
"My Creator did not create this as I see it."
68) "Love holds no grievances."
Grievances are completely alien to love. Grievances attack love, and keep its light obscure. If I hold grievances I am attacking love, and therefore attacking my Self. My Self thus becomes alien to me. I am determined not to attack my Self today, so that I can remember who I am.
These specific forms for applying this idea would be helpful:
"This is no justification for denying my Self."
"I will not use this to attack love."
"Let this not tempt me to attack myself."
77) "I am entitled to miracles."
I am entitled to miracles because I am under no laws but God's. His laws release me from all grievances, and replace them with miracles. And I would accept the miracles in place of the grievances, which are but illusions that hide the miracles beyond. Now I would accept only what the laws of God entitle me to have, that I may use it on behalf of the function He has given me.
You might use these suggestions for specific applications of this idea:
"Behind this is a miracle to which I am entitled."
"Let me not hold a grievance against you (name), but offer you the miracle that belongs to you instead."
"Seen truly, this offers me a miracle."
78) "Let miracles replace all grievances."
By this idea do I unite my will with the Holy Spirit's, and perceive them as one. By this idea do I accept my release from hell. By this idea do I express my willingness to have all my illusions be replaced with truth, according to God's plan for my salvation. I would make no exceptions and no substitutes. I want all of Heaven and only Heaven, as God wills me to have.
Useful specific forms for applying this idea would be:
"I would not hold this grievance apart from my salvation."
"Let our grievances be replaced by miracles, (name)"
"Beyond this is the miracle by which all my grievances are replaced."