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Forrester
aspiring sociopath


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The Little Garden 6
#27577075 - 12/11/21 09:00 AM (2 years, 1 month ago) |
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It is only the awareness of the body that makes love seem limited. For the body is a limit on love. The belief in limited love was its origin, and it was made to limit the unlimited. Think not that this is merely allegorical, for it was made to limit you. Can you who see yourself within a body know yourself as an idea? Everything you recognize you identify with externals, something outside itself. You cannot even think of God without a body, or in some form you think you recognize.
The body cannot know. And while you limit your awareness to its tiny senses, you will not see the grandeur that surrounds you. God cannot come into a body, nor can you join Him there. Limits on love will always seem to shut Him out, and keep you apart from Him. The body is a tiny fence around a little part of a glorious and complete idea. It draws a circle, infinitely small, around a very little segment of Heaven, splintered from the whole, proclaiming that within it is your kingdom, where God can enter not.
Within this kingdom the ego rules, and cruelly. And to defend this little speck of dust it bids you fight against the universe. This fragment of your mind is such a tiny part of it that, could you but appreciate the whole, you would see instantly that it is like the smallest sunbeam to the sun, or like the faintest ripple on the surface of the ocean. In its amazing arrogance, this tiny sunbeam has decided it is the sun; this almost imperceptible ripple hails itself as the ocean. Think how alone and frightened is this little thought, this infinitesimal illusion, holding itself apart against the universe. The sun becomes the sunbeam's "enemy" that would devour it, and the ocean terrifies the little ripple and wants to swallow it.
Yet neither sun nor ocean is even aware of all this strange and meaningless activity. They merely continue, unaware that they are feared and hated by a tiny segment of themselves. Even that segment is not lost to them, for it could not survive apart from them. And what it thinks it is in no way changes its total dependence on them for its being. Its whole existence still remains in them. Without the sun the sunbeam would be gone; the ripple without the ocean is inconceivable.
Such is the strange position in which those in a world inhabited by bodies seem to be. Each body seems to house a separate mind, a disconnected thought, living alone and in no way joined to the Thought by which it was created. Each tiny fragment seems to be self-contained, needing another for some things, but by no means totally dependent on its one Creator for everything; needing the whole to give it any meaning, for by itself it does mean nothing. Nor has it any life apart and by itself.
Like to the sun and ocean your Self continues, unmindful that this tiny part regards itself as you. It is not missing; it could not exist if it were separate, nor would the Whole be whole without it. It is not a separate kingdom, ruled by an idea of separation from the rest. Nor does a fence surround it, preventing it from joining with the rest, and keeping it apart from its Creator. This little aspect is no different from the whole, being continuous with it and at one with it. It leads no separate life, because its life is the oneness in which its being was created.
Do not accept this little, fenced-off aspect as yourself. The sun and ocean are as nothing beside what you are. The sunbeam sparkles only in the sunlight, and the ripple dances as it rests upon the ocean. Yet in neither sun nor ocean is the power that rests in you. Would you remain within your tiny kingdom, a sorry king, a bitter ruler of all that he surveys, who looks on nothing yet who would still die to defend it? This little self is not your kingdom. Arched high above it and surrounding it with love is the glorious whole, which offers all its happiness and deep content to every part. The little aspect that you think you set apart is no exception.
Love knows no bodies, and reaches to everything created like itself. Its total lack of limit is its meaning. It is completely impartial in its giving, encompassing only to preserve and keep complete what it would give. In your tiny kingdom you have so little! Should it not, then, be there that you would call on love to enter? Look at the desert, dry and unproductive, scorched and joyless, that makes up your little kingdom. And realize the life and joy that love would bring to it from where it comes, and where it would return with you.
The Thought of God surrounds your little kingdom, waiting at the barrier you built to come inside and shine upon the barren ground. See how life springs up everywhere! The desert becomes a garden, green and deep and quiet, offering rest to those who lost their way and wander in the dust. Give them a place of refuge, prepared by love for them where once a desert was. And everyone you welcome will bring love with him from Heaven for you. They enter one by one into this holy place, but they will not depart as they had come, alone. The love they brought with them will stay with them, as it will stay with you. And under its beneficence your little garden will expand, and reach out to everyone who thirsts for living water, but has grown too weary to go on alone.
Go out and find them, for they bring your Self with them. And lead them gently to your quiet garden, and receive their blessing there. So will it grow and stretch across the desert, leaving no lonely little kingdoms locked away from love, and leaving you inside. And you will recognize yourself, and see your little garden gently transformed into the Kingdom of Heaven, with all the Love of its Creator shining upon it.
The holy instant is your invitation to love to enter into your bleak and joyless kingdom, and to transform it into a garden of peace and welcome. Love's answer is inevitable. It will come because you came without the body, and interposed no barriers to interfere with its glad coming. In the holy instant, you ask of love only what it offers everyone, neither less nor more. Asking for everything, you will receive it. And your shining Self will lift the tiny aspect that you tried to hide from Heaven straight to Heaven. No part of love calls on the whole in vain. No Son of God remains outside His Fatherhood.
Be sure of this; love has entered your special relationship, and entered fully at your weak request. You do not recognize that love has come, because you have not yet let go of all the barriers you hold against your brother. And you and he will not be able to give love welcome separately. You could no more know God alone than He knows you without your brother. But together you could no more be unaware of love than love could know you not, or fail to recognize itself in you.
You have reached the end of an ancient journey, not realizing yet that it is over. You are still worn and tired, and the desert's dust still seems to cloud your eyes and keep you sightless. Yet He Whom you welcomed has come to you, and would welcome you. He has waited long to give you this. Receive it now of Him, for He would have you know Him. Only a little wall of dust still stands between you and your brother. Blow on it lightly and with happy laughter, and it will fall away. And walk into the garden love has prepared for both of you.
-------------------- Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here. ------------------- Have some medicinal mushrooms and want to get the most out of them? Try this double extraction method.
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syncro
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Re: The Little Garden [Re: Forrester]
#27577130 - 12/11/21 09:50 AM (2 years, 1 month ago) |
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Ah, ACIM, the Face of Christ.
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syncro
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Re: The Little Garden [Re: syncro] 1
#27597608 - 12/28/21 03:43 PM (2 years, 30 days ago) |
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Curious about scripture posted elsewhere on the forum, I thought to go back to clarifications in this text.
It has a lot of context around it. I'm inspired to reread.
A Course in Miracles – Chapter 6 – I. The Message of the Crucifixion https://acourseinmiraclesnow.com/course-miracles-chapter-6-message-crucifixion/
T-6.I.15. These are some of the examples of upside-down thinking in the New Testament, although its gospel is really only the message of love. 2 If the Apostles had not felt guilty, they never could have quoted me as saying, "I come not to bring peace but a sword." 3 This is clearly the opposite of everything I taught. 4 Nor could they have described my reactions to Judas as they did, if they had really understood me. 5 I could not have said, "Betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?" unless I believed in betrayal. 6 The whole message of the crucifixion was simply that I did not. 7 The "punishment" I was said to have called forth upon Judas was a similar mistake. 8 Judas was my brother and a Son of God, as much a part of the Sonship as myself. 9 Was it likely that I would condemn him when I was ready to demonstrate that condemnation is impossible?
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Another passage I happened upon.
Chapter 15 – VI. The Holy Instant and the Laws of God https://acourseinmiraclesnow.com/course-miracles-chapter-15-vi-holy-instant-laws-god/
T-15.VI.5. In the world of scarcity, love has no meaning and peace is impossible. 2 For gain and loss are both accepted, and so no one is aware that perfect love is in him. 3 In the holy instant you recognize the idea of love in you, and unite this idea with the Mind that thought it, and could not relinquish it. 4 By holding it within itself, there is no loss. 5 The holy instant thus becomes a lesson in how to hold all of your brothers in your mind, experiencing not loss but completion. 6 From this it follows you can only give. 7 And this is love, for this alone is natural under the laws of God. 8 In the holy instant the laws of God prevail, and only they have meaning. 9 The laws of this world cease to hold any meaning at all. 10 When the Son of God accepts the laws of God as what he gladly wills, it is impossible that he be bound, or limited in any way. 11 In that instant he is as free as God would have him be. 12 For the instant he refuses to be bound, he is not bound.
Edited by syncro (12/28/21 03:49 PM)
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Forrester
aspiring sociopath


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Re: The Little Garden [Re: syncro]
#27597744 - 12/28/21 06:00 PM (2 years, 30 days ago) |
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Ah yes those are some good ones too! I especially like the 2nd one there.
I am reading the whole thing the 2nd time through right now. It's amazing how the right parts come to you at the right times.
-------------------- Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here. ------------------- Have some medicinal mushrooms and want to get the most out of them? Try this double extraction method.
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syncro
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Re: The Little Garden [Re: Forrester]
#27597789 - 12/28/21 06:46 PM (2 years, 30 days ago) |
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I have it out to read again as well. It's been a long time, such a profound study. Its treatment of the ego seems unique.
Edited by syncro (12/28/21 06:49 PM)
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BrendanFlock
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Re: The Little Garden [Re: syncro]
#27598115 - 12/28/21 11:50 PM (2 years, 30 days ago) |
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Interesting Forrester..
I have read The Course in Miracles and did the work book etc..
What are your feelings at this stage of the ACIM for you?
As for me I feel I am about 80% and I have trust/faith that I as well as others can reach that 100% state..
Pretty simple.. 100% means telling the truth the whole time in eternity.
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Forrester
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I feel pretty similar, 100% is tricky as it seems you can hold on to close to it for a minute, but time and the ego push back at you constantly so it's like trudging uphill in a river of flowing quicksand. You can hold your ground and still seem to backslide. But every day brings new opportunities to make the same choice, so you just have to do like he says and choose again.
-------------------- Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here. ------------------- Have some medicinal mushrooms and want to get the most out of them? Try this double extraction method.
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syncro
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Re: The Little Garden [Re: Forrester]
#27598256 - 12/29/21 05:33 AM (2 years, 30 days ago) |
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That, that which can be threatened is illusion.
It's not a place my ego typically dwells. I guess the ego is simply that which can be threatened.
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syncro
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Re: The Little Garden [Re: syncro]
#27598636 - 12/29/21 01:14 PM (2 years, 29 days ago) |
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This morning I momentarily went face to face with "that which can be threatened is illusion," everything still, the presence full, that which cannot be threatened. I'd be tempted to call it a revelation as described in the first few pages of the text that I just went through, or maybe it's something less.
The reasoning goes, all things of the body or illusion are impermanent. But then I argued, revelation is also impermenent - it comes and goes, and remains a fading memory. Then the answer was, illusion is permanently impermanent, yet the impermanence of revelation is also impermanent. In other words, that natural state will at some point return eternally, as actually it hasn't left.
Edited by syncro (05/24/22 10:47 AM)
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Forrester
aspiring sociopath


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Re: The Little Garden [Re: syncro]
#27598641 - 12/29/21 01:18 PM (2 years, 29 days ago) |
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Quote:
syncro said: The reasoning goes, all things of the body or illusion are impermanent. But then I argued, revelation is also impermenent - it come and goes, and remains a fading memory. Then the answer was, illusion is permanently impermanent, yet the impermanence of revelation is also impermanent. In other words, that natural state will at some point return eternally, as actually it hasn't left.
Exactly! That makes much sense, to me anyway.
-------------------- Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here. ------------------- Have some medicinal mushrooms and want to get the most out of them? Try this double extraction method.
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BrendanFlock
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Re: The Little Garden [Re: Forrester]
#27599352 - 12/30/21 12:21 AM (2 years, 29 days ago) |
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There is the player vs player aspect.. which is hard to come to terms with..
Winning and loosing in the brotherhood..
Hierarchy if mentioned can become real immediately..
Let the appropriate man do the appropriate thing.
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Forrester
aspiring sociopath


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Quote:
BrendanFlock said: Hierarchy if mentioned can become real immediately..
I think that's why it is stressed so often in the course that all are equal, there is no hierarchy in the creation, no order of difficulty in miracles, all are one.
-------------------- Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here. ------------------- Have some medicinal mushrooms and want to get the most out of them? Try this double extraction method.
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syncro
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Re: The Little Garden [Re: Forrester]
#27599463 - 12/30/21 06:02 AM (2 years, 29 days ago) |
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Agreed - I interpreted Brendan as saying hierarchy in the good way. I was recently in the material about true Authority vs tyranny, the latter around distorted perception.
Letting the elder decide, like surrendering the fruits of action, or seek ye first, that all is the Godhead, everything follows.
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BrendanFlock
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Re: The Little Garden [Re: syncro]
#27600635 - 12/31/21 12:52 AM (2 years, 28 days ago) |
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There is hierarchy in competition necessarily..
In everyday life.. merit is about work effort and in great ideas..
It is hard to come away from the course thinking that all people are equal in every thing..
It is not multiple people that invent sonething but ONE person.
Though the idea that there is no difficulty in working miraclez at the end of the work.. being 100% IS true.
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syncro
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Re: The Little Garden [Re: Forrester]
#27612449 - 01/09/22 05:35 AM (2 years, 19 days ago) |
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Contemplating truth teachings not directly associated with this text, among them the four gateways to liberation, one of them being holy company, and in that the thought of Christ - happy in seeing an elder brother, as it were, I said, "How are you?" I was a bit embarrassed saying that impulsively to Christ. In my mind He understood and smiled in kind, and then, holy company being a gateway in my thought, He said, "I am Holy."
In that moment the extreme simplicity of the Holy Instant was clear, seeing a fellow soul as holy, necessarily shared in oneself.
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syncro
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Re: The Little Garden [Re: syncro]
#27645678 - 02/04/22 03:17 PM (1 year, 11 months ago) |
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4. Think of the love of animals for their offspring, and the need they feel to protect them. ²That is because they regard them as part of themselves. ³No one dismisses something he considers part of himself. ⁴You react to your ego much as God does to His creations,—with love, protection and charity. ⁵Your reactions to the self you made are not surprising. ⁶In fact, they resemble in many ways how you will one day react to your real creations, which are as timeless as you are. ⁷The question is not how you respond to the ego, but what you believe you are. ⁸Belief is an ego function, and as long as your origin is open to belief you are regarding it from an ego viewpoint. ⁹When teaching is no longer necessary you will merely know God. ¹⁰Belief that there is another way of perceiving is the loftiest idea of which ego thinking is capable. ¹¹That is because it contains a hint of recognition that the ego is not the Self. (https://acim.org/acim/en/s/81#4:1-11 | T-4.II.4:1-11)
What are our real creations? I'm asking often. I'm asking just for a hint. Does anyone have a clue?
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Forrester
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Re: The Little Garden [Re: syncro]
#27645761 - 02/04/22 04:27 PM (1 year, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
syncro said: What are our real creations? I'm asking often. I'm asking just for a hint. Does anyone have a clue?
I'm halfway through my second full reading of the course, and I still haven't figured out this one. He doesn't anywhere in the course seem to give a clear answer. Guess it's one of those ones we gotta figure out ourselves, I'm hoping someday it will occur to me as I would really like to know.
-------------------- Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here. ------------------- Have some medicinal mushrooms and want to get the most out of them? Try this double extraction method.
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syncro
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Re: The Little Garden [Re: Forrester]
#27645932 - 02/04/22 06:20 PM (1 year, 11 months ago) |
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I find it's similar with the various terms like atonement, miracle. We can go with our experience and style to discover, or, it also says we can ask Him what miracles He would have us perform. Also He said we can offer, or ask Him to take charge of the ego, paraphrased. I find when going through the work, such things are as simple as asking. To remember and maintain is another thing.
One thing that came to me along the lines of our or God's creations, is that which IS when movement of thought has ceased. We know about ceasing movement of thought, but what a relief, to say the least, to regard it with such significance as our own beloved creation, a go-to.
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syncro
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Re: The Little Garden [Re: syncro]
#27645961 - 02/04/22 06:31 PM (1 year, 11 months ago) |
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Where mind can split into self and that which, by distorted perception, is held as something other than mind, I find atonement, as at-one-ment, where it is realized there can be nothing, say, having to do with the body, that is not mind; this being strongly for me in the teaching, darkness cannot hide.
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Forrester
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Re: The Little Garden [Re: syncro] 1
#27646520 - 02/05/22 03:07 AM (1 year, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
syncro said: I find when going through the work, such things are as simple as asking. To remember and maintain is another thing.
I've found this to be very true. I remember when I first started the course, I was driving along just contemplating to myself how I was to know what exactly I needed to do, and immediately after I had that thought my gaze was drawn upward directly to a large sign on the side of a hardware store that read, "Just ask!" in huge lettering. Funny how the guidance can come sometimes
-------------------- Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here. ------------------- Have some medicinal mushrooms and want to get the most out of them? Try this double extraction method.
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