A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Lesson Insights, we recommend that you
read the corresponding lesson in the Workbook of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.

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ACIM Workbook Lesson 289 Insights

“The past is over. It can touch me not.”

The more I work with the Course, the more I see its simplicity. It all points to the basic principle that there is one problem and one solution. Today we are seeing that the problem is described as hanging on to the past. Guilt is always about something from the past. But what is over cannot be in the present, unless I bring it with me in my mind. When I bring the past with me I cannot see the present, because I have projected the past in its place.

The simple solution is to recognize that the past is not here and let it go. With this simple recognition, I am free to see the present clean and clear as what it is. Love is now, because Love is all there is.

Though the problem and the answer are always the same, my investment in the reality of the problem makes it seem difficult to accept the solution. The ego has concocted countless schemes and images to make the past seem real so that it covers the present. The seeming complexity of these images belies the simplicity of the false idea that underlies them all. This is the ego’s defense, for the more complicated the problem appears to be, the less likely the solution will be recognized. And above all else, the ego does not want the solution to be seen.

Gratefully the Holy Spirit does not grab us by the scruff of the neck and hurl us into Heaven when we would perceive it as loss and death. Instead He is present in our mind to teach us, as we are willing, that this world is really nothing and when we let it go, we are letting go of nothing so that we can accept everything that is real.

The past does not hold on to us, for it has no power of its own. It is we who must let go of the power we give the past in our minds. We let go through forgiveness and see that the past is over and cannot touch us.

Holy Spirit, I ask Your help today to let the past go so that I can see the Love and peace and joy that are here now, and share it with all my brothers. I thank You for Your gentle teaching that leads me Home to the Light.

In the Text, Jesus talks about the tiny tick of time and the fact that with the thought of separation came its undoing. We never really could make a world of separation in reality. That thought of separation was undone in an instant. So the whole dream of separation has been undone. It is over. It is a dream of time with a past and future that never happened. The whole dream in its entirety was an attempt to cover up the truth that we, as extensions of Love, are still safe in the eternal Mind of God.

As we learn to hand over each part of the dream to the Holy Spirit to be undone, we gradually undo our belief in the dream. We gradually let go of what never was. We let go of thinking that guilt could ever be real. We let go of projecting guilt onto imaginary images of separation. We gradually recognize that the past is over. We see that all that we feared is merely a dream that in fact is over. We are led to recognize that we are still Love and that can never change. We gradually free ourselves from the chains that our belief in separation has bound us with.

We see that the one solution that really heals is to let go of our belief in separation. The truth of our oneness in Love is true and will forever be true. The past (the imaginary dream of separation) can touch us not as we cease to place our belief in it. This whole dream world of separation is over. A return to Love is the only answer that has any meaning. “The past is over. It can touch me not.”

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