A Course in Miracles Text Made Simple

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Chapter 28: the Undoing of Fear

Section I. The Present Memory

Read A Course in Miracles, Chapter 28, Section I. (pages 589-592)

What is the ego’s use of memory?

Jesus helps us see how the ego uses memory as a defense to hold guilt in place and hide the awareness of the eternal present. He tells us: “Remembering is as selective as perception, being its past tense. It is perception of the past as if it were occurring now, and still were there to see. Memory, like perception, is a skill made up by you to take the place of what God gave in your creation.” (2:7)

How does the ego use concepts of time to keep us from remembering the eternal present?

The ego thought system brings in the mistaken ideas that: 1. The past causes the present. 2. We cannot change the past because what is past is over and gone. This is how the ego keeps guilt going in an endless cycle until we are willing to let the Holy Spirit reverse this thinking.

In paragraph 6 Jesus clarifies this further: “Yet time is but another phase of what does nothing. It works hand in hand with all the other attributes with which you seek to keep concealed the truth about yourself. Time neither takes away nor can restore. And yet you make strange use of [time] as if the past had caused the present, which is but a consequence in which no change can be made possible because its cause has gone. Yet change must have a cause that will endure, or else it will not last. No change can be made in the present if its cause is past. Only the past is held in memory as you make use if it, and so it is a way to hold the past against the now.” (6:1-7)

How does the Holy Spirit make use of memory?

Because we think of memory as something from the past instead of remembering the eternal present, we need our ideas about time corrected by the Holy Spirit. Jesus clarifies this confused thinking when he tells us: “The Holy Spirit can indeed make use of memory, for God Himself is there. Yet this is not a memory of past events, but only of a present state. You are so long accustomed to believe that memory holds only what is past, that it is hard for you to realize [memory] is a skill that can remember now. …The Holy Spirit’s use of memory is quite apart from time. He does not seek to use [memory] as a means to keep the past, but rather as a way to let it go.” (4:1-3, 5:1-2)

What does a miracle show us?

A miracle simply removes the blocks to the awareness of Love’s presence. As we open to receiving a miracle from our true Self, the false ideas of a past or future are removed so that the eternal Light of truth can return to our awareness. We see that nothing has happened to change God’s one Son. We see that Love is changeless and know that we are still Love and nothing else.

Jesus tells us: “The miracle reminds you of a Cause forever present, perfectly untouched by time and interference. Never changed from what [Cause — God] is. And you are [Cause’s] effect, as changeless and as perfect as Itself. [God’s] memory does not lie in the past, nor waits the future. [God] is not revealed in miracles. [Miracles] but remind you that [God] has not gone. When you forgive [God] for your sins, [God or Cause] will no longer be denied. (9:4-10)

How does a miracle come to us?

A miracle comes to us when we let go of of the interference that is blocking our awareness to Love’s presence. The interference is our belief that our innocence was lost when we chose to believe in separation. As we allow our mind to quiet and be still, what has always been can return to our awareness. When guilt is gone, we see that only Love is everywhere.

Jesus tells us, “In quietness, see in the miracle a lesson in allowing Cause to have Its Own effects, and doing nothing that would interfere. The miracle comes quietly into the mind that stops an instant and is still. It reaches gently from that quiet time, and from the mind it healed in quiet then, to other minds to share its quietness. And they will join in doing nothing to prevent its radiant extension back into the Mind Which caused all minds to be.” (10:9, 11:1-3)

What understanding comes with the miracle?

As the miracle brings us the awareness of Love’s presence, we see that all is well because we are still safe in God and our dreams have meant nothing. We see that we did not need to fix the dream and make it better; we simply needed to let our hallucinations of separation go. Jesus tells us, “Now is the Son of God at last aware of present Cause and Its benign effects. Now does he understand what he has made is causeless, having no effects at all. He has done nothing. And in seeing this, he understands he never had a need for doing anything, and never did.” (14:1-4)

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