To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Text Made Simple, we recommend that
you read the corresponding chapter and section in the Text of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Read A Course in Miracles, Chapter 25, Section VII. (pages 531-534)
Even though our reality is only the pure oneness of Love, our belief in separation from Love’s oneness is what makes the world of separate bodies that are different seem real. This is what the Course calls magic. Our minds are very powerful and we can make up a world that appears to be real but is still just an illusion. Jesus tells us in paragraph one: “The magic (illusion of reality) of the world can seem to hide the pain of sin from sinners, and deceive with glitter and guile. Yet each one knows the cost of sin is death. And so it is.” (1:5-7)
In Chapter 1 Jesus defines sin as “lack of love.” (T-1.IV.3:1) The Holy Spirit helps us understand in this section that even though we may be attracted to the glitter and guile of experiencing the differences of separation and making decisions on our own, the cost of separation from Love is to experience lack of Love (or sin). The magic of the world hides the truth that our Reality is only Love. As we choose magic, Love disappears from our awareness and appears dead to us. Here we see that the magic of the world is really the cause of all our fear and pain and why we feel a haunting sense of unworthiness and lack.
The deceptive “glitter” of the world comes in many forms. It may be a special person who seems to make us happy; a job or title that seems to make us important or valuable; a new car, jewelry or clothing; security based on the size of our income, bank account or retirement plan, to name a few examples. Having these things may seem to make us happy or safe. But because they are forms and not eternal, they bring with them an underlying fear and guilt because unconsciously we know that they are substitutes for God’s Love. These substitutes hide God’s Love from our awareness.
The good news is that even though we are trying to deny Reality, the Holy Spirit is still in our minds, waiting for us to be open to returning to the truth that we are still safe in God because it is just an illusion that we left Love’s oneness.
In paragraph three Jesus makes it clear that, “It must be so that either God is mad, or is this world a place of madness. Not one Thought of His makes any sense at all within this world. And nothing that the world believes as true has any meaning in His Mind at all. What makes no sense and has no meaning is insanity. And what is madness cannot be the truth.” (3:2-6)
Here we see the viewpoints of being Love and being separate from Love are mutually exclusive and neither can conceive of the other way of seeing. This insane world was made to make lack of Love seem real and possible. Jesus tells us this, not to make us feel guilty, but to help us be willing to give up our belief in being separate from our one Self in God. As we are willing to give up our treasured insane belief in separation, the truth will return to our tortured minds. Peace replaces our insane thinking.
What makes God’s Son a co-creator is the knowledge that he shares the attributes of God. God is changeless and so must be His Son. God is eternal Love that extends only Love and so must His Son be changeless Love that extends only Love.
Jesus tells us, “So if he chooses to believe one thought opposed to truth, he has decided he is not his Father’s Son because the Son is mad, and sanity must lie apart from both the Father and the Son. This you believe.” (4:4-5) When we believe we are separate, we believe we are disconnected from God’s Love and have lost It. Believing now that loss is possible, the idea that everyone must gain as Love is extended anywhere seems impossible and insane. From the viewpoint of being separate, it is inconceivable that Love is given equally to all and everyone gains by giving It. But when we identify with Love as What we are, our only thought is to extend Love. The idea of withholding It or losing It is inconceivable.
To build a bridge from our insane perspective to the truth of the reality of Love, the Holy Spirit offers us the special forms that help us loosen our mad belief in being alone and begin to open to the possibility of the reality of the oneness and completeness of Love. The Holy Spirit reverses our thinking to realize that only God’s Love is dependable in every situation we find ourselves in.
In paragraph 10 we are told, “The One Who speaks for Him can show you this, in the alternative He chose especially for you. It is God’s Will that you remember this, and so emerge from deepest mourning into perfect joy. Accept the function that has been assigned to you in God’s Own plan to show His Son that hell and Heaven are different, not the same. And that in Heaven they are all the same, without the differences which would have made a hell of Heaven and a heaven of hell, had such insanity been possible.” (10:3-6, italics added)
Jesus tells us, “Salvation is rebirth of the idea no one can lose for anyone to gain. And everyone must gain, if anyone would be a gainer. Here is sanity restored. And on this single rock of truth can faith in God’s eternal saneness rest in perfect confidence and perfect peace.” (12:1-4, italics added)
When we return to the truth that there is only oneness and only Love is real, as Love is extended It is extended to all equally. Love’s oneness is why everyone must gain if anyone would be a gainer. Love’s oneness is why no one can lose for anyone to gain. Love’s oneness is why extending Love to all equally is the rock on which salvation rests. Love, to be Love, can only be extended to all equally because all is one Love. In oneness, Love can only extend Love to all of It’s one Self.
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