A Course in Miracles Text Made Simple

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Chapter 27: The Healing of the Dream

Section III. Beyond All Symbols

Read A Course in Miracles, Chapter 27, Section III. (pages 572-574)

Why does God (all Power) have no opposite?

God is all Power, being All That is. Here we learn that all Power (God) does not oppose what He knows does not exist. Concepts that oppose the Truth are merely false concepts that are meaningless. Why would God (all Power) oppose meaningless ideas that are really nothing? That is why in paragraph one it says, “Power is unopposed, to be Itself. No weakness (false thought or idea) can intrude upon It without changing It into something It is not. To weaken is to limit, and impose an opposite that contradicts the concept that it attacks.” (1:5-7)

In the Introduction to the Course we are told: “The opposite of Love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite. This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way: Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.” (T-1.Intro.1:8, 2:1-4)

Why is our picture of our brother meaningless?

Our picture of our brother is meaningless because God has no opposite. There is no ‘other’ that is different or separate from God. Picturing our brother as a separate body is a symbol of a thought that is trying to conflict with God’s oneness, which in truth, could never be. This means that we are perceiving nothing instead of reality. That is why Jesus tells us: “The picture of your brother that you see is wholly absent and has never been. Let, then, the empty space it occupies be recognized as vacant, and the time devoted to its seeing be perceived as idly spent, a time unoccupied.” (3:7-8)

What happens when we let go of trying to fill emptiness with symbols of separation from God?

As we are willing to recognize that what we are seeing (body images that conflict with or oppose God’s formless oneness) is not really there, we clear a space in our confused minds for the Light of truth to enter. Jesus explains it this way: “For what you leave as vacant God will fill, and where He is there must the truth abide. Unweakened power, with no opposite, is what Creation is. For this there are no symbols. Nothing points beyond the truth, for what can stand for more than everything?” (4:3-6)

Here we are brought to a state of mind where we recognize that all “worldly” symbols of separate forms are meaningless. “Reality is ultimately known without a form, unpictured and unseen.” (5:2) God is formless Love that is All there Is. There is nothing “else.” When we let go of what is not real, what is Real returns to our mind. Another way to say this is that when we allow the barriers to Love to be lifted by our true Self, we know that Love is All. We know that there is nothing ‘else.’

Why is forgiveness the Holy Spirit’s teaching aid?

Because we have gotten lost in dreams that are not true, our Father has provided an inner Teacher — the Holy Spirit — to teach us the difference between the false and the true. Our inner Teacher uses the tool of forgiveness to lead us out of illusions of separation until the tool is no longer necessary. Forgiveness is the Holy Spirit’s bridge of return to Love.

Because projection of guilt is the ego’s tool to make a world of differences appear to be real to us, the Holy Spirit teaches us to let go of guilt and see innocence instead. Letting go of guilt is what forgiveness is, not because guilt is real, but because only Love is real and what is not real never happened in truth.

What happens when we follow Holy Spirit’s bridge of return to Love?

Jesus answers this with the following: “Forgiveness vanishes and symbols fade, and nothing that the eyes have ever seen or ears have heard remains to be perceived. A Power wholly limitless has come, not to destroy, but to receive Its Own. There is no choice of function anywhere. The choice you fear to lose you never had. …Give welcome to the Power beyond forgiveness, and beyond the world of symbols and of limitations. He would merely be, and so He merely Is.” (7:1-4, 8-9)

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