Just a hint for those hourly practices. I found an alarm to be way too intrusive and irritating so instead I downloaded a mindfulness bell on my phone which is pleasant to the ear and only goes off once so I am not rushing to the phone to shut it off.
I so appreciate your explanations of this course. I had the book 30" years before starting it earnestly. I use various you tube persons to help me understand the lessons. I'm in my fourth year of study and am very happy I found you . Peace and blessings to you both.
This was very helpful! I'm six months into actively studying and learning. I will add the evening quiet time to my practice, I overlooked that, but good for me to adopt today. I now see how that will close out practicing the lesson for the day and set me up for the night and tomorrow. Beautiful. Thank you both!
Course students are not special. They are humans like everyone else, with the same ego mind as everyone else. Nowhere the Course says that we should not.argue. And nowhere the Course says we should be bliss ninnies who agree on everything and who pretend to be loving and peacefull 24/7.
I've found that as i go along the workbook , and then go back to the text I can understand the text better , I think it's not just mind training in information but also mind training in concentration ,lol , i am so relieved to hear you two share this talk, thankyou 🙏
About 20+ years ago, I had a watch that was set to beep every 30 minutes. I used it as a reminder to look at any ego thoughts (old programming) that were happening inside, and then go of there value. It was an active process until the watch finally died decades later. It was invaluable along the journey of transformation.
Nice and thank you. Do not forget though, that this is a required course only the time you take it is voluntary. So it is not up to us to teach our brothers how and when they should learn or practice the course. It is our task to forgive all our egothoughts.
i'm very grateful for the work y'all do. it is a true gift to humanity. honestly, i struggle, i keep trying to get on the boat, and am so glad you people are there to set examples and give information and encouragement. thank you from my heart.
Thanks so much guys. I've been doing these lesson for years and have never consciously picked up on the practice of thanking God for the previous hour and asking guidance for the hour to come. That's so helpful and I will start practicing that from now on. I have a question around the eyes open vs closed thing and was wondering if you guys would consider revisiting it and maybe doing a short video on it or something? This was triggered by Roberts' comment that the lessons should be done with eyes closed. Here's the thing - the introduction to the lessons in your circle of atonement version says: 'Many of the earlier lessons should be practiced with eyes open, to emphasise that the goal is to learn how to see.' So there's that; but in the sparkly edition the same section reads: 'Unless specified to the contrary, the exercise should be practiced with the eyes open, since the aim is to learn how to see.' As you go through the exercises there are times when it either says nothing or does say to close your eyes - which seems to fit with this instruction. I'm sure you will agree that these two passages mean two different things and it would be great to have a bit more certainty around this. I'd love to know what the notes read literally and why your particular interpretation was chosen? Thanks again!
Robert mentioned there was so much to say about "asking for guidance"...this might be an interesting podcast subject. More specifically, how is guidance communicated? Is it through others? Through your own thoughts? Through voices in your head? Could we ask for guidance on a Ouija board? It seems to be there are missteps that can be taken.
Aaron - We hosted a two-part podcast series on guidance not too long ago. Here’s part one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4S4OssrPYX4.htmlsi=6qam7vvvP3dEFAls Emily xx
@@frankbrancatisano217 But I guess that is my concern. Our "own voice"...this seems dangerously close to the ego. I've seen many students get flat out bad and disastrous advice by listening to the magic voices in their head. I'm not sure at our level we CAN discern between what is positive and not for instructions. My thought was that the God would prefer to speak in ways to us that did not magnify the ego...such as through serendipity and through others. If not, then why wouldn't ACIM simply suggest we use a Ouija board? Or muscle testing...which is in essence using your body as a Ouija board. IMO these can be ego traps and many Coursers have endured disaster following the voice of the ego thinking it is the holy spirit.
@AaronSmith-sx4ez the Holy Spirit uses many forms to communicate with us , if the voice is fear based then it is the ego ,if it happiness and true forgiveness for others and yourself then it is Holy Spirit based , as Emily and Robert have said it's all about mind training , in review iii of the workbook , it says it would be nearly impossible to follow the the instructions because of our busy lives but just follow it as closely as possible, and not beat yourself up about it , that is not the courses aim , it's not what type of voice you hear it is the message , words are simply signpost or pointers as Eckhardt Tolle once said . When Jesus was on earth he spoke Hebrew, if you heard a Hebrew voice in your head would you understand it ?
I think your presentation overall is really good and informative, but I think some of your explanations are misplaced. I will refer to them below We use day periods in practice because they are separated by long time of total unconsciousness (sleep). We think there is past so days are just used by Jesus and Holy Spirit in our practice. In the end they will be removed them completely from equation. They will not be important if you practice 24/7. I'm not aware of all implications why practice is done like this, but I know from my practice this is course of total commitment. Ambitions and goals will be totally integrated into one single goal. Most of them will be eradicated. Btw it is not in your graph, but final decision before going to sleep could be giving it to Holy Spirit for best use. There are some Lessons (like lesson 199) which add more layers to practice then we can see on graph. It is actually untrue that you can't practice for example single Lesson. You of course can if you feel you need it. It is told in Course you can use it more then for single day. If you keep the intention of going back to God, everything will be set by Holy Spirit according to this goal. I think everybody, who want to practice Course should understand that it is ruthless way of mind training for what we think is us (but it is just misplaced personality). Holy Spirit doesn't care about body, because body is a dream. Doesn't care about the circumstances in which you find yourself because everything we see using eyes is untrue. Try to practice when you are working on ER everyday, you will see how difficult it is. Emily mentioned about how hard is to practice during live meetings with other ourselves (ie other persons). I know this issue very well! All this difficulties have direct impact on our mental state. That's why we need to give all those problems and difficulties to Holy Spirit. We can't correct our reactions ourselves. Course learning is not process, as Emily said. It is actually 0 or 1 state. That's why concept of Holy Instant was introduced in a Course. You are with God or you are not. There are no other circumstances. There is no path to God because there are no other, outer factors. Only your decision. Theoretically you should do it in this moment. Can you? We can't because of convictions hidden in our common mind. Our practice structure brings us to elimination of time through unifying our goal to single one, i.e Holy Instant, moment of actual decision. So past doesn't matter. Calendar of our practice doesn't matter. Collecting Course practice experiences doesn't matter. You haven't mentioned about decision making process during a day at all. It is very important element of the practice to make decisions with Holy Spririt. Beginning can be very challenging but this practice will bring practitioner closer to Holy Spirit. This element is very important and should be introduced. About putting theory of Course into practice. Robert advised us how to set it. I found it very misleading. If you are new to this Course you may think it is small problem. It is actually an essence what we are doing here. You will go from your dedication of resolving your small world problems to dedication to single goal of going back home. This barrier is embodiment of our secret decision to stay here. Million obstacles will appear thanks to this practice and each one will be forgiven. Course is talking that sacrifice doesn't exist. But for small us it is a reality. So you actually need to ask God, Jesus and Holy Spirit and your community for this breakthrough. Through prayer, practice of Lessons, meditation, contact with Holy Spirit, thinking properly about other yous. You need a miracle. It may actually take time and may be very difficult. Don't do it yourself. I think I should mention how peace actually can manifest itself, when you practice Course all the time. It is not what new practitioners think. You are more and more relaxed and you stop worrying about terrifying things we are exposed to all the time: accidents, health problems, wars, tragedies, deaths, missing trains, black holes, problems in work etc. etc. You recognize stream of changes and tragedies doesn't stop. You will just stop reacting to it, because you know it those events are not true. This understanding will have direct impact to your goals and behaviors (and events you participate too). Try to for example gather material wealth if you know it is worthless. You just giving lower needs to be managed by Jesus and Holy Spirit and that's it. You are much more efficient in helping others and not so concerned what others thinks about you. So this is actually practice for your small mind to reach your real You. Small you will not survive this. We are not building anything in this world, because it can't be saved. It is not real. Course is very radical. There are no compromises. We just need to leave this place and we can't do it without everybody else.
The goal of the course is to live in the world free of guilt. Its not a course on love. When everything and everyone is forgiven the guilt is gone. Any guilt you don't release will go with you when you die...and you'll bring it back with you in your next life. But it's not sequential...all lives are simultaneous within the illusion of time. It's the guilt that keeps us hiding out from God in this phony world.
