ACIM Notebook

by Hugh Prather
published in The Holy Encounter

At the start of our journey, the experience of Love may appear to come and quickly go. And for many of us there will be long periods of comparative bleakness. Yet beneath it all will be a growing sense of innocence and a deepening conviction that a Friend walks beside us and holds our hand in gentleness. It eventually becomes clear that we have not been abandoned by Reality but only chose to look away awhile.

All of us experience tragedies in our lives; some of us, of course, far more devastating than others. Yet we all know fear and loss. We also experience triumph and joy. At times the world seems perilous and at times a place of hope. But the one thing it can never give us is constancy, and because of that we must never let down our guard, never relax into certainty. The world demands constant vigilance.

Regardless of how we perceive our lives, nothing external can deprive us of our Home. If the world is constantly changing, there is still one Place of rest and beauty that remains unchanged, always present and ever with us.

What then must we do to wake to the recognition that Reality has never changed? We need merely open our eyes. Instead of beginning still another useless search for small advantages, we must look honestly at the nature of what continuously shifts, for it can never give us what we long for—a real home that cannot be destroyed, lost or even betrayed. In place of a chaotic vision we must choose Love, not only because it is fair to all but because it is a simple fact, and the only one there is.

To recognize Love as real is never again to desire a compromise decision. We turn from a world of conflict, from all it seemed to hold out to us but never relinquished, and from all it appeared to do to us that we have not sufficiently avenged. We withdraw from that useless, endless fight and accept freedom instead. We turn and face the Light. No more than this.

And if we find we have not freed ourselves completely, we practice awhile longer only on what will make a difference: Charity without identification with pain. Gentleness that is strong and consistent. And happiness that is not snatched and is not hidden.

Each time we practice love, we open our eyes a little further on the Place of Love. Love is our means and our end. It is our Home, our Family, and our Identity. That evidence, seen and felt, reveals the emptiness of dreams. But if we treat the means of our awaking as a trinket, something merely to be worn occasionally like some clever adornment, it will have no deep meaning for us and cannot disclose its limitless worth.

Perhaps this seems impractical. There is always so much to do, so many things to consider. Perhaps it seems insensitive in the face of tragedy and evil, or too pessimistic in light of the beauty and grandeur that also characterize the world.

There are innumerable reasons not to have faith in another Reality. But if we dwell on them, we cannot experience the freedom and joy of a peace that is not dependent on external events, because now our happiness is contingent on the future, and the future will not be controlled.

It is easy to argue against a Truth that does not separate one individual from another, a God who does not judge and seek vengeance. For many centuries the world has described the Divine in precisely this way, and just looking around at ordinary life seems to prove the point.

Many people have sought to make God a huge irritated infant who sits above us playing with a magic wand, a super ego who we hope hates our enemies yet capriciously punishes or rewards both the wicked and the good. But in the stillness of our heart we know this is not true.

We also know that God is not contained in a particular religion or system of beliefs. We know that even the attempt to define the Divine is as futile as trying to capture the beauty of a butterfly by pinning it to a display board.

It is time to put aside our ways of being right and bask together in the Peace that comforts all creatures great and small. The word God is merely a term and cannot begin to express the magnitude and splendor of the Stillness that surrounds and fills us all. God must be practiced, for God is Love. We can only awake by helping another awake.

We must pull our decision to walk straight into God around every part of us and over every instant of our day and night. We must exclude no one and no thing. We must make it the thought we wake with and the goal we cherish in our sleep. We must see no other person without light, and light will begin to pervade each crack and corner of our surroundings, until, finally, we recognize that we have never left the Place where Love watches over us.