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SearchHow can I love the imaginary people in the dream?
Question:
The Workbook Lesson 298 in “A Course in Miracles” idea is: "I love You Father and I love Your Son." How can I love the imaginary people in the dream? Does Jesus teach that all which you perceive in the illusion of man's world are images of bodies projected from your mind and looked upon as real? If so, how do you express love to these images of bodies who are misrepresentations of God's Son? I believe that we as the Son of God in the spiritual realm are an extension of God Who is Love and therefore we too are that love. But what about the physical realm?
Answer:
Our Identity is Love and Love is Abstract Oneness. "Imaginary people in the dream" or "these images of bodies who are misrepresentations of God's Son,” as you phrase it, are the focus of forgiveness. Forgiveness brings an end to the attempt to project the error of separation. Forgiveness replaces the belief in separation with the Holy Spirit's Atonement or Correction. The Oneness of Love, Being Perfect, is beyond the "need" for forgiveness. Yet forgiveness of illusions (imaginary people/images of bodies) is the Call to awaken from the dream of separation. The Bible gives the commandment to have no graven images before God, and “A Course In Miracles” offers a practical curriculum in forgiving (overlooking) illusory images so that one may see with the Vision of Christ (the Spiritual Eye).
All images are the past. Distorted perception involves judgment—sequencing and arranging the images in a linear fashion. Spirit is beyond the veil of bodies and images, and the lifting of the veil (forgiveness) precedes the return of Vision. It is indeed impossible to Love images, for Love has no object. Eternal Love knows ItSelf as Spirit, and images are temporary idols which vanish when forgiven. Idols represent the belief in separation, and once the belief has been released the idols are gone as well.
What is perceived as "the physical realm" is still mind, for ideas leave not their source. Consciousness is the domain of the ego and seemed to arise after the seeming "fall." Forgiveness sees that all images are one, the past, and lets them go as one. This forgiven world (the tapestry seen as a whole that I often speak of) is a reflection of Love and, as an illusion, will also vanish—for Love is All there is and in Reality Love has no "reflection."
Love is simply What Is, Now and Forever. It is the obstacles to the awareness of Love that must be raised to awareness and thus forgiven (overlooked or released). Love is the only State of Being, and an attribute of Love is Extension: Love extends forever and ever. Love is Creation, yet Creation and Extension are Eternal and have nothing to do with illusory time-space. Therefore although it is impossible to express love to images, it is inevitable that one forgive images and know One Christ Self as Love ItSelf. So, once again, the aim is to accept Atonement (complete forgiveness) and thus realize that there is nothing apart from mind (the tapestry of consciousness is one fabric). This last illusion opens the way for the return of Vision and remembrance of God. Nothing of time-space is remembered in Eternity, for the seeming illusion of a "physical realm" has no existence whatsoever. In ACIM Lesson 132 this is conveyed as "There is no world." In the Introduction of ACIM, this is conveyed in the phrase "Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God."
Love thy neighbor as thy Self, for there is nothing apart from the Christ Self. Forgive the belief in duality, and only Oneness remains. Images were made to take the place of Reality. Once images are released, the awareness of Reality returns, for It had never "left."
Love is beyond teaching and learning, yet unlearning the false concepts of the ego belief is natural for a mind desiring healing. A mind emptied of idols is made ready for the return of the Knowledge of God and our Heavenly Kingdom. Forgive all little imaginary concepts of self, and what remains is the Self God created Eternally One as Spirit. You need do nothing to Be as You are. You need simply forgive (release) what You are not to be aware of the Being Which resides forever in the Heart of God. Salvation is so utterly simple that it seems to be obscure in a world of complexity. Yet all complexity is of the ego and is released at once as the ego is released at once. Desire the Holy Instant and everything else is taken care of automatically. Indeed, you can do nothing more without interfering with Its Coming in awareness.
Many blessings always,
David