The Choice for Peace is Made Once

For a long time after I became a student of A Course in Miracles when things were hard or dark I felt I’d “fallen off the path”. I kept thinking I had to choose peace again and again. Why couldn’t I just make the choice and mean it? Why did I keep losing my way? What I didn’t know was that I had meant the choice for peace the first time that I allowed myself to experience Truth. I didn’t have to make the choice again. Once I let Truth into my awareness my path to peace was set. I wasn’t lost; I was in an unfolding process. The times that I saw as hard or dark or lost were part of that process to attaining peace. But I only saw this in hindsight many, many years later.
            What unfolded after the moment that I let Truth into my awareness was that moment manifesting in the story of time. So any choice for peace that I made after that moment was not to choose the whole path all over again. It was a choice for peace now. In any given moment if I was not at peace and I wanted peace I needed to choose Truth then and there. The goal of peace had already been chosen and didn’t need to be made again. In fact, it was unfolding in that choice for peace in the present moment. Every moment that I chose Truth in the unfolding story of time was an expression of that first choice for peace. Those moments for peace now were inevitable.
And it was also inevitable that initially the choices for peace in the present were few and far between. Though I had made the choice for Truth and my path to peace was set what I did not yet have was full acceptance of the Goal. I did not wholly trust It. So in time I had to learn that the Truth is true and to learn to trust It. In time trust grew and I chose Truth and peace more often until finally one day I realized peace had some to stay in my awareness. That moment long before when I let Truth into my awareness had manifested in the unfolding story of time.

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Comments

Christine said…
Very clear. Thank you.
hannah said…
Liz, after i spoke with you a couple of weeks ago, i spent the whole day (and then on and off for days afterward) in a state of tension free relaxation. i felt light like my/this selfs choices no longer had weight or import, i felt harmless and innocent, a very quietly blazing joy is how i'd describe it! trust hardly even seems like the right word, as there was no doubt or fear calling for trust? just an accepting strength with no choice to make.

anyhow, this article just woke that feeling again, thankee ma'am ;) over the last six years you have again and again flicked a switch in my mind that actually allowed me to feel it was 'permissible' to see myself as innocent exactly right where i was, with no alterations or time required before i could ('was allowed to') relax into that.

you have also helped me to release feeling bad for seeking and accepting validation, i used to tie myself in knots of confusion around that one, thinking that any peace wasnt valid unless i came to it 'entirely by own choice'. i may not have intellectually believed it was weak to ask a mentor for help with a pain inducing view i couldnt seem to shift, but it was what i felt behind the intellect. thank you and love you eternally!
ACIM Mentor said…
You are welcome, Hannah. Glad you found the session and my writing useful.
Unknown said…
This also flicked a switch within.Many thanks to the previous comment.In my case there was such a kindness in your sharing Liz that I totally broke down.I panicked as I was going that weekend to a nursing home( a nursing home to help look after my friends Mother Julia,(not her real name) while she was away and who had major health issues.I shouted out 'I can't do this anymore help! My inner voice I always call Jesus spoke softly with these words 'no weapon formed again me shall prosper' and a wee bit confused I went with the flow. That night when I put my head on the pillow, I felt transported and was looking at my friends mother. There was this joining as if I was her and, as I said the words,I laughed with at the irony and in that moment I experienced this joining that I cannot describe. Julia and I were one,and I knew everything was ok. I can't describe the weekend, a major shift had occurred and I was seeing with clarity what was needed.After one particularly distressing episode for Julia,we prayed together,as she looked up at me with wide innocence I knew we had joined. In her words 'I see it now' I see God. In Julia's case the level of bad practices and miss care were beyond belief, not anymore as she is in hospital getting all the care she needs and with her family arriving daily from oversees. Liz,you're shared here an opening to inner peace that we can be a part of with our brother if we are honest with ourselves. Its can be all to easy to get caught up in form. Thanks you Liz in the all xxx
Anonymous said…
Hannah, when you say you just allowed yourself to accept that you are innocent, that it is permissable to just allow that Truth to be, in any upset moment regardless?
Anonymous said…
I guess I mean regardless of underdstanding what my lack of peace is exactly related to in any given situation, interaction, event, or just sitting here alone at home.
hannah said…
hi anonymous :) yes, accepting innocence regardless of if i understand the cause and effect, (of seeing guilt in and around me) or not, on the level of the story of my self.

often when im trying to feel my way into innocence, it seems like a selfish or heartless thing to do, like if i attempt to just drop a judgement against only the Truth being True (or in other words, drop a judgement FOR the reality of my self and the 'real' effects of its thoughts and choices and actions). it often feels like the guilt is the only thing letting me off the hook, the only padding between me and the big frown of disapproval that it feels like im receiving from some kind of 'essence of rightness and purity'. (sometimes this feels like god outside me, sometimes it feels like god in my mind.. but either way it feels like 'reality' will judge me more if i drop the guilt. and in this space the 'whatever' that seems to have caused the guilt is important, and if i drop it from my mind im being irresponsible and unhelpful and bad, basically. if i drop 'it' im going against the wishes of god.

talking with liz kinda.. flipped truth and not-truth back into their actual places. so i that whole time i was just.. dropping the guilt without adding to the guilt, laugh! the result practically of that (Truth being accepted as reality in my mind, and life-as-i-know-it as not truth) is that it made all the stories (any given situation as you said) sort of.. meld into one story. or another way of saying that, would be that i felt like i was tuning in to the one purpose behind whatever stories came up, whatever judgements my mind made as to how things around me should have been happening.. and was just remembering the right minded purpose instead.

its funny that i should still have 'needed' that permission, despite already having (at least) some intellectual understanding of truth and how to re-purpose the egos purpose etc.. (and im pretty sure i'll need it again at some point!) but its sort of like the trust i feel that liz only says what she has experienced, and that she is experiencing awakening to Truth, to reality, allows me to shift her in my mind into the role of 'voice for god'.. i had 'permission' from her (she just reinforced the truth in my mind somehow)(how DOES that happen liz? is it like resonance?). this is only temporary, of course, but welcome to me and helpful as it allowed me a strong experience of accepting innocence, and the part of my mind which still sees 'god' as outside of it, associates liz with a kind god of truth, which gives me the room to observe where the ego in my mind is masquerading as the voice for truth... which will im sure in turn be part of the process of accepting god as god Is.. not a force outside of me at all.

ACIM Mentor said…
Hannah, I couldn't reinforce the Truth in your mind if It wasn't already there. And you wouldn't feel it as reinforcement unless you were willing to be aware of It.
hannah said…
ah, yes, thanks. the desire to 'put' the source outside can be really subtle. a lot of my questions lately turn out to be nothing more (or at least.. not MUCH more!) than an effort to keep making/reinforcing cause 'other' than this mind. im thinking this is just a reflection of trying to keep god 'other'.. is this right or are they really the same dynamic? i am trying to think it through, but i cant seem to hold the ideas in my mind like a clear map! hmm.. maybe it cant be the same dynamic because god isnt causal in the dream. is that right?

i think maybe resonance isnt a bad word for the effect you have on willing minds, except for that the word doesnt imply an active choice!
ACIM Mentor said…
Hannah, you are retraining your mind. It's a long process of seeming to relearn the same lesson over and over again, in this case, that it is all going on in your own mind. You just need to keep reminding yourself. That's the process!
hannah said…
'you are retraining your mind' and 'its all going on in your own mind' reminded me of something i asked you about when we spoke, which ive got a bit tangled/uncomfortable around again.

the course says nothing of true being is aware of this experience of separation, right? and it says that to be at peace here we need to be aware of our reality as mind, not as selves, and also that this is the awareness from which it is possible to wake to Truth.

when we spoke i asked you.. oh i cant recall exactly so ill just ask again!

you once responded to something i said on one of your blogs that i was not nothing, i was mind becoming aware of its true nature? something like that. i can intellectually grasp that im not a self and that Truth is an abstract idea to me that i call mind. but if truth is unaware of this dream at all, if this experience is completely opposite to truth, then how can i, (this individual mind experiencing itself) who is part of this experience, NOT be just completely nothing?? what aspect of this mind CAN Know itself if its not Real?

your response on skype made me feel great relief and joy, but the question of what is mind, and how can there be god/something real in a mind that doesn't exist in truth is back and confusing!
hannah said…
liz - i looked for 'mind' in answers by topic, but it doesnt have its own heading. do you have any suggestions as to a good topic heading which would include this subject?
hannah said…
i just came across this in my study, and i think it clarifies why this is on my mind (grr, lol) so much..

"For self condemnation is a decision about identity, and no-one doubts what he thinks he is. He can doubt all things, but never this."

after talking with you, i felt innocent, and harmless, and trusting 'god'. 'god and i' felt like.. kindred, the same, if not one, i still felt like 'me', experiencing. there was no self condemnation present (in my awareness anyway) because (i think) what you said somehow temporarily removed this barrier in my mind which says NOTHING of the 'me' having this experience can be part of god, cos god isn't in parts. does this sound correct??
hannah said…
liz, i think i just got it. what God IS, simply cant BE absent, its All that IS! and thats the only part of 'me' thats real. that part can never not be what it is, so i can trust it completely, right!? i can relax!?
ACIM Mentor said…
Your last one, Hannah: You got it right!
hannah said…
oh yayayayayay! its a MIRACLE! ;) (singing mr bluebird on my shoulder)(cos Its a fact, Its actual!)
hannah said…
in other words.. thank you!

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