ACIM - Lesson 3

LESSON 3

I do not understand anything I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place].

Apply this idea in the same way as the previous ones, without making distinctions of any kind. Whatever you see becomes a proper subject for applying the idea. Be sure that you do not question the suitability of anything for application of the idea. These are not exercises in judgment. Anything is suitable if you see it. Some of the things you see may have emotionally charged meaning for you. Try to lay such feelings aside, and merely use these things exactly as you would anything else.

The point of the exercises is to help you clear your mind of all past associations, to see things exactly as they appear to you now, and to realize how little you really understand about them. It is therefore essential that you keep a perfectly open mind, unhampered by judgment, in selecting the things to which the idea for the day is to be applied. For this purpose one thing is like another; equally suitable and therefore equally useful.

ACIM - Lesson 2

LESSON 2

I have given everything I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] all the meaning that it has for me.

The exercises with this idea are the same as those for the first one. Begin with the things that are near you, and apply the idea to whatever your glance rests on. Then increase the range outward. Turn your head so that you include whatever is on either side. If possible, turn around and apply the idea to what was behind you. Remain as indiscriminate as possible in selecting subjects for its application, do not concentrate on anything in particular, and do not attempt to include everything you see in a given area, or you will introduce strain.

Merely glance easily and fairly quickly around you, trying to avoid selection by size, brightness, color, material, or relative importance to you. Take the subjects simply as you see them. Try to apply the exercise with equal ease to a body or a button, a fly or a floor, an arm or an apple. The sole criterion for applying the idea to anything is merely that your eyes have lighted on it.

Make no attempt to include anything particular, but be sure that nothing is specifically excluded.

ACIM - Lesson 1

ACIM - LESSON 1

Nothing I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] means anything.

Now look slowly around you, and practice applying this idea very specifically to whatever you see:

This table does not mean anything.

This chair does not mean anything.

This hand does not mean anything.

This foot does not mean anything.

This pen does not mean anything.

Then look farther away from your immediate area, and apply the idea to a wider range:

That door does not mean anything.

That body does not mean anything.

That lamp does not mean anything.

That sign does not mean anything.

That shadow does not mean anything.

Notice that these statements are not arranged in any order, and make no allowance for differences in the kinds of things to which they are applied. That is the purpose of the exercise. The statement should merely be applied to anything you see. As you practice the idea for the day, use it totally indiscriminately. Do not attempt to apply it to everything you see, for these exercises should not become ritualistic. Only be sure that nothing you see is specifically excluded. One thing is like another as far as the application of the idea is concerned.

Each of the first three lessons should not be done more than twice a day each, preferably morning and evening. Nor should they be attempted for more than a minute or so, unless that entails a sense of hurry. A comfortable sense of leisure is essential.

ACIM - Introduction

INTRODUCTION TO A COURSE IN MIRACLES

A theoretical foundation such as the text provides is necessary as a framework to make the exercises in this blog thread meaningful. Yet it is doing the exercises that will make the goal of the course possible. An untrained mind can accomplish nothing. It is the purpose of this post to train your mind to think along the lines the text sets forth.

The exercises are very simple. They do not require a great deal of time, and it does not matter where you do them. They need no preparation. The training period is one year. The exercises are numbered from 1 to 365. Do not undertake to do more than one set of exercises a day.

The posts are divided into two main sections, the first dealing with the undoing of the way you see now, and the second with the acquisition of true perception. With the exception of the review periods, each day's exercises are planned around one central idea, which is stated first. This is followed by a description of the specific procedures by which the idea for the day is to be applied.

The purpose of these posts is to train your mind in a systematic way to a different perception of everyone and everything in the world. The exercises are planned to help you generalize the lessons, so that you will understand that each of them is equally applicable to everyone and everything you see.

Transfer of training in true perception does not proceed as does transfer of the training of the world. If true perception has been achieved in connection with any person, situation or event, total transfer to everyone and everything is certain. On the other hand, one exception held apart from true perception makes its accomplishments anywhere impossible.

The only general rules to be observed throughout, then, are: First, that the exercises be practiced with great specificity, as will be indicated. This will help you to generalize the ideas involved to every situation in which you find yourself, and to everyone and everything in it. Second, be sure that you do not decide for yourself that there are some people, situations or things to which the ideas are inapplicable. This will interfere with transfer of training. The very nature of true perception is that it has no limits. It is the opposite of the way you see now.

The overall aim of the exercises is to increase your ability to extend the ideas you will be practicing to include everything. This will require no effort on your part. The exercises themselves meet the conditions necessary for this kind of transfer.

Some of the ideas the posts here present you will find hard to believe, and others may seem to be quite startling. This does not matter. You are merely asked to apply the ideas as you are directed to do. You are not asked to judge them at all. You are asked only to use them. It is their use that will give them meaning to you, and will show you that they are true.

Remember only this; you need not believe the ideas, you need not accept them, and you need not even welcome them. Some of them you may actively resist. None of this will matter, or decrease their efficacy. But do not allow yourself to make exceptions in applying the ideas the post contains, and whatever your reactions to the ideas may be, use them. Nothing more than that is required.

That concludes the Introduction to A Course In Miracles.

A Jedi's Love

Love is a commitment for the Jedi. It has never been an abstract idea. It is the way they live, the way they teach, and ultimately the way they give their lives. Everything the Jedi accomplish flows from love. Without it, courage becomes pride, truth becomes harsh, justice becomes cold, and peace becomes passive.

The Jedi do not define love as sentiment or agreement. The Jedi defined it through action. They love people who misunderstood them, opposed them, and eventually abandoned them. The Jedi love across boundaries of ethnicity, religion, morality, and power. The Jedi’s love is not selective or safe. It is intentional and costly.

Many of us struggle with love because it asks more of us than belief ever will. Love requires proximity. It requires patience. It requires forgiveness. And sometimes, love requires us to stay when leaving would be easier.

The Jedi make it clear that love is the true measure of faithfulness. Not how much we know. Not how right we are. But how we treat others, especially those who are difficult to love. In the way of the Jedi, love is not weakness. It is strength anchored in trust.

Loving like a Jedi does not mean ignoring truth or avoiding hard conversations. It means refusing to dehumanize others even when disagreement is real. It means choosing dignity over dismissal and mercy over revenge.

Love shows up in ordinary ways more often than dramatic ones. Listening longer than feels comfortable. Choosing kindness when bitterness feels justified. Continuing to show up when the relationship feels strained. These quiet practices form the Jedi and form us.

In the end, love is not just one part of the way of the Jedi. It is THE WAY. When we practice love faithfully, even imperfectly, we begin to reflect the heart of the Jedi to a world desperate for hope.

Self-Healed Madman

A Jedi's Peace

The ancient Jedi Masters spoke about peace to people who did not have peaceful lives.

They lived with fear, loss, occupation, and uncertainty woven into everyday life. So, when Jedi Masters talked about peace, they weren’t offering comfort or escape. They were offering a way to remain with the Force when nothing around them felt stable.

The Jedi Masters lived in that same reality. They knew violence, injustice, and division firsthand. Yet they consistently spoke about peace, not as denial of suffering, but as a way of living rooted in trust of the Force. The peace the Jedi Masters were offering was different than what most were offering. It did not depend on circumstances improving or conflicts disappearing.

We often think peace comes after problems are solved. After things calm down. After life feels manageable again. But the Jedi Master presents peace as something that sustains us while problems remain. Their peace does not pretend everything is fine. They anchor us in the Force when everything feels uncertain.

Many of us struggle with peace because we live surrounded by noise. Fear-driven headlines. Endless opinions. Pressure to react quickly and choose sides. In that environment, peace can feel passive or even irresponsible. Anger feels more powerful. Outrage feels more justified.

But the peace of the Jedi is not passive. It is active and costly. It requires restraint when anger feels earned. Humility when pride wants control. Trust when fear demands certainty. Choosing peace often means resisting the urge to mirror the hostility around us.

Jedi Masters ask their followers to be peacemakers, not peacekeepers. Peacemaking does not avoid tension. It steps into it with wisdom and courage. It refuses to dehumanize others, even when disagreement is deep. It chooses love and impeccability over retaliation and presence over withdrawal.

Sometimes peace looks like reconciliation. Other times it looks like holding your ground without hatred. Listening longer than feels comfortable. Refusing to let fear shape who you become.

In the way of the Jedi and the Force, peace is not weakness. It is strength rooted in confidence that the Force is at work, even when the world feels broken. When we choose peace, we bear witness to a different Kingdom - one not built on fear, but on faith, hope, and love.

Self-Healed Madman

Jedi's Log - Number Three

Because the Force is alive, you are not at the mercy of your circumstances. You are held by a power greater than what you face.

Reflect: In regards to the comment above, what practices are you building now that will hold you when life gets hard? Is there a place of fear where you need to start carrying the Force more intentionally?

Meditation: Great Force, I don’t want to reach for you only in crisis. Build something with me, together, before I need it. Imprint your power on my soul so that when the hard things come, I am prepared. 

Self-Healed Madman

Jedi's Log - Number Two

The equivalent of external noise is the inner noise of thinking. The equivalent of external silence are the inner silent whispers of the Force. 

Whenever you feel the Force around you - listen to it. That means just notice it. Pay attention to it. Listening to the Force awakens the dimension of stillness within yourself, because it is only through stillness that you can be aware of the Force.

See that in the moment of noticing the Force around you, you are not thinking. You are aware, but not thinking.

When you become aware of the Force, immediately there is that state of inner still alertness. You are present. You have stepped out of thousands of years of collective human conditioning.

Look at a tree, a flower, a plant. Let your awareness rest upon it. How still they are, how deeply rooted in the Force. Allow nature to teach you about the Force.

Self-Healed Madman 

Jedi's Log - Number One

When you lose touch with the Force, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world.

Your innermost sense of self, of who you are, is inseparable from the Force. This is the “I Am” that is deeper than name and form.

The Force is your essential nature. What is the Force? Without the Force, there would be no perception, no thoughts, no world. You are the Force, disguised as a person.

The heart filled with positive attributes of the Force has very little room for angry reactions. 

Self-Healed Madman

Jedi's Log - Introduction

A true Jedi master does not have anything to teach in the conventional sense of the word, does not have anything to give or add to you, such as new information, beliefs, or rules of conduct. The only function of such a master is to help you remove that which separates you from the Force, as well as the truth of who you already are and what you already know in the depth of your being. 

The Jedi master is here to uncover and reveal to you that dimension of the Force that is also peace. If you come to a Jedi master or books or blog posts, etc., looking for stimulating ideas, theories, beliefs, intellectual discussions, then you will be disappointed. In other words, if you are looking for food for thought, you won't find it. And you will miss the very essence of the teaching, the essence of the Force which is not in the words but within yourself. It is good to remember that, to feel that, as you listen to the Force as it continuously whispers to you.

Words are no more than signposts. That to which they point is not to be found within the realm of thought, but a dimension within yourself that is deeper, and infinitely vaster than thought. A vibrantly alive peace is one of the characteristics of that dimension. So, whenever you feel inner peace arising, and a connection with the Force as you read, these posts are doing their work and fulfilling its function as your teacher. They are reminding you of who you are and pointing the way back home; your infinite connection with the Force.

This is not a blog to be read from post to post and then put away. Live with it. Visit it up frequently. And, more importantly, put it down frequently. Or spend more time contemplating the posts than clicking through them. Many readers will feel naturally inclined to stop reading after each post, to pause, reflect, become one with the information the Force is pointing to. It is always more helpful and more important to stop reading than to continue reading. Allow the blog posts to do their work, to awaken you from the old grooves of your repetitive and conditioned thinking.

The form of these Jedi’s Log posts can be seen as a revival for the present age of the oldest form of recorded spiritual teachings, the sutras of ancient India. Sutras are powerful pointers to the truth in the form of aphorisms or short sayings with little conceptual elaboration. The Vedas and Upanishads are the early sacred teachings recorded in the form of sutras, as are the words of the Buddha. The sayings and parables of Jesus, too, when taken out of their narrative context could be regarded as sutras as well as the profound teachings contained in the Tao Te Ching, the ancient Chinese book of wisdom.

The advantage of the sutra form lies in its brevity. It does not engage the thinking mind more than is necessary. What it doesn't say, but only points to, is more important than what it says.

The sutra-like character, of the writings in these Jedi’s Log posts, is particularly marked in the first couple of posts, which contains only the briefest of entries. These posts contain the essence of the entire Jediism thread and may be all that some readers require. The other posts are here for those who need a few more signposts.

Just like the ancient sutras, the writings contained within this blog are sacred and have come out of a state of consciousness we may call stillness of the Force. Unlike those sutras, however, they don't belong to any one religion or spiritual tradition, but are immediately accessible to the whole of humanity. Especially those interested in Jediism. 

There is also an added sense of urgency here. The transformation of human consciousness is no longer a luxury, so to speak, available only to a few, isolated individuals, but a necessity if human kind is not to destroy itself. At the present time, the dysfunction of the old consciousness and the arising of the new are both accelerating. Paradoxically, things are getting worse and better at the same time, although the worse is more apparent because it makes so much noise.

These Jedi’s Log posts, of course, uses words that in the act of reading or listening, become thoughts in your mind. But those are not ordinary thoughts: repetitive, noisy, self-serving, clamoring for attention. 

Just like every true spiritual teacher, such as a Jedi master, just like the ancient sutras, the thoughts within these posts don't say “look at me", but “look beyond me.” Because the thoughts came out of the Force, they have power, the power to take you back into the same great Force from which they arose. That energy of the Force is also inner peace. And that great Force and peace is the essence of your being. It is the Force that will save and transform the world.

Self-Healed Madman