Home > Work > A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"
81 " anymore, you consider the possibility that there might be a better way. That’s when your head cracks open and God comes in. "
― Marianne Williamson , A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"
82 " Christ refers to the common thread of divine love that is the core and essence of every human mind. "
83 " I didn’t know, until reading A Course in Miracles, that a miracle is a reasonable thing to ask for. I didn’t know that a miracle is just a shift in perception. "
84 " Very few of us were taught that we’re essentially good. "
85 " There’s a biblical story where Jesus says we can build our house on sand or we can build it on rock. Our house is our emotional stability. When it is built on sand, then the winds and rain can tear it down. One disappointing phone call and we crumble; one storm and the house falls down. When our house is built on rock, then it is sturdy and strong and the storms can’t destroy it. "
86 " But remember, there’s only one of us here: What we give to others, we give to ourselves. "
87 " To surrender to God means to let go and just love. "
88 " But the Holy Spirit is a force of consciousness within us that “delivers us from Hell,” or fear, whenever we consciously ask Him to, working with us on the Causal level, transforming our thoughts from fear to love. "
89 " The term crucifixion means the energy pattern of fear. It represents the limited, negative thinking of the ego, and how it always seeks to limit, contradict or invalidate love. The term resurrection means the energy pattern of love, which transcends fear by replacing it. A miracle worker’s function is forgiveness. In performing our function, we become channels for resurrection. "
90 " It’s easy to forgive people who have never done anything to make us angry. People who do make us angry, however, are our most important teachers. They indicate the limits to our capacity for forgiveness. "
91 " Relationships are assignments. They are part of a vast plan for our enlightenment, the Holy Spirit’s blueprint by which each individual soul is led to greater awareness and expanded love. Relationships are the Holy Spirit’s laboratories in which He brings together people who have the maximal opportunity for mutual growth. He appraises who can learn most from whom at any given time, and then assigns them to each other. Like a giant universal computer, He knows exactly what combination of energies, in exactly what context, would do the most to further God’s plan for salvation. No meetings are accidental. “Those who are to meet will meet, because together they have the potential for a holy relationship. "
92 " We’re all assigned a piece of the garden, a corner of the universe that is ours to transform. Our corner of the universe is our own life—our relationships, our homes, our work, our current circumstances—exactly as they are. Every situation we find ourselves in is an opportunity, perfectly planned by the Holy Spirit, to teach love instead of fear. Whatever energy system we find ourselves a part of, it’s our job to heal it—to purify the thought forms by purifying our own. It’s never really a circumstance that needs to change—it’s we who need to change. The prayer isn’t for God to change our lives, but rather for Him to change us. "
93 " Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. "
94 " Our deepest fears is not that we are inadequate, . . . "
95 " the Holy Spirit is within us to do the impossible. "
96 " But when we ask Him to change them, He will. When we’re angry, or upset for any reason, we’re asked to say, “I’m angry but I’m willing not to be. I’m willing to see this situation differently.” We ask the Holy Spirit to enter into the situation and show it to us from a different perspective. "
97 " When Michelangelo was asked how he created a piece of sculpture, he answered that the statue already existed within the marble. God Himself had created the Pieta, David, Moses. Michelangelo’s job, as he saw it, was to get rid of the excess marble that surrounded God’s creation. So it is with you. The perfect you isn’t something you need to create, because God already created it. The perfect you is the love within you. Your job is to allow the Holy Spirit to remove the fearful thinking that surrounds your perfect self, just as excess marble surrounded Michelangelo’s perfect statue. "
98 " Before the Prince can save the damsel in distress, he has to slay the dragons that surround her castle. So do we all. Those dragons are our demons, our wounds, our egos, our brilliant ways of denying love to ourselves and others. The ego’s patterns have to be rooted out, detoxed from our system, before the pure love within us can have a chance to come forth. "
99 " The only real problem is a lack of love. To address the world’s problems on any other level is a temporary palliative—a fix but not a healing, a treatment of the symptom but not a cure. "
100 " If I’m convinced that I’m not good enough, I will have a difficult time accepting someone into my life who thinks I am. It’s the Groucho Marx syndrome of not wanting to like anyone who would want me in their club. The only way that I can accept someone’s finding me wonderful, is if I find myself wonderful. But to the ego, self-acceptance is death. "