I am breathing a sigh of hopeful relief. Thank you so much for reminding all of us that there is a way out of the desert. To be in the world, but not of it.❤
“Perception is a mirror, not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward.” There is no exception. If our peace is disturbed by something that seems to be outside ourselves. We have to look inward at what that disturbance is, how it makes us feel, and trace back on our timeline in this dream, to the root cause of that feeling, and forgive it. Shine the light on that darkness. Then all the repeated situations you experienced will be healed. This will make space for Christ vision, now that the block to Love’s Presence has been removed. Nothing is happening out there. It’s all in our minds. Let’s join with Jesus, one Mind and heal the Sonship. That is my prayer. Many blessings to all.
Thank you for this. The easiest thing would have been to avoid the topic of politics completely, so saying this takes courage. But the vision of the course is truly needed right now
I agree with Robert when it comes to companioning people out of harmful positions. If the option is available, it's a good opportunity, but love will always find a way to express itself, no matter the situation. well said, thank you both.
This video is a great lesson on how the Ego operates. The Ego blocks God’s essence by utilizing a cycle of Anger>Attack>Guilt>Fear in no particular order. Robert and Emily express fear of a particular political party winning the elections. Then, they go on a subtle attack on those who oppose their political ideology. And should their perception of the wrong party getting elected to power happen, their bodies will shudder with fear as the Ego has won again. I’ve been a student of A Course in Miracles since 1979 during the three-book phase. There is nothing in the course that teaches you to fear any political party. Peace will come to all students who practice it daily. The only objective of ACIM is “The Return to Love.”
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. The intention behind this discussion was not to evoke fear around any political party, but rather to bring forward Course principles of healing and repair to a topic as timely and impactful as the presidential election. I realize I could have clarified in the video that the harmful ideologies I mentioned are present across the political spectrum. However, I also feel it's important to recognize that certain issues, such as violent rhetoric or the removal of civil rights, call for us to respond with compassion and courage. True spirituality is about love, and sometimes love calls us to quiet inner shifts, while other times it calls us to act in the world. Thank you again for engaging in this conversation. - Emily
I love the focus Robert mentions about seeing the "sameness" in all of us. Even on a human level! Unless we sincerely intend to see all and everyone as the same as us at the core. We will never truly see the light of God that joins us. It takes willingness to see that the extreme hatred outside of ourselves is really our own self-hatred. When we can admit and acknowledge that, we heal ourselves and we heal the world. One brother and sister at a tie no matter the category we want to make up.
I've thought about this as well, and I have told my friends (who don't know about ACIM) that it feels like we are being punked right now (or for those who remember, we are on candid camera). I really do feel that the ego is just playing games with us at this point. Obviously the Course teaches us that none of this world is real, so we could look at it that way and not worry about any of it. All of it is just part of the illusory world created by the ego. Since the ego is making it up, there is no better president for an ego-based world than Trump. He is the perfect manifestation of pure ego/selfishness/insanity in my opinion. Another way to look at it is that even if you believe the Earth is real, when you look at it from a satellite photo, you will see there are no separate nations or states. The lines we see on a map are drawn in by humans; they don't really exist. There are no races, nationalities, or nations; that is something we as humans invented. There is no United States. The president is a meaningless title placed on a meaningless person by a meaningless process imagined by egos. None of the things we seem to take as real are real at all. They only exist on paper. Everything that is actually real is a part of God, and that is all there is. Nothing real can be threatened.
I am pure in heart. I am not at the mercy of others. I will pick up the hitchhiker because if they are insane, there is no one more qualified to heal them than I, by the martial art of defenselessness. They will never forget their experience with me and my joy will increase. Why would I sacrifice that out of concern for my gold? We are here to love one another, not to manage each other. We all want happiness.
You referenced one of my very favorite parts of the course.... that I am perfectly unaffected by all expressions of lack of love. I wrote this down and keep it my wallet. Thank you for the reminder!!! ❤❤❤❤❤❤
I do appreciate these podcasts. They offer peace. I sense we need to be careful, however, in remembering that ACIM is about the process of purifying our own hearts. None of us have fully achieved this. As humans, we will always see through the glasses of our experiences and opinions. We are influenced by social media and the source of news we ascribe to...so many entanglements. This is part of the human experience. It feels still like human fear and ego to decide that if your candidate of choice doesn't win, then that is the result of a cumulation of impure hearts determining the outcome. Maybe it's another opportunity to ask the Divine what else can I let go of. As ACIM students/teachers, we know that only God can see the whole picture. Of course, voting is important but can be a pride check as well. Jesus never extended love so as to sway people to his way. He loved people because they are God's creation. It takes some very honest inner reflection and a high level of integrity to not use love to bring the perceived "other side" to our way of viewing anything. This election is the perfect mirror for each of us to reflect the clever disguise of our own ego...what an incredible opportunity we have now to see our own blind sides from spiritual clarity.
Thank you so much for your comment. We completely agree that the Course is a profound journey of purifying our hearts and minds. At the same time, it also encourages us to bring love into the world around us as part of that process. The idea that our collective thoughts shape external conditions isn’t just a personal view but is directly drawn from the Course itself: “...external conditions are produced by the thoughts of many, not all of whom are pure in heart as yet. Why should you be at their mercy?” [CE T-2.I.25:3-4] acimce.app/:T-2.I.25:3-4. Thank you again for being part of this conversation. - Emily
Amen! What Robert said about saying to someone "there belief system is harmful"...we won't get to the love part unless we can start from a point of sameness. I do question whether or not our vote at this point in history actually matter in terms of long term transformation.
I know that you cannot hear my love in my words, so I will listen intently to you until I can hear your love in your heart, so that you may hear it, too. If you cannot hear the love in my words, I will refocus my efforts on putting more love into them, If the world is an illusion then it is even more important, because it is the result of my errors and it is in my mind and I cannot escape it until I correct my errors that result in my seeing it.
Back about 2 months ago there was our State election voting. Am newer to ACIM (and on lesson 143 today, 1st time thru). I asked Spirit of Jesus, should I even be voting? Waited and heard nothing. Went to the poll and the ballot names of the party choices for each position WERE BLANK. No names were on my ballot, honest. I could not see any. Flipped it over & over, while blinking my eyes. The referendums questions were however present. So, i handed the ballot card to the supervisor man and said I wascunprepared and needed to research further. He almost refused to take back my card but I left abruptly. This election, I am umoved to cast a vote. Either way whomsoever "wins", it will become positive in some respects for us all. Blessing Robert & Emily, much gratitude & peace. ❤
Many years ago I did the EST Training and its founder Werner Erhard said our ego problem is we are all walking upset machines looking for someone to blame it on.
To those who fear the results of either candidate: I remind you of WWII. It was terrible and I would not have chosen it. But spiritual people were divided on whether the US should join the hostilities. Despite all of the tragedy, I cannot imagine another way that we could have gotten as quickly to the high point of the United Nations in 1950 other than by the path of the tragedy that the world went through. I also could be wrong about this election. The other candidate could be an accelerator that takes us beyond where we could have otherwise been. This will ONLY be true if both sides (who disagree about the path) remain united on the shared goal of a more loving world. I don't know, but I reject putting my energy into division and fear and condemnation. I am not powerless and I am not afraid. I am here to fulfill my function and I will know when I am doing that by the joy that I feel, not by the fear. There is nothing to fear. Fear is never justified.
I facilitate an ACIM group that will be meeting tonight and was searching youtube for other ACIM perspectives and found yours. I appreciate it very much and liked most of it. The part that confuses me however is at the end you say that God has a plan for this world. That seems to be making the world real. I am wondering where that is found in the course as my reading has always been that God knows nothing of this world of illusion. He sees that his son is sleeping and waits for him to awake. I ask this question not to be argumentative but because I would like to know if I'm mistaken it is important to know. Overall I found the talk valuable.
Thanks so much for listening to the episode. The Course talks repeatedly about the world being an illusion *AND* that we have a part in the salvation of the world. Both things are true. As to God's plan, we recommend doing a search on the word "plan" in the Course so you can see for yourself how often it's mentioned and the context. acimce.app/ One other thing is that, while the Course says God knows not of form, it also says repeatedly that God hears our prayers and is speaking to us all the time. Here are a few examples: acimce.app/book/W-49#W-49:1 acimce.app/book/W-168#W-168.1 I hope that's helpful. Thanks again for reaching out and good luck with your class. - Emily ♥
@@CircleOfAtonement Thank you for your kind response. I love the lessons you have referenced. I don't, however think that they are saying that God is controlling events within the dream only that we can, through forgiveness see the world differently. Nothing in form has to change but we change our mind by turning to the voice for God, Holy Spirit, rather than the voice for separation, This is our only real choice. Regardless of differences in interpretation, thank you for your message of forgiveness. Jack
Thanks for your reply. We don’t believe God is controlling events here either. This will better explain our position on that: th-cam.com/video/95ZZvJAkU0c/w-d-xo.htmlsi=6motKT2bqqsrgyxB The Course does mention God’s will and God’s plan throughout including, notably, the plan of the teachers and plan for salvation. But we have free will in whether we choose to follow. Hope that helps. - Emily xx
Nice day to remember that you are invulnerable because of the Atonement. "Therefore, make your invulnerability manifest to everyone you meet, and teach him that, whatever he may try to do to you, your perfect freedom from the belief that you can be harmed shows him he is guiltless. He can do nothing that can hurt you, and by refusing to allow him to think he can, you teach him that the Atonement, which you have accepted, is also his." (ACIM-CE T-14.III.6:4-5)
The first and last parts were great: the ideas of seeing the sameness in our ‘enemies’ and putting love first in our relationships. However when you were talking about how to make a choice between who to vote for, what you said only highlighted the problem that divides people. You say it’s obvious which side represents the spiritual ideals, and used the concept of the four freedoms to illustrate that, but I can guarantee you that most people on the other side see those very same freedoms as best represented by their chosen candidate. You may judge them to be deluded and brainwashed, but they think the same thing of you, and who’s to say which side is right? There’s not much concrete evidence to prove one side or the other moved things forward when they were in power. The thing is that the political situation globally has become much more complex in recent times in terms of which side represents which ideology. I know personally that I and many people I know have completely switched their political allegiance, and yet our humanitarian values have not changed. For me Covid was a catalyst in this, because it happens, on top of personal experience of the effects of vaccines, I had already done a lot of research regarding the vaccination of my child that made me immediately question the ethics of this major health choice being imposed on people at the risk of them losing their livelihoods. Another example is a friend of mine who could not be more caring and further from any possible description of racist. She used to identify firmly, like me, with liberal politics. Then she began working with refugees here in France, and after years of understanding the predicament they find themselves in and the reasons that they are incentivized to leave their families, she has completely changed her opinion on what needs to be done politically. It’s nothing to do with racism or lack of love. I could give many more examples. My mother is passionate about history and geopolitics. She is extremely well-read and looks at both sides of situations like the war in Ukraine. She is continually astounded at how skewed the mainstream narrative of the actual reasons for this conflict is. Russia was in a peace process with Ukraine over the Donbas region (the Minsk Accords) which the US deliberately derailed by means of Boris Johnson. They did this because both the UK and the US had already invested in oil and other resources in this region, and they did not want it to return to Russia. The human loss in the ensuing endless war seems to be completely incidental to the power elite who drive these political decisions. But please don’t think that the democrats are sending billions to the Ukraine because they care about their plight! Being a student of the Course, I’m interested in how people relate to each other on a personal level. Clearly it’s very difficult to assess this from any media source without being there, but you can observe how political figures relate to others in different contexts. The one person I see consistently expressing a caring and respectful attitude to his opponents is RFK jr. He seems to sincerely want to bring people together rather than create more division. He has worked tirelessly for decades to defend the environment from the abuses of industry etc. I don’t think any of us can say we’re in a position to know better than him the forces that drive politics in the US, so if he’s prepared to join Trump then I think there’s good reason to question the image of him as a Hitlerian tyrant that we’ve been fed for the past ten years. I’m well aware of the fact that many people also see RFK jr. as a crackpot conspiracy theorist who is only out for his own agenda, again thanks to mainstream media, but anyone who has taken the time to listen to him speak at length should know this is hardly the case. The point being that when you look at different points of view with a truly open mind, there is no clear and simple answer to who we should vote for, and that’s why we should avoid judging the ‘other side’ and certainly not have the arrogance to think we’re justified in coercing them towards our point of view! This is hardly the teaching of the Course. I think dealing with any fears we project onto those people we’ve judged to follow ‘harmful ideologies’ is a better place to start.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I completely understand that harmful rhetoric can be found on both sides of the political spectrum. When it comes to the presidential candidates, however, only one candidate has been using violent language and imagery and violence has no place in public discourse. I truly appreciate this dialogue and the chance to reflect on these complex issues together. - Emily
This may be minor in the context of this subject, but I just want to express appreciation for the mention of RFKJr in a positive way. I do agree with you on this matter.
@@CircleOfAtonement I appreciate your willingness to have an open dialogue. As you said in the podcast, we all have some darkness in our hearts. I don’t like the use of aggressive words either, but it can’t be denied that a lot of what Kamala says is a direct attack on Trump, and likening someone to Hitler is about one of the worst condemnations you could make in our society. In any case, Jesus teaches us that the degree of our ego’s hatred is irrelevant, there’s only one meaningful distinction, and that’s between love and fear. I happened to be reading the same section in the Course this morning where the pure of heart are mentioned. I found this earlier passage in the discussion of different types of possession and how to heal them particularly relevant: 21 It is emphasized here that these differences have no effect at all on the miracle, which can heal any of them with equal ease. ²This is because of the miracle’s inherent avoidance of within-error distinctions. ³Its sole concern is to distinguish between truth on the one hand and all kinds of error on the other. ⁴This is why some miracles seem to be of greater magnitude than others. ⁵But remember the first principle in this course: that there is no order of difficulty in miracles. [CE T-2.I.20-21] acimce.app/:T-2.I.20-21 So even if we perceive, rightly or wrongly, another’s ego to be particularly big, the solution is the same: to ask the Holy Spirit to help us see it as a call for love (which is also in our own mind) and respond with love not fear. It then states: a true miracle cannot occur on a false basis. ⁴Sometimes the undoing must precede it. So if we are feeling in any way fearful of Trump’s ego, we have to undo that perception in ourselves before we can accept the miracle that heals the situation. I know you know all of this, and I’m stating it in the spirit of sharing the idea to make it more powerful for my own application of it, not as an attack. I’m well aware how difficult it is. I do think that when we’re putting ourselves in a position of teaching Course principles we have to be particularly vigilant about teaching only love. All talk about ‘harmful ideologies’ is teaching that we can be harmed by others and by external circumstances. This is of course true on the worldly level, but we can only heal that level by helping each other to know that it is not true on the level of our true Self.
@@robertaswanson5633 It’s good to know that someone else in this community sees the good in him! I’ve been following him for years in other contexts in which he has proven his sincerity and intelligence. I can only imagine that he is so virulently attacked in mainstream media because he poses a threat to some extremely powerful people. Yesterday he said that he’d been praying every morning for the last seven years for God to help him find a way to do something about the health crisis. He said he feels that God brought him Trump. I know most will laugh this off as something he concocted to play along to Trump’s Christian following, but I actually heard him say this was a part of his morning meditation years ago, when he was still a democrat. I think we’ve got to a point worldwide where we need to root out the deep corruption that people who only care about money and power have brought about. Who are we to know from our feeble perspective that Trump is not the right one for that job for whatever reason? I think this goes beyond the individual personalities of the candidates to the dynamics of the people surrounding them.
@@gabydareau I really appreciate the depth and nuance of your comment above, and I find myself agreeing with much of what you've expressed. There is much common ground we share, especially with your observation that the Course teaches the degree of the ego’s hatred doesn’t matter-only the distinction between love and fear. Big yes. May we all learn to love more deeply every day. 🙏❤- Emily
@@richkmaclean The Course isn’t into Bible prophecy. It reinterprets the Second Coming as a return to sanity, which it defines as a return to love. - Emily
@@gillsim66 We are choosing to side with candidates who are most in alignment with the Course’s values of love and forgiveness. That is discernment. It becomes judgment when you take a position and then scorn those who don’t share your views. There is a difference. - Emily
@@CircleOfAtonement I’m not sure why, but your response to my below request for examples of love and forgiveness has not been made public, although I did get it in an email from youtube. Let me preface my response by clarifying that I am not in or from the US. I don’t care who wins the race, as I subscribe to the view that both parties are corrupted, and essentially wings of the same bird. The US empire will carry on its destruction regardless of who sits in the seat, and which 50% of the US get to celebrate their team winning. The examples you provided are disappointing, and revealing in that they lack nuance and are removed from their broader context, demonstrating to me that you, like most of us, have a strong preference for taking in information from within our “echo chamber”. Your examples could have come straight from CNN, MSNBC or The View. I stand by my assessment that, regardless of what you tell yourself, this video comes across as thinly veiled judgement, i.e. scorn, and I don’t think you have served the interest of the Course in this case.
@@gillsim66 Hmmm. I see it didn't post either so here is my response as to where the candidates have aligned with love and forgiveness. Harris last week at the Capitol: The fact that someone disagrees with us does not make them the “enemy within.” They are family, neighbors, classmates, coworkers. They are fellow Americans, and as Americans, we rise and fall together. America, for too long, we have been consumed with too much division, chaos, and mutual distrust. And it can be easy then to forget a simple truth: It doesn’t have to be this way. It doesn’t have to be this way. It is time to stop pointing fingers- we have to stop pointing fingers and start locking arms. Trump last week on Liz Cheney: Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let's see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face. I understand your perspective, and I appreciate you bringing it up. For us, alluding to someone getting shot is never something we would see as acceptable, regardless of the context. Our belief is that love is the only way to truly heal and repair the world, and this is where we feel the teachings of A Course in Miracles are so needed. You may feel our approach is imperfect, and that’s okay. But the principles of loving those who may see things differently, showing up when others are in pain, and remembering that we can keep God’s peace in all circumstances feel especially relevant right now. Thank you for engaging in this conversation. - Emily
I've voted with the best information and hopefully the common sense and love that I had at my disposal. My prayer towards the election and politics is this, "Father, I don't know what any of this means or what anything is for. Therefore, please judge this situation for me. With Your understanding the bigger picture, let Your will be done. Whichever candidates serve You best, please let them be placed into service as steward of the world. Amen." Even if we view one or the other as the "best" choice, I feel that either one can be a catalyst for God's purposes. Through our Father, let us bless and send His Peace and L😮😮ove throughout the world. ❤
Yes be active in the genuine caring, but any moment we're believing in it being anything other then the dream that it is, we're asleep and no longer lucid. So it's about mind retraining to where we stop falling in and out of sleep all day. The caring though is to extend Love to one another beyond form, not to change anything in the projected world, which is always already perfect (once we agree to only use the world for the HS's purpose) in the sense the holographic projection is always showing us what we still need to forgive. But activism (fighting for causes) is not what it's about, because that would imply something is wrong with the projection at any moment, which is impossible. Not that either of you are saying it's about fighting the good (political) fight & "don't ever give up' and all the ego's sayings and deceptive tricks, but many Course students many years into the Lessons & Text, are still talking about changing the world when the Course itself has always plainly said hands off. 💙🐥
I would encourage you to think about why you are participating here and offering your comments. Aren't you hoping to influence the minds of those who are reading these comments? Why else participate? You're not fighting, but you are aiming to influence minds. And if you succeed, that would change things in the dream, at least a little. I think that is the spirit of what the Course is saying. We are here to influence (and heal) minds so that everyone can get home faster.
🩸GAZA🩸 : A few words, and thank you in advance for this effort. Emily asserting that people "over there" have grievances, but that US institutions and "Western" institutions prevented us from having them over here, was inadvertently racist, ignorant and offensive. The "plausible genocide" in Gaza is happening with weapons that are 100% coming from the West. In fact, the West regularly exploits grievances in oil and resource rich regions - the British did this too - by funding and arming fights, in order to play the divide and rule game and gain materialy as a 3rd party when those "others" are weakened. It was very offensive to the slaughtered Innocents of Gaza to assume they have grievances "over there" - but that the US is suddenly only now facing "grievances" over here. While the fact is that for decades the US has funded and armed nations and groups to mindfully prolongue grievances, as a ploy to divide and rule and extract oil, gas, etc. ACIM has helped me with forgiveness this past year. But please, if you're doing the "West" vs. "the others" get the story right. If anything, Gaza has been a wake-up call to many here in the US when it comes to our weapons, our "baby slashing" bombs, being purposefully used to stoke flames around the world for decades. Your egos made the "West" the pure one and those "others" the barbarians who can't let go of their differences. Enshallah ('God' willing) this message serves as a tool for further reflection on this matter. Thank you. 🙏🙏
@@AfsanehTH-cam I said it was easy to assume the West had it figured out and then literally said we didn’t because everyone has an ego. A more charitable listen would reveal I was making your very point against othering. - Emily
@@CircleOfAtonement Yes, you did first imply that the West is the civilized world, and those "others" have issues, but then expanded by saying the West clearly has issues, too (given the state of affairs in the US today.) I appreciated that. But Emily, you missed my point. It's not just "othering" that is wrong - but refusing to accept one's role in the very conflicts "over there." (38 million refugees have been created since the "war on terror" / "regime change" wars began in 2003.) It's not that the US also has issues, but that the US has directly wreaked havoc and compounded conflicts via weapons sales all over the world. Not pointing that out when mentioning the "West" was jarring given that Gaza is currently a grey mass - a literal moonscape - from space. More bombs have been dropped there than multiple hiroshimas (including the flesh slashing bombs that result in children being delivered to parents in plastic bags) are coming from the USA. I'm a very charitable person - I think it was unfair to assume I'm not. I simply wanted to draw your attention to the nuanced point, above. This election season I pray that America's second 250 years are one where the "Democracy" she aspires to practice here at home, doesn't do a 180 and turn into being the purveryor of the most psychopathic weapons to the most brutally thuggish groups and governments "over there." Your channel is appreciatetd, and has episodes that postively helped me with issues I was tackling in my life. Thank you. Sadly, at this stage: a) not understanding my point while a plausibe genocide is raging + b) calling me uncharitable -.will have me take a little break. But I do promise to come and watch the whole recording (and respond to any further comments) in 2025. Many thanks, Afsaneh
@@AfsanehTH-camVery good to read your comment. Need to listen the podcast. But I am trying to use acim with the election because I am very angry at the left with all the war and censoring. And I live in the Netherlands…. I know it’s my perception but I feel all the hate of wars, but so thankfull I have ACIM to always go to. Can’t image the handling the angry emotions without ACIM, LIKE OTHER PEOPLE HAVE TO DO.
@@AfsanehTH-cam Thank you for engaging in a dialogue. I’ll try to be more clear in the message I was communicating, which is this: Everyone has an ego and the nature of the ego is destructive. Societal pillars (like free press, fair courts, rule of law, peaceful transfer of power, etc) make communal life more possible. Where you have a breakdown of societal pillars, you inevitably have more conflict because the ego’s destructive nature has more free rein. This causes a tremendous amount of suffering, which is precisely what we’re experiencing here in the States. That is all I was saying. On a more personal note, I am deeply sorry for the crisis in Gaza. I am a Course student and a Jesus follower so I do not believe in war or violence in any form. I believe in the invisible divine reality of all beings without exception and forgiveness as the way to bring forth a world that sides with love. I hope that helps to clarify and I welcome further dialogue when you return. - Emily
I want to be truly helpful. Robert and Emily and Afsaneh all want to be truly helpful. Errors are unavoidable but judgement is optional. I forgive and forget all errors and listen intently for the loving intention that cannot be masked by any error when I will not allow it. Get thee behind me. You need do nothing to earn my love for you cannot be without it. I see the Truth, I see nothing else. Seeing is active, not passive.
I am breathing a sigh of hopeful relief. Thank you so much for reminding all of us that there is a way out of the desert. To be in the world, but not of it.❤
thank you Emily & Robert of bringing the course into our daily life 🙂❤🙏
“Perception is a mirror, not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward.” There is no exception. If our peace is disturbed by something that seems to be outside ourselves. We have to look inward at what that disturbance is, how it makes us feel, and trace back on our timeline in this dream, to the root cause of that feeling, and forgive it. Shine the light on that darkness. Then all the repeated situations you experienced will be healed. This will make space for Christ vision, now that the block to Love’s Presence has been removed. Nothing is happening out there. It’s all in our minds. Let’s join with Jesus, one Mind and heal the Sonship. That is my prayer. Many blessings to all.
Thank you for this. The easiest thing would have been to avoid the topic of politics completely, so saying this takes courage. But the vision of the course is truly needed right now
Yes if you love someone never talk about politics or religion.
I agree with Robert when it comes to companioning people out of harmful positions. If the option is available, it's a good opportunity, but love will always find a way to express itself, no matter the situation. well said, thank you both.
This video is a great lesson on how the Ego operates. The Ego blocks God’s essence by utilizing a cycle of Anger>Attack>Guilt>Fear in no particular order. Robert and Emily express fear of a particular political party winning the elections. Then, they go on a subtle attack on those who oppose their political ideology. And should their perception of the wrong party getting elected to power happen, their bodies will shudder with fear as the Ego has won again.
I’ve been a student of A Course in Miracles since 1979 during the three-book phase. There is nothing in the course that teaches you to fear any political party. Peace will come to all students who practice it daily. The only objective of ACIM is “The Return to Love.”
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. The intention behind this discussion was not to evoke fear around any political party, but rather to bring forward Course principles of healing and repair to a topic as timely and impactful as the presidential election. I realize I could have clarified in the video that the harmful ideologies I mentioned are present across the political spectrum. However, I also feel it's important to recognize that certain issues, such as violent rhetoric or the removal of civil rights, call for us to respond with compassion and courage. True spirituality is about love, and sometimes love calls us to quiet inner shifts, while other times it calls us to act in the world. Thank you again for engaging in this conversation. - Emily
Thank you for this post. I too found this episode very disappointing and damaging to COA.
I love the focus Robert mentions about seeing the "sameness" in all of us. Even on a human level! Unless we sincerely intend to see all and everyone as the same as us at the core. We will never truly see the light of God that joins us. It takes willingness to see that the extreme hatred outside of ourselves is really our own self-hatred. When we can admit and acknowledge that, we heal ourselves and we heal the world. One brother and sister at a tie no matter the category we want to make up.
Thank you so much.
Yay!!! So happy to see you back Robert!!! Thank you to both of you for everything you have helped me with this past year!! ❤
This was so helpful to me as I sit here serving as a poll observer on Election Day. Thank you for all of these essential reminders!
Thank you! Tremendously helpful at this time!
❤
Thank you both.💖
Thank you for this helpful talk …as I attempt to choose love over fear. ❤❤❤
I've thought about this as well, and I have told my friends (who don't know about ACIM) that it feels like we are being punked right now (or for those who remember, we are on candid camera). I really do feel that the ego is just playing games with us at this point. Obviously the Course teaches us that none of this world is real, so we could look at it that way and not worry about any of it. All of it is just part of the illusory world created by the ego. Since the ego is making it up, there is no better president for an ego-based world than Trump. He is the perfect manifestation of pure ego/selfishness/insanity in my opinion. Another way to look at it is that even if you believe the Earth is real, when you look at it from a satellite photo, you will see there are no separate nations or states. The lines we see on a map are drawn in by humans; they don't really exist. There are no races, nationalities, or nations; that is something we as humans invented. There is no United States. The president is a meaningless title placed on a meaningless person by a meaningless process imagined by egos. None of the things we seem to take as real are real at all. They only exist on paper. Everything that is actually real is a part of God, and that is all there is. Nothing real can be threatened.
Terrific talk! Thank you for your insights and wisdom!
What a wonderful podcast. Thanks so much for sharing this.
What an INSPIRED conversation. ❤ This is surely what America, and the world needs to hear.
I needed this today. Thank you.
I am pure in heart. I am not at the mercy of others. I will pick up the hitchhiker because if they are insane, there is no one more qualified to heal them than I, by the martial art of defenselessness. They will never forget their experience with me and my joy will increase. Why would I sacrifice that out of concern for my gold? We are here to love one another, not to manage each other. We all want happiness.
You referenced one of my very favorite parts of the course.... that I am perfectly unaffected by all expressions of lack of love. I wrote this down and keep it my wallet. Thank you for the reminder!!! ❤❤❤❤❤❤
Thank you, Robert and Emily. 🙏
Excellent podcast. Thank you!
Appreciate this podcast. 🙏🏼
Thank you for the clarity you bring to this election🙏
I do appreciate these podcasts. They offer peace. I sense we need to be careful, however, in remembering that ACIM is about the process of purifying our own hearts. None of us have fully achieved this. As humans, we will always see through the glasses of our experiences and opinions. We are influenced by social media and the source of news we ascribe to...so many entanglements. This is part of the human experience. It feels still like human fear and ego to decide that if your candidate of choice doesn't win, then that is the result of a cumulation of impure hearts determining the outcome. Maybe it's another opportunity to ask the Divine what else can I let go of. As ACIM students/teachers, we know that only God can see the whole picture. Of course, voting is important but can be a pride check as well. Jesus never extended love so as to sway people to his way. He loved people because they are God's creation. It takes some very honest inner reflection and a high level of integrity to not use love to bring the perceived "other side" to our way of viewing anything.
This election is the perfect mirror for each of us to reflect the clever disguise of our own ego...what an incredible opportunity we have now to see our own blind sides from spiritual clarity.
Thank you so much for your comment. We completely agree that the Course is a profound journey of purifying our hearts and minds. At the same time, it also encourages us to bring love into the world around us as part of that process. The idea that our collective thoughts shape external conditions isn’t just a personal view but is directly drawn from the Course itself: “...external conditions are produced by the thoughts of many, not all of whom are pure in heart as yet. Why should you be at their mercy?” [CE T-2.I.25:3-4] acimce.app/:T-2.I.25:3-4. Thank you again for being part of this conversation. - Emily
Wisdom here.
Thank you!!💕
good to see Robert back 🕊️
Amen! What Robert said about saying to someone "there belief system is harmful"...we won't get to the love part unless we can start from a point of sameness. I do question whether or not our vote at this point in history actually matter in terms of long term transformation.
New to this. Seems polarity design of 2 party system may be a good perception to unlock ourselves from. There us no one best party.
The message of the crucifixion is that there is nothing that you can do to make me not love you.
We must recover the others, not defeat them.
I know that you cannot hear my love in my words, so I will listen intently to you until I can hear your love in your heart, so that you may hear it, too. If you cannot hear the love in my words, I will refocus my efforts on putting more love into them, If the world is an illusion then it is even more important, because it is the result of my errors and it is in my mind and I cannot escape it until I correct my errors that result in my seeing it.
Back about 2 months ago there was our State election voting. Am newer to ACIM (and on lesson 143 today, 1st time thru). I asked Spirit of Jesus, should I even be voting? Waited and heard nothing. Went to the poll and the ballot names of the party choices for each position WERE BLANK. No names were on my ballot, honest. I could not see any. Flipped it over & over, while blinking my eyes. The referendums questions were however present. So, i handed the ballot card to the supervisor man and said I wascunprepared and needed to research further. He almost refused to take back my card but I left abruptly. This election, I am umoved to cast a vote. Either way whomsoever "wins", it will become positive in some respects for us all. Blessing Robert & Emily, much gratitude & peace. ❤
This talk was no incredibly helpful to me today. Thank you.
Robert is looking great. And Emily too. Happy Halloween
Many years ago I did the EST Training and its founder Werner Erhard said our ego problem is we are all walking upset machines looking for someone to blame it on.
To those who fear the results of either candidate: I remind you of WWII. It was terrible and I would not have chosen it. But spiritual people were divided on whether the US should join the hostilities. Despite all of the tragedy, I cannot imagine another way that we could have gotten as quickly to the high point of the United Nations in 1950 other than by the path of the tragedy that the world went through. I also could be wrong about this election. The other candidate could be an accelerator that takes us beyond where we could have otherwise been. This will ONLY be true if both sides (who disagree about the path) remain united on the shared goal of a more loving world. I don't know, but I reject putting my energy into division and fear and condemnation. I am not powerless and I am not afraid. I am here to fulfill my function and I will know when I am doing that by the joy that I feel, not by the fear. There is nothing to fear. Fear is never justified.
Through Your Lens of A Course in Miracles..
I facilitate an ACIM group that will be meeting tonight and was searching youtube for other ACIM perspectives and found yours. I appreciate it very much and liked most of it. The part that confuses me however is at the end you say that God has a plan for this world. That seems to be making the world real. I am wondering where that is found in the course as my reading has always been that God knows nothing of this world of illusion. He sees that his son is sleeping and waits for him to awake. I ask this question not to be argumentative but because I would like to know if I'm mistaken it is important to know.
Overall I found the talk valuable.
Thanks so much for listening to the episode. The Course talks repeatedly about the world being an illusion *AND* that we have a part in the salvation of the world. Both things are true. As to God's plan, we recommend doing a search on the word "plan" in the Course so you can see for yourself how often it's mentioned and the context. acimce.app/
One other thing is that, while the Course says God knows not of form, it also says repeatedly that God hears our prayers and is speaking to us all the time. Here are a few examples:
acimce.app/book/W-49#W-49:1
acimce.app/book/W-168#W-168.1
I hope that's helpful. Thanks again for reaching out and good luck with your class. - Emily ♥
@@CircleOfAtonement Thank you for your kind response. I love the lessons you have referenced. I don't, however think that they are saying that God is controlling events within the dream only that we can, through forgiveness see the world differently. Nothing in form has to change but we change our mind by turning to the voice for God, Holy Spirit, rather than the voice for separation, This is our only real choice.
Regardless of differences in interpretation, thank you for your message of forgiveness.
Jack
Thanks for your reply. We don’t believe God is controlling events here either. This will better explain our position on that: th-cam.com/video/95ZZvJAkU0c/w-d-xo.htmlsi=6motKT2bqqsrgyxB The Course does mention God’s will and God’s plan throughout including, notably, the plan of the teachers and plan for salvation. But we have free will in whether we choose to follow. Hope that helps. - Emily xx
Nice day to remember that you are invulnerable because of the Atonement.
"Therefore, make your invulnerability manifest to everyone you meet, and teach him that, whatever he may try to do to you, your perfect freedom from the belief that you can be harmed shows him he is guiltless. He can do nothing that can hurt you, and by refusing to allow him to think he can, you teach him that the Atonement, which you have accepted, is also his." (ACIM-CE T-14.III.6:4-5)
Exactly 💛
When our belief system changes more profoundly, then our politics and policies will change but not the other way around.
The first and last parts were great: the ideas of seeing the sameness in our ‘enemies’ and putting love first in our relationships.
However when you were talking about how to make a choice between who to vote for, what you said only highlighted the problem that divides people. You say it’s obvious which side represents the spiritual ideals, and used the concept of the four freedoms to illustrate that, but I can guarantee you that most people on the other side see those very same freedoms as best represented by their chosen candidate. You may judge them to be deluded and brainwashed, but they think the same thing of you, and who’s to say which side is right?
There’s not much concrete evidence to prove one side or the other moved things forward when they were in power.
The thing is that the political situation globally has become much more complex in recent times in terms of which side represents which ideology.
I know personally that I and many people I know have completely switched their political allegiance, and yet our humanitarian values have not changed.
For me Covid was a catalyst in this, because it happens, on top of personal experience of the effects of vaccines, I had already done a lot of research regarding the vaccination of my child that made me immediately question the ethics of this major health choice being imposed on people at the risk of them losing their livelihoods.
Another example is a friend of mine who could not be more caring and further from any possible description of racist. She used to identify firmly, like me, with liberal politics. Then she began working with refugees here in France, and after years of understanding the predicament they find themselves in and the reasons that they are incentivized to leave their families, she has completely changed her opinion on what needs to be done politically. It’s nothing to do with racism or lack of love.
I could give many more examples. My mother is passionate about history and geopolitics. She is extremely well-read and looks at both sides of situations like the war in Ukraine. She is continually astounded at how skewed the mainstream narrative of the actual reasons for this conflict is. Russia was in a peace process with Ukraine over the Donbas region (the Minsk Accords) which the US deliberately derailed by means of Boris Johnson. They did this because both the UK and the US had already invested in oil and other resources in this region, and they did not want it to return to Russia. The human loss in the ensuing endless war seems to be completely incidental to the power elite who drive these political decisions. But please don’t think that the democrats are sending billions to the Ukraine because they care about their plight!
Being a student of the Course, I’m interested in how people relate to each other on a personal level. Clearly it’s very difficult to assess this from any media source without being there, but you can observe how political figures relate to others in different contexts. The one person I see consistently expressing a caring and respectful attitude to his opponents is RFK jr. He seems to sincerely want to bring people together rather than create more division. He has worked tirelessly for decades to defend the environment from the abuses of industry etc. I don’t think any of us can say we’re in a position to know better than him the forces that drive politics in the US, so if he’s prepared to join Trump then I think there’s good reason to question the image of him as a Hitlerian tyrant that we’ve been fed for the past ten years.
I’m well aware of the fact that many people also see RFK jr. as a crackpot conspiracy theorist who is only out for his own agenda, again thanks to mainstream media, but anyone who has taken the time to listen to him speak at length should know this is hardly the case.
The point being that when you look at different points of view with a truly open mind, there is no clear and simple answer to who we should vote for, and that’s why we should avoid judging the ‘other side’ and certainly not have the arrogance to think we’re justified in coercing them towards our point of view! This is hardly the teaching of the Course.
I think dealing with any fears we project onto those people we’ve judged to follow ‘harmful ideologies’ is a better place to start.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I completely understand that harmful rhetoric can be found on both sides of the political spectrum. When it comes to the presidential candidates, however, only one candidate has been using violent language and imagery and violence has no place in public discourse. I truly appreciate this dialogue and the chance to reflect on these complex issues together. - Emily
This may be minor in the context of this subject, but I just want to express appreciation for the mention of RFKJr in a positive way. I do agree with you on this matter.
@@CircleOfAtonement I appreciate your willingness to have an open dialogue.
As you said in the podcast, we all have some darkness in our hearts. I don’t like the use of aggressive words either, but it can’t be denied that a lot of what Kamala says is a direct attack on Trump, and likening someone to Hitler is about one of the worst condemnations you could make in our society.
In any case, Jesus teaches us that the degree of our ego’s hatred is irrelevant, there’s only one meaningful distinction, and that’s between love and fear.
I happened to be reading the same section in the Course this morning where the pure of heart are mentioned.
I found this earlier passage in the discussion of different types of possession and how to heal them particularly relevant:
21 It is emphasized here that these differences have no effect at all on the miracle, which can heal any of them with equal ease. ²This is because of the miracle’s inherent avoidance of within-error distinctions. ³Its sole concern is to distinguish between truth on the one hand and all kinds of error on the other. ⁴This is why some miracles seem to be of greater magnitude than others. ⁵But remember the first principle in this course: that there is no order of difficulty in miracles.
[CE T-2.I.20-21] acimce.app/:T-2.I.20-21
So even if we perceive, rightly or wrongly, another’s ego to be particularly big, the solution is the same: to ask the Holy Spirit to help us see it as a call for love (which is also in our own mind) and respond with love not fear.
It then states:
a true miracle cannot occur on a false basis. ⁴Sometimes the undoing must precede it.
So if we are feeling in any way fearful of Trump’s ego, we have to undo that perception in ourselves before we can accept the miracle that heals the situation.
I know you know all of this, and I’m stating it in the spirit of sharing the idea to make it more powerful for my own application of it, not as an attack.
I’m well aware how difficult it is.
I do think that when we’re putting ourselves in a position of teaching Course principles we have to be particularly vigilant about teaching only love.
All talk about ‘harmful ideologies’ is teaching that we can be harmed by others and by external circumstances.
This is of course true on the worldly level, but we can only heal that level by helping each other to know that it is not true on the level of our true Self.
@@robertaswanson5633 It’s good to know that someone else in this community sees the good in him! I’ve been following him for years in other contexts in which he has proven his sincerity and intelligence. I can only imagine that he is so virulently attacked in mainstream media because he poses a threat to some extremely powerful people.
Yesterday he said that he’d been praying every morning for the last seven years for God to help him find a way to do something about the health crisis. He said he feels that God brought him Trump.
I know most will laugh this off as something he concocted to play along to Trump’s Christian following, but I actually heard him say this was a part of his morning meditation years ago, when he was still a democrat.
I think we’ve got to a point worldwide where we need to root out the deep corruption that people who only care about money and power have brought about.
Who are we to know from our feeble perspective that Trump is not the right one for that job for whatever reason?
I think this goes beyond the individual personalities of the candidates to the dynamics of the people surrounding them.
@@gabydareau I really appreciate the depth and nuance of your comment above, and I find myself agreeing with much of what you've expressed. There is much common ground we share, especially with your observation that the Course teaches the degree of the ego’s hatred doesn’t matter-only the distinction between love and fear. Big yes. May we all learn to love more deeply every day. 🙏❤- Emily
God can work straight through a crooked stick.
ACIM😊 IS VERY IMPORTANT. DOES ACIM HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT BIBLE PROPHECY WHICH I THINK IS VERY IMPORTANT
@@richkmaclean The Course isn’t into Bible prophecy. It reinterprets the Second Coming as a return to sanity, which it defines as a return to love. - Emily
Hmmm. Despite your best efforts, guys, a lot of thinly veiled judgement of half your country behind this episode.
@@gillsim66 We are choosing to side with candidates who are most in alignment with the Course’s values of love and forgiveness. That is discernment. It becomes judgment when you take a position and then scorn those who don’t share your views. There is a difference. - Emily
@@CircleOfAtonement Please show me examples where you discern that candidates have aligned with love and forgiveness, Emily.
@@CircleOfAtonement I’m not sure why, but your response to my below request for examples of love and forgiveness has not been made public, although I did get it in an email from youtube.
Let me preface my response by clarifying that I am not in or from the US. I don’t care who wins the race, as I subscribe to the view that both parties are corrupted, and essentially wings of the same bird. The US empire will carry on its destruction regardless of who sits in the seat, and which 50% of the US get to celebrate their team winning.
The examples you provided are disappointing, and revealing in that they lack nuance and are removed from their broader context, demonstrating to me that you, like most of us, have a strong preference for taking in information from within our “echo chamber”. Your examples could have come straight from CNN, MSNBC or The View.
I stand by my assessment that, regardless of what you tell yourself, this video comes across as thinly veiled judgement, i.e. scorn, and I don’t think you have served the interest of the Course in this case.
@@gillsim66 Hmmm. I see it didn't post either so here is my response as to where the candidates have aligned with love and forgiveness.
Harris last week at the Capitol: The fact that someone disagrees with us does not make them the “enemy within.” They are family, neighbors, classmates, coworkers. They are fellow Americans, and as Americans, we rise and fall together. America, for too long, we have been consumed with too much division, chaos, and mutual distrust. And it can be easy then to forget a simple truth: It doesn’t have to be this way. It doesn’t have to be this way. It is time to stop pointing fingers- we have to stop pointing fingers and start locking arms.
Trump last week on Liz Cheney: Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let's see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.
I understand your perspective, and I appreciate you bringing it up. For us, alluding to someone getting shot is never something we would see as acceptable, regardless of the context. Our belief is that love is the only way to truly heal and repair the world, and this is where we feel the teachings of A Course in Miracles are so needed. You may feel our approach is imperfect, and that’s okay. But the principles of loving those who may see things differently, showing up when others are in pain, and remembering that we can keep God’s peace in all circumstances feel especially relevant right now. Thank you for engaging in this conversation. - Emily
@@CircleOfAtonementThank you Emily for this response it is very clear to me.
I've voted with the best information and hopefully the common sense and love that I had at my disposal. My prayer towards the election and politics is this, "Father, I don't know what any of this means or what anything is for. Therefore, please judge this situation for me. With Your understanding the bigger picture, let Your will be done. Whichever candidates serve You best, please let them be placed into service as steward of the world. Amen."
Even if we view one or the other as the "best" choice, I feel that either one can be a catalyst for God's purposes. Through our Father, let us bless and send His Peace and L😮😮ove throughout the world. ❤
Wish I saw this video before voting registration was over 😢
Please register as the midterms in two years will be important.
Aren’t these 2 married? Get well soon ❤️
@@liznewmanwellness Yes, we are married. ♥️ - Emily
God is the ultimate safety net yes .
What is the ultimate safety net here now?
How about the mother’s womb? 🤔
Yes be active in the genuine caring, but any moment we're believing in it being anything other then the dream that it is, we're asleep and no longer lucid. So it's about mind retraining to where we stop falling in and out of sleep all day. The caring though is to extend Love to one another beyond form, not to change anything in the projected world, which is always already perfect (once we agree to only use the world for the HS's purpose) in the sense the holographic projection is always showing us what we still need to forgive. But activism (fighting for causes) is not what it's about, because that would imply something is wrong with the projection at any moment, which is impossible. Not that either of you are saying it's about fighting the good (political) fight & "don't ever give up' and all the ego's sayings and deceptive tricks, but many Course students many years into the Lessons & Text, are still talking about changing the world when the Course itself has always plainly said hands off. 💙🐥
I would encourage you to think about why you are participating here and offering your comments. Aren't you hoping to influence the minds of those who are reading these comments? Why else participate? You're not fighting, but you are aiming to influence minds. And if you succeed, that would change things in the dream, at least a little. I think that is the spirit of what the Course is saying. We are here to influence (and heal) minds so that everyone can get home faster.
@@CircleOfAtonement Well said!
🩸GAZA🩸 : A few words, and thank you in advance for this effort. Emily asserting that people "over there" have grievances, but that US institutions and "Western" institutions prevented us from having them over here, was inadvertently racist, ignorant and offensive. The "plausible genocide" in Gaza is happening with weapons that are 100% coming from the West. In fact, the West regularly exploits grievances in oil and resource rich regions - the British did this too - by funding and arming fights, in order to play the divide and rule game and gain materialy as a 3rd party when those "others" are weakened.
It was very offensive to the slaughtered Innocents of Gaza to assume they have grievances "over there" - but that the US is suddenly only now facing "grievances" over here. While the fact is that for decades the US has funded and armed nations and groups to mindfully prolongue grievances, as a ploy to divide and rule and extract oil, gas, etc.
ACIM has helped me with forgiveness this past year. But please, if you're doing the "West" vs. "the others" get the story right. If anything, Gaza has been a wake-up call to many here in the US when it comes to our weapons, our "baby slashing" bombs, being purposefully used to stoke flames around the world for decades. Your egos made the "West" the pure one and those "others" the barbarians who can't let go of their differences. Enshallah ('God' willing) this message serves as a tool for further reflection on this matter.
Thank you. 🙏🙏
@@AfsanehTH-cam I said it was easy to assume the West had it figured out and then literally said we didn’t because everyone has an ego. A more charitable listen would reveal I was making your very point against othering. - Emily
@@CircleOfAtonement Yes, you did first imply that the West is the civilized world, and those "others" have issues, but then expanded by saying the West clearly has issues, too (given the state of affairs in the US today.) I appreciated that.
But Emily, you missed my point. It's not just "othering" that is wrong - but refusing to accept one's role in the very conflicts "over there." (38 million refugees have been created since the "war on terror" / "regime change" wars began in 2003.) It's not that the US also has issues, but that the US has directly wreaked havoc and compounded conflicts via weapons sales all over the world. Not pointing that out when mentioning the "West" was jarring given that Gaza is currently a grey mass - a literal moonscape - from space. More bombs have been dropped there than multiple hiroshimas (including the flesh slashing bombs that result in children being delivered to parents in plastic bags) are coming from the USA.
I'm a very charitable person - I think it was unfair to assume I'm not. I simply wanted to draw your attention to the nuanced point, above.
This election season I pray that America's second 250 years are one where the "Democracy" she aspires to practice here at home, doesn't do a 180 and turn into being the purveryor of the most psychopathic weapons to the most brutally thuggish groups and governments "over there."
Your channel is appreciatetd, and has episodes that postively helped me with issues I was tackling in my life. Thank you. Sadly, at this stage: a) not understanding my point while a plausibe genocide is raging + b) calling me uncharitable -.will have me take a little break. But I do promise to come and watch the whole recording (and respond to any further comments) in 2025.
Many thanks,
Afsaneh
@@AfsanehTH-camVery good to read your comment. Need to listen the podcast. But I am trying to use acim with the election because I am very angry at the left with all the war and censoring. And I live in the Netherlands…. I know it’s my perception but I feel all the hate of wars, but so thankfull I have ACIM to always go to. Can’t image the handling the angry emotions without ACIM, LIKE OTHER PEOPLE HAVE TO DO.
@@AfsanehTH-cam Thank you for engaging in a dialogue. I’ll try to be more clear in the message I was communicating, which is this: Everyone has an ego and the nature of the ego is destructive. Societal pillars (like free press, fair courts, rule of law, peaceful transfer of power, etc) make communal life more possible. Where you have a breakdown of societal pillars, you inevitably have more conflict because the ego’s destructive nature has more free rein. This causes a tremendous amount of suffering, which is precisely what we’re experiencing here in the States. That is all I was saying.
On a more personal note, I am deeply sorry for the crisis in Gaza. I am a Course student and a Jesus follower so I do not believe in war or violence in any form. I believe in the invisible divine reality of all beings without exception and forgiveness as the way to bring forth a world that sides with love. I hope that helps to clarify and I welcome further dialogue when you return. - Emily
I want to be truly helpful. Robert and Emily and Afsaneh all want to be truly helpful. Errors are unavoidable but judgement is optional. I forgive and forget all errors and listen intently for the loving intention that cannot be masked by any error when I will not allow it. Get thee behind me. You need do nothing to earn my love for you cannot be without it. I see the Truth, I see nothing else. Seeing is active, not passive.