Unlearning Classroom – Page 50 – A Course in Miracles with Amy Torres

Why Attend “Weekend of Freedom” 2015?

Posted on April 25, 2015

Intimate retreats like Weekend of Freedom 2015 are powerful and enlightening because they encourage communion with Truth (sometimes called satsang).

By committing to attend, whether you notice it or not, you immediately start to:

* Experience spontaneous miracles
* Clarify your understanding of ACIM concepts
* Immerse yourself in an atmosphere of Truth, Love and Freedom
* Connect with teachers who truly inspire you
* Just be … simply allow Spirit to guide you every day
* Absorb the healing energy of the retreat even before it’s begun
* Be more willing to practice forgiveness each day
* Meet like-minded people who are supportive of your spiritual life
* Get a natural facelift from smiling so much!
* Allow the Holy Spirit to provide, even when money seems scarce. After all, your nature is Unlimited Abundance and if you’re meant to attend, you will tap into God’s Inheritance 😉

As soon as you sign up, you begin to reap the benefits of the retreat! You have put your willingness into action. You have planted the seed of awakening. Miracles effortlessly ripple through you (even if it seems as though nothing is happening).

In my experience, signing up for retreats, workshops, intensives and other spiritual events has been a big opening for my healing and unlearning. There is every reason for Weekend of Freedom to be that opportunity for you.

Here’s more info about the event: http://weekendoffreedomretreat.com/price_list.php and how to commute there: http://stonypointcenter.org/events-retreats/getting-here#.VTv9pJPUzYB

Also, feel free to email me questions at miracles (at) amytorresacim (d0t) com

I look forward to hanging out with you during the Weekend of Freedom! Please introduce yourself to me and let’s have a hug! Much appreciated if you check the “Amy Torres” box on the registration form.

A Course in Miracles Is A Sexy Read

Posted on April 25, 2015

in Today's ACIM Lesson

by Amy Torres

A Course in Miracles, typically considered mystical scripture, can also be seen as a love story, a whodunnit, a thriller, a new genre mixing Fact and fiction, and an interactive read where the reader discovers she or he is the protagonist!

ACIM promotes naked honesty and constantly invites you to strip … your false identity. It is, after all, an exposé of the ego. How?

Well, at first, by forgiving everybody towards whom you’ve ever held a resentment or grievance. The twist is that everybody turns out to be you. Yep, it’s similar to the movie Fight Club — well worth watching if you’d like a better understanding of the ego and self-hatred.

ACIM 3rd Edition The book cover lacks an author. For some, it is obvious that the Course was written by none other than Jesus Christ. Others dispute this vehemently. Many don’t know and don’t care because deep immersion in A Course in Miracles reveals that although you seem to be in this world, you are certainly not of it — and the joy and freedom of this discovery make authorship inconsequential. Then, WOW, what a discovery! It turns out that you are the author.

Yes, it becomes obvious that you are the author of A Course in Miracles because it is simply the memory of God within you speaking through you to you of You. You might need to read that sentence again :).

The evil villain turns out to be you. The scrumptious lover turns out to be you. The cripple; the hero; the traitor; the staunch defender; the coward; the victor — all you. Jesus turns out to be you. In fact, you are an extension of God Itself.

This God-Self is totally impersonal and yet the most intimate love relationship of all. Plus, it’s never-ending bliss because as pure, unborn Life, You can never die. Stick with the Course and you’ll find out that at no single instant does the body exist at all. So that pesky personal identity that’s been plaguing you is just an idea (you’re human) that you’ve attached to another idea (you’re in a body), neither of which are real.

rose petal bed Suspenseful and mind-boggling, isn’t it? A Course in Miracles is over 1,200 pages, so you can settle into bed with this big, long book and have yourself a good time! Adam and Eve were the beginning of sex and guilt, but the Course is the Source of Infinite Bliss. You’ll never want it to end, and, luckily, Sinlessness never does.

But don’t take my word for it. Read it for yourself. After you get through the part about how you actually love crucifixion, and you’re truly terrified of redemption, then comes the really good stuff!

To hear Amy speak about A Course in Miracles, watch her YouTube videos, and join her at Change Your Mind, Change the World in Las Vegas this April.

If you’d like to ask Amy a question for her popular Ask Amy column in Miracles magazine, email miracles (at) amytorresacim (dot) com … Also, check out Workin’ the Workbook, Amy’s online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice, and her book, Sweet Dreams of Awakening: 365 Good Night Blessings.

Shut Off Your Brain and Open Your Heart

Posted on April 25, 2015

in Today's ACIM Lesson

by Amy Torres

Brain Heart Patti Reed It’s always comforting and inspiring when people share ordinary miracles — things that happen daily but can easily be missed … unless you shift your attention to what is True.

Today, one of my Course students shared this beautiful miracle that occurred as she was walking on the beach.

She said a silent prayer and then looked down, saw two sea shells and took them to mean:

“Shut off your brain and open your heart and God’s Will will be done.” ~Patti Reed.

By the way, Patti is a miraculous healer and you can learn more about her work at http://www.pattiintuitivemovement.com

Thanks for sharing, Patti!

I welcome all your miracle stories. Please email them to me at miracles (at) amytorresacim (dot) com

Let’s practice together! You can watch and hear Amy reading each ACIM Lesson on Youtube. Also, check out Workin’ the Workbook, Amy’s online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.

Transfiguration … is that a good thing?

Posted on April 11, 2015

in Today's ACIM Lesson

by Amy Torres

Holidays come and go and I don’t notice them. But words like “transfiguration,” “metamorphosis” and “resurrection” get my attention!

When Jesus refers to Easter and Christmas in A Course in Miracles, he uses them just like everything else: to help us awaken to our true Identity. Transfiguration, metamorphosis and resurrection are meant to communicate the process of recognizing your true Self. Whether it seems possible or not, it is inevitable that you will discover that you are already awake.

Transfiguration by Alexandr Ivanov 1824

Jesus says it in many different ways throughout the Course, but the Message never varies: we are not the body, we are free, for we are still as God created us.

We are Spirit, we are One Self, we are Great Rays emanating from our Father Who has joined with us in formless timelessness. We share One Name. We are the Same.

Yet, we remain clueless about our true Identity although Jesus insists it is right in front of our nose, simple and obvious! How? By having a running monologue with the ego self. You take yourself to be a person, and are mesmerized by the person you seem to be!

The person you imagine yourself to be is the self-concept, dreamed up by the ego, who is talking to itself, disguised as many. This conversation, seemingly a dialogue, is actually the one ego-mind talking to itself. All the people around the world, good and bad, have emerged from this one ego and are fragments of the one ego mind. From savage disputes to special alliances, it is all one mind acting out different roles.

In A Course in Miracles, Jesus understands our insanity — one mind seeing itself as many and talking to and fighting against “others, out there.” He gives us a forgiveness practice to keep us busy. At first, it seems as if we are forgiving others. Eventually, it becomes clear we are forgiving ourselves. Beyond that, it is seen that forgiveness undoes the personal identity entirely.

“Through your transfiguration is the world redeemed, and joyfully released from guilt. Now do we lift our resurrected minds in gladness and in gratitude to Him Who has restored our sanity to us.” (W-151)

angel sky What does “transfiguration” mean? Basically the same thing that “metamorphosis” means. “Trans” and “meta” can both be used to mean “to go beyond.” To go beyond the figure is to go beyond the body. When we first experience that we are not the body it is miraculous! Eventually, this miracle becomes the new normal as the mind shifts from false personal identity to True Unified Identity. In other words, the process of transfiguration leads to resurrection.

Everyone who sees God’s Light in another will inevitably see her/himself as God’s Light. Jesus tells us, “Your resurrection is your reawakening. I am the model for rebirth, but rebirth itself is merely the dawning on your mind of what is already in it. God placed it there Himself, and so it is true forever.”

At first, this may seem impractical and unattainable, but, rest assured, it is supremely practical and need not even be attained because it is already so! Rebirth may sound like a grand achievement, but actually, even rebirth is unnecessary. As the great contemporary master, Sri Mooji, puts it: You are the Unborn, beyond human life and death. Once you know this, there are no more questions.

“Perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, you will see your own transfiguration in the glass … When you are ready you will find it there, within your mind and waiting to be found. You will remember then the thought to which you gave this half an hour, thankfully aware that no time was ever better spent.” (W-124)

To ask Amy a question, email miracles (at) amytorresacim (dot com)

Lesson 92 – Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one.

Posted on April 2, 2015

in Today's ACIM Lesson

by Amy Torres

Commentary (full lesson beneath commentary)

My claim to miracles is inherent in the truth of What I Am. It is God’s Strength in me that is the light in which I see, as it is His Mind with which I think … it is laughable to think I think with the brain, see with the body’s eyes. When asked if she was afraid to catch leprosy from the people she was working with in the streets of Calcutta, Mother Teresa looked into the face of the child she was holding in her arms, and said, “What lepers?” She saw with God’s eyes, she saw the face of Christ in every face. “Truth is a savior and can only will happiness and peace for everyone. It gives its strength to everyone who asks, in limitless supply.”

Sit quietly and let this Truth roll through you. There is a quickening, a tingling, an effortless expansion of breath, a great Exhale. An anticipation, a sense of promise … a widening of knowing … a thinning of personal identity … a smile on the lips … a sense of purpose with no agenda, no ambition, no goals. Yes.

LESSON 92

Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one.

The idea for today is an extension of the previous one. [Lesson 91: Miracles are seen in light.] You do not think of light in terms of strength, and darkness in terms of weakness. That is because your idea of what seeing means is tied up with the body and its eyes and brain. Thus you believe that you can change what you see by putting little bits of glass before your eyes. This is among the many magical beliefs that come from the conviction you are a body, and the body’s eyes can see.

You also believe the body’s brain can think. If you but understood the nature of thought, you could but laugh at this insane idea. It is as if you thought you held the match that lights the sun and gives it all its warmth; or that you held the world within your hand, securely bound until you let it go. Yet this is no more foolish than to believe the body’s eyes can see; the brain can think.

It is God’s strength in you that is the light in which you see, as it is His Mind with which you think. His strength denies your weakness. It is your weakness that sees through the body’s eyes, peering about in darkness to behold the likeness of itself; the small, the weak, the sickly and the dying, those in need, the helpless and afraid, the sad, the poor, the starving and the joyless. These are seen through eyes that cannot see and cannot bless.

Strength overlooks these things by seeing past appearances. It keeps its steady gaze upon the light that lies beyond them. It unites with light, of which it is a part. It sees itself. It brings the light in which your Self appears. In darkness you perceive a self that is not there. Strength is the truth about you; weakness is an idol falsely worshipped and adored that strength may be dispelled, and darkness rule where God appointed that there should be light.

Strength comes from truth, and shines with light its Source has given it; weakness reflects the darkness of its maker. It is sick and looks on sickness, which is like itself. Truth is a savior and can only will for happiness and peace for everyone. It gives its strength to everyone who asks, in limitless supply. It sees that lack in anyone would be a lack in all. And so it gives its light that all may see and benefit as one. Its strength is shared, that it may bring to all the miracle in which they will unite in purpose and forgiveness and in love.

Weakness, which looks in darkness, cannot see a purpose in forgiveness and in love. It sees all others different from itself, and nothing in the world that it would share. It judges and condemns, but does not love. In darkness it remains to hide itself, and dreams that it is strong and conquering, a victor over limitations that but grow in darkness to enormous size.

It fears and it attacks and hates itself, and darkness covers everything it sees, leaving its dreams as fearful as itself. No miracles are here, but only hate. It separates itself from what it sees, while light and strength perceive themselves as one. The light of strength is not the light you see. It does not change and flicker and go out. It does not shift from night to day, and back to darkness till the morning comes again.

The light of strength is constant, sure as love, forever glad to give itself away, because it cannot give but to itself. No one can ask in vain to share its sight, and none who enters its abode can leave without a miracle before his eyes, and strength and light abiding in his heart.

The strength in you will offer you the light, and guide your seeing so you do not dwell on idle shadows that the body’s eyes provide for self-deception. Strength and light unite in you, and where they meet, your Self stands ready to embrace you as Its Own. Such is the meeting place we try today to find and rest in, for the peace of God is where your Self, His Son, is waiting now to meet Itself again, and be as One.

Let us give twenty minutes twice today to join this meeting. Let yourself be brought unto your Self. Its strength will be the light in which the gift of sight is given you. Leave, then, the dark a little while today, and we will practice seeing in the light, closing the body’s eyes and asking truth to show us how to find the meeting place of self and Self, where light and strength are one.

Morning and evening we will practice thus. After the morning meeting, we will use the day in preparation for the time at night when we will meet again in trust. Let us repeat as often as we can the idea for today, and recognize that we are being introduced to sight, and led away from darkness to the light where only miracles can be perceived.

Let’s practice together! Listen to God Goes With You. Watch and hear Amy reading each ACIM Lesson on Youtube. Also, check out Workin’ the Workbook, Amy’s online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.

To ask Amy a question, email [email protected]

Ask Amy: Are you the creator of your universe?

Posted on April 1, 2015

in Ask Amy, Spiritual Psychotherapy, Thoughts on A Course in Miracles, Undoing the Ego, Unlearning Classroom

by Amy Torres

Guy Question Q: After working with the Course for several years, I take from it the message that I am the creator of my universe. A dear friend of mine was killed in Syria recently. Did I create this? If I did, I don’t know how I can live with myself.

A: Rest assured, you did not create the killing of your dear friend in Syria. Only the ego thinks in terms of guilty responsibility, magical powers of influence, and the loss of life. Jesus, in his Course in Miracles, would never put you through this kind of psychological agony.

The idea that you are the creator of your universe is a common misconception among Course students. The primary mistake lies in not understanding who you really are. Typically, every human, and therefore, every reader of ACIM, begins with the assumption that he or she is a body, identified as male or female, labeled with a name, assigned a role as son or daughter, and so on. These designations are nothing more than ego brainwashing, layering assumption on top of assumption that the body is “you.”

But you are not a body. God’s Creation is an extension of the Creator Himself — consequently, you are Spirit, not human. Therefore, when referring to yourself, know that You are Imageless, Formless, Timeless, and Unified as God’s One Son. It is not the little ego “you” who creates; the ego “you” mistakenly dreams and that is all. The real You creates the way God creates: You naturally and effortlessly emanate Loving Light.

“Yet what is it except a game you play in which Identity can be denied? You are as God created you.” (W-191)

The one collective ego mind (of which people appear to be individual fragments) is a terrorist dictatorship thought system. The way out of this tyrannical, punitive, and vicious ego-mind cycle is to observe the ego with Jesus. Then you discover the only reason the ego felt so real is that you believed in it, while forgetting it was nothing more than a passing idea in God’s Mind.

“In a split mind, identity must seem to be divided.” (T-27.II.11:1)

When you stop unconsciously denying your true Identity, it is revealed that as long as we seem to live in a world with others, the only sane choice is to follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance and be a miracle worker. You will feel peaceful, comforted, liberated and illuminated, as you devote the body to serving God’s Will instead of reinforcing a false personal identity.

“It is impossible that God lose His Identity, for if He did, you would lose yours.” (T-14.XI.7:5)

Let us conclude with a prayer for your friend. May he rest in God, at Home with his Father, enlightened and free in the recognition of his true Self. Death can serve as one of the many doorways to Who we really are. Happily for all of us, it is inevitable that everyone awaken to our God-Self, each in our own perfect moment.

“The word ‘inevitable’ is fearful to the ego, but joyous to the spirit. God is inevitable, and you cannot avoid Him any more than He can avoid you.” (T-4.I.9:10-11)

Note: If you found this topic interesting, click here to read the Ask Amy column in the Jan/Feb 2015 issue of Miracles magazine, which delves into this same concept from a different angle.

This Q&A appears in the Ask Amy column from the March-April 2015 issue of Miracles magazine. Miracles is a well-loved staple in the ACIM community. To get a subscription, email [email protected] or call 845-496-9089. To ask Amy a question, email miracles (at) amytorresacim (dot) com

Gatita’s Metamorphosis Into The Lady

Posted on March 21, 2015

in ACIM Body Image, Spiritual Psychotherapy, Undoing the Ego, Unlearning Classroom

by Amy Torres

The Lady muted eyes It has been about eight months since Gatita gently laid the body aside and emerged as The Lady.

Some hours after shedding her skin, I had the clear sense that Gatita was no longer a cat. When I spoke with her in my mind she was now The Lady. She had emerged from the confines of form.

The Lady has the elevated essence of Mary’s love, purity and kindness. She is numinous, sublime and retains a feline inscrutability.

The Lady is another way of saying the Holy Spirit.

The Lady understood my great appreciation of Gatita’s form and we could mind-meld as She loved me and communicated ideas like,

“That was an exquisite form. I understand your love for it. You can love the Gatita I was and yet you don’t have to miss her. When you drop your Amy form you will not miss that. You will experience pure freedom. And you can experience that pure freedom before you drop the form as well simply by shifting your attention from form to What Is.”

All grieving felt sweet; it was a confirmation of the love Gatita and I shared. It didn’t feel like loss.

This grieving feels like a tribute to unconditional love. It is confirming of the Formless. It is liberating and tender. It is strengthening of faith and courage.

Om Namah Shivaya.

Click here to read an earlier post on the miracle of Gatita’s passing. And this may inspire you as well: Inexplicably Predictably Happy

“The Lady” illustration was lovingly and beautifully drawn by Harper Wood. If you would like to commission artwork, email [email protected]

Where the Music Is …

Posted on March 16, 2015

in Uncategorized

by Amy Torres

It is a pleasure to share this article by the inspiring mystical teacher, Will Johnson:

“Take me to Church,” sings the Irish singer-songwriter Hozier (although his idea of “church” is not a house of worship, but the union of lovers). What his song perfectly underscores, however, is that Church has always been where the music is.

As we enter the 21st century, music is everywhere, and the world’s young are more likely to be seen gliding along wearing Dr. Dre headphones than attending traditional venues of worship.

Forget about Esperanto. Music is now the universal language, but its near ubiquity tends to make us forget that, up until the middle of last century, music was a sublime rarity and mostly only ever heard in the context of religious worship: in Gregorian chant, the singing of Jewish cantors, the muzzein’s call to prayer, the earth shaking sound of a grand pipe organ, the ecstatic hymns of bhakti mystics and Southern Baptists alike.

The I Ching tells us that “music has power to ease tension within the heart and to loosen the grip of obscure emotions.” This healing power is the action of real religion, and music is one of its most reliable actors.

If church is indeed where the music is, then the whole world now appears to have become an expanded church, promoting a gospel of the easing of tension, the loosening of emotional holding, the breaking through to the sublime, and this is happening as much on our city streets and in our dance clubs as in our more traditional houses of worship.

Joshua is recorded as having brought down the walls of Jericho with sound alone (they may have been real walls; they are certainly, metaphorically, the walls encasing our hearts). Technologies like iAwake send binaural frequencies into our bodies through our ears, altering patterns of brain waves and even appearing to break up bodily tensions that keep the natural expression of our hearts enclosed (not perhaps unlike how blasts of ultrasound frequency break up kidney stones).

Young people dance together all night long at raves, their bodies reverberating to the sounds of drum and bass instead of a pipe organ. The most sacred mass gathering I ever attended was my very first Grateful Dead show in 1969 at which I–and everyone else in the audience, in a single moment of exaltation–became a dancer.

When you sit in meditation and hum, the sound can be felt to vibrate through your entire body. Take me to church indeed.

Many years ago, while visiting Malaysia, I saw a young man sporting a T-shirt that proclaimed “music is the weapon of the future.” The music that is being so incessantly broadcast around the world today is music that makes our bodies want to move, and it’s going to be increasingly difficult to force-feed stale and hateful dogma to a young person whose body has connected with its impulse to move, to dance, to express itself with joy.

So let’s all become soldiers in this new army of peace, bombarding the world not with weapons of destruction but weapons that melt and dissolve hatred, creating healing in ourselves and others through every note we hear and play, giving our bodies permission to move whether we’re responding to the ear shattering beats in a club or the subtle rhythm of the breath as we sit on our meditation cushion.

Take me to church? We’re already there.

You can explore Will Johnson’s innovative work at www.embodiment.net

The Cure for You

Posted on February 25, 2015

in Spiritual Psychotherapy, Thoughts on A Course in Miracles, Undoing the Ego, Unlearning Classroom, What is A Course in Miracles?

by Amy Torres

Amy crosslegged white “Who is the ‘you’ who are living in this world?” ~Jesus (T-4.II.11:8)

Do you assume you are a person? Is it a given that your body and your personality are “you”?

One way of describing A Course in Miracles is that it offers a cure to the delusional belief all people hold that their identity is connected to the body. If this is a brand new thought for you, you are probably saying, “Wha???”

That’s okay. It’s a huge turning point for every ACIM student when he or she “gets it” that everything is happening in the mind, not the body.

The only problem people have is a mental problem; it is not a brain-body problem. Your only problem is a mind problem. This is why Jesus tells us in Chapter 21, “Seek not to change the world. Choose to change your mind about the world.”

Can you locate the mind? Try to put your finger on the mind. What is the mind composed of? Thoughts, beliefs, ideas, concepts. Can you touch thoughts, beliefs, ideas and concepts?

As you contemplate this, notice whether a click of recognition arises … or fear. Recognition is the memory of God within you surfacing through ego-imposed clouds and darkness. Fear is the voice of the ego saying, “Don’t remember!” Don’t remember what? Who you really are: Spirit extending naturally from the Formless, Timeless, Changeless, Innocent, Unified God-Mind which is your Source.

By the way, the ego offers us all kinds of cures for sickness and unhappiness. Sometimes they work on the human level; sometimes they don’t. The nature of the ego is that it is changing, contradictory and unstable. But the Holy Spirit offers a sure-fire cure that always works. The central idea in Lesson 140 states: “Only salvation can be said to cure.”

Salvation means the undoing of what never was. The ego is the dreamer of a dream that we are separate from God. Ego mesmerizes us by imagining bodies, from the celestial level to the human level. Ego mind would keep us stuck in the concept of a body forever, but Lesson 140 offers us a way out, “The happy dreams the Holy Spirit brings … lead from sleep to gentle waking, so that dreams are gone. And thus they cure for all eternity.”

We need the Holy Spirit to undo our beliefs because, as people, we are stuck within a limited ego thought system which does not want us to understand that we can be cured of personal identity. This cure, to the ego, seems to be death. As the beloved master Mooji says, it is only death to what you are not, but What You Truly Are is Life and Life cannot include death.

The cure for living as a person is to undo the person completely. The person cannot undo the person; it is the Holy Spirit’s job to unravel the tangled web we elected the ego to weave. Just withdraw your vote for darkness and complexity, and Light and Simplicity will naturally arise in the Mind of which you are an inextricable extension.

At first, improving the person seems necessary, but eventually, you get the hang of dropping the person altogether. Let me know if this makes sense to you — email me at [email protected]

Watch for my upcoming book, Sweet Dreams of Awakening. And let’s practice together! Watch and listen to my readings of each ACIM Lesson on Youtube. Also, check out Workin’ the Workbook, my online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.

Review I: Introduction

Posted on February 20, 2015

in Spiritual Psychotherapy, Thoughts on A Course in Miracles, Undoing the Ego, Unlearning Classroom, Workin' the Workbook

by Amy Torres

This is the first review in the A Course in Miracles Workbook. It covers the first 50 lessons in sets of five. Jesus tells us this is designed to emphasize the relationships among the first 50 ideas in the lessons in order to appreciate the cohesiveness of the God’s thought system which is where they are leading us.

If any of the five ideas in any given review lesson appeal more than the others, make that the focus of your day.

“The purpose of your learning is to enable you to bring the quiet with you, and to heal distress and turmoil.” At first, we learn in solitude, but the purpose of this practice is to build up an ability to stay with Peace no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in. As we dis-identify as a person-body, this becomes easier and easier because we are discovering we are Peace.

Jesus puts it this way, “You will yet learn that peace is part of you, and requires only that you be there to embrace any situation in which you are. And finally you will learn that there is no limit to where you are, so that your peace is everywhere, as you are.”

Let’s practice together! Watch and listen to Amy reading each ACIM Lesson on Youtube. Also, check out Workin’ the Workbook, Amy’s online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.