I love to read. I have an avid imagination, and filling my mind with book after book is so fulfilling to me. A Course in Miracles is a book that I have been trying to read for a while, so I joined a local meet-up group book club to help get a better understanding of this book. We meet 2x a month, and I look forward to these meetings every month. I feel like I am stimulated spiritually, mentally and emotionally by everyone in the group – there are people from so many different walks of life, and it is awesome to all come together to discuss such an amazing book. Love & forgiveness are the recurring themes in the book – over and over, it talks about loving yourself, loving others around you, forgiveness and looking past your ego/illusions.
This past meeting, we went over Chapter V, Sec. V (The State of Sinlessness + The Special Function) & “What is a Miracle?” pg 473 in the workbook, Part II, Sec 13. The same message was given, again and again – the way you treat others is how you see yourself. By treating others poorly or judging them, you are holding back the love that you are… and what the other person is as well. We are all given gifts from the Holy Spirit, and by judging others, we are also suppressing the other persons full potential and gifts that are rightfully theirs. This struck such a strong chord within me, and I felt such at peace reading over the passages, the same message seeping into my heart and pulling me out of my ego thoughts.
Recently, I have noticed my dreams have been a little more… messag-y, for lack of a better word. To elaborate, I feel like I am getting more answers/messages through my dreams, which has never, ever happened to me before. I don’t have very vivid dreams, and I usually limit myself to what I can do in my dreams (for example: I recently had knee surgery, and I am very consciously aware of the fact that I should not ever be running while in my dreams).
So what do A Course in Miracles and my dreams have to do with each other?
The other night, after the book club meeting, I had a pretty interesting dream. So interesting, that I actually took the time to write out everything in the morning so I wouldn’t forget what I had dreamt about. Which I have never done before, but I just had this little voice telling me to write it down… like I needed to share it with others, because the message was so powerful. I had to wake up early for work, so I went back to bed for a little bit afterwards. I wanted to stay in my dream, so I kept hitting the snooze button and going back to it.
The Dream
In my dream, I was a different person. I had dark hair, was chubby, complete opposite of what I look like (blonde hair, blue eyes). However, I didn’t know I was different until later. My friends came up to me and told me my friend had gotten into a fender bender in my car. They kept trying to show me my car, but I kept thinking, “that’s not my car.” I later went back to look at the car, starting to run, but remembered thinking about my knee I recently had surgery on. So, I walked over, saw the car, and knew it wasn’t mine. At this point, I was confused, but was aware that I was dreaming. So, I didn’t worry too much about it and went back to my house (which I knew wasn’t mine). This is when I first saw myself. It wasn’t me, physically (The weird thing is, my boyfriend was there, as well as my mom and aunts). I remember thinking in my dream, I don’t want to be like this. I don’t want to be this person, in this body. And I remembered, “This is only a dream.” So, in my dream, I went to bed and thought really hard about waking up as myself. And I did! It was like I inception-ed myself in my dream – I woke up as my normal self, but was still dreaming. I was so relieved! Then, my alarm went off again (in real life), but I hit the snooze and continued on with my dream.
Back in my dream, I was that other woman again. I didn’t like it, but just went with it, since I was aware that I was still dreaming. I went around the neighborhood to this farm/plantation, which was right behind my house. There were barrels full of cut up food like veggies & lettuce – people were farming and putting everything in bins, and people could come up and take what they wanted. I walked onto a large field, where there were rows & rows of wooden tables with the same barrels near them. Plates lined the tables, and people could reach into any of the food barrels and grab what they wanted to put on their plate.
At this point, I began to have this realization that even though I knew I was this stranger in my dream, I was also me. Both of our lives were happening at the same time, and I knew that everything in LIFE was happening at this exact moment in time. There was no past or future, just the present, where everything happens. (Ex: WW1 was happening at the exact same moment that I was born, and there was no such thing as time – Insert the concept of time explained in Disappearance of the Universe, as well as any book written by Eckhart Tolle.) Everything just was. I was the person next to me, and he was me. And I saw that we were all the same, and saw that there was no reason to treat anyone differently, only with kindness and love. And I realized that if we all saw this in each other, there really could be a change in the world… Only if we all saw each other as one, the same, working together, sharing, being love. All because we knew there was no difference in each other.
I was aware that I still wanted to go back to being “me” – my ego not wanting to give up its “specialness” of being better or different than others. But it didn’t matter, because I was someone else and could understand that the only difference of being in another body was the way I perceived the other body physically. Realizing I am everyone else, just living in this “dream” called life, in this exact moment of consciousness -was perfection. Total, complete, peace and love.
Loving others is like loving your child…or the child within you. A tender unconditional nurturing love that is so breathtakingly beautiful, that they could do no wrong in your eyes.