Showing posts with label ACIM and UU. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ACIM and UU. Show all posts

Sunday, March 12, 2023

What does A Course In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism have in common?

 A Course in Miracles (ACIM) and Unitarian Universalism (UU) share some commonalities, but they are fundamentally different in their teachings and practices.

ACIM is a spiritual text that presents a unique interpretation of Christianity, emphasizing forgiveness and love as the keys to spiritual transformation. It teaches that we can shift our perception from fear to love and experience inner peace and joy. ACIM also claims to have been dictated by Jesus Christ to a psychologist named Helen Schucman in the 1970s.

On the other hand, Unitarian Universalism is a liberal religion that emphasizes the worth and dignity of every person, the search for truth and meaning, and the interconnectedness of all things. UU draws on many sources of wisdom, including world religions, science, and humanist traditions, and encourages individuals to find their own spiritual path.

However, there are some common themes that both ACIM and UU share. For example, both emphasize the importance of personal spiritual growth and transformation, and both reject dogma and encourage individuals to question and explore their beliefs. Additionally, both ACIM and UU emphasize the idea of a universal spiritual reality that transcends any particular religion or belief system.

At UU A Way Of Life there are posts daily which comment on how ideas in A Course Of Miracles are related to Unitarian Universalism. Come follow us.

Monday, September 19, 2022

Do we choose what to think?

Question:  As I recall,  Course seems to think it’s up to you what you perceive, that you have a choice. No choice in facts and knowledge but choice in perception. 

Answer: Yes the Course does teach a system of mind control.

The first step of the system is to become aware that you do have a choice in what you think. 

The Course teaches that we have been conditioned to not know this and even if we become aware of the fact that we have a choice to disregard it or if we don't disregard it to choose the world of the ego over the world of Love. Jesus said the way to the kingdom is "to love as I have loved." Most people have no idea what this means in daily life. It is a choice and it is a practice. 

Peace Pilgrim said "I look for the Divine Spark in each person and focus on that." If one does this it changes their reality and brings great peace and joy. This idea is part of the perennial philosophy and it is found in all the major religions. Now it shows up in consciousness research. What about that?

In Unitarian Universalism some of us join together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. One of the results of the application of this principle is to become aware of the fact that we have a choice what we think.

Monday, August 19, 2019

A Course In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism - Reality observes the laws of God



Reality observes the laws of God

T-30.IV.4. Reality observes the laws of God, and not the rules you set. It is His laws that guarantee your safety. All illusions that you believe about yourself obey no laws. They seem to dance a little while, according to the rules you set for them. But then they fall and cannot rise again. They are but toys, my child, so do not grieve for them. Their dancing never brought you joy. But neither were they things to frighten you, nor make you safe if they obeyed your rules. They must be neither cherished nor attacked, but merely looked upon as children’s toys without a single meaning of their own. See one in them and you will see them all. See none in them and they will touch you not.

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. P.634

I read this passage and it makes me laugh at how foolish I have been to think that the ways of the world could make me happy. It’s been a fool’s errand.

I have always known, I think, deep down that there was something deeper going on which I was/am failing to see and understand. I have been on a search for this understanding my whole life. This understanding of the “laws of God” which is the basis of real reality is what I have been looking for. It is found someone in holy scripture and the autobiographies and writings of the mystics and in the reflection on my own experience.

This search is validated in the fourth principle of Unitarian Universalism which is the affirmation and promotion of a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. A Course In Miracles tells me that this truth and meaning will not be found in the things of the world on the path of the ego for they are nothing “but toys.” Instead, ACIM tells us that our safety is in the understanding and appreciation of the “laws of God” which are not what most religions and moralities tells us they are but something higher or deeper whichever metaphor works for you.

The Course tells us that separation from the Oneness for which we emerged is the problem and that our desire is to go back home and become One with All once again. The “specialness” to which we attribute ourselves, and others, and things in our make believe world is the problem and once we recognize this we need to “forgive” our error and try again to listen to the harmonic song of what we call heaven. 

We can faintly hear this lovely melody if we listen but it takes eschewing our ego and our interest and desire for the worldly things which blocks our awareness of Love’s presence. Be quiet and rest in the peace of God.


Saturday, August 17, 2019

A Course In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism - Where are you searching?




The truth behind illusions

T-30.IV.4. Reality observes the laws of God, and not the rules you set. It is His laws that guarantee your safety. All illusions that you believe about yourself obey no laws. They seem to dance a little while, according to the rules you set for them. But then they fall and cannot rise again. They are but toys, my child, so do not grieve for them.

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. P.634

This is, of course, the laws of God and the laws of the world. We follow most often the laws of the world which are also called the laws of idols like money, sex, power, fame, status, etc. We falsely believe that it is these things we idolize which will make us happy but as it says in the quote above our believe that these things can bring us happiness falls apart and what are we left with back at the drawing board so to speak? It’s the laws of God, of course. We have ignored them and repressed them and when we have hit bottom it dawns on us that must be a better way. And then we begin our search for what is really important.

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. We will never find what we are looking for in the laws of the world, in the world of idols. What we are looking for is in the world of God, the Tao, the Oneness, that makes us whole as we realize the interdependent existence of which we are apart.


Friday, August 16, 2019

To what extent are you a bottomless pit?




 Beyond all idols

If what we long for is completeness, wholeness, to become One with All, then why do we pursue idols thinking that they will complete us and make us whole? 

Is the idol we pursue romantic love, money, status, power, material things? None of these idols can complete us. We are like bottomless pits. If we get an inch we want a foot. If we get a foot we want a yard. If we get a yard we want 10 years, then 100 yards, then 1,000 yards, then a mile, then 10 miles…………...When will it ever stop?

A Course In Miracles tells us that what we seek we already have.

T-30.III.4. It never is the idol that you want. But what you think it offers you, you want indeed and have the right to ask for. Nor could it be possible it be denied. Your will to be complete is but God’s Will, and this is given you by being His. God knows not form. He cannot answer you in terms that have no meaning. And your will could not be satisfied with empty forms, made but to fill a gap that is not there. It is not this you want. Creation gives no separate person and no separate thing the power to complete the Son of God. What idol can be called upon to give the Son of God what he already has?

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. P.631

T-30.III.8. The Thoughts of God are far beyond all change, and shine forever. They await not birth. They wait for welcome and remembering. The Thought God holds of you is like a star, unchangeable in an eternal sky. So high in Heaven is it set that those outside of Heaven know not it is there. Yet still and white and lovely will it shine through all eternity. There was no time it was not there; no instant when its light grew dimmer or less perfect ever was.

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. P.632

The Course tells us that God’s love is always there for us. All we need do is remember and welcome it.

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This means the person doesn't have to do anything, acquire anything, achieve anything, be associated with anyone, believe anything in particular, to be saved. 

UUs believe that people are already saved. They probably just don't know it yet. They are not aware of it. They need to remember it and become aware of it. Of course, it helps if they are coached, suggested, encouraged, supported in remembering and welcoming. The new fangled idea for this is "self compassion."


Wednesday, August 14, 2019

Will you find what you have been looking for all along?

T-30.II.1. Do you not understand that to oppose the Holy Spirit is to fight yourself? He tells you but your will; He speaks for you. In His Divinity is but your own. And all He knows is but your knowledge, saved for you that you may do your will through Him. God asks you do your will. He joins with you. He did not set His Kingdom up alone. And Heaven itself but represents your will, where everything created is for you.

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. P.629

How long will I find my Self and look instead to idols for my happiness? How long can this go on?

It can go on until I come to the realization that I am powerless to control the life I think I am living in the dream. Can I give up, give in, turn it over? When I finally do this, I experience tremendous relief, tremendous liberation, tremendous freedom to just be with God, the Oneness, the All.

The peace of God is mine if I only will recognize the fundamental truth that I am okay just the way I am being One with God.

Become one with the Tao. Go with the flow. Stop resisting the Love of the Oneness.

Universalists know this. It is the basis of their faith. They believe in Universal salvation and the Unconditional Love of God. Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning and this search will eventually take them to the awareness that God’s will for them is exactly what they have been looking for all along.

Sunday, August 11, 2019

A Couse In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism - What kind of day do you want?


This section of  A Course In Miracles, reads, “But think about the kind of day you want, and tell yourself there is a way in which this very day can happen just like that. Then try again to have the day you want.” T-30.1.1:8-9

You might be thinking, “What kind of psychobabble is this? It sounds like the power of positive thinking.”


From A Course In Miracles commentary by David G. Markham, Chapter 30, I.Rules For Decision

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to accept one another and encourage each other's spiritual growth. To what extent is this happening in your congregation?

Tuesday, August 6, 2019

A Course In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism - The need to be right.



The need to be right makes us miserable. It puts us in a judgmental mood where everything that is said, and done, and happens to us, gets compared to our sense of how things should be. The more certain we become, the more judgmental, the more miserable we are. We are acting like God and deciding how the universe should behave for our satisfaction.

Who made us God? How is the decision that we made to be God, often unconscious, working for us?

Unitarian Universalists are a curious bunch of folks who can tolerate a great deal of ambiguity because they require no allegiance to a creed or assent to any orthodox dogma but rather affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning.

Friday, July 26, 2019

A Course In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism - where should I search for truth and meaning?


It is written in A Course In Miracles:

T-29.VII.5. Idols must fall because they have no life, and what is lifeless is a sign of death. You came to die, and what would you expect but to perceive the signs of death you seek? 

No sadness and no suffering proclaim a message other than an idol found that represents a parody of life which, in its lifelessness, is really death, conceived as real and given living form. Yet each must fail and crumble and decay, because a form of death cannot be life, and what is sacrificed cannot be whole. 

T-29.VII.6. All idols of this world were made to keep the truth within from being known to you, and to maintain allegiance to the dream that you must find what is outside yourself to be complete and happy. 

It is vain to worship idols in the hope of peace. God dwells within, and your completion lies in Him. No idol takes His place. Look not to idols. Do not seek outside yourself.

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. p. 618

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Where should they search? Where should they look for truth and meaning? A Course In Miracles which describes a metaphysical thought system, tells us it is a waste of time to look outside ourselves. Mystical traditions of all the major religions tell us the same thing.

Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of God is within you.

Buddha tells us that the source of suffering is from attachment to external things.

Moses tells us in giving us the Ten Commandments that we are not worship idols and not make anything other than Godliness our god.

How do we search then? We close our eyes, take three deep breaths, and watch our monkey mind of thoughts and feelings until they evaporate and disappear.

Tuesday, July 23, 2019

A Course In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism - The bloodied body of Jesus of Nazareth.

From A Course In Miracles:

T-29.VII.3. The lingering illusion will impel him to seek out a thousand idols, and to seek beyond them for a thousand more. And each will fail him, all excepting one; for he will die, and does not understand the idol that he seeks is but his death. Its form appears to be outside himself. Yet does he seek to kill God’s Son within, and prove that he is victor over him. This is the purpose every idol has, for this the role that is assigned to it, and this the role that cannot be fulfilled.

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. p. 617-618

Sigmund Freud names the ultimate idol of the ego, the death wish, thanatos. We humans love war, murder, and violence which brings death or threatens one with death. Witness the popularity of movies with a lot of violence, and WWE wrestling, and our preoccupation with war, and guns, and killing things. It gives the mood altering feeling of power.

We, in America, are "second amendment" people who love our guns, 300 million of them floating around. Mass shootings arouse people's emotions and the media revels in them as do the politicians who control the public's access to these instruments of death.

Controlling death, worshiping it, makes us like God and we like to play God. We pretend its sometimes horrific and traumatic, but this is a charade because we continue to inflict it, ennoble it, and worship it.

We have made a whole religion out of the crucifying of one man's body. We have built a whole mythology about a man who supposedly cheated death by rising again in spite of his body being killed.

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person which refers to the person's spirit not to his/her body. The spirit is eternal and manifests in different forms even though it is part of One. We are an extension of this Oneness whether we are consciously aware of it or not, and to assert our authority over this Oneness, we delusionally think we can kill it. This, the ego would have us believe, and this, we arrogantly align our wrong mindedness with.

Jesus allowed Himself to be crucified to demonstrate to humanity that the body and its death means nothing. It is an illusion. As the Romans were killing Him, Jesus laughed at their silliness and said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Jesus teaches us that making an idol out of the death of the body is nothing more than a sick joke.

Monday, July 22, 2019

A Course In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism - What's with the social justice fixation?



It is written in A Course In Miracles:

T-29.VII.2. No one who comes here but must still have hope, some lingering illusion, or some dream that there is something outside of himself that will bring happiness and peace to him. If everything is in him this cannot be so. 

And therefore by his coming, he denies the truth about himself, and seeks for something more than everything, as if a part of it were separated off and found where all the rest of it is not. This is the purpose he bestows upon the body; that it seek for what he lacks, and give him what would make himself complete. 

And thus he wanders aimlessly about, in search of something that he cannot find, believing that he is what he is not.

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. p.617

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning and then wander aimlessly about searching for something to complete him and make him happy and then realizes after discouraging and fruitless effort that he has been barking up the wrong tree.

UUs wander down the road of social justice thinking that if only they can change people's minds, and change certain policies and practices, then they will be happy and other people will be happy, but as cyncial grandmothers have been said to say, "There's always something."

One injustice leads to another and sometimes the rescuer becomes the perpetrator and then the tables get turned and gets made into a victim. And the circle goes around and around from rescuer to perpetrator to victim until they get rescued again.

This social justice dance takes a lot of time and energy and distracts from the anxiety and fear that there is inherently something wrong with us. That fear is embedded in our unconscious from our socialization as we grow up experiencing life on the path of the ego. It, hopefully, finally dawns on us that wandering in the social justice wilderness, rectifiying our perceived injustices in the world, being filled with resentments, grievances, and rightousness, is not the spiritual path but another trick of the ego to keep us from recognizing our true problem which is our tendency to think that we know better than Tao.

This dawning leads to an authentic search and this search takes us within and we change our minds about the world we are living in. We realize it is but a dream and we have to wake up to the realization of God's Unconditional Love for us as our Universalist forebearers envisioned.

Forgiveness is the key to miracles. Explore this idea and see where it takes you.

Sunday, July 21, 2019

A Course In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism - What am I denying?




Do I really want to see what I denied?

If you say “yes”, it means giving up the ego and many people find this hard to do wholeheartedly.

Are you really willing to have your identity obliterated?

If you say “Yes,” then eternal happiness and bliss is yours. If you say “No,” you will continue to live in purgatory if not hell.

As it is written in A Course In Miracles, T-29.VII.1. 

Seek not outside yourself. For it will fail, and you will weep each time an idol falls. 

Heaven cannot be found where it is not, and there can be no peace excepting there. Each idol that you worship when God calls will never answer in His place. 

There is no other answer you can substitute, and find the happiness His answer brings. Seek not outside yourself. For all your pain comes simply from a futile search for what you want, insisting where it must be found. What if it is not there? 

Do you prefer that you be right or happy? 

Be you glad that you are told where happiness abides, and seek no longer elsewhere. You will fail. But it is given you to know the truth, and not to seek for it outside yourself.

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. P.617

Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Where is that truth and meaning to be found? Many of us are afraid to look within. It is much less scary and comfortable to look without. It distracts us from what we fear lurks in our unconscious.

What is in our unconscious, our Oneness with our creator from Whom we have separated, we deny. Some say that “denial is a river in Egypt” and laugh. Some of us with a sense of adventure and stage fright decide to look within and we are richly rewarded discovering our Holiness and the Tao of which we are a part.


Friday, July 12, 2019

A Course In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism - What and where is reason?


T-21.V.4. You do not realize the whole extent to which the idea of separation has interfered with reason.

 Reason lies in the other self you have cut off from your awareness. And nothing you have allowed to stay in your awareness is capable of reason. How can the segment of the mind devoid of reason understand what reason is, or grasp the information it would give? All sorts of questions may arise in it, but if the basic question stems from reason, it will not ask it. Like all that stems from reason, the basic question is obvious, simple and remains unasked. But think not reason could not answer it.

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. p.457

Comment

We put our trust in faith, perception, belief, and yet it is reason, only, that is dependable and can point us to reality.

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning and yet many times seem confused about where that "free and responsible search" should take us and where truth and meaning will actually be found.

A Course In Miracles teaches that truth and meaning are not to be found in the external world of the ego, but in the reason which is in our own mind.

In our search for what we think will make us happy in the world of the ego, we often unconsciously dissasociate our mind from reason putting our trust in "faith," our "perceptions" which are made up of projections, and in out "beliefs" which are based on socialization which has given us the norms, attitudes, biases, and prejudices of the reference groups which surround us.

Truth and meaning are to be found in our reason which is based in our memory of our Divine Source which is the foundation of our inherent worth and dignity which UUs covenant together to affirm and promote, reasoning that inherent worth and dignity belong to all people.

Thursday, July 11, 2019

A Course In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism - What is a miracle?


It is written in A Course In Miracles:

T-21.V.3. There is another vision and another Voice in which your freedom lies, awaiting but your choice. And if you place your faith in Them, you will perceive another self in you. This other self sees miracles as natural. They are as simple and as natural to it as breathing to the body. They are the obvious response to calls for help, the only one it makes. 

Miracles seem unnatural to the ego because it does not understand how separate minds can influence each other. Nor could they do so. But minds cannot be separate. This other self is perfectly aware of this. And thus it recognizes that miracles do not affect another’s mind, only its own. They always change your mind. There is no other.

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. pp.456-457

Comment:

This passage in A Course In Miracles makes no sense to the average reader who does not understand the metaphysical thought system of the Course. Once the reader understands the metaphysical thought system of the Course, the passage makes perfect sense.

One of the primary ideas of the metaphysical thought system of the Course is that the ego divides and separates and the Divine is One. The metaphysical thought system is based on nonduality. There is only the Oneness and all else is an illusion, a dream. There is no difference as far as the Course's metaphysical thought system goes betweens the dreams that occur during sleep and the dreams that occur when one is "awake." Whether asleep or awake, the ego dreams continually. Daytime dreams are projections just as much as sleeping dreams are.

The "mind" is Oneness. It is the awareness of the interdependent Oneness which Unitarian Universalists refer to in their seventh principle. Since all egos don't exist because they are projections and the Mind is One, whatever a mind chooses affects the All since it is part of the All. When the text articulates "And it recognizes that miracles do not affect another's mind, only its own, They always change your mind. There is no other." it is to pointing to the idea that when the Mind, being One, chooses, whatever is chosen affects the whole.

When UUs covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person it can be thought of as not referring to separate egos but to the Divine Nature of which we all are a part.

And so, the "miracle" is not something that happens to external phenomena but the choice of an awareness of the Nature of Existence which operates above the dream of separation. We experience happiness when we awake from our dreams of separation and divisiveness and come to the realization that we all are One. This is one way of thinking about the basis of our Universalist faith in the Unconditinal Love which is God which can be thought of  in the ego world as a "miracle.".

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

A Course In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism - What is your reality?

T-21.V.2. Reality needs no cooperation from you to be itself. But your awareness of it needs your help, because it is your choice.

Listen to what the ego says, and see what it directs you see, and it is sure that you will see yourself as tiny, vulnerable and afraid. You will experience depression, a sense of worthlessness, and feelings of impermanence and unreality. You will believe that you are helpless prey to forces far beyond your own control, and far more powerful than you. And you will think the world you made directs your destiny. For this will be your faith. 

But never believe because it is your faith it makes reality.

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. p456

Comment:

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning and where does this search take them? Of what do they become aware? Is it a further exploration of the world of the ego, or is it an exploration of the world of Spirit?

Does the exploration for truth and meaning take them down a linear, reductionistic path of further divisiveness and separation  or does it take them to a systemic awareness of the interdependence of existence?

God is the Oneness of which we are all a part and UUs affirm and promote the respect for the interdenpendent web of existence.

If you believe you are a victim of circumstances something is wrong. You are on the wrong path. When you can forgive the circumstances and rise above them and become aware of your holiness being part of the whole, joy and peace arise and in this joy and peace is where your awareness can abide.

Monday, July 8, 2019

A Course In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism - Perception makes your reality


It is written in A Course In Miracles, "Perception selects and makes the world you see. I literally picks out as the mind directs." T-21.V.1:1-2

Comedian Flip Wilson said in his Geraldine routine, "What you see is what you get, honey!" I modify Geraldine's saucy statement a bit and say, "What you think you see is what you get, honey?"

What is it that you think you see? Do you like yourself and the world you are living in or don't you like yourself and dislike the world you are living in?

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning and where does that search take them? Where should they search: without or within?

If you don't like yourself and the world you are living in, you will feel like a vicim, resentful, angry, full of grievances, guilt, and fear and the experience of your life in the world of the ego will be hell.

On the other hand, if you know that you are loved unconditionally by God as the Universlists teach you will be aware of your inherent worth and dignity and love yourself and others as your faith tells you that God loves you.

What will your mind direct? The choice is yours: inherent worth and dignity or degradation and evil? We can walk the path of the ego or the path of holiness. If we can put aside the things of the ego we will uncover the things of the kindgom which is unconditional love of creation.

Jesus tells us that the way to the kingdom is to love as I have loved.

Sunday, July 7, 2019

A Course In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism - What makes people so anxious?


Anxiety disorders are the most commonly diagnosed psychiatric disorders in the United States today.

If we were to define "anxiety" as fear we might ask "What are people so afraid of?"

There might be many answers but the most common one would be, people are afraid that they are not good enough. They will be found out for the frauds they believe they are. Insecurity in the land of plenty is an epidemic in the United States which Mother Teresa declared the most spiritually impoverished nation on the planet.

As is written in A Course In Miracles in section IV of chapter 21, the biggest source of insecurity is "the fear to look within."

"You are indeed afraid to look within and see the sin you think is there." T-21.IV.I:3

The Course reassures us "The Holy Spirit will never teach you that you are sinful. Errors He will correct, but this makes no one fearful." T-21.IV.I:1-2

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Their Universalist faith tells them that they are loved Unconditionally. With this faith, what can there be to fear? What is there to be anxious about?

Friday, July 5, 2019

A Course In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism - Sacrifice has no role in a faith based on unconditional love.


Do you believe in sacrifice? Do you think it necessary in order to obtain the things you believe will make you happy?

On the path of the ego, egos would have you believe that sacrifice is not only necessary but even required. And so suffering is necessary and required for happiness. Does this make any sense? Is this just one of life's many paradoxes?

A Course In Miracles offers us another thought system, one in which sacrifice is not only not necessay and required but antithetical to walking on the path of holiness.

The belief in the power of sacrifice is based on a belief in sin. The ultimate sin is our separating ourselves from the Oneness of God with the consequential guilt and fear of punishment. In this insane way of thinking, sacrifice is appeasement of a vengeful God who is angry with our separation and arrogance in thinking that we can be the authors of our own lives.

In this crazy rationale we have created, sacrifice makes sense, but to God it is silly because God always has, and continues to, love us unconditionally as the Universalists have taught us.

Jesus was a universalist and would say to his disciples, "Oh, you of little faith. If you only knew how much your Father in heaven loves you..."

And so as Unitarian Universalists, if we really understand our faith at its deeper levels, we could not believe in sacrifice as a vehicle for the happiness of salvation. The idea that sacrifice is necessary is contradictory to our faith.

We look on our brothers and sisters with love and assure them that no sacrifice is necessary. They always have been loved and always will be loved no matter what.

Check out these two paragraphs from the text of A Course In Miracles:

T-21.III.9. Those who believe in sin must think the Holy Spirit asks for sacrifice, for this is how they think their purpose is accomplished. Brother, the Holy Spirit knows that sacrifice brings nothing. He makes no bargains. And if you seek to limit Him, you will hate Him because you are afraid. The gift that He has given you is more than anything that stands this side of Heaven. The instant for its recognition is at hand. Join your awareness to what has been already joined. The faith you give your brother can accomplish this. For He Who loves the world is seeing it for you, without one spot of sin upon it, and in the innocence that makes the sight of it as beautiful as Heaven.

 T-21.III.10. Your faith in sacrifice has given it great power in your sight; except you do not realize you cannot see because of it. For sacrifice must be exacted of a body, and by another body. The mind could neither ask it nor receive it of itself. And no more could the body. The intention is in the mind, which tries to use the body to carry out the means for sin in which the mind believes. Thus is the joining of mind and body an inescapable belief of those who value sin. And so is sacrifice invariably a means for limitation, and thus for hate.

A Course in Miracles . Foundation for Inner Peace. p.453


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