A Simple Act of Forgiveness, but how?

As the Amish families in Pennslyvania are forgiving today, the media is asking "How can you forgive so soon?"

Perhaps the media doesn't really understand forgiveness, at least not "advanced forgiveness." In advance forgiveness, we don't look at what the person did and try to accept it. Nor do we say, "It's ok that you transgressed. I will be the bigger person and forgive you."

Advanced forgiveness is much simpler than that, and also less understood. It is seeing the "reality" of the person, seeing them as we believe God would see them: as a spirit, as a child of God, as the love of God. We don't even look at their actions during the forgiveness process. This actually makes it easier if you can attempt this process because you don't have to look at what they did and try to understand it or accept it.

So we say, "I see you for who you really are, God's Child. Healed, whole, one with God, the Light, the Love of God. My brother. And in this light I see myself the same way."

Perhaps this is how Gandhi was able to forgive the man who shot him, causing his fatal wound.

You can be a force for love, God's Love, in this world. Just practice forgiveness everyday, with everyone you know, see, or meet. Including yourself.

For more information on forgiveness, God and Love, take a look at the books called A Course in Miracles (acim).

God is Love

God is Love. That is what I discovered during my light experience, when I went to Heaven. God is Love, and we are His creations: we are created FROM Love. In Love. As Love.

ACIM Gather this week: Worthiness

Greetings Dears!

This week during the Light Experiences chat group, hosted by ACIM Gather on Paltalk, we talked about "Worthiness" and David Fishman gave a synopsis of his light experience, which he experienced as an out-of-body experience, and experienced "electricity" going through his body. Thank you, David, that was so powerful. This chat group was a fantastic time and a meaningful time of sharing.

Please join us next Thursday when we will discuss "The Ego Screams" and will ask for a volunteer to share their light experience.

Childhood Out-of-Body Experience

Robert Mills shared his childhood light experience with us recently on the Light Experiences home page.

I met Robert Mills at Pathways of Light in Kiel, Wisconsin while we were both there at an Ordination weekend. Robert has dedicated his life to helping others and to following the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

You can hear Robert on the internet on Sunday mornings at 10 am eastern on ACIM Gather on PalTalk. Robert will conduct a Pathways of Light Inspired meeting. Here's the link: http://acimgather.org/specialevents.htm#Sun

Am I worthy to see a spiritual master?

A friend of mine saw Jesus, but was he worthy of it?

Do we have to earn the right to be worthy to see someone, say such as a spiritual master? I guess it seems like they would appear to someone who could carry their message to others, maybe that is why we think "worthiness" is an issue here.

Do you believe in spiritual masters who can appear and disappear at will?

Recently we have had a lot of "excitement" in this community because some well-known ACIM students/writers decided to challenge the idea that, Arten and Pursah, the spiritual masters of Gary Renard's books, even actually exist. Well, you probably know the rest, and anyway, that isn't the main focus of this discussion.

But I think it's important to notice that we are always talking to people who don't exist: each other. According to A Course in Miracles (as I understand it), there is only ONE of us. That is the meaning of Oneness.

So if you "see" someone who doesn't exist, (seeing meaning to detect them in some way), is it a mistake to talk to them?

What about Jesus? Isn't he one of them? There have been many many people who have said that they have seen him. Is that different than seeing Arten or Pursah?

Someone I know had an experience seeing Jesus about 30-some years ago. He was in his car, driving when suddenly Jesus appeared on the seat next to him. According to my friend, they had just a "normal" conversation, nothing deep or significant, and then Jesus disappeared into a ray of light. He was shook, but didn't tell anyone for fear of what they would think, if for no other reason than my friend is Jewish and he didn't think people would appreciate him seeing Jesus.

Twenty years later, when I told him about my experience with God, he decided to trust me with his experience of Jesus. I was the first person he had told.

"I can't figure out why he chose me," my friend said. "I'm Jewish."

"Maybe it wasn't just for you, after all you told me the story and it meant a lot to me," I told him.

In actuality, I think communication with someone who can have a spiritual impact on us, for whatever reason, is never just for "me" in the sense that I would believe myself to be a small, separate person. It is always for us, for the ONE us. We don't even have to share the experience in the normal sense because we share the one mind. We are all helped.

Is Elvis an Angel? a Miracle Worker?

We know from biographical accounts that Elvis became very spiritual before he "made his transition" to the next phase of his existance. But now we have some information that he may be assisting people who are having near-death experiences.

According to Dr. Melvin Morse in his book on near-death experiences entitled "Transformed by the Light," a 45 year old Midwestern teacher saw Elvis Presley in an intense light during her near death experience. The woman had met Elvis when she was a child.

The following is from her near-death account:

"I entered into a dark tunnel and suddenly I was in a place filled up with love and a beautiful, bright light. The place seemed holy. My father, who had died two years earlier, was there, as were my grandparents. Everyone was happy to see me, but my father told me it was not my time and I would be going back. Just as I turned to go, I caught sight of Elvis! He was standing in this place of intense bright light. He just came over to me, took my hand and said, "Hi, Bev, do you remember me?" (Mauro,1992)

Dr. Raymond Moody wrote an entire book on Elvis sightings, including near-death experiences, entitled "Elvis After Life." Because of the large number of devoted Elvis fans, it should not be a surprise that people having NDEs should be greeted by the King.

Kevin Williams has this account and others at the web site he authors called "Near-Death Experiences & the Afterlife." Here is the link: http://www.near-death.com/


I think Elvis might be using his fame in the service of God, as he sees God, which after all is what Miracle Workers do. As it says in A Course in Miracles (ACIM, Course):

"A teacher of God is anyone who chooses to be one. His qualifications consist solely in this; somehow, somewhere he has made a deliberate choice in which he did not see his interests as apart from someone else's. Once he has done that, his road is established and his direction is sure. A light has entered the darkness. It may be a single light, but that is enough." (ACIM Manual, 1. Who are God's Teachers?"

Some psychics tell us that it is not uncommon for people to continue or begin to do "service work" in the next level, what we might call "life between lives." Being on the spiritual welcome wagon would be one way to do that.

And what are psychics anyway but just people who can communicate with someone who isn't in (what we consider to be) a physical body. After all, as ACIM students many of us communicate with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. At least one ACIM student, Gary Renard, communicates with spiritual Masters who can appear and disappear on this "level" at their discretion.

Madame Helena Blavatsky, the founder of modern Theosophy, is another person reported by psychics to be seen greeting people as they enter the next life.

A teacher of God does not have to be a student of ACIM. In fact, according to that same section:

"He has entered an agreement with God even if he does not yet believe in Him." (ibid)

I don't know about you, but I think Elvis makes a great angel. Good work, brother!

Do you have any thoughts on this topic? If so, then post them here.

There is a candle in your heart...

Jalaluddin Rumi was a 13th century Persian mystic and poet. Today we know him simply as Rumi. Here then, in this poem, he brings us a light experience. Thank you, Rumi.

There is a candle in your heart...

There is a candle in your heart,
ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul,
ready to be filled.
You feel it, don’t you?
You feel the separation
from the Beloved.
Invite Him to fill you up,
embrace the fire.
Remind those who tell you otherwise that
Love
comes to you of its own accord,
and the yearning for it
cannot be learned in any school.

~Rumi

Our NEW Internet Chat Group

Please join us to discuss light experiences on the internet in the PalTalk chatroom created for A Course in Miracles (ACIM) related discussions. It's a thirty minute group every Thursday morning and an hour group some weekend evenings.

If you would like to be a featured speaker for this group, please contact Laurie. (Laurie@lightexperiences.com)

Group: ACIM Gather on PalTalk : Light Experiences chat group on Thursdays ( 7am pacific/8am mountain/9 am central/10am eastern). Please join us there.

Light Experiences, where we discover that God is Love

Light Experiences

New Light Experiences at www.lightexperiences.com

Today I posted Melissa's and Michael's experiences at our main website, which you can reach through the links on this page. Please visit, and if you want to comment, this post is a place for you to do that: just look at the bottom of this post for the word "Comments", click it, and add yours. Hope to hear from you!

Love is All There Is: Melissa's Experience

Melissa Barnes shared some of her experience in response to another person's need for help (on http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Course_Talk/). I'm so glad she let me post this here, and I will be moving it to the Light Experiences website after it's been here awhile. Please respond if this resonates with you.

Melissa's post:

I got very sick and after 16 days of having had no food, I started to have all these religious experiences. I had realization after realization. I experienced the love of Higher Spirit that exists. It was all consuming - and wonderful. It was like everything else was a myth was not real and that love is all there is. I realized I had spent most of life worrying, angry, resentful, feeling hurt etc., etc and that none of it mattered. It was like I was an onion and I'd lived my life as an apple only to find out I'm an onion, always have been an onion and always will be an onion. The other interesting thing I found out was that we are all the same - we are all onions (so to speak) and the core of the onion is the same in all of us - pure love. I still haven't fit all the pieces together and don't know if I ever will which is why I became interested in ACIM (A Course in Miracles).

It feels now like it always did, the only difference is I can remember the experience I had which gives me hope and faith. Having done some research into this, I've found that often the reason many guru's and others fast is to experience closeness to God and to have these kind of religious experiences.

The Light discussed at Afterlife Knowledge

Thanks to the Dear Ones at the Afterlife Knowledge forum, we have a thoughtful thread on "The Light," at this link:
http://www.afterlife-knowledge.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=afterlife_knowledge;action=display;num=1145667214;start=0

It has a lot to do with a near death experience, a light experience, unconditional love, seeing the tunnel and the light at the end.

Here's some of my reply:

You asked if anyone had experienced the warmth and love of the light.

Yes, I did experience the Light your relative told you about. The whole experience brings tears to my eyes too when I sit and think about it even now 16 years later.

We talk about it being the light, and for those who don't remember having experienced it, the first natural inclination would be to compare it to what we have experienced as light here; ie; sunlight. Sunlight seems to shine on us, to warm us, blind us, allow us to see things in this world. The Light on "the other side" is a more immersive experience, more like being immersed in water, but even more than that. The feeling of having no point of separation between you and the Light is one of the most awesome and wonderful aspects of it. You feel the Light in all your being, and you trust it, for you know everything it knows, and everything it knows is an aspect of Love, and you are too. All these things are happening at once, and more.

When I want to remember it, to languor in the memory, I often think about being immersed, and it all floods back to me. (Nice how those words worked together.)

Laurie and Marion, ca. 1969

My mother, Marion, and me, ca. 1969.
Twenty years after she made her transition, I discovered my mother is present in the picture as the shadow on the lower right. That was a great light experience. I feel like she is saying hello to me when I look at this.

Disappearance of the Universe and Pathways of Light

Wednesday I had a lot of places to go, but thankfully, I started out the day reviewing the ACIM lesson for that day, Lesson 116. I am finding it to be so helpful to practice the lesson throughout the day, and with this lesson, it is to review it briefly each half hour.

I was driving to a store and started to pull into a parking spot. Yes, you got it...the perfect forgiveness experience, someone else pulled in from the other side of the spot and beat me to it! LOL! The first thing I remember thinking was, "That's my spot!" But within that same minute I remembered something Gary Renard said in The Disappearance of the Universe, that he forgave Arten and Pursah for leaving and then he forgave himself for missing them. I decided to forgive the other driver for taking "my" spot and then forgive myself for being upset to begin with. It was so beautiful...it prompted me to have a great realization: since this is a dream and we have all awoken in reality, then the other driver had also forgiven me and himself. Then I had a beautiful experience: I briefly envisioned us all back in Heaven, just like all those happy-face egg-beings I saw in my Light Experience.

Wow! That was the best time I ever had in a parking lot! LOL

Later that day I went to the Wednesday night meeting at Pathways of Light (http://pathwaysoflight.org/). We are studying the book Dialogue on Awakening, by Tom and Linda Carpenter. As always, it was a great group of people and Robert and Mary Stoelting infuse the environment with love. It's always a pleasure to go there.

My Light Experience and A Course in Miracles

In 1990, I had an experience similiar to a Near-Death Experience (NDE) in which I went to Heaven and met God. Of course, it changed my life!

So much has happened since then, but I continue to feel the Presence of God wherever I go, even when I'm having a "bad day." This experience and my studies of A Course in Miracles have helped me see the Light of God in every face, and it's there, just as He showed it to me. I know I am so blessed, or as most people would say it, so lucky, to have experienced this.

I want to hear from you about your experience or anything else you care to share about your life and your search, or discovery, of God's Light.

I believe the light experience I had was influenced so much by my study of A Course in Miracles (also called the Course or ACIM).

I came to a point where I was desperate. I had searched for years for answers to help me with this difficult life full of pain, depression and despair with thoughts of suicide when I found the Course.

Once I started petitioning God to take me Home, I couldn't stop. I know that I felt I could trust God completely, and that if I could only reach God, everything would get better. I really believed that. And it proved to be true.

I still think about being Home inside of God, and I know we are all there right now, just as He showed me.

If you are interested, read my experience and come back here to share your thoughts on it, and hopefully on your own experiences of Light. Its available at: http://www.lightexperiences.com/laurieimmekus.htm

I would love to hear from you and I promise to respond to every one who takes the time to post here.

May you have peace and know love,

Laurie Immekus