By Gonny Some lines are so short you could overlook them.
And yet they carry the whole message of A Course in Miracles.
“Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.”
If we could truly understand these two lines…not just with the intellect but down to the very bone…we would understand the entire Course.
1. Nothing real can be threatened.
What is real? Not the body, not possessions, not the roles we protect. These come and go. They shift, age, and break apart. They feel fragile and so they seem constantly under threat.
But what God created is real. Love is real. Spirit is real. The eternal Self is real. That cannot be harmed. Ever.
So when we feel threatened…and we all do…it shows only one thing: we are identifying with what is not real. We are defending shadows, guarding smoke. No wonder it feels exhausting.
The invitation is simple: turn back to what is real.
Rest in the Love that cannot be lost.
That is your strength and your safety.
2. Nothing unreal exists
The second line sounds almost too bold: “Nothing unreal exists.”
Look around: wars, sickness, heartbreak, unpaid bills. Someone will probably shout : surely they exist!
The Course answers gently: they exist as dreams in the mind, but not in Truth. They are effects without Cause. And what has no Cause cannot be real.
God is Cause. His Son is His Effect. And they are one.
As the Course says:
“What He creates is not apart from Him, and nowhere does the Father end, the Son begin as something separate from Him.”
Creation is extension. You cannot draw a line where God stops and His Son begins. They are one continuous flow.
And yet, the Son imagined: What if I could make something apart from my Source? In that moment a whole universe seemed to appear: bodies, time, space, problems, even galaxies.
But what has no cause cannot be an effect.
Therefor it is simply …..n o t h i n g
Strictly speaking, “nothing” needs no name…(and “nothing” cannot have any meaning).
And yet, because the mind loves words, the Course offers gentle ones: illusion, dream, shadow, image.
This echoes beautifully with Buddhism (pratītyasamutpāda), this says: nothing here has an intrinsic existence.
No form, no self, no world has its own built-in reality.
Everything is dependent, empty of its own essence.
The Course says the same in another language: if it is not created by a Source…it is unreal.
And so we can finally say:
This entire existence, as we perceive it, is nothing.
Not sinful, not evil …simply nothing…that is its liberation.
And in that remembering, you are already home.
With love and light,
G