Ego is a narrowing and an excluding of wholeness. We began in wholeness, into which a tiny mad idea of "not whole" was thought. An idea of limitation or something less than whole - as if lacking something.
In order to be not whole, some part of the whole has to be excluded. This introduced the idea of exclusion or exclusivity into what was originally entirely inclusive. And this also means a sense of being excluded from or separate from God and each other.
This is the idea that something can apply to you alone, and not apply to others equally. And so was the beginning of inequality. When things are not equal, unconditionality is lost and we now have conflict, and ideas of better than or less than.
It was actually a request to God that you be treated differently and in a special way, compared to others. As though having special favour with God, being more important than your brothers.
"You who prefer specialness to sanity could not obtain it in your right minds. You were at peace until you asked for special favor, and God did not give it. For the request was alien to Him, and you could not ask this of a Father who truly loved His Son." UrT12C11
Entering into this idea of "not whole" is entirely ego. It's a whole different kind of "thought system" or way or thinking, seemingly excluded from God's system of wholeness and oneness.
Everything about this system is egoic in some way, and while it persists the "ego", or egotism, persists. Another way to describe this is selfishnesss - something which applies only to you, and something which you do not share with others.
The separation from God was thus an entry into egotism, selfishness, and not sharing. It was an attempt to hoard, to have something that belonged solely to yourself, and to defend it against others so that they would lack it. As though exclaiming, "mine."
As mind progresses into this ego idea, a whole dynamic of relationship and identity and meaning unfolds. A sense of self shifts from being one with others, to being "only myself". What you have shifts from "shared with God and everyone" to "mine alone."
We begin to take credit for what God created, claiming God did not create it. We decided God is not our father and we try to be father (cause) to him, going against his will forcefully. We try to be more than God, usurp his will, overthrow heaven and exist excluded from infinity.
"This is the anti-Christ; the strange idea there is a power PAST omnipotence, a place BEYOND the infinite, a time transcending the eternal. Here the world of idols has been set by the idea this power and place and time are given form, and shape the world where the impossible has happened. " UrT29I6
Egotism depends on exclusion. It depends on being less than whole. It depends on having enemies, lacking something, gaining something, and being always unfulfilled. It requires ongoing attack and guilt to maintain a sense of separation. And without this it cannot be there.
Egotism then turns to self interest. Our egos are only concerned with ourselves because we see ourselves as existing stranded on an island separate from everyone. We think of everyone else as outside of us beyond the perimeter, and therefore cannot possibly need to consider their interests.
It is very natural therefore that as mind narrows down from wholeness, seeing the boundary of infinity shrink down to the body, or even less, that its scope of interest shrinks also. And so it becomes concerned only with itself in isolation, trapped in a body, confined to a self-made prison.
As egotistical people we then have concern only for ourselves. We need constant recognition from others, wanting them to worship us and adore us for our artificial sense of power and pride. We need constant validation because the ego is unreal, have no real sense of worth because we've thrown infinite worth away, and are permanently insecure.
As egos we can't escape from some fundamental experiences which come as part of the package of being exclusive. Anxiety and depression, loneliness and fear, threat and attack, vulnerability and suffering, it's all part of the dynamic of being less than whole.
"Today's idea will eventually overcome completely the sense of loneliness and abandonment which all the separated ones experience. Depression is an inevitable consequence of separation. So are anxiety, worry, a deep sense of helplessness, misery, suffering, and intense fear of loss." UrW41L1
The return to God very simply entails the expansion of the boundaries of Self to be wholly inclusive of the whole of the Kingdom. To share everything with everyone and to be one with everything. To have no concern for exclusive rights or self importance or specialness. And to recognize that we have nothing other than what God has shared with us, which is equally shared with all.
"The sudden EXPANSION of the self that takes place with your DESIRE for it, is the irresistible appeal the holy instant holds. It calls to you to be yourself, within its safe embrace. There are the laws of limit lifted FOR you, to welcome you to openness of mind, and freedom. Come to this place of refuge, where you can be yourself in peace." UrT18G16
"There is nothing about me that you cannot attain. I have nothing that does not come from God. The main difference between us as yet is that I have NOTHING ELSE. This leaves me in a state of true holiness, which is only a POTENTIAL in you." UrT1B40Y
"By steadily and consistently canceling out ALL its effects, EVERYWHERE AND IN ALL RESPECTS, He teaches that the ego does not exist, and PROVES IT. Follow His teaching in forgiveness, then, because forgiveness IS His function, and HE knows how to fulfill it perfectly." UrT9C6
'In your own unconscious, deeply repressed by the ego, is the declaration of your release. GOD HAS GIVEN YOU EVERYTHING. This is the one fact which MEANS that the ego does not exist, and which therefore makes it profoundly afraid." UrT4D21
"Where there was darkness now we see the light. What was the ego? What the darkness was. Where was the ego? Where the darkness was. What is it now and where can it be found? Nothing and nowhere. Now the light has come: Its opposite has gone without a trace. Where evil was there now is holiness. What is the ego? What the evil was. Where is the ego? In an evil dream that but seemed real while you were dreaming it. Where there was crucifixion stands God's Son. What is the ego? Who has need to ask? Where is the ego? Who has need to seek for an illusion now that dreams are gone?" UrU3A6
In our default ego react-to-the-world mode, it seems that how we feel is dictated by what happens. The "hierarchy of illusions" tells us that something has a given amount of importance or seriousness and that we should have an appropriate amount and type of reaction.
How much ego emotion you have about external events seems to be driven by those events, as if automatic. As if you should be upset when you find out about cancer, or you should be frightened by a tornado, or you should be hurt when someone attacks you. As if you are merely an effect of the world.
But Jesus is training us to be more responsible for how we feel, what we think, and what we experience or make of things. He's telling us that we are cause, not effect. After a while we start to notice a certain amount of detachment from external stimuli. What happens doesn't necessarily have the power to change who we are, dictate how we feel, or force us to be upset.
This entails a combination of knowing yourself, taking responsibility for thought and sight, not giving away your power, the cessation of playing the victim role, dis-identifying with the attackable body, an increased recognition of reality, and a willingness to forgive.
This movement away from victimhood towards empowerment gives you the strength and clarity to remain "less changed" by what happens. You are not so easily tossed about on a rollercoaster of suffering. And you are equipped with more tools to help you apply principles and techniques to get you out of victim-mode sooner.
You might then start to notice that when you're in a better frame of mind, you feel more invulnerable, more confident and assertive, able to stand your ground and remain true to what you choose to experience. When external problems arise, you are less thrown around and more able to stay centered. Your happiness is less disturbed and your peace of mind less upset.
You will probably also notice that when you are not in such a great fame of mind, have entered into upset, are having reactions, buying into temptation and illusions, suffering and in pain, sorrowful and unhappy, you feel really out of touch with it. As if you're back to square one, forgetting how to forgive and feeling like a powerless victim.
But eventually you'll rise up again in strength and light and love and forgiveness, and remember your training, and return to a state of greater peace and confidence. And then you'll compare the two states and realize that how you feel is not really dependent on the world. What you make of events, how you perceive them, and the effects that you put into yourself, are not quite so strongly bound to the world or other people.
That means you awaken the ability to deliberately choose to remain in the light more often. You start to realize that you aren't happy or unhappy "because of" external things. You realize that if you are unhappy about something it is really an internal state, and not really caused by the external. And that anything that's disturbing you is the result of you putting it there through a mistaken choice.
Gradually you separate yourself off from the external and spend more time in the happiness and strength that you want to be in. You realize that, if you could just be happy right now, a certain event or situation or problem wouldn't be upsetting to you. That you don't "have to" have certain upsets or reactions or ego emotions of despair and fear.
Then it becomes more about moving through life as though you are in the world and less "of" the world, being "passer-by", being less changed and disturbed regardless of what happens, buying into illusions and temptations less, remaining more calm and centered in your truth even if it contradicts what's happening, etc. It means you become more in charge of your destiny and able to not only cause things to happen deliberately but able to withstand the ego's onslaughts more easily.
"My self is ruler of the universe" ... "It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept." UrW253
And so you develop a real sense of there being a difference between what happens and what you feel. That how you feel is not based on the world or its problems or how people are doing or what's happening. And you can in a way float above it or beyond it, out of reach of it, regardless of what seems to be transpiring. This places you "above the battleground", where you are safe and invulnerable.
When you dip into ego and nightmares and victimhood you'll probably forget all this, lol. ... but when you rise like a pheonix back out of the ashes, you'll remember again and laugh. And you'll stop making all your feelings dependent on external things. You'll return to being able to stay centered in power and stillness, a calm in the storm, a "need do nothing" of rest, regardless of the world.
"He will remain when you forget, and the body's activities return to occupy your conscious mind. But there will always be this place of rest, to which you can return. And you will be more aware of the quiet center of the storm, than all its raging activity. This quiet center, IN WHICH YOU DO NOTHING, will remain with you, giving you rest in the midst of every busy doing on which you are sent." UrT18H10
Eventually you'll master this so much that you'll remain in your "happy place" forever. No longer driven by outside events, deceived by appearances, tossed around by threats or made to be anything not of God.
"It is impossible the Son of God be merely driven by events OUTSIDE him. It is impossible that the happenings that come to him were NOT his choice. His power of decision is the DETERMINER of every situation in which he seems to FIND himself by chance or accident. No accident or chance is POSSIBLE within the universe as God created it, OUTSIDE of which is nothing. Suffer, and YOU decided sin was your goal. Be happy, and you GAVE the power of decision to Him Who MUST decide for God for you. This is the little gift you offer to the Holy Spirit, and even this He gave to you to give yourself. For, BY this gift, is given you the power to release your Savior, that HE may give salvation unto YOU." UrT21C3
"The resurrection is the denial of death, being the assertion of life. Thus is all the thinking of the world reversed entirely. Life is now recognized as salvation, and pain and misery of any kind perceived as hell."
Here Jesus spells out that when you reach 'the end', you'll recognize that pain IS pain, and misery IS misery. That life (eternal) IS salvation. Why would he say that?
Because until you reach there, you actually do not recognize what these things are, and think they are something else.
You think that life is death, that pain is pleasure, that misery is salvation. A lack of recognition is largely the only problem we have. Our minds are confused and lost because we've switched around the meanings of things.
What was true has become false, what was false has become true. True has been mixed in with what's false meaning that nothing is true.
And that also has led to beliefs such as that hell is heaven, that suffering is atonement, that death is life, that you can find peace in war, that guilt is attractive, that sin proves your innocence, etc. These sound insane because they are, but that's our state of mind.
So in the reversal of that, when "all the thinking of the world is reversed entirely", ie its backwards confused insane thinking is reversed, everything is seen in its proper perspective and things are recognised for what they ARE, not for what you thought they were.
That means that pain is recognised as actually pain and not pleasure. That misery IS miserable and not something you want. That hell IS hellish and NOT heaven. That death does NOT bring you life. That you cannot find peace in war. That sickness IS sickness and not a defence to save your life. That stuff which is not of God is actually NOT of God.
It also leads to the recognition that bodies are not people. That bodies are not mind. That Earth is not God's kingdom. That impossible things are not possible. That this unreal world actually IS unreal. And also that world cannot do anything to you.
These recognitions, which is enlightenment, properly identifies what everything is or is not. That false things are false. And ONLY true things are true. In this CLARITY, you will be able to make a proper wise decision to choose heaven, because it will be obvious to you that the alternative IS NOT what you want.
You can only move away from what you do not want when you recognize that it is something you do not want. The problem we have is that we think that we want stuff which in truth is not something to be wanted. That the world will save us. That death is our friend. That the ego is our ally. That suffering is better for us than health.
When it becomes clear in true perception, which is "accurate perception", that the things of this world are not anything at all to be had or benefited from, you will give it up. When you recognize that the body is not at all what you are, you will give it up.
You will turn away from the world and toward heaven when you recognize heaven as something you actually do want. When there is no longer fear of God or life or wholeness or happiness or power, recognizing those are things you are entitled to and want, you will choose them again. But to do this you have to be CLEAR about what things ARE, otherwise your guidance system will be off and you'll be confused and make a poor choice.
We choose guilt because we think it helps us. We choose death because we think it saves us. We choose all forms of suffering because we think we want it. This is all confusion. When our mind is straightened out and we can finally discern what it is that we're doing and choosing, we'll make a better choice.
Ultimately choosing what is right is very natural because it's very obvious. Whatever it is you perceive to be supportive of you, whatever is true, whatever is meaningful and valuable, you will want. But if you've placed faith in things which are not really these things, you'll gravitate toward death and suffering instead. You'll choose to hurt yourself thinking that you're helping.
Our only task really is sorting out what things are and are not, becoming clear about what is an illusion and what is a reality. About what is of God and what is not of God. About suffering being suffering and not God's will. About death being impossible. About all choices that lead towards misery being a mistake.
Only when atonement remains the only possible attractive direction to move in, the mind will go there.
"The term "right-mindedness" is properly used as the correction for wrong-mindedness, and applies to the state of mind which induces accurate perception. It is miraculous because it heals misperception, and healing is indeed a miracle, in view of how man perceives himself. Only the sick NEED healing. The Soul does not need healing, but the mind DOES."
"Misperception is a BLOCK to knowledge, while ACCURATE perception is a stepping-stone TOWARD it"
"Illness, which is really "not Right Mindedness", is the result of level confusion in the sense that it always entails the misbelief that what is amiss in one level can adversely affect another."
"We have not lost sight of the crucial importance of the reversal of your thinking. The salvation of the world depends on it."
"True denial is a very powerful protective device. You can and should deny any belief that error can hurt you. This kind of denial is NOT a concealment device, but a correction device. The "Right Mind" of the mentally healthy DEPENDS on it."
Many many times in the Course it talks about the importance of *extension* - that if you do not share what you have you cannot have anything. 'Having' to the ego means not sharing. 'Having' to Holy Spirit means sharing. But why is this?
God extends Himself AS you to Create you and sustain you. You are His Creation. And because He gives you all the properties of Himself - his 'Fatherhood', you also therefore would naturally be a Creator and express your own fatherhood by further extending. So provided there is all this extension going on, everything is natural and normal. It's when we refuse to extend, that we enter into ego, because we're trying to stop Creation.
Now, Course stuff is sometimes hard to really understand using our regular language. In Heaven there really isn't any time or distance and there isn't a before-and-after scenario. But the idea of extending you can't really get a sense of it unless you put it sort of a chronological order like that, i.e. God extends from him to you, then you extend from you to others etc.
So I asked myself, if it weren't for this way of looking at it, how would I understand extension and why does God even extend at all.
I see it as... God radiates everywhere. Like a glow of light. It is his Presence (I'm hearing). Presence everywhere, God everywhere. God being everywhere. It's not like, God is separate from you and he shines outward onto you or through you. It's more like, God radiates His Presence everywhere and you ARE this 'radiation', somehow. I know we really can't properly put it into words, but.
So God being everywhere shares Himself everywhere. This idea of 'sharing' really means... God is present everywhere. There is nowhere that God is not, so that must mean he is 'fully shared'. The opposite of that would be that God is absent somewhere, so that would mean God does not 'share in' that part of existence (thats the ego's idea). So sharing has a lot to do with presence and Oneness and wholeness.
So God shares himself, be's whole himself, shines himself everywhere, and that is extension. The Course then says God did not will to be alone. By this I assume it to mean alone as in lonely. The Course also describes being alone a an ego concept of being separate. God doesn't will to be separate. But God is ONE, and whole, so it's not like God's sitting there twiddling his thumbs wondering if anyone is going to show up to play with. But for some reason, at least in Course terms, he 'creates' a Son. The Son is this idea of the 'end result' or effect of His Cause.. but really cause and effect are One and this doesn't happen over the course of time. The effect is always present forever because God causes/sustains forever.
But how do we explain that God created a Son out of the need to not be alone? Perhaps this means that God didn't will to not receive. He willed to both give and receive, and in a sense, what he receives 'from' - although it is One with Himself - is what the Course is calling 'the Son'. The feedback, if you will. But again there is no separation or time involved here. God shines everywhere and the radiance of God upon Himself is the Son.... even though this again suggests a gap of separation of time or separate caused and effects etc... this is why it's impossible to really describe.
Anyway. God extends us and we therefore must be extenders also because we are like Him. When we withhold extending or deny extension, we're trying to put a stop to Creation and to being an end to Life. That is the ego's choice for death. So to choose Life you must extend in the same natural way that He Created you. This means God radiates 'through' you, in a sense, although again there is no space or time involved here. God doesn't broadcast and then the broadcast travels through space and time a bit and then is received by you or relays through you. There is no spacetime. Extension is His shared Presence. Extension is the idea that God is already everywhere.
So when we have blocks to love, are trying to deny God, are trying to stop Life's extension, are trying to bring about an end/death, we're standing in the way of Creation and suffering. When we lift those blocks away and ALLOW GOD, everything 'flows' naturally and there is no blockage, thus no sickness or death.
Sometimes God's suggestion to me is.. ... "shine".
So here I am, shining a bit.
Let's get back to 'having'. If you don't extend you can't have anything. What this means is... the presence of God is blocked when it is not extended, so it if is really thoroughly inhibited, this essentially prevents God's presence. God's presence is WHAT IS, which means that's what you can HAVE i.e. experience in reality, so you can't join in that experience if God's presence is not being allowed to extend. So in effect it's like snuffing out a candle... if you stop the light you can't have the light. If you stop God you can't have God. And you can't really have anything other than God because nothing that He didn't Create exists.
So if you want to 'have' you have to "give all to all" i.e. give God - all that is - to God - to everything. This sharing, giving, extending of presence, shining, radiating, allows God's presence and thus for you to 'have' and own your real Self, which is One with Him. You can have all of your real self by extending it. It gives because it shines and is present everywhere. Without shining/extending you have nothing - by not extending, you prove there is nothing to extend, which implies you have nothing to extend.
Something like that.
There’s quite a lot in the course about the Holy Spirit having a function. A role which he is supposed to fill, where he does something that you do NOT do.
I think this becomes largely ignored by most people doing the course, and I KNOW that I definitely have not fully respected the importance of allowing him to play his part. I think we’re not realizing just how much we’re supposed to depend on Him to help us and do things for us.
I think most people are doing the course on their own, without him, not turning to him, not listening, not hearing his voice, not working with him. Especially not surrendering the ego position of being the one who “does it all alone.”
Instead there’s a lot of discussion about each of us doing forgiveness work and making decisions and fixing our lives and so on, but very little about surrendering to Him and having him do everything for us. Yet alone having him heal us, or heal others through us. HE is the one who performs miracles through us.
“What he enables you to do is clearly not of this world.”
It seems a lot of folks think ACIM is a self study where you just read the book and do some lessons and chat about it with others. But I think there’s a tremendous amount of unawareness of the Holy Spirit, who is supposed to be our ONLY teacher, our ONLY therapist, and is “the idea of healing”, GIVEN to us by God as HIS solution to the separation. We should heed this.
He is supposed to fill the function of healing us. We’re not supposed to be “doing it ourselves”. Healing has to be RECEIVED. There’s actually a position we’re meant to be in where we have a little willingness, and he does all the rest. Where we let him heal us, literally. We’re not supposed to be doing all the work by ourselves.
In effect, we are more or less to “channel” the Holy Spirit and allow him to be the one to do everything for us and for others, through us. The Holy Spirit has a much larger function, and a far greater power than your own. He is here to help and it’s our function to LET HIM be the one we turn to for help. To BE helped, instead of self-reliant.
We need to have more humility, open up to the Holy Spirit, allow and receive His help, and allow him to operate through us and for us. This is all part of letting yourself be loved, and allowing love to radiate to others. The Holy Spirit’s function is forgiveness, your function is to share it with him.
“No needs will long be left unmet, if you leave them ALL to Him Whose FUNCTION is to meet them. This is His function, and NOT YOURS.”
“The human therapist can only LET HIM FULFILL HIS FUNCTION. He needs no help for this. He WILL tell you EXACTLY what to do, to help ANYONE He sends to you FOR help, and will speak to him through you, IF YOU DO NOT INTERFERE.”
“Trust Him, for help is His function, and He is of God.”
“ANY attempt you make to correct a brother, means that you believe correction by YOU is possible, and this can ONLY be the arrogance of the ego. Correction is of God, Who does not know of arrogance. The Holy Spirit forgives everything, BECAUSE GOD CREATED EVERYTHING. Do not undertake HIS function, or you will forget YOURS.”
“He knows the need; the question and the answer. He will say exactly what to do in words that you can understand and you can also use. Do not confuse His function with your own. He is the Answer; you the one who hears.”
“Never approach the holy instant AFTER you have tried to remove all fear and hatred from your mind. That is ITS function. Never attempt to OVERLOOK your guilt BEFORE you ask the Holy Spirit's help. That is HIS function. Your part is only to offer Him a LITTLE willingness to LET Him remove all fear and hatred, and to BE forgiven.”
“Be very still, and hear God's Voice in him, and let It tell you what his function is.“
“The Holy Spirit never refuses an invitation to enter and abide with you. He will give you endless opportunities to open the door to your salvation, for such is His function. He will also tell you exactly what your function is in every circumstance and at all times.”
“The preparation for the holy instant belongs to Him Who gives it. RELEASE yourselves to Him Whose function IS release. Do NOT assume His function FOR Him. Give Him but what He asks, that you may learn how LITTLE is your part, and how great is HIS.”
“The curriculum is highly individualized. And all aspects are under the Holy Spirit's particular care and guidance. Ask and He will answer. The responsibility is His, and He alone is fit to assume it. To do so is His function. To refer the questions to Him is yours. Would you want to be responsible for decisions about which you understand so little? Be glad you have a Teacher Who cannot make a mistake. His answers are always right. Would you say that of yours?”
“By steadily and consistently canceling out ALL its effects, EVERYWHERE AND IN ALL RESPECTS, He teaches that the ego does not exist, and PROVES IT. Follow His teaching in forgiveness, then, because forgiveness IS His function, and HE knows how to fulfill it perfectly. That is what we meant when we once said that miracles are NATURAL, and when they do NOT occur, something has gone wrong. Miracles are merely the sign of your willingness to follow HIS plan of Salvation, in recognition of the FACT that you do NOT know what it is. His work is NOT your function, and unless you accept this, you CANNOT learn what your function IS.”
The idea that the world is just a dream, may sound very simple. But to fully and completely embrace it is a very tall order. If the world is just a dream, it changes your ENTIRE relationship to everything, to all people and object and events and places. Every single happening is framed differently, every interaction has a different meaning, and every piece of physical matter is up for question.
To accept this idea intellectually is very easy. It makes a lot of sense. If you can see the logic behind it, that we made this world as an opposite to God, and is therefore not real, you can accept that as making sense.
But to live it, to deep dive into it, to apply it everywhere and at all times, to remember it in the midsts of all happenings, to use it in all relationships, and to completely uproot all previous beliefs is long term challenge.
For me, the seemingly logical and clear conclusion that the world is not real, has become so refined and polished that I can see nothing to contradict it. Like, it makes total sense on paper. However, I still have a vast repository of "other beliefs" which have been convinced otherwise over time.
Beliefs in bodies being real. Beliefs in being a body. Beliefs in other people being bodies. Beliefs in events happening. Beliefs in seriousness and importance. Beliefs in value and priorities and hierarchies of difficulty. Beliefs in justified reactions and ego emotions and normality and human nature. All of those things scream that the world is real.
So what I find is that although I understand it in theory, my mind and beliefs still are quite uncertain about this idea. I go towards it a little more only to find other beliefs springing up into awareness saying, "but what about....". And every SINGLE one of those beliefs is rooted in the belief that the world is reality. The basic opposite premise of the dream. Each one of them signals and testifies that this is not just a dream.
So the mind then finds itself pulled in two directions. One direction pulls toward the seemingly glowing new "idea" or light, that it's true the world is just a dream and nothing is happening and no-one has ever sinned. And the other direction pulls towards the old worn out darkness of nightmares and hell, that there is sin everywhere and no hope for salvation.
"Some of your greatest advances YOU have judged as failures, and some of your deepest retreats YOU have evaluated as success."
"If you want to be different, I will wait until you change your mind. I can teach you, but only you can choose to listen to my teaching."
I will go towards the light of the truth, and the ego mind will go into doubt, which is fear. It will say, but what about this, and what about that.... there will be an uncertainty and a "not sure about this" and a "can this really be true?". There is a DIS-BELIEF.
"Ultimately, space is as meaningless as time. Both are merely beliefs. The real purpose of this world is to use it to correct your unbelief."
And the fact is that EVERY single opposition to the truth has to be uprooted and corrected and dispelled in order to have NO OBJECTIONS to accepting the atonement. If there is even a slight reason why you might not trust the truth, or suspect that it is false, or have a slight confusion about whether it is true or false, then you will not whole-heartedly accept the salvation it offers. Atonement can only be fully accepted through TOTAL willingness and certainty.
So I keep "naturally" checking and re-checking, looking at what the course says, reminding myself of its facts, re-considering the possibility that I might be mistaken about this new idea. I can't help but be "open minded" about the possibility that it is WRONG, because my ego already believes it is wrong and this pulls me into entertaining its possibility. And until I am wholly certain of its truth, which has to run VERY deeply and fully, this will keep happening.
"Until this distinction is made, however, the vacillations between free and imprisoned will cannot but continue."
These vacillations are to be expected for anyone who is attempting to awaken from the dream. If the world IS a dream and we have been believing it is NOT a dream, but a reality, then our entire way of believing and thinking and perceiving is going to have to go through a 180-degree transformation. Or as Jesus puts it, the upside-down thought system has to be turned right-side up, and that means nothing short of a complete reversal of your thought system and "world view".
Reversing your thought system WILL entail nothing less than realizing that everything you thought was what you did NOT want, you want. Everything you thought was evil, is good. Everything you thought was good, is evil. And all ego beliefs which claim a lie are actually claiming something else. It requires a tremendous sorting out of what is TRUE and what is FALSE, and in this endeavor you WILL be mistaken throughout the process. Which is why it requires a little willingness to consider the possibility that something else might be true, beyond what you currently believe.
I approach and I retreat. I get closer to accepting and then the ego fear pops up. I use the confusion as an opportunity to find more clarity, and then advance forward again. Each time becoming a little and more convinced, not just in theory but in practice, in direct experience, of the world's unreality. Because if what ACIM says is true, then "awareness of dreaming" and "the body is a dream" must become my new reality, before I can go home to God.
One thing is for sure, the road home to God is winding with spluttering false starts and lurches and gradual progress."I can but choose to wander off a while, and then return. Your loving Voice will always call me back, and guide my feet aright.""He will return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again."
"Let us return the dream he gave away unto the dreamer, who perceives the dream"
"The Second Coming is merely the return of sense."
There are a lot of ACIM students believing that they are working miracles. There's often talk of shifting perception, changing beliefs and so on.
But when you look deeply at what ACIM says, not only does it rarely mention shifts in perception etc it tells you that you aren't even the one who performs miracles.
"The holy spirit is the mechanism of miracles."
"Concern yourself not with the extension of holiness, for the nature of miracles you do not understand. ***Nor do you do them.*** It is their extension, far beyond the limits you perceive, that demonstrates you do not do them."
What the Holy Spirit can do is not of this world, and His power is unlimited.
"What the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly not of this world."
"All power in Heaven and earth is therefore given him and he will share it with you when you have completed yours."
Sometimes I feel like I'm going out on a limb and saying something which most ACIM people don't believe.... in that, it is really the Holy Spirit who performs miracles. Yes he needs you and performs them with and though you, but Jesus is repeatedly telling us we don't even understand miracles, and although we inherit God's power it is really the Holy Spirit who knows what to do AND does it.
"The Holy Spirit does NOT work by chance, and healing that is of Him ALWAYS works. And unless the healer ALWAYS heals BY Him, the results WILL vary."
"The Holy Spirit is the ONLY therapist. He makes healing PERFECTLY clear in ANY situation in which He is the Guide. The human therapist can only LET HIM FULFILL HIS FUNCTION. He needs no help for this. He WILL tell you EXACTLY what to do, to help ANYONE He sends to you FOR help, and will speak to him through you, IF YOU DO NOT INTERFERE.
... Trust Him, for help is His function, and He is of God."
"As you awaken other minds TO Him through HIM, and not yourself, you will understand that you are not obeying the laws of this world, but that the laws you ARE obeying WORK."
"You cannot see the Holy Spirit, but you can see His manifestations. And unless you do, you will not realize He is there. Miracles are His witnesses, and speak for his Presence. What you cannot see becomes real to you only through the witnesses who speak for it. For you can be AWARE of what you cannot see, and it can become compellingly real to you, as its presence becomes manifest THROUGH you. Do His work, for you SHARE in His function. As your function in Heaven is creation, so your function on earth is healing. God shares His function with you in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit shares His with you on earth."
It is the Holy Spirit who performs miracles. And the miracles he performs are not mere shifts of perception or adjustments to your beliefs. And while His Help can benefit YOU, and heal YOU, it is also there to help OTHERS.
I think at times that a lot of ACIM people do not get this. They are not in touch with the Holy Spirit, do not work with Him, do not talk to Him, do not trust Him, do not heal with Him, maybe don't even believe He is a Spirit with POWER. The power to heal. It is the Holy Spirit who raises the dead and heals the sick.
YOU are needed in order to fulfill a functional role of being a conduit for Him, a point of prayer and request, a servant, and what ACIM refers to as a "physician of the Lord". But your function does not entail knowing what the heck a miracle IS, yet alone knowing how it WORKS, or what it DOES. Do you really honestly know how the human body functions such that you can repair it supernaturally? No you don't. But the Holy Spirit does. And it therefore requires trust in Him to do so.
"The miracle is taken first on faith, because to ask for it implies the mind has been made ready to conceive of what it cannot see and does not understand. Yet faith will bring its witnesses to show that what it rested on is really there. And thus the miracle will justify your faith in it, and show it rested on a world more real than what you saw before; a world redeemed from what you thought was there."You can also see that YOU are not the SOURCE of miracles, though you may be a relay-station for them.
"Miracles are a universal blessing FROM GOD, through me (or you), to all my brothers."
"Miracles mean life and God is the giver of life."
God provides the miracles. Not you. But you perform them. He does them through you, with you. You are asked to be in an open minded state of trust in which there is love present, SO THAT you are a facilitator of HIS WORK, through you. So that you can "do his works."
"Do His work, for you SHARE in His function. As your function in Heaven is creation, so your function on earth is healing. God shares His function with you in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit shares His with you on earth."
There is nowhere near enough openness to the Holy Spirit in the ACIM community. In fact it seems at times that hardly anyone ever mentions Him. A lot of people are doing the course "on their own" as a "self study", which strips it of all power and completely avoids the Holy Spirit. If it's some book you can tinker with on the toilet without ever having to develop trust in a supernatural entity, then.... it's more like school homework than a way to become empowered with the SPIRIT of God.
We are supposed to be developing trust in HIM, and allowing HIM to heal through us, and to USE our bodies, and to SPEAK through our mouths, and to WRITE with our fingertips, and to express love with others. He wants to use our bodies as a communication device. This does not exalt the body, it makes the body nothing OTHER than a tool through which HIS importance shines and extends. HE is the one that we are supposed to be working with.
Where is the Holy Spirit in all this? Where is the supernatural?
Where is the revival and the miracles?
Where is the Holy Spirit in the activities of those who claim to be awake already?
Reality, truth, power, will and causation always go together. Wherever you assign reality, you are also assigning all the other complementary properties.
God in his grace, is real and true and has unlimited will and power and causation. If God, as the premise or starting point of "what exists" is in general GOOD, then thankfully that implies that goodness is happening, is real, is true, etc.
Fear enters only when you believe that something OTHER THAN GOD has the properties of God. The opposite of God's creation is the world we made, which includes planet Earth. Earth is an illusion of a world, based on a premise of sin, attack, separation and death. All the "bad" stuff.
"The world was made as an attack on God."
"The world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's son."
So if you assign truth and reality and power and will to the BAD stuff, you are literally setting yourself up for a nightmare. You're asserting, sin is real, death is true, the world is causing me, and physicality has power over my mind.
Under those terms, you HAVE to feel a sense of anxiety. Suddenly a separate world has a mind of its own. Suddenly physical maladies, problem and diseases torment you with their proof of suffering. Death and attack become real. And murder seems to be the law. If you escape it, you are lucky, because its inevitability is built into the entire premise of this reality.
"Only the body makes the world seem real."
"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen , for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality."
So if the world is real for you, if you believe in sin, if you believe what your body tells you, if you believe your eyes, your senses, and beleive that "bad stuff is really happening", you cannot help but feel threatened. If the world is believed to cause you, you ARE at its effect, and MUST be defined by something evil against your will. And no-one can but justify being afraid under those conditions.
The ego would tell you that the way OUT of this fear reaction, is to either hide, or avoid, or pretend to be strong, or attack it, or be heroic, or go into denial, or any number of other ego strategies. None of these really work. They don't move the belief in the reason to be afraid.
In order to overcome the foundation for fear, you have to overcome the BELIEF that the world is God. That sin is real. That death is possible. That anything real can suffer, or that suffering has any truth to it. If you can maintain that outlook at all times, you cannot BELIEVE IN being affected, and cannot justify fear. There is NO BASIS for fear if the world of sin and attack is not even real. Then only love and forgiveness and invulnerability can be justified.
This is the challenge. If you are not on your game, if you are buying into fear, if you are believing in hell, if you think you are a body, or if you believe physical evidence is real, it does not take much to happen to initiate fear. Especially if what happen is ranked "high" in terms of sevirity or importance. It doesn't take much at all.
Someone falls over, someone hurts themselves, someone develops a diagnosis, a house is attacked, a piece of equipment breaks, the car stops working, money goes missing, a letter arrives in the mail, whatever it is, something physical proves something has gone wrong. And now, UNLESS you resist temptation to buy into it, you will be afraid. If it has power over you to cause you, proving you have no power to stop it, it HAS to instill fear in you.
"I am upset because I see something that is not there."
The key then is not being tempted by, falling for, being deceived by, buying into, believing in, the world. You might still see it for a while. The body might still be hurling images of hell at you. You might still see sick bodies and death and murder. BUT, if you do not BELIEVE in it, if you do not CONFUSE it for God's attributes, if you do not assign reality or truth to it, you cannot be deceived by it. And it can do nothing to upset you.
If the world HAS no power, HAS no will, HAS no mind, HAS no causation, HAS no authority or ability to define or change you, then you CANNOT BE afraid. There is no justification for fear if what is real is a loving God. If God is real, there can only be justificaiton for rejoicing.
"You would not be affected by a dream that you knew you were dreaming. Let them be a hateful and as vicious as they may. They can have no affect on you unless you fail to recognize it is your dream."
When something goes wrong, anything at all, you are tempted to believe evil has triumphed over God. When someone falls sick for any reason at all, you are tempted to believe that God's Son is a mortal body that can be attacked. When something is suffering and writhing in pain, you are tempted to believe that pain is God's reality. And when you see murder and death, you are tempted to believe you can destroy God and His creation. This CANNOT BE TRUE because God is immortal.
So now you're going to be in a situation where you HAVE to decide. Is it true that this world is real and something HAS really gone wrong, OR is it true that only heaven is real and NOTHING CAN go wrong? You have to choose a side. God or the ego. Good or evil. Eternal life or the illusion of death. Happiness or suffering. Health or sickness. Light or dark. Life or death.
Are you going to ACCEPT INTO YOUR MIND, the world's temptation of sin being true, or are you going to positively use denial to REJECT it and ignore it? The proper use of denial entails you DENYING THE WORLD YOU SEE, because "sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision." You MUST deny anything not of God any power to hurt you or anyone, otherwise you are AGREEING that it has power to hurt you and others, which causes YOU to hurt yourself.
Believe only that God's truth is true and nothing else is true, at all times, in all situations, and you will be invulnerable to the world. And then it cannot cause you at all, yet alone make you afraid.
"God did not make the body, because it is destructible, and therefore not of the Kingdom. The body is the symbol of WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE. It is clearly a separation device, and therefore does not exist."
In ACIM, Jesus teaches in many ways that the body, the ego and the world are nothing. Even that they don't really exist at all in reality. But another major part of the teaching is that we've invested these things with meanings, laws, rules, values, powers, which they do not have.
"It cannot make a body, nor abide within a body. What is alien to the mind does not exist, because it has no source."
As a further step, Jesus goes on to say that if you give the body power or meanings or roles that it is not supposed to have, being nothing at all, this is what makes it sick. The body becomes sick because your mind is trying to distort it from being nothing into being something else. It is putting pressure onto the body, trying to manipulate it into serving made-up causes.
"You might ask how the voice of something which does not exist can be so insistent. Have you ever seriously considered the distorting power of something you WANT, even if it is not true?"
As Jesus says, if you believe that the body has an ability to create, meaning an ability to cause something, your mind will be sick and it will manifest this sickness upon/as/in the body. Since the body is nothing, it does not have an ability to cause anything. If you believe the body can or is causing something, your mind is sick, and this will make the body sick.
"The body cannot create, and the belief that it CAN, a fundamental error responsible for most of the fallacies already referred to, produces all physical symptoms."
The same applies to the world. It's easy to say we're not at the effect of the world, but we need to also realize we've invested the world will all kinds of powers, casual abilities, creative powers, trying to make it be something, with false values and credit where it's not due etc. And these things distort the world and effectively results in a sick mind, a sick body, and a sick projected world. The world has to be recognized as absolutely nothing, rather than believed to be something of importance.
"As "something", is the body asked to be God's enemy, replacing what He is with littleness and limit and despair. It is HIS loss you celebrate when you behold the body as a thing you love, or look upon it as a thing you hate. For if He be the sum of everything, then what is NOT in Him does not exist. And His completion IS its nothingness."
It may seem odd at first, but Jesus wants us to recognize that all bodies are nothing. They are not something. They are much closer to being emptiness and lack, being the idea of sin. We need to stop giving power to them, stop giving value to them, stop making them out to be something they're not, and stop trying to give them worth.
"The body, valueless and hardly worth the least defense, need merely be perceived as quite apart from you, and it becomes a healthy, serviceable instrument through which the mind can operate until its usefulness is over. Who would want to keep it when its usefulness is done?"
Jesus even says that they are so worthless as to be not even worth defending, and that if you defend the body you will make it sick. By this worthlessness he does not mean that the body is judged as evil or that we project guilt onto it or make it out to be a victim or a perpetrator. It doesn't mean we value it as low and hated and so on. He simply means that because it is neutral it is nothing, and its neutrality means that you cannot give it any attributes at all, either positive or negative.
"As nothing, which it IS, the body cannot meaningfully be invested with attributes of Christ OR of the ego. EITHER must be an error, for both would place the attributes where they cannot BE."
The body is essentially not there. It is not real. It does not exist. It's an hallucination, empty, void, pretending to show up as something but isn't even a real creation.
"At no SINGLE instant does the body exist at all. It is always remembered or anticipated, but NEVER experienced just now. Only its past and future make it seem real. Time controls it entirely. For sin is never present."
Jesus goes on to suggest that if you can recognize the body as nothing at all, withdrawing all artificial beliefs, uses, roles, laws, meanings and so on from it, the body will actually become a picture of health. The reason is that the mind is becoming "clear" and empty of illusions, and therefore the picture of the body begins to fade and disappear, at first infused with light and healing and love, but eventually eradicated by it.
From the state of a healthy mind and body, the body will go on to disappear entirely into the light, consumed by it and erased by it. Recognizing your brother's body as nothing is the way for your body to be free from sickness and death. Regarding a person as a body is a form of separation-belief, and so is an attempt to be split off from life. Your brother's body, your spouse's body, your children's bodies, your neighbor's bodies, they are all absolutely nothing and worth nothing all. Mistaking these people for their bodies is an attack upon who they really are.
"His body's nothingness releases yours from sickness and from death. For what is yours cannot be more NOR less than what is his."
"Perhaps you do not realize that this removes the limits you had placed upon the body by the purposes you gave to it. As these are laid aside, the strength the body has will always be enough to serve all truly useful purposes. The body's health is fully guaranteed because it is not limited by time, by weather or fatigue, by food and drink, or any laws you made it serve before. You need do nothing now to make it well, for sickness has become impossible."
Finally, Jesus suggests that if you take this all the way, if you deprogram your mind from belief that the body and the world and the ego are ANYTHING, and recognize them as nothing at all, they will disappear. What is recognized as nothing cannot really be there, and this causes it to not be there. In truth, there is no body, there is no ego, and there is no world.
"To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body's nothingness. What is understood as nothing must disappear."
We are tasked with nothing short of erasing the world, ending space and time, and returning to the complete recognition that they are not there, they never were there, and only God's Kingdom really exists.
"What seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping. When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substanceless, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was."
"If you can accept the ONE GENERALIZATION NOW, there will be no need to learn from many smaller lessons."
Effectively what the Holy Spirit is trying to teach you is ONE LESSON. This one lesson is to learn how to "teach only love", because you are only love. It's to have a single response of love in all situations, to use love's miraculous power to heal all sickness and to solve all problems. To recognize no orders of difficulty or hierarchies of illusion, to see all forms of suffering as the same effect having the same ONE cause. One problem with one solution to rule them all.
Over time, in the application of what may seem like more specific lessons, ultimately what you are LEARNING is really to simply be as God created you. To be loving. To be singular, or ONE. One in character and substance and nature and identity and attitude and response. One single way of always consistently being the same, in complete disregard for any illusions of forms or differences. Completely ignoring orders of magnitude or difficulty or importance or seriousness or size or duration or any other property.
As we gradually "polish" our minds from seeming to be fragmented, with different responses for different people, different relationships with different individuals, different reactions to different objects, different meanings for different things, we gradually GENERALIZE the learning and move into a much more ABSTRACT state of mind. A much more singular state of mind, whole and one and unified and undivided and free from conflicts. Being so one, this state of mind - miracle mindedness, houses the power of love and truth and sees all things from a single perspective.
This is the ONE LESSON which the Holy Spirit is teaching, behind all the lessons in the workbook, behind all the text material and all thoughts and life lessons/trials, behind all relationships and dramas, the simple movement away from complexity and multiplicities of action, towards simple unification, integration, wholeness and oneness. This lays the groundwork for one-mindedness, which is a state of complete abstract purity and wholeness, in which the entirety of everything acts as one with no conflict or difference or adjustment to conditions.
Unconditional love is completely ignorance of conditions. It ignores the form of problems, the shapes of bodies, the types of sickness, the reasons for their supposed causation, the worldly powers, the forces of nature, the laws of physics, the many rules and regulations. It doesn't even care to need to know how something came about, to analyze it or diagnose it or figure out the complicated pathways of cause and effect. It simply APPLIES ITSELF singularly by giving itself and sharing itself, to increase itself and to supply the lack - the lack of love, the lack of unification, or seeming unwholeness, which is the basis for all suffering.
Learn this ONE LESSON, and you are done with the curriculum forever. See past the illusion of separations, which gives rise to countless numbers of bits and pieces. Look to the one vision to show you the one true reality. And you will rise above the fragmented battlefield into the wholeness of light.
"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF." "This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes."
"The Holy Spirit will repeat this ONE inclusive lesson of deliverance, until it has been learned, REGARDLESS of the form of suffering that brings you pain. Whatever hurt you bring to Him, He will make answer with this very simple truth. For this one answer TAKES AWAY the cause of every form of sorrow and of pain. The form affects His answer not at all, for He would teach you but the SINGLE cause of all of them, no matter WHAT their form. And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo."
"My one lesson, which I must teach as I learned, is that no perception which is out of accord with the judgment of the Holy Spirit CAN be justified." "That is why you must teach only ONE lesson. If you are to be conflict free yourselves, you must learn ONLY from the Holy Spirit, and teach ONLY by Him."
"We said before that the message of the Crucifixion was teach ONLY love, for that is what you ARE. This is the ONE lesson which is perfectly unified, because it is the only lesson which IS one. And only BY teaching it can YOU learn it."
"As the teacher of God advances in his training, he learns one lesson with increasing thoroughness. He does not make his own decisions; he asks his Teacher for His answer, and it is this he follows as his guide for action. This becomes easier and easier, as the teacher of God learns to give up his own judgment."
"But the Holy Spirit teaches one lesson and applies it to ALL individuals in ALL situations. Being conflict free, He maximizes ALL efforts and ALL results. By teaching the power of the Kingdom of God Himself, He teaches you that ALL POWER IS YOURS. Its application does not matter. It is ALWAYS maximal."
"Thus is YOUR healing everything the world requires, that it may be healed. It needs ONE lesson that has perfectly been learned."
"As you perceive more and more common elements in ALL situations, the transfer of your training, under the Holy Spirit's guidance increases and becomes generalized. Gradually, you learn to apply it to everyone and everything, for its applicability IS universal. When this has been accomplished, perception and knowledge have become so similar that they share the unification of the Laws of God. What is One cannot be perceived as separate, and the denial of the separation IS the reinstatement of knowledge."
"The purpose is to train the mind to generalize the lessons, so that you will understand that each of them is as applicable to one situation as it is to another."
"the impairment of the ability to generalize is a crucial learning failure" "Place cause and effect in their true sequence in one respect, and the learning will generalize and transform the world."
"The specificity of the ego's thinking, then, results in a spurious kind of generalization, which is really not abstract at all. It will respond in certain specific ways to all stimuli which it perceives as related. In contrast, the Soul reacts in the same way to everything it knows is true, and does not respond at all to anything else."
"Miracles demonstrate that learning has occurred under the right guidance, for learning is invisible, and what has been learned can be recognized ONLY by its RESULTS. Its GENERALIZATION is demonstrated as you use it in more and more situations. You will recognize that you have learned there is no order of difficulty in miracles, when you have applied them to ALL situations. For there IS no situation to which miracles do not apply, and by applying them TO all situations, you will gain the REAL world."
"The Holy Spirit is invisible, but you CAN see the results of His Presence, and through them, you will learn that He is there. What He enables you to do is clearly NOT of this world, for miracles violate every law of reality, as this world judges it. Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control, is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond ALL of them. Perceiving His RESULTS, you will understand where He MUST be, and finally KNOW what He is."