The mind is meant to be under service to God/Spirit. The mind is the 'activating agent' of Spirit. The mind can be used as a tool to focus attention and extend love. It can also be quieted so that you can listen to Spirit's guidance. This requires stilling the mind and not placing so much emphasis on its 'ability' to figure everything out itself.

In order to learn to listen to Spirit you have to be able to shut off the 'I will figure this out with thought' attitude, which your mind has because the ego has taken it over. Then you can listen to and expect to get input from Holy Spirit. While your mind is chattering and interfering and trying to be in control, this is harder.

The mind has attempted to create its own authority and to use its own tools, on its own, to be the central orchestrator or life and to decide and figure out everything using thinking. But this thinking mind stands in the way of trusting Spirit. The mind is meant to be a tool that Spirit can use, but when the tool has obtained a 'mind of its own', it is now an interference.

To listen to Spirit, you must be willing to stop trying to be God, to stop using thinking and instead to be quiet and listen. Being quiet makes the mind receptive, rather than a broadcaster. When it is constantly broadcasting and generating thought, it is too busy inventing stuff to actually 'perceive' clearly or to receive spiritual impressions. It has to be quieted or put under restraint, just temporarily even, so that you can shut the hell up (literally, stop engaging hell), and open up to receive from Heaven.

This is a pretty awesome section of the clarification of terms. Some important key points made here:

1. "In this world, because the mind is split, the Sons of God appear to be separate. 2 Nor do their minds seem to be joined"

2. "The term "soul" is not used except in direct biblical quotations because of its highly controversial nature. 3 It would, however, be an equivalent of "spirit," with the understanding that, being of God, it is eternal and was never born."

3. "This Will is always unified and therefore has no meaning in this world"

4. "Right-mindedness listens to the Holy Spirit, forgives the world, and through Christ's vision sees the real world in its place. 3 This is the final vision, the last perception, the condition in which God takes the final step Himself. 4 Here time and illusions end together."

5. "Both this world and the real world are illusions because right-mindedness merely overlooks, or forgives, what never happened."

6. "Will is not involved in perception at any level, and has nothing to do with choice."

7. "Consciousness has levels and awareness can shift quite dramatically, but it cannot transcend the perceptual realm."

8. "At its highest it becomes aware of the real world, and can be trained to do so increasingly. 6 Yet the very fact that it has levels and can be trained demonstrates that it cannot reach knowledge."

--&--

C-1.1. The term mind is used to represent the activating agent of spirit, supplying its creative energy. 2 When the term is capitalized it refers to God or Christ (i.e., the Mind of God or the Mind of Christ). 3 Spirit is the Thought of God which He created like Himself. 4 The unified spirit is God's one Son, or Christ.

C-1.2. In this world, because the mind is split, the Sons of God appear to be separate. 2 Nor do their minds seem to be joined. 3 In this illusory state, the concept of an "individual mind" seems to be meaningful. 4 It is therefore described in the course as if it has two parts; spirit and ego.

C-1.3. Spirit is the part that is still in contact with God through the Holy Spirit, Who abides in this part but sees the other part as well. 2 The term "soul" is not used except in direct biblical quotations because of its highly controversial nature. 3 It would, however, be an equivalent of "spirit," with the understanding that, being of God, it is eternal and was never born.

C-1.4. The other part of the mind is entirely illusory and makes only illusions. 2 Spirit retains the potential for creating, but its Will, which is God's, seems to be imprisoned while the mind is not unified. 3 Creation continues unabated because that is the Will of God. 4 This Will is always unified and therefore has no meaning in this world. 5 It has no opposite and no degrees.

C-1.5. The mind can be right or wrong, depending on the voice to which it listens. 2 Right-mindedness listens to the Holy Spirit, forgives the world, and through Christ's vision sees the real world in its place. 3 This is the final vision, the last perception, the condition in which God takes the final step Himself. 4 Here time and illusions end together.

C-1.6. Wrong-mindedness listens to the ego and makes illusions; perceiving sin and justifying anger, and seeing guilt, disease and death as real. 2 Both this world and the real world are illusions because right-mindedness merely overlooks, or forgives, what never happened. 3 Therefore it is not the One-mindedness of the Christ Mind, Whose Will is One with God's.

C-1.7. In this world the only remaining freedom is the freedom of choice; always between two choices or two voices. 2 Will is not involved in perception at any level, and has nothing to do with choice. 3 Consciousness is the receptive mechanism, receiving messages from above or below; from the Holy Spirit or the ego. 4 Consciousness has levels and awareness can shift quite dramatically, but it cannot transcend the perceptual realm. 5 At its highest it becomes aware of the real world, and can be trained to do so increasingly. 6 Yet the very fact that it has levels and can be trained demonstrates that it cannot reach knowledge.

If you look at the various things ACIM says, it becomes clearer and makes more sense when you don't think of "mind" or "one mind" or "christ mind" as being the highest or deepest level of existence. We need to distinguish that mind IS NOT the same thing as spirit, soul, SON or being.

For example, there is a distinction between MIND and SOUL:

"Free will is the attribute of the mind, NOT the Soul. The Soul always remains changeless, because it never leaves the sight of God."

For example, the soul USES the mind to create or miscreate. The mind is at its disposal, like a tool, described here as a MEDIUM *through which* the soul/son/spirit expresses itself:

"The Creation of the Soul is already fully accomplished. The mind, if it votes to do so, becomes a medium by which the Soul can create along the line of its own creation."

For example, we're told that YOU (whatever you are) has control OVER the mind. That mind is the mechanism of decision (free will), and so the "what you are" CONTROLS the mind or has POWER OVER it, meaning it is on another "level", causality-wise:

"For you DO have control over your mind, for the mind is the mechanism of decision. "

All of this indicates that you essentially are OUTSIDE OF your mind. Your mind is something you HAVE, not something you ARE. It's something you USE, and it's not the same thing as your soul.

Soul is a synonym for spirit, and a synonym for "Son of God". So too is BEING an aspect of the soul/son/spirit NOT an aspect of the mind. The essence of what you are at the deepest or highest level, is BEYOND the mind, and CONTAINS the mind inside of it. What you ARE, is the soul/son/spirit/being.

Now look at this:

"Your will is the means by which you determine your own condition, because will is the MECHANISM OF DECISION. It is the power by which you separate or join, and experience pain or joy accordingly. My will cannot overcome yours, because YOURS IS AS POWERFUL AS MINE. If it were not so, the Sons of God would be unequal."

Here, "separation" or "joining" occur WITHIN the realm of your free will, WITHIN the realm of decision, which is WITHIN the mind. Note also that Jesus clearly states your free-will decision is AS POWERFUL AS HIS. That the two of you, EACH, have a free will. Therefore, you both have your own minds.

If you can distinguish these two "levels" within reality, whereby at the highest level there is being/soul/son/spirit, and at the lower level there is MIND, which has IDEAS such as the tiny mad idea, and where ALL ideas are contained INSIDE the mind and do not leave the mind (never affect or determine anything about the soul), then it becomes OBVIOUS that "the ego" is occurring IN THE MIND, NOT IN THE SOUL.

The ego is occurring on an entirely different LEVEL to your soul/spirit/being/son/self.

This means that WHAT you are - a spirit being - is in a larger realm than your MIND, and the ego is never happening in the realm of the spirit. Your SPIRIT does not have a separation idea, the mind does. Your SPIRIT does not develop an ego, the mind THINKS of egotism. Ego is an idea, a thought, in the mind, NOT part of the soul.

Which means... drumroll please... that whether or not there are many SONS, many SOULS, many BEINGS, or many SPIRITS, has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not there is EGO or separation. They're on two entirely different levels. How many sons there are, thus, is completely BEYOND the realm of ego, beyond all speculation as to "it means separation", and beyond all ideas of separateness in the EGO sense. The KIND of separateness that we're trying to undo, has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with souls, sons, spirits or beings. We're ONLY trying to correct the MIND, NOT THE SOUL.

The separation is a MIND problem, NOT a soul problem.

And this in turn means, that whether there are many souls/sons, or one, or not, has absolutely nothing to do with the separation or the ego. It is NOT a separation IDEA to suggest that there are many sons, because IDEAS are confined to the MIND, and souls/sons are BEYOND that.

This is why, Jesus is able to tell us in the course that WHAT we are, is permanent brothers, permanent real beings, permanent family, permanent souls, permanent multitudes of spirit beings, and that this fact has NOTHING to do with the ego THOUGHT in the mind.

The ego thought does not come BETWEEN souls, it does not DEFINE their "separateness", it does not CAUSE them to BE separate, and it says absolutely nothing as to the VALIDITY of whether it is NATURAL for there to be many souls in reality. Or therefore, many sons of God. And in fact it also means any statements about "sons of God" plural is absolutely NOT contradictory against ideas of ego separation. They're not even on the same level. Ego is inside the bubble of mind, mind is inside the bubble of being.

"Mind is the activating agent of spirit."

Does not mean mind IS spirit. It's merely a PART of what you are or HAVE.

This is why it's totally OKAY, NATURAL, NORMAL, REAL, and NOT AN EGO THING, that there are MANY SONS OF GOD. And that these son's of God are many in NUMBER *without* it having anything to do with "an ego thing".

God literally has MANY thoughts, in his mind, which is not his being. He literally creates many other BEINGS, and GIVES THEM their own mind, as a reflection of his own nature. Thus God has created many minds, many sons. This is "the family of God".

"Creation is the sum of all God's Thoughts, in number infinite, and everywhere without all limit."

The "One Son of God" is a synonym for Creation, meaning ALL of the sonship. Christ is the MIND that is SHARED in communication between God and the Sonship. SONS are the SOULS/spirits/beings that God created as equals forever (brothers, children of God). And each child has a soul/spirit/being and a MIND with which to create.

Sons of God (meaning God's literal direct descendent IN REALITY) is mentioned 82 times, in direct relationship between God as Father and US (plural) as many BEINGS:

"All the Sons of God"

"We are creation; we the Sons of God."

"Only one equal gift CAN be offered to the equal Sons of God, and that is FULL APPRECIATION."

"Know then the Sons of God, and you will know all Creation."

"When the Atonement has been completed, all talents will be shared by all the Sons of God." (AFTER the ego is GONE, no separation left, there are STILL many sons of God sharing talents!)

"When the Atonement is complete and the whole Sonship is healed…the Holy Spirit will remain with the Sons of God, to bless their creations and keep them in the light of joy." (AFTER the ego, with no separation left, the SONS OF GOD are STILL PLURAL!)

"Our creations are as holy as we are, and we are the Sons of God Himself and therefore as holy as He is."

God creates permanent BEINGS (plural):

"Since only beings of a like order can truly communicate, His Creations naturally communicate WITH Him and communicate LIKE Him."

"God, who encompasses ALL Being, nevertheless created separate beings who have everything individually, but who want to share it to increase their joy. "

God creates permanent CHILDREN (plural):

"God watches over His children and denies them nothing."

"God knows His Children with perfect certainty."

"The Children of Light cannot abide in darkness, for darkness is NOT in them." (no ego!)

"The Children of God are entitled to perfect comfort, which comes from a sense of perfect trust."

"Let us today be children of the truth, and not deny our holy heritage."

"The Kingdom of God includes all His Sons and their children, who are like the Sons as they are like the Father." (not only are there multiple sons, there are multiple CREATIONS BY sons - grandchildren of God).

"Only God's own holy children are worthy to be channels of his beautiful joy"

And similarly there is plenty of mention of SOULS (plural), over 120:

"They represent the original form of communication between God and His Souls"

"It is the final lesson that I learned, and God's Sons are as equal as learners as they are as Souls." (soul=son)

"Souls were given their own true authorship"

"The Revelation unites Souls directly with God."

"In the Creation, God projected his Creative Ability out of Himself toward the Souls which He created, and also imbued them with the same loving wish (or will) to create."

"It should be noted that God has begotten only one Son (the combined totality of ALL the sons). If you believe that all of the ***Souls that God created are His Sons***, and if you also believe that the Sonship is One, then ***every Soul must be a Son of God***, or an integral part of the Sonship." (every means PLURAL! - MANY beings, who SHARE everything).

"They represent the original form of communication between God and His Souls"

"Many Souls offered their efforts on behalf of the Separated Ones" (not all souls used their minds to believe in ego!)

God additionally also created MANY MINDS, not just one:

"God's memory is in our holy minds"

"How holy are our minds!"

"If you allow yourselves to HAVE in your minds only what God put there, you are acknowledging your mind as God created it."

"And peace will be restored forever to the holy minds which God created as His Son" (good example of the ego-rule-breaking logic, that God has many sons who are, IN TOTAL, "His Son").

"Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one." (still many minds, they don't stop being many just because they are ONE. On means IDENTICAL, of like nature or KIND, NOT one in number).

"all the minds which God created one with me"

"Not being in their Right Minds, they turned their defenses from protection to assault, and acted literally insanely." (MULTIPLE right minds)

The evidence is totally overwhelming for anyone willing to be open to this. It does NOT mean "separation" in the ego sense. It does not mean, ISOLATION, or SPECIALNESS. It only means many EQUAL BEINGS WHO SHARE EVERYTHING AND YET ARE INDIVIDUALS.

There ARE many beings, spirits, souls, sons. There ARE many minds that SHARE as the Christ mind. Ego has NOTHING to do with this. It's NOT unnatural. It's not "wrong". It's not "the separation". Individuality is NOT an ego thing. Ego has ONLY anything to do with whether INDIVIDUALS choose to BELIEVE in lies or truth, WITHIN their minds. That's is all.

When you're having an emotional reaction to anything, you usually believe it's because something outside of you is causing it.

But more accurately, you previously created a self condemnation within yourself and this is rising to the surface of your awareness. It's like a bruise which it *seems* like someone else is activating or triggering.Its your guilt about separating from God - your sin.

Our reactions are often so quick to happen that it seems like someone or something outside of you 'causes' the feeling.

So I'm sitting here, and if someone comes along and pokes me with a stick, if I suddenly feel angry and annoyed, initially it might look like I've been made to feel this way BY that person. Or that I'm only feeling this way because of that person. Its an illusion of cause and effect.

But what's really happening is, my mind already contained guilt and anger and upset which was buried unconsciously, and being poked with the stick has somehow triggered it off, like a memory or an association, and its come up in my mind quickly and now I'm experiencing it. It's easy to bridge the gap and say, well this person has inflicted a 'fresh wound' upon me, but really it's something that was already in me.

Remember as ACIM says, "we but accuse our brother of our OWN sins." - meaning that our brother does not HAVE any sins that we can accuse them of - its all your own stuff that you project onto them.

The only reason we are here in bodies is because we tried to separate from God by condemning ourselves, attempting to destroy ourselves and to punish ourselves. WE are the ones who believe in our own sinfulness and our own guilt. It's got nothing to do with anyone else and nobody else put it there. And it is this inner self-guilt that becomes 'activated' in EVERY situation where we think someone or something else does 'something' to us to 'make us' unhappy. We simply 'recall' our own guilt and re-suffer.

So instead we hire people to come along and to seem like they are the cause of our suffering, because this triggers off our AGREEMENT that what they're insinuating about us is true (that we deserve punishment or mistreatment), even if we protest violently that this is uncalled for. We cannot get upset UNLESS we agree with the person, and we cannot get upset UNLESS we already believe deep down that we deserve this treatment.

Its not other people that take our power away. We are the ones who keep trying to GIVE it to other people, to give them our own self-responsibility in an attempt to ask them to take over the rights and responsibilities that WE have for ourselves and for our own feelings. We want someone else to be to blame for the separation from God because we have blamed ourselves heavily and can't bear the burden. But OUR suffering has NOTHING to do with anyone else.

So its extremely convenient when someone comes along and triggers you or pushes your buttons. And even though you will react in such a way as to suggest your entire reaction is their fault, or you were just sitting there innocently minding your own business, the fact is they would not be ABLE to upset you if you were truly free of your own guilt. So all they are really doing is helping you to become aware of what you are hiding from, and your hidden unconscious self-hate is actually calling for you to be punished, which is why you hire and attract people to do it to you, for you, even if you fight with them about it consciously.

Ok so, this is really all about taking responsibility for who you are and what you feel and what you believe is true about yourself. You need to learn to decouple and detach the lie, that how you feel is caused by someone else. How you feel is NEVER caused by someone else. Whoever is in your life that is pissing you off, ITS NOT THEM... its not their fault, they're just helping you to see that you pissed yourself off. You HAVE to stop blaming other people for what you are feeling. Fully. Totally. "You are never upset for the reason you think" and "anger is never justified" (ie blaming another).

I have been finding that I am so incredibly used to being a victim, that whenever someone does or says something to 'upset me', and I experience a reaction (which is really just my own self-attack surfacing in my awareness) I immediately add two-and-two together and find the other person to be 'guilty of' upsetting me. It seems like they caused the upset, and its all their fault. I actually buy into this really quickly. And it totally glosses over the fact that I am only experiencing what is already in me, what I already believe it true about myself, and I am only reminded of my own self condemnation.

So what I have to learn to do, which I am experimenting with now, is to remember to remind myself... "I am completely responsible for these feelings". Whatever my reaction is, I have to stop blaming the cause of it on other people. I have to stop seeing myself as having been at the 'effect' of anyone or anything other than myself. If anyone else has 'done this to me', then I am a victim. If I am a victim I can't find peace, no matter how much I protest. No matter what my feeling is, or how much it seems justified or unjustified, or how much it *seems* to have been activated by another person, I HAVE to get to where I admit honestly that EVEN THIS FEELING is not there 'because of' that other person, it's there because *I* put it there because its MY self-attack. "The secret to salvation is this - that you but did this to yourself."

To stop being a victim, or seeing yourself as victimized, you MUST own up to the fact that everything you are experiencing is YOURS. It is your own inner experience. It is not someone else's. It is not something that anyone else put there or created or caused or made happen or reinforced in any way. Its yours. This is your shit.

You have plenty of your own shit in your own mind which you put there to cover and explain absolutely all of your reactions and upset feelings and unhappiness, without needing even one other person to explain why you feel this way. You're doing a fine job of condemning yourself without needing to resort to trying to claim that someone else has 'added to' your load.

Nobody else has ever done anything to you. Period. Let that soak in for a minute. Nobody else has EVER done anything to you, and ALL of your reactions and feelings and experiences are INSIDE YOU, because you put them there. They're YOURS.

You are completely responsible for everything you experience and everything you feel and you are NOT at the effect of anyone else, ever.

Now, this is very tempting for the ego/hurt parts of yourself to want to skapegoat and this happens very rapidly and automatically when you are not being truly honest or observant. And you are so used to this happening that every single time someone or something outside of you 'goes wrong' or 'offends you' or 'attacks you' or 'does something to you' or whatever... you immediately launch into the mistaken perception that this OTHER has 'caused you'. Caused-you, in general... ie... they are the cause, you are their effect, you have no say in who you are, and you must change to match what they say you should be feeling. Victimhood.

So.... now your job is different. Your job is to notice whenever you are in the midst of an 'interaction' with someone or something, in which it has triggered off some feelings. Some upset. Some hurt or anger or whatever it is. If you are not happy, then chances are you are currently `holding a grievance` which you THINK is a grievance against someone else. You blame them for it.

BUT... your job now is this.... you MUST CLAIM OWNERSHIP of every part of what you are experiencing. All of your feelings of hurt, anger, rejection, pain, loss, suffering, sadness, offense, frustration, unfairness, etc... all of it... it is YOURS. It's inside you. And the ONLY reason you are experiencing it is BECAUSE YOU PUT IT THERE. We have to learn that it is NEVER about the other person, you are NEVER affected by someone else, you are NEVER at the effect of the world you see, you are NEVER experiencing something as the effect/result of someone or something else, and nobody has EVER done anything whatsoever to change who you are.

It's actually completely true that nobody has ever done anything to you. As in my quote yesterday - "you are completely harmless and you cannot be hurt." Only you can do this stuff to yourself. Only you can STOP doing this to yourself. This doesn't require a crazy mental somersault or perceptual trampolining in order to see it this way. It's actually the way it IS. You're just allowing yourself to acknowledge things for how they really ARE instead of making up the story that someone else is to blame.

When owned up to with responsibility, you have ONLY done this to yourself. Everyone else is innocent. You have never been hurt by anyone. You ARE immortal and invulnerable. Admitting to this and seeing this is simply the truth. There is no distortion in it and no fairytale needed to paint a picture to make it believable. The truth is that everything you're feeling, you are choosing to feel, on your own, without any help from anyone else.

As you learn to OWN what you are feeling, something really interesting happens. Or at least this is what I am finding. If someone does something that usually I'd say "they caused me to feel xyz"... if I say to myself, ok, I'm upset and feeling hurt and angry... but its NOT because of them... these are MY feelings, ALL of this experience is MINE and has nothing to do with them.... this ownership/responsibility does two things. 1) It completely detatches from the other person and withdraws all blame from them and correctly identifies WHERE the problem is (its in me, in my mind, not in the other person), and 2) It puts me in touch with what is MINE and who I AM.

What I'm finding is that as I own my feelings and stop blaming them on other people, ALL of them... I am owning up to being MYSELF. My 'personality' is coming out. I am feeling freer and happier. My unhappy feelings are dissolving away very quickly and I remain in the victim role for FAR less time. Taking this responsibility immediately detaches me from the other person, and severs the 'tie' that was trying to pin my feelings on someone else. The door is closed, and now I'm within myself. And as I sit with my own feelings in awareness that these are MY own feelings, no matter what seemed to happen, it shines a LIGHT which dispels them. It makes me laugh. I end up laughing rather than crying.

Owning my feelings completely undoes the foundation of victimhood and completely removes victimhood from my perception, which means I now see myself as NOT victimized which means whatever I'm feeling is my OWN creation which means it's really quite hilariously silly that I've chosen to create this feeling. It shows me how ridiculous it is to choose to feel this way. Why would I choose to deliberately feel upset? I am recognizing it is not TRUE that its someone else's fault and its not TRUE that I have been attacked, and this therefore (through oneness) reminds me that I can't have been attacked therefore there CAN'T have been any effects, and therefore I have no reason to be upset. So I can let it go much more quickly and return to happiness.

I'm finding my 'personality' is coming out a lot more, my persona is diminishing, my happiness is increasing and I see myself as much less victimized. I have less reason to be afraid because I'm starting to believe that nobody else is doing anything to me, and that they can't. And by owning my own feelings I am owning BEING ME which means I am allowing myself to be myself freely without all this conditionality of my fake ego victim self. Yay.

Good times. Freedom.