School for A Course In Miracles

"The universe of learning will open up before you."

School for A Course In Miracles

“The universe of learning will open up before you in all its gracious simplicity.” T-14. II. 6:4
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Ten Common Mistakes ACIM Students Make… (Part One)

 

 Below is a list of what the School for ACIM considers to be some of the common mistakes that we all make as Course students.

(… by Tim Wise)

It would however be helpful to point out from the start that there is only one real mistake that we all consistently make when we are in ego mode, and that one mistake gets mirrored in all the different renditions in the world that reflect that first and only mistake that we made in our minds… and that is…

We took, and continue to take, the tiny mad idea (T.M.I.) of separation from Our Father in Heaven seriously, whenever we are experiencing anything less than true peace of mind. (Ch. 27, p.586, par.6)

If we hadn’t taken the idea of separation seriously when we pretended to step outside of Heaven, none of the other Course mistakes we seem to make would have, or could have followed, as distractions from recognizing that original silly error. We could have simply dropped the idea (the TMI) immediately as preposterous and impossible, and realize our experience of Heaven’s Oneness as our one and only true identity.

However we did, and do continue to take it seriously internally in our minds. Then rather than admit that and let the TMI go, we project it onto the world as bodies with all kinds of body problems and issues that distract us from the actual source.

2 A sense of separation from God is the only lack (i.e. mistake) you really need correct. This sense of separation would never have arisen if you had not distorted your perception of truth (our identity in Heaven), and had thus perceived yourself as lacking. The idea of order of needs (the mistaken belief that we could even have needs) arose because, having made this fundamental error (belief in separation), you had already fragmented yourself into levels with different needs.

 The idea of orders of need, which follows from the original error that one can be separated from God, requires correction at its own level (in the mind) before the error of perceiving levels at all can be corrected (and then we return to Heaven). 

(Text p.14)

 

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The other awareness that would be helpful to look at and admit, if only at first intellectually, is the following…

Similar to the very first miracle principle in Chapter One that says there’s no order of difficulty in performing miracles… likewise there is no hierarchy of Course mistakes (indeed, no hierarchy of sins either), and no order of difficulty in correcting them. This is in spite of how much we think some mistakes and sins are more severe and serious than others.

They all equally have the same content (taking the TMI seriously), and need the same solution (letting judgement go). See WB Lessons 79-80: “One Problem, One Solution.”:

5. No one could solve all the problems the world appears to hold. They seem to be on so many levels, in such varying forms and with such varied content, that they confront you with an impossi­ble situation. Dismay and depression are inevitable as you regard them…

6. All this complexity is but a desperate attempt not to recognize the (real) problem, and therefore not to let it be resolved. If you could recognize that your only problem is separation, no matter what form it takes, you could accept the answer because you would see its relevance. Perceiving the underlying constancy in all the problems that seem to confront you, you would understand that you have the means to solve them all. And you would use the means, because you recognize the (one and only) problem. (WB p.141)

 

We need the Holy Spirit’s or Jesus’ help (the voice for God inside us)… to forgive our mistakes and ‘sins’, i.e. to let go of our belief in their reality and their effects upon us. The very first miracle principle clearly affirms…

1 There is no order of difficulty in miracles . One is not harder or bigger than another. They are all the same.

(Text p. 3)

Jesus could have equally said, and certainly makes the point later… There is no order of difficulty in correcting mistakes also. One is not harder or bigger than another. They are all the same.

 

Mistakes We Make as Course Students:

 1) Level Confusion:    behavior/body/brain level… vs… mind level?

2) “I” can see my brothers’ sins as a call for love.

3) Asking Holy Spirit’s help to find a parking place…

4) Forgiveness-to-destroy

5) The “I” in… “I need do nothing.”

6) Using Workbook titles as affirmations…

7) The Course vs Genesis: The world was created by whom exactly?

8) My salvation (and my holiness) depends on my being a Good Course Student…. wrong.

9) Mis-identifying the Jesus of the Course with other Jesus(s), both channeled & biblical

10) Mixing the Course with other spiritual paths…

1) Level Confusion: behavior/body level or mind level?

This first mistake of level confusion really underlies all the other mistakes that we will look at. What does level confusion mean then? How many levels are there anyway?

The Course talks about three levels of experience… Heaven, the mind, and the body. Since we are identified at the the lower level of  believing we are bodies in the world, we really need to explore the difference between our seeming experience as bodies and how we get back to an awareness that we are really decision makers in our mind (constantly choosing between the ego as our guide, or the Holy Spirit).

The Course says that we need to realize that everything we do and think as bodies (and brains) in the world is only a reflection of one of two thoughts (ie, the choice of separation or forgiveness), or one of two teachers (the ego or HS) in our mind. When we do understand that choice fully and let the ego go, then God takes the “Last Step” and returns us to our awareness of our True Self in Heaven.

[N.B. In the Course our bodies and our personalities, including the body’s  brain and its brain thoughts, are all simply a reflection of one of two thoughts (ego or HS) in our mind. The mind is an internal level of experience inside us (that, in the Course, is not the same as our brain). It is an inner “place” where we choose the ego teacher of separation and guilt or the Holy Spirit as teacher of healing and forgiveness.]

As bodies, we believe the source of our lack of peace, and misery, comes from something causing us stress in the world… usually somebody’s behavior, usually yours, sometimes my own. Then we set about trying to fix that behavior or worldly condition as if it were the problem, even as Course students… We get confused about where the real source of our pain is, and where the miracle needs to take place to heal that pain (i.e. we need to learn that source is in our mind, and not the world).

Jesus clearly says early on in Chapter Two:

2 I do not foster level confusion, but you must choose to correct it. You would not excuse insane behavior on your part by saying you could not help it. Why should you condone insane thinking (choosing the ego in your mind)? There is a confusion here that you would do well to look at clearly. You may believe that you are responsible for what you do, but not for what you think. The truth is that you are responsible for what you think, because it is only at this level (in the mind) that you can exercise choice (which inner teacher we choose, ego or Holy Spirit). What you do comes from what you think (in your mind). You cannot separate yourself from the truth by “giving” autonomy to behavior…

 You must change your mind, not your behavior, and this is a matter of willingness. You do not need guidance except at the mind level. Correction belongs only at the level (in the mind) where change is possible. Change does not mean anything at the symptom level (in bodies and the world), where it cannot work. (Text p.29)

 Body appetites are not physical in origin. The ego regards the body as its home, and tries to satisfy itself through the body. But the idea that this is possible is a decision of the mind (choosing the ego), which has become completely confused about what is really possible. (I think I can fix things in the world and then find satisfaction and peace as a body.)

(Text p.58, par.7)

 

 

So when we begin to think and believe that any of our issues/problems at the level of the world and bodies are the actual source of our distress and concern, and that if only that person or situation would straighten out I would feel better, we are back in level confusion believing we are “upset for the reason we think.” (see WB Les. 5)

We then need to be willing to step back and ask Jesus for help to see that person or event a different way, from Jesus’ point of view in the mind. What if… I’m simply upset because I pushed Jesus and God away, and now I’m blaming my pain and lack of peace on something or someone else in the world?

1 Projection makes perception. The world you see is what you gave it, nothing more than that. But though it is no more than that, it is not less. Therefore, to you it is important. It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive. Therefore, seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world. Perception is a result and not a cause. And that is why order of difficulty in miracles is meaningless. Everything looked upon with vision is healed and holy. Nothing perceived without it means anything. And where there is no meaning, there is chaos.

(Ch. 21, p.445, Par.1)

 

What is…

2) I, by myself, can see another’s sins as a call for love.

Most of us think as good Course students that we can choose to see something outrageous that our brother is doing… as a “call for love.” The answer is nope, not ‘us,’ not our job… But we can and must ask the Holy Spirit for help to do that if we don’t want to feel the pain and blame of judging. We don’t have to try figuring all that out by ourselves, and try to justify what others do or don’t do. Don’t try saying and believing maybe they had a “bad day,” or maybe even a bad life… Not only will it not work, it can’t work… It is simply not our function, but the Holy Spirit’s function to help us see beyond their mistakes to something else…

You may wonder how you who are still bound to judgment can be asked to do that (seeing a call for love), which requires no judgment of your own. The answer is very simple. The power of God (the Holy Spirit), and not of you, engenders miracles (the experience of seeing a call for love through the Holy Spirit’s vision)…

7 The only judgment involved is the Holy Spirit’s one division into two categories; one of love, and the other the call for love. You cannot safely make this division, for you are much too confused either to recognize love, or to believe that everything else is nothing but a call for love. You are too bound to form, and not to content. What you consider content is not content at all. It is merely form, and nothing else. (Text p.294)

 

 No one should attempt to answer these questions alone. Surely no teacher of God has come this far without realizing that… Ask and He (the Holy Spirit) 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?

The imagined usurping of functions not your own is the basis of fear. The whole world you see reflects the illusion that you have done so, making fear inevitable. To return the function to the One to Whom it belongs is thus the escape from fear. And it is this that lets the memory of love return to you. Do not, then, think that following the Holy Spirit’s guidance is necessary merely because of your own inadequacies. It is the way out of hell for you…He understands that an attack is a call for help. And He responds with help accordingly. (Manual p.70-71)

 Also, our brother’s call for help is really our own call for help! Hearing and answering a brother’s call for love is really hearing and answering our own. Don’t pretend it’s just about him, or actually about him at all…. If we are not seeing the truth of who our brothers and ourselves are, we are the ones with the problem….we are the ones calling for love.

Our own call for love should then be… Please help me see what You see, Holy Spirit!

Although your interpretations of reality are meaningless in your divided state, His (the HS interpretations of a call for love) remain consistently true. He gives them to you because they are for you. To fail to recognize a call for help is to refuse help (yourself). Would you maintain that you do not need it? Yet this is what you are maintaining when you refuse to recognize a brother’s appeal, for only by answering his appeal can you be helped. Deny him your help and you will not recognize God’s Answer to you. The Holy Spirit does not need your help in interpreting motivation, but you do need His.

Do not attempt to “help” a brother in your way, for you cannot help yourself. But hear his call for the Help of God, and you will recognize your own need (your own call) for the Father.

7 Your interpretations of your brother’s needs are your interpretation of yours. By giving help you are asking for it, and if you perceive but one need in yourself you will be healed. For you will recognize God’s Answer as you want It to be, and if you want It in truth, It will be truly yours. Every appeal you answer in the Name of Christ brings the remembrance of your Father closer to ‘your’ awareness. For the sake of ‘your’ need, then, hear every call for help as what it is, so God can answer ‘you’. (Text p. 216)

 

 

3) Asking HS help to find a parking place…

or whatever it is we think we need as a physical/psychological entity. Jesus tell us that it is ok to ask for specifics in the world, but we don’t want to stop with just that kind of asking. Our prayers need to evolve as we move in our awareness from the body level to the mind level as mentioned above…

These references, and many other insightful looks at what prayer is, and what prayer isn’t, are in the Song of Prayer pamphlet and its in-depth discussion on “Prayer”: 

 

(p.3, par.2) These forms of prayer, or asking out of need, always involve feelings of weakness and inadequacy, and could never be made by a Son of God who knows Who he is… Yet it is also true that no one who is uncertain of his Identity could pray in these forms…

(p. 2, par.4) The secret of true prayer (eventually) is to forget the things you think you need. To ask for the specific is much the same as to look on sin and then forgive it. Also in the same way,  in prayer you overlook your specific needs as you see them, and let them go into God’s hands. There they become your gifts to Him, for they tell Him you would have no other God’s before Him; no Love but His.

Can this be traded for a bit of trifling advice about a problem of an instant’s duration?

Prayer should not be confused with supplication of any kind, because it is a way of remembering your holiness… There is nothing to ask because there is nothing left to want.  (Song of Prayer p. 2-3)

In our experience of prayer as maturing Course students, the prayer that Jesus asks us to pray the most in the Course is some version of this request… Holy Spirit, please help me see that person or situation the way You do, and please help me have the willingness to see all our true innocence as God’s One Son, beyond the others’ seeming sins and wrongdoings… and my own.

It is to be willing to hear Jesus and our brother say: “Give me your blessing, holy Son of God.” (Les.# 161)

 

 

4) Forgiveness-to-destroy

What the world thinks of as forgiveness isn’t really forgiveness. It’s  what the Course calls forgiveness-to-destroy. We don’t forgive a brother for what he or she did, but we learn to let go (forgive) our own believing that what they did was responsible for our pain. Jesus tell us …”do not set forgiveness in an earthly frame.”

The true source of any pain we are feeling and reacting to, is the pain of pushing God away and believing that we separated from Him in our minds. We don’t deny that we actually believe others are responsible for hurting us, but we ask for Jesus help to see that their innocence and ours is still intact (in spite of our internal guilt  for believing we could separate from source, and then projecting that guilt onto our brothers.)

For a complete understanding of true forgiveness compared to forgiveness-to-destroy (with specific examples of what each looks like), see Song of Prayer Supplement, #2. Forgiveness, sections I, II, and III (p.9-15).

Here is par. 4 on p. 10:

As prayer is always for yourself, so is forgiveness always given you. It is impossible to forgive another, for it is only your sins you see in him. You want to see them there and not in you. That is why forgiveness of another is an illusion… Only in someone else can you forgive yourself, for you have called him guilty of your sins, and in him must your innocence now be found….do not ever think you can see sin in anyone (ultimately) except yourself (in your mind).

There are four types or ways forgiveness-to-destroy is described in The Song of Prayer Pamphlet.  In all four our own belief in our own guilt is secretly maintained, and then projected on another, and seemingly ‘forgiven.’ (p. 12-13) 

(1) Holier than thou… I will forgive you because obviously I am the better person.

(2)  I am just as bad as you are… we both are sinful and deserving of punishment.

(3)  Behold me brother at your hand I die... I willingly suffer martyrdom to prove I’m innocent and you’re not.

(4)  Bargaining and compromise… I will forgive you if you meet my needs and are my slave.

 

5) The “I” in… “I need do nothing.”

When we hear that phrase quoted so often by Course students, we immediately tend to think of it in terms of behavior as a body with a psychological personality. What do you mean I need do nothing? What about working and eating and basically just surviving? If I did nothing I would die…

That line (“I need do nothing”) is the title of section VII in Chapter 18 “The Passing of The Dream.” (p.388)  It comes just after the section called “Beyond The Body.”

Jesus is trying to shift our body identification to an awareness of our selves as minds… and to have us stop insisting that we are weak helpless entities, victimized and plagued by all kinds of things. The “I,” that he is addressing in ‘I need do nothing,’ is that part of our mind that is constantly choosing between the ego (separation and sin) or the Holy Spirit (forgiveness: letting separation go). He’s reminding us that our true reality in heaven as God’s One Innocent Son is an already done deal, and all we have to “do” is stop pretending it isn’t.

I need do nothing to be holy. I don’t have to do all my workbook lessons perfectly, or take the right vitamins, or make the planet a better place to live, in order to have salvation. Jesus is not telling us not to do those things, but he’s letting us know he didn’t go anywhere because of what we did or didn’t do. He didn’t leave us (as the picture “Footprints in the Sand” points out). We simply keep trying to believe we left Jesus, and then blame him for abandoning us..

 

This is not a Course about “doing,” but this is a Course about perception. Am I looking at what I am doing thru the “eyes” of separation, or through Jesus’ vision?

This is not a Course about doing or affirming Love, but it is a Course about letting go of our blocks to our awareness of Love’s presence (Text Introduction, p.1)… that is, letting go of all our judgements about others and ourselves (how we see ourselves).

Then, realizing we’re really minds with Jesus by our side, we continue to do what we do everyday as bodies….eat, sleep, work, play… but without all the guilt of believing we pushed him (Jesus) away, and without all the taking ourselves so seriously.

For Part Two on the remaining five mistakes…

click here

 

New Classes Online: NOW… in 2023!

 

Mon. Classes on  ACIM:    6:00pm Mt.   click here!

 

Tuesdays in October 2023

An Introduction to A Course in Miracles

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Thurs. Classes on “To Judge or Not to Judge”  @ 6:00pm Mt   click here

 

Jan. 2024 : Immersion 2024  … six-month in-depth Intensive into ACIM, for new and long term Course students alike!  click here

 

 

 

Men’s ACIM Online Weekly Discussion Group (free)….  current mtgs: click here

 

(Erin Hanson Painting)

For complete weekly online SFACIM class schedule:

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GUILT, Part One: What is it, and Where is it ??

On Guilt, Part One:

“Do not be afraid to look within. The ego tells you all is black with guilt within you, and bids you not to look. Instead, it bids you look upon your brothers, and see the guilt in them. Yet this you cannot do without remaining blind. ” (Ch.13, Sec. IX)

 Guilt !

Why is the word guilt used and talked about in the Course almost 700 times?

Why does the Course insist we have to look at it, admit it, and let guilt go, if guilt isn’t real in the first place??

What is guilt anyway, and where and why is guilt hiding???

The good news: there’s only one internal kind of guilt in our minds that all external behavioral guilt is a reflection of… and it’s not real.

The bad news (from the ego’s point of view): there’s only one internal kind of guilt in our minds that all external behavioral guilt is a reflection of… and it’s not real.

What does that mean? All seeming guilt in the world, whether it’s your guilt for what you did, or it (maybe sometimes) is my guilt for what I did… has nothing to do with what and where the “real” guilt is lurking. The “real” guilt is always in the mind, and we feel it because we have chosen the internal teacher of separation (the ego) rather than the Voice for forgiveness (the Holy Spirit). Instead of admitting that, we then project that guilt (we call it blame, resentment, anger, whatever) onto other bodies, or our own. It is always simply a distraction from the actual source of guilt in our own mind for choosing to listen to the voice for separation, and then quickly forgetting we did that. So believing now we are bodies, we wind up thinking we don’t feel guilty, but the other guy certainly should, because look at what he did. I may not be aware of my own guilt, but I definitely see yours.

It is the Holy Spirit’s job (and His only) to help us look at this process and realize what we are doing. Then He helps us let that internal guilt go by seeing we made it up… it’s not even real. However, don’t try to do this by yourself…  cause we can’t.

We need to ask for the Holy Spirit’s help. We need Him to help us ‘step outside the box’ of believing we are bodies at the mercy of the world, and look at our identity as decision makers in our mind, choosing guilt or choosing forgiveness.

For the Course’s answers to the above questions (the what, where, and why of guilt), and practical insights into the process of letting guilt go, check out some of these Course references below…

[It is always helpful to remind ourselves that when the Course talks about ‘mind,’ it is not talking about the place in our bodies between our ears (the brain). It is however referring to a place, an experience deep within ourselves, where we are constantly choosing in any given moment between one of two inner guides or teachers, who help us interpret what we believe we see… the ego or the Holy Spirit.]

(1) What is guilt?

Ch.5, p.84 par.2-3… Belief in attack on God

If the ego is the symbol of the separation, it (the ego) is also the symbol of guilt. Guilt is more than merely not of God. It is the symbol of attack on God. This is a totally meaningless concept except to the ego, but do not underestimate the power of the ego’s belief in it. This is the belief from which all guilt really stems.

3 The ego is the part of the mind that believes in division (it is our own chosen, made-up, separated identity, at war with God). How could part of God detach itself without believing it is attacking Him? We spoke before of the authority problem as based on the concept of usurping God’s power. The ego believes that this is what you did because it believes that it is you (because we choose to believe the ego is us). If you identify with the ego (the thought of separation and sin), you must perceive yourself as guilty. Whenever you respond to your ego (as our guide) you will experience guilt, and you will fear punishment. The ego is quite literally a fearful thought. However ridiculous the idea of attacking God may be to the sane mind, never forget that the ego is not sane. It represents a delusional system, and speaks for it. Listening to the ego’s voice means that you believe it is possible to attack God (the sin we committed), and that a part of Him has been torn away by you (the guilt we feel). Fear of retaliation (the fear we will be punished) from without follows, because the severity of the guilt is so acute that it must be projected (onto the world).

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WB p.161 par.1; p.166 par. 2… Descriptions of ‘intense horror’ of ego’s guilt

You think you are the home of evil, darkness and sin. You think if anyone could see the truth about you he would be repelled, recoiling from you as if from a poisonous snake. You think if what is true about you were revealed to you, you would be struck with horror so intense that you would rush to death by your own hand, living on after seeing this being impossible. (Les. 93)

You see yourself as a ridiculous parody on God’s creation; weak, vicious, ugly and sinful, miserable and beset with pain. Such is your version of yourself; a self divided into many warring parts, separate from God, and tenuously held together by its erratic and capricious maker, to which you pray. It does not hear your prayers, for it is deaf. It does not see the oneness in you, for it is blind. It does not understand you are the Son of God, for it is senseless and understands nothing. (Les. 95)

(2) Where is guilt hiding?

Ch.5, p.86 par. 8… Decision of the mind

8 The continuing decision (in the mind) to remain separated is the only possible reason for continuing guilt feelings. We have said this before, but did not emphasize the destructive results of the decision. Any decision of the mind will affect both behavior and experience. What you want you expect. This is not delusional. Your mind does make your future, and it will turn it back to full creation at any minute if it accepts the Atonement (our guiltlessness) first.

Ch.13, p.236 par.1-2… Acceptance of guilt into the mind

1 If you did not feel guilty you could not attack, for condemnation is the root of attack. It is the judgment of one mind by another as unworthy of love and deserving of punishment. But herein lies the split. For the mind that judges perceives itself as separate from the mind being judged, believing that by punishing another, it will escape punishment. All this is but the delusional attempt of the mind to deny itself (its oneness with other minds), and escape the penalty of denial. It is not an attempt to relinquish denial, but to hold on to it. For it is guilt that has obscured the Father to you, and it is guilt that has driven you insane.

Projected onto the World…

2 The acceptance of guilt into the mind of God’s Son was the beginning of the separation, as the acceptance of the Atonement is its end. The world you see (which is projected from our mind’s choice for guilt) is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws that seem to govern it are the laws of death. Children are born into it through pain and in pain. Their growth is attended by suffering, and they learn of sorrow and separation and death. Their minds seem to be trapped in their brain, and its powers to decline if their bodies are hurt. They seem to love, yet they desert and are deserted. They appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground, and are no more. Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel (and guilty too).

Ch.13, p. 261 par.6… Always in your mind

6 See no one, then, as guilty, and you will affirm the truth of guiltlessness unto yourself. In every condemnation that you offer the Son of God lies the conviction of your own guilt. If you would have the Holy Spirit make you free of it, accept His offer of Atonement for all your brothers. For so you learn that it is true for you. Remember always that it is impossible to condemn the Son of God in part. Those whom you see as guilty become the witnesses to guilt in you, and you will see it there, for it is there until it is undone. Guilt is always in your mind, which has condemned itself. Project it not, for while you do, it cannot be undone. 

For more Course references on

(3) ‘Why’ we need to look at guilt?

(4)  ‘How’ do we look at it?

see…

“Guilt, Part Two”

(click here)

 

 

For Ken Wapnick CD sets (or MP3 downloads) on realizing and releasing guilt…

(click here)

 

(click here)

Replay of  SFACIM Class on…

Chap. 13: Introduction and Section 1

click here

 

Musings: “Projection Makes Perception”

PROJECTION & PERCEPTION:

Projection is the fundamental law of the wrong (ego) mind: what we unconsciously believe we see inwardly (separation from God) determines what we seem to perceive outside our minds in the world. Projection reinforces and protects our inner unacknowledged guilt for believing we separated from Heaven, by displacing (projecting) that guilt onto someone or something else in the world, and then judging/condemning that guilt in our perceived victimizers.

We then are unaware that we even have a mind, and that the actual source of our projected guilt is lurking there. We don’t realize that the problem (guilt) is not out there, but within our mind. And we also don’t realize that the Answer (the Holy Spirit) to the made up guilt is in our minds too.

Projection is talked about in 22 of the 31 Chapters in the Text. It is mentioned and discussed more than 140 times throughout the entire Course, beginning in Chapter One.

The first real discussion of projection is in Chap. 6.

(p. 96, par.1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 12)

Chapter 6: The Lessons of Love

II. The Alternative to Projection

1 Any split in mind must involve a rejection of part of it, and this is the belief in separation. The wholeness of God, which is His peace, cannot be appreciated except by a whole mind that recognizes the wholeness of God’s creation. By this recognition it knows its Creator. Exclusion and separation are synonymous, as are separation and dissociation. We have said before that the separation was and is dissociation, and that once it occurs projection becomes its main defense, or the device that keeps it going. The reason, however, may not be so obvious as you think.

2 What you project you disown, and therefore do not believe is yours. You are excluding yourself by the very judgment that you are different from the one on whom you project. Since you have also judged against what you project, you continue to attack it because you continue to keep it separated. By doing this unconsciously, you try to keep the fact that you attacked yourself out of awareness, and thus imagine that you have made yourself safe.

3 Yet projection will always hurt you. It reinforces your belief in your own split mind, and its only purpose is to keep the separation going. It is solely a device of the ego to make you feel different from your brothers and separated from them. The ego justifies this on the grounds that it makes you seem “better” than they are, thus obscuring your equality with them still further. Projection and attack are inevitably related, because projection is always a means of justifying attack. Anger without projection is impossible. The ego uses projection only to destroy your true perception of both yourself and your brothers. The process begins by excluding something that exists in you but which you do not want, and leads directly to excluding you from your brothers.

 

 

The second ‘projection’ discussion in the Course is in Chap. 7.

(p. 128, par. 8-9, and p. 129, par. 1 to 5)

Chapter 7: The Gifts of the Kingdom

VIII. The Unbelievable Belief

1 We have said that without projection there can be no anger, but it is also true that without extension there can be no love. These reflect a fundamental law of the mind, and therefore one that always operates. It is the law by which you create and were created. It is the law that unifies the Kingdom, and keeps it in the Mind of God. To the ego, the law is perceived as a means of getting rid of something it does not want. To the Holy Spirit, it is the fundamental law of sharing, by which you give what you value in order to keep it in your mind. To the Holy Spirit it is the law of extension. To the ego it is the law of deprivation. It therefore produces abundance or scarcity, depending on how you choose to apply it. This choice is up to you, but it is not up to you to decide whether or not you will utilize the law. Every mind must project or extend, because that is how it lives, and every mind is life.

2 The ego’s use of projection must be fully understood before the inevitable association between projection and anger can be finally undone. The ego always tries to preserve conflict. It is very ingenious in devising ways that seem to diminish conflict, because it does not want you to find conflict so intolerable that you will insist on giving it up. The ego therefore tries to persuade you that it can free you of conflict, lest you give the ego up and free yourself. Using its own warped version of the laws of God, the ego utilizes the power of the mind only to defeat the mind’s real purpose. It projects conflict from your mind to other minds, in an attempt to persuade you that you have gotten rid of the problem.

3 There are two major errors involved in this attempt. First, strictly speaking, conflict cannot be projected because it cannot be shared. Any attempt to keep part of it and get rid of another part does not really mean anything. Remember that a conflicted teacher is a poor teacher and a poor learner. His lessons are confused, and their transfer value is limited by his confusion. The second error is the idea that you can get rid of something you do not want by giving it away. Giving it is how you keep it. The belief that, by seeing it (guilt) outside you have excluded it from within, is a complete distortion of the power of extension (love and forgiveness). That is why those who project are vigilant for their own safety. They are afraid that their projections will return and hurt them. Believing they have blotted their projections from their own minds, they also believe their projections are trying to creep back in. Since the projections have not left their minds, they are forced to engage in constant activity in order not to recognize this.

4 You cannot perpetuate an illusion about another without perpetuating it about yourself. There is no way out of this, because it is impossible to fragment the mind. To fragment is to break into pieces, and mind cannot attack or be attacked. The belief that it can, an error the ego always makes, underlies its whole use of projection. It does not understand what mind is, and therefore does not understand what you are. Yet its existence is dependent on your mind, because the ego is your belief. The ego is a confusion in identification. Never having had a consistent model, it never developed consistently. It is the product of the misapplication of the laws of God by distorted minds that are misusing their power.

5 Do not be afraid of the ego. It depends on your mind, and as you made it by believing in it, so you can dispel it by withdrawing belief from it. Do not project the responsibility for your belief in the ego onto anyone else, or you will preserve the belief (in your own ego). When you are willing to accept sole responsibility for the ego’s existence you will have laid aside all anger and all attack, because they come from an attempt to project responsibility for your own errors. But having accepted the errors as yours, do not keep them. Give them over quickly to the Holy Spirit to be undone completely, so that all their effects will vanish from your mind and from the Sonship as a whole.

The purpose of projection is twofold. To put it simply:

  1. We maintain unconsciously our own chosen belief we are a separated entity from God Our Father, proven by the made up experience of pain and guilt we feel for the seeming disconnect from Heaven…

  2. Then we project (displace) the source of pain outward, and now we believe the pain we still feel is not coming from my inner choice to be separate, but from a guilty someone or something external to me. It’s then their fault, not mine.

 So the belief in separation and its corresponding feelings of guilt and pain are maintained internally, but now I don’t know (1) I have a mind where the pain is really coming from, and I am not aware (2) that the Holy Spirit in my mind can and will help me let go of that belief in separation from God and all my brothers, which was the made-up source of my pain and guilt.

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Classic Course statements about projection & perception:

“Projection makes perception.” Ch.13 p. 248, par. 3; Ch.21 p.445 par.1*

“Nothing so blinding as perception of form.” Ch. 22 p.476, par.6*

“Seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world.” T 21 p.445 par.1

“Beware of the temptation to perceive yourself unfairly treated.” Tp.563

“And in your suffering of any kind, you see your own concealed desire to kill.” Tp.659 par.15

From our friend Bob Rye on perception on Les. 43:

God is my Source. I cannot see apart from Him.

This is a long and important lesson (in the first 50 lessons).  It deals with perception vs. knowledge, the Holy Spirit being the mediator between the two.  Thus it is the key to  forgiveness. To me the most impressive statement in this lesson is that “in salvation, which is the undoing of what never was, perception has a mighty purpose. Made by the Son of God for an unholy purpose, it must become the means  for the restoration of holiness to his awareness. . . The Holy Spirit gives it meaning very close to  God’s.  Healed perception becomes the means by which the Son of God forgives His brother, and thus forgives himself.”  This is a wonderful articulation of the heart of A Course in Miracles. To grasp this is to grasp the essence of this further teaching of Jesus. I cannot really see apart from God because I have been locked into perception “which is not an attribute of God/” Therefore the Holy Spirit, the mediator, must heal my perception and turn it to seeing as God sees. This is an extremely important exercise. It will move me forward significantly in my journey home.

 

 

 See Ken Wapnick’s 3 CD set, Mp3 download, Book or E-book…

for further discussion on learning how to take our projections less seriously.

“Taking the Ego Lightly:

Protecting Our Projections” 

(click here)

This 2013 seminar discusses the dismantling of the ego’s serious thought system of sin, guilt, and fear. This is held in place by our projecting a serious world—personally and collectively—its purpose being to rivet our attention on the body. In this way we are distracted from the decision-making mind that is the source of the problem and the answer. But the ego is easily undone when we pay attention to the gentle little man (symbol for Jesus) just in back of us, always reminding us to laugh at his joke: “It is a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity… .” His loving presence encourages us to meet the ego’s seriousness—in all its forms—with a gentle giggle, tender tickle, and sweet smile.

(This is the last seminar Ken did before making his transition in Dec. 2013… and in that sense it is his last message to us in form.)