Beginners: What is A Course in Miracles?

November 6, 2024

One Hour Video Introduction to

“A Course in Miracles,”

by the SFACIM,

with a little history and a brief explanation of the Course’s metaphysics and its unique version of the forgiveness and healing process… click here

Also: Twenty Minute Video…

**on A Course in Miracles Basic Understanding of Forgiveness using Ken Wapnick’s Chart:**

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“Back-to-Basics”

22 Recorded Class Replays for Beginners…

Our 22 recorded class videos in our Back-to-Basic series for beginners are available to those who are currently donating a minimum of $30 a month to the School for ACIM…

The series is a consecutively developed series of twenty-two videos that will introduce the new person to the fundamental themes of forgiveness and healing in ACIM, designed to have each class (about 75-90 minutes each) build and expand on the previous one.

**Your monthly donation also gives you access to hundreds of other SFACIM class replays on many ACIM topics.**

**It includes the SFACIM Chapter-by-Chapter Series on the Text of ACIM (with 195 classes).**

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9:30am-11am Mt Time

Designed for New “A Course in Miracles” Students…

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======

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The Three Steps of Forgiveness in “A Course in Miracles”

March 29, 2023

The Three Steps of Forgiveness in ACIM:

1) “The world I see… is an outward picture of an inward condition.”

[from Ch.21, p. 445, par.1]

I start with my judgements of others:

What if the real source of my own pain/discomfort/anxiety is not coming from the world? What if it’s coming from somewhere deep inside me… a place the Course calls my mind?

What if it is coming from internally pushing away the Holy Spirit (the Course calls this the Voice for God) and choosing the ego instead (the voice for separation from God)? And now I somehow forget I even have a mind, much less that I’m choosing this wrong inner teacher, the ego. What if that’s why I’m really in a state of conflict, whether it’s anger, fear, depression, or whatever I’m feeling that’s not peace? What if it has nothing to do with anything external, even though I’m sure it is?

If it were possible to see past others’ sins and my judgements of them as the seeming source of my lack of peace, and realize that the origin of my conflicted feelings might just be coming from inside myself (and not anyone else)… would I be willing to ask the Holy Spirit’s help to see and realize that?

————

**Workbook Lesson #5 says ” I’m never upset for the reason I think.” What if that’s true?**

The Course reminds us: the seeming “outward” source of pain is simply my projection of my own inner guilt for pushing God out of my own awareness. The real source of all pain and guilt is always in my mind.

The ego has been described as… edging God out (e-g-o).

2) The Made-up Inner Condition of Separation, Inside in My Mind

I ‘shift’ in my awareness to my inner judgment of myself…

(not my ‘self ‘ in the world, but my seeming identity as a separated Son of God):

What if I could not really push Jesus or the Holy Spirit away and choose to be a make-believe separated self, even if I thought I wanted to?

What if in spite of all the bad I think I have done to others, to myself, to Jesus… all my hateful judgements, all ‘my stuff’… what if Jesus is in my mind right here, right now, smiling at me… telling me in his smile he still loves me and my innocence is still intact?

If it were possible to see past my own “sins” and my judgements of myself, and experience my true innocence as a son of God, would I be willing to ask the Holy Spirit’s help to do that?

When I’m willing to “go there” in my mind, and feel Jesus presence, I begin to realize that nothing I thought or did … has ever affected my true essence, or kept Jesus away.

**See Lesson # 34… “I could see peace (ie, experience peace in my mind), instead of this (choosing the ego and its belief in separation).“**

3) The State of Peace

I (the internal decision maker in my mind) then experience true peace.

True peace of mind then is experienced after the first 2 steps in which I ask and let the Holy Spirit to help me to recognize and remove my own made-up blocks to my awareness of peace …

the 1st block: my external blame and condemnation of others and…
the 2nd block: my own internal blame, guilt and self loathing.

I now begin to realize that God not only loves the other person’s true reality… but God also still loves my own true innocent self too!

And then, even tho I’m still seeing the images of seeming separation… I begin to experience an awareness that our seeming separated selves were not our true selves at all, and that we are actually still the same one Self, God’s innocent Son forever intact.

This recognition is the real miracle.

In the first two steps we need to willingly and actively ask Jesus and/or the Holy Spirit for help in the process of letting go of blame (first of others, then ourselves). In the third step we simply experience peace through the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit clears us of all our made-up pain from our belief in sin, guilt, and fear in the first two steps. These were our own make-believe “blocks to the awareness of love’s presence” (mentioned in the Course’s opening Introduction to the Text on page one).

The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence… (Text p. 1)

The Holy Spirit helps us to recognize and let go of our own blocks to knowing peace and love, which were simply our judgements of others and ourselves… then what’s left is our experience of true peace.

Course References to The Three Steps of Forgiveness:

Here are some Course places that mention the three steps…

1) WB Les. 23 p.34

I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts (my judgments of others and myself).

This first reference, par. 5 sentence two, is the shortest but probably the most succinct:

par. 5:

The idea for today introduces the thought that you are not trapped in the world you see, because its cause can be changed. This change requires, first, that the cause be identified (Step One), and then let go (Step Two), so that it can be replaced (Step Three). The first two steps in this process require your cooperation. The final one does not. Your images have already been replaced. By taking the first two steps, you will see that this is so.

———–

2) WB les. 52 p.84 par.2

I see only the past.

As I look about, I condemn the world I look upon. I call this seeing. [I realize] I hold the past against everyone and everything, making them my enemies (Step One). When I have forgiven myself [by letting Jesus tell me he still loves me] (Step Two) and remembered Who I am, I will bless everyone and everything I see. There will be no past, and therefore no enemies. And I will look with love on all that I failed to see before. (Step Three)

———–

3) WB les. 56 p. 92 par.2

Above all else I want to see.

Recognizing that what I see reflects what I think I am (Step One), I realize that vision is my greatest need. The world I see attests [reflects] the fearful nature of the self-image I have made [a separated self in my mind] . If I would remember who I am, it is essential that I let this image of myself go (Step Two). As it is replaced by truth, vision will surely be given me. And with this vision, I will look upon the world and on myself with charity and love. (Step Three)

———–

4) Text p.90 par.6

I must have decided wrongly, because I am not at peace. (Step One)
I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.
I want to decide otherwise, because I want to be at peace.(Step Two)
I do not feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo all the consequences of my wrong decision if I will let Him.
I choose to let Him, by allowing Him to decide for God for me. (Step Three)

———–

5) Text p.131 par.5

⁵ Do not be afraid of the ego. It depends on your mind, and as you made it [the ego] by believing in it, so you can dispel it by withdrawing belief from it. Do not project the responsibility for your belief in it [the ego] onto anyone else, or you will preserve the belief. 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 (Step One). But having accepted the errors as yours, do not keep them. Give them (our beliefs in sin, guilt and fear, and that we are a separated self) over quickly to the Holy Spirit to be undone completely (Step Two), so that all their effects will vanish from your mind and from the Sonship as a whole (Step Three).

———–

*** 6) Manual p.86 par.6 (Lyn Corona’s favorite on 3 steps)

This is the shift that true perception brings: What was projected out (Step One) is seen within (Step Two), and there forgiveness lets it disappear (Step Three). For there the altar to the Son is set, and there his Father is remembered. Here are all illusions brought to truth and laid upon the altar. What is seen outside must lie beyond forgiveness, for it seems to be forever sinful. Where is hope while sin is seen as outside (Step One)? What remedy can guilt expect? But seen within your mind, guilt and forgiveness for an instant lie together, side by side, upon one altar (Step Two). There at last are sickness and its single remedy joined in one healing brightness (Step Three). God has come to claim His Own. Forgiveness is complete.

There are other references that we may find that will stand out to each of us… and when in doubt, ask Jesus for help to lead us somewhere in the Course he may want us to look.

One, Two, Three…

Another way of briefly describing the three steps of forgiveness is the following…

What if the real source of my not feeling peaceful or happy… is not something external in your behavior or even my own behavior… no matter how bad that behavior may seem.
What if the real problem is internal in my mind… where I simply have chosen to believe I could push Jesus and peace away… and that’s why I’m unhappy.
When I allow myself to hear Jesus tell me your innocence and real identity as God’s Son is still intact, and so is my own, then I truly feel his love and presence and I know what he’s telling me is true. And from this happy and safe place, I will intuitively know what to do next, in any given situation.

² Real choice (in the mind) is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. All its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death. There is no choice in its (the world’s) alternatives. Seek not escape from problems here. The world was made that problems could not be escaped. Be not deceived by all the different names its roads are given. They have but one end. And each is but the means to gain that end, for it is here that all its roads will lead, however differently they seem to start; however differently they seem to go. Their end is certain, for there is no choice among them. All of them will lead to death. On some you travel gaily for a while, before the bleakness enters. And on some the thorns are felt at once. The choice is not what will the ending be, but when it comes. (Ch. 31, p. 653, par. 2)

**Ken Wapnick used to say that projecting our internal made-up guilt onto the world and our bodies… was “a maladaptive solution to a non-existent problem.”**

The solution that didn’t work (maladaptive) was projecting our guilt onto others to try to get rid of it. All that did was reinforce our inner unrecognized belief that guilt was alive and well inside us…

**The real problem was always our own belief in sin and guilt in our own mind (which was actually made-up, ie. ‘non-existent’ in the first place).**

I can actually ask Jesus to help me see and experience that he didn’t go anywhere. He is still right here, right now, loving the real me (meaning all of us joined as one)… loving us in spite of all our seeming ‘sins’ and differences. We are forgiven for what we didn’t do, and could never do… that is, separate from him and God.

**This is the Course’s uniquely non-traditional, yet practical process of forgiveness.**

For further discussion on the three forgiveness steps,

check out Ken Wapnick’s CD set or MP3 download on

“The Meaning of Forgiveness”

(click here)

SFACIM Video: on “What forgiveness is / what forgiveness isn’t…”

The Chart: A Simplified Diagram of “A Course in Miracles” Metaphysics

June 10, 2022

Ken Wapnick’s “Chart” on the fundamental metaphysics of the Course has helped thousands of Course students understand in a very short time (instead of what is sometimes a long rocky road), what the basic process of forgiveness in the Course really entails.

From Ken’s Foundation early days in Roscoe, New York, he began using this simple diagram as a way of presenting to students how the Course says we seemingly left Heaven and arrived here in the world. Then more importantly Ken’s chart points out schematically how we return our awareness to our minds, which is the stepping stone back to our true reality in Heaven.

Here then is a simplified representation of the basic ideas expressed on the Chart:

This Chart is best seen…

‘full screen’ on a computer.

(Otherwise it might not line up as intended.)

Heaven

God-Christ, Knowledge,

Oneness, Love,

Non-Duality

the mind

tiny mad idea of separation

*

Ego Decision*Maker Holy Spirit

(wrong mind) (right mind)

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Sin…. I am a sinner! | Forgiveness/Healing

(I separated from Heaven) |

——

Guilt…. I am guilty! |

(I feel terrible) |

——-

Fear…. I will be punished! |

(God is after me) |

the world of bodies

Sin…. You sinned (not me)!

Guilt…. You are guilty (not me)!

Fear…. You should be punished (not me)!

What we see in the above Chart is a depiction of three different levels of experience expressed in the Course:

Top level : Heaven… where our true identity as God’s One Son remains intact. (Capital “M” Mind in the Course refers to this top level. Lowercase “m” mind refers to the middle level.)
Middle level: the mind… where we seemed to step outside of heaven and play with the idea of being separate from our Father in Heaven.
Bottom level: the world… the entire physical universe of time and space, including our bodies, brains and personalities… all projected from the idea of separation in the mind.

The Course spends only a little time talking about Heaven, and what the experience of Heaven is like, but not too much… since that experience is beyond words, and time and space, and even the mind.

The Course also spends very little time discussing the bottom level, the world, with all its insane behaviors and judgements, which the Course insists are all illusory projections anyway and not the real problem.

However, what the Course does talk about the most is the place deep inside of us, called the mind, where we chose to believe in a separation from God in the first place. It is helpful to note (and note well!) that when the Course uses the word “mind” it never (ever) is talking about our brains and our bodies. Even more importantly, note the words “we chose to believe in separation.” It didn’t really happen. We simply chose to believe in it.

The mind is always the deeper internal “place” (not our brains and what our brains think), where we choose between one of two teachers. One the Course calls the ego (the wrong mind), the voice of our own chosen belief in separation. The other is the Holy Spirit (the right mind), God’s Voice for sanity that says separation is silly and impossible.

—————————————————————–

The overall Course story (myth, if you will) goes something like this:

Heaven:

Once upon a time, we were all sitting around in Heaven as God’s One Son. The Course tells us that in Heaven there is no place where God the Father ends, and God the Son begins… whatever that oneness is, it’s not anything like what we experience in our world of time and space.

The mind:

Then what seemed to happen is the Son of God pretended to step outside of Heaven, and play with the thought of separation. We say “seemed” because the Course’s Atonement Principle is that the separation never (and could never have) happened.

There were then two reactions to this “tiny mad idea of separation”. One, the part of our mind the Course calls the Holy Spirit (right mind), said that idea is impossible and silly and could not take place.

The other part of mind the Course calls ego (wrong mind), said yes: we want to pretend separation is true… take it seriously… believe it… and run with it.

And of those two reactions or voices, the third part of mind that chooses between these two (Ken Wapnick uses the term “Decision Maker”), chose to identify with the ego. This all took place in the internal place inside of us that the Course consistently calls mind.

The Story of Sin, Guilt, and Fear

In choosing to take the TMI (tiny mad idea of separation) seriously and listen to the ego, we then made up an ongoing separation story, and chose to believe each part of its three part narrative: (1) sin, (2) guilt, and (3) fear. But it was all “make-believe.” In other words we made it up, and then distracted ourselves with each ongoing part of the story into believing it.

We insisted that sin (or separation) was real, and that we did actually disconnect from our Father.
We then made up the feeling of guilt, and told ourselves what we did and what we were feeling was really bad.
Finally we told ourselves that God was also really upset at what we did, and we felt fear because we convinced ourselves that He was going to punish us.

These three steps (of sin>guilt>fear) mistakenly “proved” to ourselves that we had really separated from our Father in Heaven.

————————–

To emphasize once again, mind is a part of us beyond time and space, beyond behavior in the world, and beyond our identification as personalities with brains and bodies. The Course talks about and uses the word mind more than two thousand times.

The world:

All this was the motivation for us to leave the realm of the mind and escape “God’s wrath.” This precipitated in what scientists today call the Big Bang, the beginning of the entire physical universe of time and space. The Course calls this universe of form “the world.” We basically took our awareness of ourselves as one gigantic separated Son of God, and then seemed to”explode” our consciousness into a billion billion parts. We fantasized an entire universe of tiny atoms, molecules, cells, and bodies… all the way up to star systems and floating galaxies.

In doing this we achieved two goals in our separation story;

We totally forgot we even have a mind, where all this choice for believing in separation happened, and is even now still taking place. Every moment that we feel or think any non-peaceful, judgmental thought, we are re-enacting this process.
The made-up pain of believing in separation doesn’t go away. It was and still is only coming from our belief in the sin-guilt-fear story in our minds… but now we consciously blame the source of all our pain on the many seeming sources of pain in the external world. We now believe that it’s what others have done to us, whether its other bodies called people, or other bodies called germs or diseases, that adversely affect our bodies. The Course calls this external blaming of the world for the unconscious internal choice for sin and guilt : “Projection.”

The ‘beauty’ of this, from the ego’s point of view, is that now we are totally convinced we are individual bodies in the world… with no awareness at all that we have a mind, or that we could actually go inside and choose another Voice (the Holy Spirit’s) and be taught that separation is all made up.

“The Way Back”

Forgiveness

This is when the Course comes along and says in Workbook Lesson #5: “We are never upset for the reason we think.”

And Lesson #34, “I could choose peace instead of this”… by going inside and asking the Holy Spirit for help to see you and me another way.

Meaning: It is possible for me to have an actual experience where I realize that all this separation and pain is simply made up. These separate identities and bodies are not who we truly are. And even though I’m still seeing images of separation in the world, I can experience peace right here, right now, by asking the Holy Spirit for help in realizing this. “I’m not a victim of the world I see.” (Lesson # 31)

And that, in a nutshell, is the Course’s process of “Forgiveness.” It is also synonymous with the word “Healing” on the Chart under the “Holy Spirit.”

I don’t forgive you or myself for what either of us did behaviorally…

But I can forgive (let go): By asking for Jesus or the Holy Spirit’s help, I become willing to let go of believing we are separated minds living in separated vulnerable bodies that could attack each other and ourselves in the first place… I become aware that our real connection and innocence as One Son of God is still intact, no matter what you or I do behaviorally as bodies. Our holiness and wholeness as God’s One Son is, and always will be, who we truly are. (Click here for discussion of these “Three Steps of Forgiveness.”)

Then I can share that profound awareness of our innocence as One Son of God, with everyone I meet or think about… not necessarily verbally, but with a simple, gentle, and kind inner knowing and understanding.

Free Online Videos available on the Chart:

1) SFACIM on “Our Thoughts & the Chart” : click here

2) Ken Wapnick on the “Secret Dream & the Chart”, Part One : click here

3) Ken on the “Secret Dream & the Chart”, Part Two: click here

Ken’s Full & Complete Chart:

From School for A Course in Miracles,

A 25 minute video presentation on The Chart:

Musings: The Seven “Rules” of Decision Making

August 1, 2021

From ACIM Chapter 30, Sec. I

Text p.625-628:

RULES FOR DECISION

1. Upon waking think about the kind of day you want. The outlook starts with this: “Today I will make no decision by myself.”

2. Throughout the day reflect upon the kind of day you want and say, “If I make no decisions by myself, this is the day that will be given me. ”

These two procedures, practiced well, will serve to let you be directed without fear, for opposition will not first arise and then become a problem in itself.

3. When you have judged already (be certain this has happened if you feel yourself unwilling to sit by and ask to have the answer given to you), you need a quick restorative before you ask again. Therefore say, “I have no question, I forgot what to decide.” Try to observe this rule without delay, despite your opposition.

4. If you are so unwilling to receive you cannot even let your question go, you can begin to change your mind with this: “At least I can decide I do not like what I feel now.”

5. Continue with: “And so I hope I have been wrong.” This works against the sense of opposition.

6. You are not coerced, but merely hope to get a thing you want. And so you say in perfect honesty, “I want another way to look at this.”

7. The final step is but acknowledgement of lack of opposition to be helped. It is a statement of an open mind, not certain yet, but willing to be shown: “Perhaps there is another way to look at this. What can I lose by asking?”

“It must be clear that it is easier to have a happy day if you prevent unhappiness from entering at all. But this takes practice in the rules that will protect you from the ravages of fear.”

(Text p. 628, par. 13)

RULES FOR DECISION

( how to stop investing in my judgments)

… paraphrased:

1. Today I will make no decision (judgments) by myself…

I will ask now the Holy Spirit to help me see you and me and others… the way He does.

2. When I make no decisions or judgments by myself,

this is the peaceful day that will be given me.

3. When I get ‘crazy’ again, I have no question,

I forgot to decide and ask the HS to be my Guide in my perception.

4. At least I can decide (admit) I do not like what I feel now.

5. And so I hope I have been wrong.… because leaving the HS out did not help.

6. I still really do want another way to look

at this situation or person that is bothering me.

7. So… perhaps, there is another way to look at this,

What can I lose by asking?

(… and then ask.)

My Unrecognized Resistance… to letting Jesus love me.

June 18, 2021

“Our Unrecognized Resistance to Love”

(self-crucifixion)

Whether we have been in the Course for ten years or ten minutes, it is always our own un-admitted desire to ‘crucify’ ourselves (Lesson # 196) that keeps us from accepting and experiencing God’s Love. Emphasis on the words ‘our own un-admitted.’ Our default ego mode is to believe others are trying to crucify us, but… “It can be but myself I crucify.”

The question is then… are we willing to own up to that possibility and ask for Holy Spirit’s help to realize our own resistance to God’s Love… and take that fear to Jesus … where we then can ask him for help, and begin to allow that resistance to evaporate before his very loving presence?

Or do we continue to resist acknowledging our responsibility in crucifying ourselves… by thrusting Love away and blaming it on someone or something else?

It is normal to hear at Course meetings long-time Course students say and admit how much resistance they have to doing the Course and finding peace. Sometimes it seems we wear it as a badge of honor. Almost like.. “look at me, I’m really aware of my resistance.” But… are we?

In terms of the Course process of forgiveness, it is a groundbreaking necessary first step to begin to realize I may not be upset for the reason I think (Les. 5). In other words we start to recognize that we are the ones resisting and pushing peace away. It is not being done to us. Admitting this possibility to ourselves is crucial for our waking up.

(Admitting this to others on the other hand isn’t necessary… except it may be helpful sometimes to share and point out that it is possible for all of us to become aware of our hidden resistance to truth.)

However… admitting we have resistance doesn’t do a lot of good, if we are not willing to take the next step to let it go and move beyond it.

As Ken Wapnick and the Course teach, this next important step is to move into an experience of “I could see peace instead of this.” (Les. 34) But we hear ourselves say we can’t… or I’m always beating myself up instead… and/or some thing always seems to stop me. Maybe we actually are resistant to Love, but we can’t seem to get past that resistance to an experience of Love…

Who then is the “you” that’s being stopped? Who is the you that beats itself up? Who is the you that is looking at itself aware of some resistance to love, but still seems stuck from going beyond ‘the stuck’?

(If you are familiar with the teacher Mooji, it is his standard question to his disciples… Who is the ‘you’ that sees and feels like you are blocked from an experience of non-duality?)

Isn’t it simply the ego, unrecognized and un-admitted, looking at its own ego antics? A synthetic self looking at its own made-up resistance to Love… but when we, as decision makers in our minds, do not take responsibility for choosing that, we wind up pretending our resistance is an inherent part of what we are. We think the resistance we feel is not really our fault. It’s just part of ‘me’… God made me this way.

That idea then gets pushed down in our awareness and projected out onto somebody else… Yeah maybe I’m a little resistant to Jesus and Love, but look at that guy… way worse than me. (As Byron Katie would say… “Is that true?”)

So, we do all this constant projection simply because we are blindly resistant to letting our resistance go… because we secretly believe we are and should be afraid of God and His Love, and our resistance to Love somehow protects this not-self we think is us.

What if our fear of God, our own unrecognized resistance to Love, our pretending to be stuck… is all made up too… by the very not-self that we have decided to produce out of nothing, and with which we choose to identify ?

The three steps of forgiveness in acknowledging and letting go of resistance (with the help of Jesus) are…

We are willing to stop blaming the other guy for our lack of peace. (Maybe I am really not upset because of what you did or didn’t do…maybe it’s not about you at all)
The second is we are willing to hear Jesus tell us we are not a separated ego self that could push him away and be resistant to him, in the first place.
The third is simply letting him love us as we truly are… One Innocent Self, still intact.

(self-made prisoner of fear)

Ch. 9 Sec. I: The Acceptance of Reality (p. 160)

¹ Fear of the Will of God (resistance) is one of the strangest beliefs the human mind has ever made (we did this). It could not possibly have occurred unless the mind were already profoundly split (our choice to take the tiny mad idea of separation seriously), making it possible for it to be afraid of what it really is. Reality cannot “threaten” anything except illusions (us as egos), since reality can only uphold truth. The very fact that the Will of God, which is what you are, is perceived as fearful, demonstrates that you (an illusion, i.e. the decision maker still identified with a made-up illusory ego self) are afraid of what you are (our true reality). It is not, then, the Will of God of which you are afraid, but yours (our own true will, which is our own True Identity as God’s One Son).

=================

The problem is this : What if it’s NOT the resistance or judgements that we do acknowledge and are aware of that are holding us back from having a holy instant… What if, however, it is mostly, and possibly only, the unacknowledged/unrecognized resistance to admit our choice to believe each of us is a separated identity: weak and vulnerable and unloved… that un-admitted belief is what is still blocking us.

The issue is always the same… But we rather not call it what it is… resistance to even admitting we are resistant to peace and Love. We instead call it other things… being right, or being normal, or appropriate, or stuck, or whatever excuse we use to justify our irritation and judgements, especially of ourselves…. which keeps Jesus love at bay.

We don’t realize that being right (even ‘right’ about how resistant we are) is still being resistant. We are then trapped in a Catch-22 situation. We are resistant to simply letting Jesus love me as I truly am in this moment, a real Holy Instant. What if all the pain we experience comes simply from our own unrecognized resistance to letting go of this not-self, which actively pushes Love away, and then blames the other guy for it…?

=========

What does the Introduction to The Course say about our own insistence in our resistance to love?

Text p. 1:

The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks (our unrecognized resistance in ourselves… in which we feel mired and obstructed) to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance.

** Check out more references in the Course about our secret, hidden, unrecognized beliefs…

about who we are and what we believe we need to do:

Text Ch. 24 Sec. I (p. 499):

² Beliefs (our judgements that I’m right and you’re wrong) will never openly attack each other (in our awareness)… But an unrecognized belief (my resistance to peace) is a decision to war in secret, where the results of conflict (our wrong mind at war with our right mind) are kept unknown and never brought to reason, to be considered sensible or not. And many senseless outcomes have been reached, and meaningless decisions have been made and kept hidden, to become beliefs (judgements) now given power to direct all subsequent (worldly) decisions. Mistake you not the power of these hidden warriors to disrupt your peace. For it is at their mercy while you decide to leave it there. The secret (secret to ourselves) enemies of peace, your least decision to choose attack (and resist) instead of love, unrecognized and swift to challenge you to combat and to violence far more inclusive than you think, are there by your election. Do not deny their presence nor their terrible results.

³ All that is ever cherished as a hidden belief (love is dangerous), to be defended though unrecognized, is faith in specialness (I believe I am different from my brother, and especially different and separated from God my Father). This takes many forms, but always clashes with the reality of God’s creation and with the grandeur that He gave His Son. What else could justify attack (judgement)? For who could hate someone whose Self is his, and Whom he knows? Only the special could have enemies, for they are different (we are not one Son of God) and not the same. And difference of any kind imposes orders of reality, and a need to judge that cannot be escaped.

⁸ The fear of God and of your brother comes from each unrecognized belief in specialness (usually I am especially holier than you). For you demand your brother bow to it (my “holiness/righteousness”) against his will. And God Himself must honor it or suffer vengeance. Every twinge of malice, or stab of hate or wish to separate arises here. For here the purpose (the Holy Spirit’s) that you and your brother share becomes obscured from both of you.

You would oppose this Course because it teaches you… you and your brother are alike.

========

We all share two things:

**(1) the same ego’s desperate need to separate and blame (and not admit that’s what we are doing), and**

(2) the same Holy Spirit way out of that insanity: forgiveness.

================

Text Ch.19 Sec. IV C (p. 417, par. 4)

The arrogance of sin, the pride of guilt, the sepulcher of separation, all are part of your unrecognized dedication to death. (Every judgement we make against our brother… and every time we feel stuck in resistance… is a secret wish to kill our own true self.)

Chapter 29: The Awakening Sec. VIIIThe Anti-Christ (p. 619, par. 1)

¹ What is an idol ? Do you think you know? For idols are unrecognized as such, and never seen for what they really are (replacements for our essence and reality as God’s One Son). That is the only power that they have (the power from remaining unrecognized). Their purpose (to keep Jesus out of our awareness) is obscure, and they are feared and worshipped, both, because you do not know what they are for, and why they have been made.

An idol is an image of your brother (judged as different from me) that you would value more than what he is (we are both one Son of God, still guiltless). Idols are made that he may be replaced (they replace my brother’s and my own true identity), no matter what their form. And it is this (purpose) that never is perceived and recognized. Be it a body or a thing, a place, a situation or a circumstance, an object owned or wanted, or a right demanded or achieved, it is the same (purpose).

Chapter 23: The War Against Yourself Sec. III. Salvation Without Compromise (p. 495)

¹ Is it not true you do not recognize some of the forms attack (and resistance) can take? If it is true attack in any form will hurt you, and will do so just as much as in another form that you do recognize, then it must follow that you do not always recognize the source of pain. Attack (resistance) in any form is equally destructive. Its purpose does not change. Its sole intent is murder, and what form of murder serves to cover the massive guilt and frantic fear of punishment the murderer must feel?

He may deny he is a murderer and justify his savagery with smiles as he attacks. Yet he will suffer, and will look on his intent in nightmares where the smiles are gone, and where the purpose rises to meet his horrified awareness and pursue him still. For no one thinks of murder and escapes the guilt the thought entails. If the intent is death, what matter the form it takes?

Would you not want to recognize assault upon your peace in any form (any unrecognized resistance), if only thus does it become impossible that you lose sight of it (peace)?

Peace can be kept shining before your vision, forever clear and never out of sight, if you defend peace not.

(Peace doesn’t need defending, or attacking, to save it…)

⁵ Those who believe that peace can be defended, and that attack is justified on its behalf, cannot perceive it lies within them. How could they know? Could they accept forgiveness (letting go of our resistance to peace)… side by side with the belief that murder takes some forms by which their peace is saved? Would they be willing to accept the fact their savage purpose is directed against themselves?

You are not asked to fight against your wish to murder. But you are asked to realize the form it takes (including believing we are trapped in our resistance) conceals the same intent (murder). And it is this you fear, and not the form. What is not love is murder. What is not loving (our unrecognized resistance) must be an attack.

Each form of murder and attack that still attracts you and that you do not recognize for what it is, limits the healing and the miracles you have the power to extend to all. This is your part; to realize that murder in any form is not your will.

⁶ When the temptation to attack rises to make your mind darkened (our resistance becomes hidden) and murderous, remember you can see the battle from above. Even in forms (of resistance) you do not recognize, the signs you know. There is a stab of pain, a twinge of guilt, and above all, a loss of peace. This you know well. When they occur leave not your place on high (in your mind), but quickly choose a miracle instead of murder. And God Himself and all the lights of Heaven will gently lean to you, and hold you up. For you have chosen to remain where He would have you (in your right mind), and no illusion (of resistance, finally recognized and surrendered) can attack the peace of God together with His Son.

Lesson 190 (p. 362, par.9)

Lay down your arms (your resistance), and come without defense into the quiet place where Heaven’s peace holds all things still at last.

Lay down all thoughts of danger and of fear. Let no attack enter with you.

Lay down the cruel sword of judgment that you hold against your (own) throat,

and put aside the withering assaults with which you seek to hide your holiness.

On a lighter note…

Ten Common Mistakes ACIM Students Make… (Part One)

June 17, 2021

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

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

June 13, 2021

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)

Replay of SFACIM Class on…

Chap. 13: Introduction and Section 1

click here

Musings: “Projection Makes Perception”

June 13, 2021

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:

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…
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.

_______________

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.)

Musings… What’s my perception of purpose? And what’s my purpose for perception?

August 2, 2020

Video Presentation on…

“The Ego’s Purpose of

Belief in Separation & Sin”

(click here)

__________________________

**In any given moment there are only two possible purposes for anything we seem to do or don’t do…**

A discussion follows:

The Course tells us early on in the text that the only thing we should ever ask of anything is …”What is it for?” It uses that specific phrase at least five times throughout the book, and infers it in many other places. In any given situation or seeming drama, we should ask ourselves what is the purpose of this person, thing, or event in my life.

The Course reminds us constantly that the source and answer to that question depends on only one of two choices… of one of two teachers within us … the ego (the voice for separation and guilt), or the Holy Spirit (God’s Voice for healing and forgiveness). Accessing either one of those teachers will determine the way we look at and react to all of our lives’ day-to-day activities, whether it’s brushing our teeth or dealing with a tragedy. (See example of what is a phone call really for, in WB Lesson 25 “I do not know what anything is for.” on p. 38)

Is the purpose of any undertaking to see and reinforce guilt and blame in someone else and ultimately in myself, or is the interaction an opportunity for forgiveness (i.e. to see our true identity as God’s one innocent Son, instead of seeming separate entities full of sin and guilt )?

The ways we choose one of two inner teachers work like this…

Choosing the ego:

We seem to slip into ego default mode of judgement and condemnation without even recognizing it . Jesus tell us it is initially an intentional choice that we make out of fear in our minds, and then quickly forget we did that… (see Les. 136, par.3-5). We make an inner decision to believe in separation from God and each other. That decision is the real and only source of all our torment and suffering. We make up a new identity as a separated ego self and make this new ego identity our ‘guide,’ and don’t have a conscious clue we have done any of that (except we’re not feeling very peaceful)…

**The ego’s purpose is to see separation, feel pain and suffering, but blame/project the source of our pain on someone or something else.**

Thus the ego purpose for the way we are seeing anything or anybody in the world is to find fault and judge, without ever admitting to ourselves (1) we are constantly doing that, (2) that the ego is now our chosen teacher, and (3) that the ego’s purpose of ‘the need to blame’ has fully kicked in.

We are sure we are only reacting to a seemingly real world of victims and victimizers, and we simply have to ‘justifiably judge’ those we believe are causing us pain. We never recognize or take responsibility for our own internal wish to separate and maintain the pain and guilt of our own belief in that separation… by putting that responsibility on others.

Choosing The Holy Spirit:

We consciously ask the Holy Spirit or Jesus for help to see others and ourselves the way they do in any given situation or circumstance. That is… no matter what others or ourselves do or don’t do, if we ask for help, we can and will experience everyone together as one innocent Son of God. We begin to realize our separation from God and each other is totally made-up, no matter what seems to be happening in our world.

It doesn’t mean in time and space we don’t take appropriate actions. But it does mean we are willing to see our brothers a different way (true perception), and stop blaming them for our own chosen lack of peace and awareness of our One True Self… which was actually impossible in the first place (The Atonement).

Setting this process as our purpose and goal for each day is the Course’s definition of forgiveness.

**(click here for further description of The Three Steps of Forgiveness.)**

**The Course uses the word purpose more than 700 times,**

**the word goal about 450 times,**

intent/intentions 40 x, and motive/motivation 35 x.

Here are some of our favorite Course references…

on “Purpose:”

**Don’t bother me… I’m busy being peaceful!**

By becoming involved with tangential issues, it (the ego) hopes to hide the real question and keep it out of mind. The ego’s characteristic busyness with nonessentials (in the world) is for precisely that purpose. Preoccupations with problems set up to be incapable of solution are favorite ego devices for impeding learning progress (even when I fix things in the world it doesn’t bring me lasting peace). In all these diversionary tactics, however, the one question that is never asked by those who pursue them is, “What for?” This is the question that you must learn to ask in connection with everything. What is the purpose (the ego’s purpose of maintaining belief in separation, or the Holy Spirit’s purpose of forgiveness)? Whatever it is, it will direct your efforts automatically. When you make a decision of purpose (in the mind), then, you have made a decision about your future effort; a decision that will remain in effect unless you change your mind.

(Text Ch. 4, p.66, par. 6)

I have spoken of the ego as if it were a separate thing, acting on its own. This was necessary to persuade you that you cannot dismiss it lightly, and must realize how much of your thinking is ego-directed… The ego is nothing more than a part of your (own) belief about yourself.

(Text Ch. 4, p.67, par. 1)

The ego cannot oppose the laws of God any more than you can, but it can interpret them according to what it wants, just as you can (as a decision maker in our mind). That is why the question, “What do you want?” must be answered (separation or forgiveness, conflict or peace). You are answering it every minute and every second, and each moment of decision is a judgment that is anything but ineffectual. Its effects will follow automatically until the decision is changed. Remember, though, that the alternatives themselves are unalterable. The Holy Spirit, like the ego, is a decision (in the mind). Together they constitute all the alternatives the mind can accept and obey. The Holy Spirit and the ego are the only (actual) choices open to you…

(Text Ch. 5, p.85, par. 6)

² In any situation in which you are uncertain, the first thing to consider, very simply, is “What do I want to come of this? What is it for?” The clarification of the goal belongs at the beginning, for it is this which will determine the outcome… The ego does not know what it wants to come of the situation. It is aware of what it does not want (doesn’t want peace), but only that. It (the ego) has no positive goal at all.

³ Without a clear-cut positive goal (of peace & forgiveness) set at the outset, the situation just seems to happen, and makes no sense until it has already happened… And now the only judgment left to make is whether or not the ego likes it; is it acceptable, or does it call for vengeance? The absence of a criterion for outcome, set in advance, makes understanding doubtful and evaluation impossible.

⁴ The value of deciding in advance what you want to happen is simply that you will perceive the situation as a means to make it happen… It is quite noticeable that this approach has brought you closer to the Holy Spirit’s sorting out of truth and falsity. The true becomes what can be used to meet the goal. The false becomes the useless from this point of view. The situation now has meaning, but only because the goal (of forgiveness) has made it meaningful.

⁶ The goal of truth requires faith. Faith is implicit in the acceptance of the Holy Spirit’s purpose, and this faith is all-inclusive. .. This seems to ask for faith beyond you, and beyond what you can give. Yet this is so only from the viewpoint of the ego, for the ego believes in “solving” conflict through fragmentation, and does not perceive the situation as a whole. Therefore, it (the ego) seeks to split off segments of the situation and deal with them separately, for it has faith in separation and not in wholeness.

(Text Ch. 17, p.366, par.2-6)

⁶ The test of everything on earth is simply this; “What is it for?” The answer (ego’s purpose or HS) makes it what it is for you. It has no meaning of itself (in the world), yet you can give reality to it, according to the purpose that you serve (in your mind)…

¹¹ And thus are two sons made, and both appear to walk this earth without a meeting place and no encounter. One do you perceive outside yourself, your own beloved (ego’s) son. The other rests within, his Father’s Son, within your brother as he is in you. Their difference does not lie in how they look, nor where they go, nor even what they do. They have a different purpose. It is this that joins them to their like, and separates each from all aspects with a different purpose. The Son of God retains His Father’s Will. The son of man (the ego’s son) perceives an alien will and wishes it were so. And thus does his (the ego’s) perception serve his wish by giving it appearances of truth (the world and its victimizers seem real). Yet can perception serve another goal. It is not bound to specialness but (only) by your choice. And it is given you to make a different choice (in our mind), and use perception for a different purpose. And what you see will serve that purpose well, and prove its own reality to you.

(Text Ch. 24, p.515, par.6 & 11)

5) Yet mind apart from spirit (Holy Spirit) cannot think. It has denied its Source of strength, and sees itself as helpless, limited and weak. Dissociated from its (true) function now (forgiveness), it (our mind) thinks it is alone and separate, attacked by armies massed against itself and hiding in the body’s frail support. Now must it reconcile unlike with like (hate with love), for this is what it thinks that it (our mind) is for.

6) Waste no more time on this. Who can resolve the senseless conflicts which a dream presents? What could the resolution mean in truth? What purpose could it serve? What is it for? Salvation cannot make illusions real, nor solve a problem that does not exist. Perhaps you hope it can. Yet would you have God’s plan for the release of His dear Son bring pain to him, and fail to set him free?

(WB Lesson 96, p.169)

The Rules for Decision (at the beginning of Chap. 30, p.625) point out the practical value of setting our goal/purpose for the day, every day, by choosing with which inner teacher we wish to go through our day…

⁴ Throughout the day, at any time you think of it and have a quiet moment for reflection, tell yourself again the kind of day you want (guilt or forgiveness); the feelings you would have (conflictual or peaceful), the things you want to happen to you (seen through the eyes of the ego or the Holy Spirit), and the things you would experience (fear or love), and say:

If I make no decisions by myself, this is the day that will be given me.

(Text Ch. 30, p.626)

14 …The only question really is with what (whom) you choose to make them (decisions). That is really all. The first rule, then, is not coercion, but a simple statement of a simple fact. You will not make decisions by yourself whatever you decide. For they are made with idols (the ego) or with God (the Holy Spirit). And you ask help of anti-Christ or Christ, and which you choose will join with you and tell you what to do.

¹⁵ Your day is not at random. It is set by what you choose to live it with, and how the friend whose counsel you have sought perceives your happiness. You always ask advice before you can decide on anything. Let this be understood, and you can see there cannot be coercion here nor grounds for opposition… that you may be free.

(Text Ch. 30, p. 628)

————————————————–

In any given moment…

there is only one of two possible purposes …

for anything we seem to do or don’t do.

Two Short Ken Wapnick CD sets, and Mp3 downloads…

that focus on “Purpose”

(click on pics below):

This section called “Forgiveness and The End of Time” from the Text (Chap. 29, section VI) is a beautiful rendering of the pivotal theme of purpose recurring throughout the Course. Understanding purpose and how it is applied opens up the seeming secrets of the Course, specifically with regard to forgiveness as a theoretical principle, and more importantly as a principle that can guide us in our daily lives. This workshop thus helps us understand our world, our relationships, and our experiences in terms of the underlying purpose of the ego. Forgiveness begins with our asking Jesus to help us replace our pact with the ego with a vow to him no longer to be afraid of his love.

This 2007 workshop explores the two purposes for the body. The ego uses the body to fulfill its strategy of mindlessness, wherein the mind’s decision for the ego and its thought system of sin and destruction is hidden behind projection. Thus does the body become the engine of destruction that symbolizes the death of God and His Son. The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, shifts the body’s purpose from hate to forgiveness, so that it becomes the classroom in which we learn that nothing has occurred to change the sinlessness of God’s Son. As we choose again, the ego’s judgment becomes the Holy Spirit’s vision and we are healed.

Musings: The Five Laws of Chaos of The Ego

March 26, 2020

“The Five Laws of Chaos”

Discussed in Chap. 23 Sec. II of A Course in Miracles, these five chaotic “laws” are basically the laws or rules of the ego’s unhappy game of separation, The War Against Yourself (your true Self).

They, the “laws,” are put in quotes because as Jesus says they are not real laws but are simply made up descending rungs in an illusionary ladder, where we attempt to become a ‘something else,’ other than God’s One Son.

The problem is, Jesus continues, that we really do believe in them… and don’t realize we do.

He also says that once the first law is set in motion the other four automatically follow, and that you can’t have or believe in any one of them without the rest. It’s like a super slippery sliding board, where once you start you can’t stop till you crash at the bottom, ie. into the world we think we’re in.

Another way to look at these laws (or stages in our process of establishing an alternate ego identity)… is to review the Chart and see how these are the ego’s five steps that we seem to take away from our awareness and experience of our true Identity in Heaven. That separation and descent into hell is actually impossible to do (even tho part of us wants to believe we did), and the Course calls that fact the Atonement Principle.

of The Ego

————————–

Here they are in a nutshell:

The Laws of Chaos

The first three laws take place internally in us in what the Course calls the wrong mind:

1) “The truth is different for everyone.”

Our belief in sin: Differences are real, and those differences are important! There is a hierarchy of illusions. (in defiance of the first miracle principle: there is no hierarchy of miracles.)

2) “Each one must sin, and therefore deserves attack and death.”

Our belief in guilt: we did really sin, it was really terrible, and we will be punished.

3) “For if God cannot be mistaken, He must accept His Son’s belief in what he is, and hate him for it.”

Our belief in fear: we make up a God that is as crazy as we are, and we should be afraid! For He also believes we have sinned and we will be punished. But: we simply made up a God in our separated “image and likeness,” and then we told Him how He should think and feel, especially about us.

————

The 4th and 5th laws take place in the world (reflecting the first three laws of sin, guilt and fear in all our worldly relationships):

4) “This seeming law is the belief you have what you have taken.”

Special hates: In a savage world the kind cannot be kind. They must take or else be taken from, by others who are worse than themselves. The Course calls these our special hate relationships.

5) “The final principle…holds there is a substitute for love (as crazy as it sounds, the Course calls this substitute: Fear!).”

Special loves: That substitute is hidden in my brother’s body and personhood, and he must be destroyed, in sometimes seemingly subtle ways… to get it back. We do this in disguise with the “face of innocence,” a pretend niceness and disingenuous kindness, and without a real appreciation for our brothers or ourselves. I ‘need’ you to show me fear… that you ‘need’ me and are afraid that you will one day lose me, thru abandonment or death. (described in Ch. 31, Self-Concept vs. Self, p.656)

Ken Wapnick calls this substitute for love, not our true innocence as one Son of God, but the special innocence, special love or attention, that we as egos desperately need to sustain our individual made-up selves. To get this recognition of special innocence from others, we must cannibalize others to demand and ‘devour’ their time, energy, and regard. This process takes the forms of manipulation, control, threat, and compromise.

—————

Even in the world of time and space, so called “life” must eat other “life” in order to survive and maintain itself. This is simply a projection of the first law of chaos. My truth, or identity, is different from God’s truth.

And in order to be different and separate from our Father in Heaven, we believe we had to sever (kill) our connection with Him and steal (eat) a piece of His Life and run away with it. Thus the ego’s laws come full circle in the fourth, and especially fifth law of chaos… the special love relationship, the ego’s most boasted weapon. (Text p.341, par. 3).

I take, bargain, compromise with you… whatever it takes to get from you what I think i need… attention, esteem , ‘love,’ etc. in order to maintain and feel better about my chosen belief in this ego self.

Jesus tells us in Chapter 23:

¹⁸ “You would maintain, and think it true, that you do not believe these senseless laws, nor act upon them. And when you look at what they say, they cannot be believed.

Brother, you do believe them.

For how else could you perceive the form they take, with content such as this? Can any form of this be tenable? Yet you believe them for the form they take, and do not recognize the content. It never changes. Can you paint rosy lips upon a skeleton, dress it in loveliness, pet it and pamper it, and make it live? And can you be content with an illusion that you are living?

¹⁹ There is no life outside of Heaven. Where God created life, there life must be. In any state apart from Heaven life is illusion. At best it seems like life; at worst, like death. Yet both are judgments on what is not life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning. Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is not in Heaven is not anywhere. Outside of Heaven, only the conflict of illusion stands; senseless, impossible and beyond all reason, and yet perceived as an eternal barrier to Heaven. Illusions are but forms. Their content is never true.”

(par. 18-19 p. 493)

—————–

Think about these laws and notice your reaction to them. Do they even seem credible?

Does any one of them particularly stand out?

How would you describe each of them in your own words?

For further discussion of the “Laws of Chaos”… what they mean, how they play out in our special relationships, and most importantly how they can be acknowledged and released… listen to Ken Wapnick’s CD set or MP3 download @ facim.org,

One Hour Video Introduction to

“A Course in Miracles,”

by the SFACIM,

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with a little history and a brief explanation of the Course’s metaphysics and its unique version of the forgiveness and healing process… click here

Also: Twenty Minute Video…

on A Course in Miracles Basic Understanding of Forgiveness using Ken Wapnick’s Chart:

To register to receive the Zoom Class Link for Our Weekly Live Online SFACIM Classes… click here

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Current Weekly Class Schedule: click here

“Back-to-Basics”

22 Recorded Class Replays for Beginners…

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Our 22 recorded class videos in our Back-to-Basic series for beginners are available to those who are currently donating a minimum of $30 a month to the School for ACIM…

The series is a consecutively developed series of twenty-two videos that will introduce the new person to the fundamental themes of forgiveness and healing in ACIM, designed to have each class (about 75-90 minutes each) build and expand on the previous one.

Your monthly donation also gives you access to hundreds of other SFACIM class replays on many ACIM topics.

It includes the SFACIM Chapter-by-Chapter Series on the Text of ACIM (with 195 classes).

We will email you the link to access all these class video replays on the day that you begin your monthly donation of $30 or more.

** Other option: Or you can also make a one time donation of $50 to receive the link only for the Beginner Back-to-Basic Series of 22 Video replays…

Choosing Which ACIM Book… ?

There are currently many versions of A Course in Miracles Books on the market. In all of the School for A Course in Miracles classes and Immersions, we only use, and recommend getting:

Online Course Immersion

Four Month Intensive from January thru April, 2025,

Saturdays, Jan. thru April.

9:30am-11am Mt Time

Designed for New “A Course in Miracles” Students…

and anyone desiring to immerse themselves in a profound understanding and practice of the Course.

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The Three Steps of Forgiveness in ACIM:

1) “The world I see… is an outward picture of an inward condition.”

[from Ch.21, p. 445, par.1]

I start with my judgements of others:

What if the real source of my own pain/discomfort/anxiety is not coming from the world? What if it’s coming from somewhere deep inside me… a place the Course calls my mind?

Workbook Lesson #5 says ” I’m never upset for the reason I think.” What if that’s true?

The Course reminds us: the seeming “outward” source of pain is simply my projection of my own inner guilt for pushing God out of my own awareness. The real source of all pain and guilt is always in my mind.

The ego has been described as… edging God out (e-g-o).

2) The Made-up Inner Condition of Separation, Inside in My Mind

(not my ‘self ‘ in the world, but my seeming identity as a separated Son of God):

What if I could not really push Jesus or the Holy Spirit away and choose to be a make-believe separated self, even if I thought I wanted to?

What if in spite of all the bad I think I have done to others, to myself, to Jesus… all my hateful judgements, all ‘my stuff’… what if Jesus is in my mind right here, right now, smiling at me… telling me in his smile he still loves me and my innocence is still intact?

If it were possible to see past my own “sins” and my judgements of myself, and experience my true innocence as a son of God, would I be willing to ask the Holy Spirit’s help to do that?

When I’m willing to “go there” in my mind, and feel Jesus presence, I begin to realize that nothing I thought or did … has ever affected my true essence, or kept Jesus away.

See Lesson # 34… “I could see peace (ie, experience peace in my mind), instead of this (choosing the ego and its belief in separation).“

3) The State of Peace

I (the internal decision maker in my mind) then experience true peace.

True peace of mind then is experienced after the first 2 steps in which I ask and let the Holy Spirit to help me to recognize and remove my own made-up blocks to my awareness of peace …

I now begin to realize that God not only loves the other person’s true reality… but God also still loves my own true innocent self too!

And then, even tho I’m still seeing the images of seeming separation… I begin to experience an awareness that our seeming separated selves were not our true selves at all, and that we are actually still the same one Self, God’s innocent Son forever intact.

This recognition is the real miracle.

In the first two steps we need to willingly and actively ask Jesus and/or the Holy Spirit for help in the process of letting go of blame (first of others, then ourselves). In the third step we simply experience peace through the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit clears us of all our made-up pain from our belief in sin, guilt, and fear in the first two steps. These were our own make-believe “blocks to the awareness of love’s presence” (mentioned in the Course’s opening Introduction to the Text on page one).

The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence… (Text p. 1)

The Holy Spirit helps us to recognize and let go of our own blocks to knowing peace and love, which were simply our judgements of others and ourselves… then what’s left is our experience of true peace.

Course References to The Three Steps of Forgiveness:

Here are some Course places that mention the three steps…

1) WB Les. 23 p.34

I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts (my judgments of others and myself).

This first reference, par. 5 sentence two, is the shortest but probably the most succinct:

par. 5:

———–

2) WB les. 52 p.84 par.2

I see only the past.

———–

3) WB les. 56 p. 92 par.2

Above all else I want to see.

———–

4) Text p.90 par.6

———–

5) Text p.131 par.5

———–

*** 6) Manual p.86 par.6 (Lyn Corona’s favorite on 3 steps)

There are other references that we may find that will stand out to each of us… and when in doubt, ask Jesus for help to lead us somewhere in the Course he may want us to look.

One, Two, Three…

Another way of briefly describing the three steps of forgiveness is the following…

Ken Wapnick used to say that projecting our internal made-up guilt onto the world and our bodies… was “a maladaptive solution to a non-existent problem.”

The solution that didn’t work (maladaptive) was projecting our guilt onto others to try to get rid of it. All that did was reinforce our inner unrecognized belief that guilt was alive and well inside us…

The real problem was always our own belief in sin and guilt in our own mind (which was actually made-up, ie. ‘non-existent’ in the first place).

This is the Course’s uniquely non-traditional, yet practical process of forgiveness.

For further discussion on the three forgiveness steps,

**on A Course in Miracles Basic Understanding of Forgiveness using Ken Wapnick’s Chart:**

**Your monthly donation also gives you access to hundreds of other SFACIM class replays on many ACIM topics.**

**It includes the SFACIM Chapter-by-Chapter Series on the Text of ACIM (with 195 classes).**

Other option: Or you can also make a one time donation of $50 to receive the link only for the Beginner Back-to-Basic Series of 22 Video replays…**

**There are currently many versions of A Course in Miracles Books on the market. In all of the School for A Course in Miracles classes and Immersions, we only use, and recommend getting:**

**Workbook Lesson #5 says ” I’m never upset for the reason I think.” What if that’s true?**

**See Lesson # 34… “I could see peace (ie, experience peace in my mind), instead of this (choosing the ego and its belief in separation).“**

**Ken Wapnick used to say that projecting our internal made-up guilt onto the world and our bodies… was “a maladaptive solution to a non-existent problem.”**

**The real problem was always our own belief in sin and guilt in our own mind (which was actually made-up, ie. ‘non-existent’ in the first place).**

**This is the Course’s uniquely non-traditional, yet practical process of forgiveness.**