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ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections 

 LESSON 59 ~ REVIEW I
[Review of Lesson 41-45]

Love and blessings, Sarah 

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Quotes in this article are from Foundation for Inner Peace edition; To locate the same quotes in the 'Original Edition', use this link:  http://www.jcim.net/acim_us/Acim.php    

A Course in Miracles   
TEXT 

Chapter Five

Healing and Wholeness

IX. The Eternal Fixation          

⁸³ The idea of "set" is among the better psychological concepts. Actually, it is used quite frequently in the Bible and also in this course under many different terms. For example, "God will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed (or set) on Him," a statement which means that God's peace is set in the Holy Spirit because it is fixed on God. It is also fixed in you. You, then, are fixed in the peace of God. The concept of "fixation" is also a very helpful one which Freud understood perfectly. Unfortunately, he lost his understanding because he was afraid and, as you know all too well, fear is incompatible with good judgment. Fear distorts thinking and therefore disorders thought.

⁸⁴ Freud's system of thought was extremely ingenious because Freud was extremely ingenious, and a mind must endow its thoughts with its own attributes. This is its inherent strength, although it may misuse its power. Freud lost much of the potential value of his thought system because he did not include himself in it. This is a dissociated state because the thinker cuts himself off from his thoughts. Freud's thought was so conflicted that he could not have retained his sanity as he saw it without dissociation. That is why the many contradictions which are quite apparent in his thinking became increasingly less apparent to him. A man who knows what fixation really means and yet does not yield to it is terribly afraid.

⁸⁵ Fixation is the pull of God, on whom your mind is fixed because of the Holy Spirit's irrevocable set. "Irrevocable" means "cannot be called back or redirected." The irrevocable nature of the Holy Spirit's set is the basis for His unequivocal Voice. The Holy Spirit never changes His mind. Clarity of thought cannot occur under conditions of vacillation. Unless a mind is fixed in its purpose, it is not clear. Clarity literally means the state of light, and enlightenment is understanding. Enlightenment stands under perception because you have denied it as the real foundation of thought. This is the basis for all delusional systems.

⁸⁶ The concept of fixation as Freud saw it has a number of learning advantages. First, it recognizes that man can be fixated at a point in development which does not accord with a point in time. This clearly could have been a means toward real release from the time belief, had Freud pursued it with an open mind. Freud, however, suffered all his life from refusal to allow eternity to dawn upon his mind and enlighten it truly. As a result, he overlooked now entirely and merely saw the continuity of past and future.

⁸⁷ Second, although Freud misinterpreted what the Holy Spirit told him, or better, reminded him of, he was too honest to deny more than was necessary to keep his fear in tolerable bounds as he perceived the situation. Therefore, he emphasized that the point in development at which the mind is fixated is more real to itself than the external reality with which it disagrees. This again could have been a powerful release mechanism had Freud not decided to involve it in a strong defense system because he perceived it as an attack.

⁸⁸ Third, although Freud interpreted fixation as involving irrevocable "danger points" to which the mind could always regress, the concept can also be interpreted as an irrevocable call to sanity which the mind cannot lose. Freud himself could not accept this interpretation, but throughout his thought system, the "threat" of fixation remained and could never be eliminated by any living human being. Essentially, this was the basis of Freud's pessimism, personally as well as theoretically. He tried every means his very inventive mind could devise to set up a form of therapy which could enable the mind to escape from fixation forever, even though he knew this was impossible.

⁸⁹ This knowledge plagued Freud's belief in his own thought system at every turn because he was both an honest man and a healer. He was therefore only partially insane and was unable to relinquish the hope of release even though he could not cope with it. The reason for this amount of detail is because you are in the same position. You were eternally fixated on God in your creation, and the pull of this fixation is so strong that you will never overcome it. The reason is perfectly clear. The fixation is on a level so high that it cannot be surmounted. You are always being pulled back to your Creator because you belong to Him.

⁹⁰ Do you really believe you can make a voice that can drown out His? Do you really believe that you can devise a thought system which can separate you from His? Do you really believe that you can plan for your safety and joy better than He can? You need be neither careful nor careless; you need merely cast your cares upon Him because He careth for you. You are His care because He loves you. His Voice reminds you always that all hope is yours because of His care. You cannot choose to escape His care because that is not His Will, but you can choose to accept His care and use the infinite power of His care for all those He created by it.

⁹¹ There have been many healers who did not heal themselves. They have not moved mountains by their faith because their faith was not whole. Some of them have healed the sick at times, but they have not raised the dead. Unless the healer heals himself, he does not believe that there is no order of difficulty in miracles. He has not learned that every mind God created is equally worthy of being healed because God created it whole. You are merely asked to return to God the mind as He created it. He asks you only for what He gave, knowing that this giving will heal you. Sanity is wholeness, and the sanity of your brothers is yours.

⁹² Why should you listen to the endless insane calls which you think are made upon you when you know the Voice of God Himself is in you? God commended His Spirit to you and asks that you commend yours to Him. He wills to keep it in perfect peace because you are of one mind and spirit with Him. Excluding yourself from the Atonement is the ego's last-ditch defense of its own existence. It reflects both the ego's need to separate and your willingness to side with its separateness. This willingness means that you do not want to be healed.

⁹³ But the time is now. You have not been asked to work out the plan of salvation yourselves because, as I told you before, the remedy is not of your making. God Himself gave you the perfect correction for everything you have made which is not in accord with His holy Will. I have made His plan perfectly explicit to you and have also told you of your part in His plan and how urgent it is that you fulfill it. There is time for delay, but there need not be. God weeps at the "sacrifice" of His Children, who believe they are lost to Him.

⁹⁴ I have already told you that whenever you are not wholly joyous it is because you have reacted with a lack of love to some Soul which God created. Perceiving this as "sin," you become defensive because you expect attack. The decision to react in this way, however, is yours and can therefore be undone. It cannot be undone by repentance in the usual sense because this implies guilt. If you allow yourself to feel guilty, you will reinforce the error rather than allow it to be undone for you.

⁹⁵ Decisions cannot be difficult. This is obvious if you realize that you must already have made a decision not to be wholly joyous if that is how you feel. Therefore, the first step in the undoing is to recognize that you actively decided wrongly but can as actively decide otherwise. Be very firm with yourselves in this, and keep yourselves fully aware of the fact that the undoing process, which does not come from you, is nevertheless within you because God placed it there. Your part is merely to return your thinking to the point at which the error was made and give it over to the Atonement in peace. Say to yourselves the following as sincerely as you can, remembering that the Holy Spirit will respond fully to your slightest invitation:

⁹⁶ I must have decided wrongly because I am not at peace.
    I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.
    I will to decide otherwise because I want to be at peace.
    I do not feel guilty because the Holy Spirit will undo
    all the consequences of my wrong decision if I will let Him.
    I will to let Him, by allowing Him to decide for God for Me.

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