"Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists.
Herein Lies the peace of God."
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A
Course in Miracles
TEXT
CHAPTER 10
God and the Ego
I. Introduction
1
Either God or the ego is insane. If you will examine the evidence on both sides fairly, you will realize that this must be true. Neither God nor the ego proposes a partial thought system. Each is internally consistent, but they are diametrically opposed in all respects so that partial allegiance is impossible. Remember, too, that their results are as different as their foundations, and their fundamentally irreconcilable natures
cannot
be reconciled by your vacillations. Nothing alive is fatherless, for life is creation. Therefore, your decision is always an answer to the question, "Who is my father?" And you will be faithful to the father you choose.
2
Yet what would you say to someone who really believed this question involves conflict? If
you
made the ego, how can the ego have made you? The authority problem remains the only source of perceived conflict because the ego was made out of the wish of God's Son to father Him. The ego, then, is nothing more than a delusional system in which you made your own father. Make no mistake about this. It sounds insane when it is stated with perfect honesty, but the ego never looks upon what it does with perfect honesty. Yet that
is
its insane premise, which is carefully hidden in the dark cornerstone of its thought system. And either the ego, which you made,
is your father, or its whole thought system will not stand.
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A
Course in Miracles
TEXT
CHAPTER 10
God and the Ego
II. Projection Versus Extension
3
You have made by projection, but God has created by extension. The cornerstone of God's creation is you, for His thought system is light. Remember the rays that are there unseen. The more you approach the center of His thought system, the clearer the light becomes. The closer you come to [the foundation of] the ego's thought system, the darker and more obscure becomes the way. Yet even the little spark in your mind is enough to lighten it. Bring this light fearlessly with you and hold it up to the foundation of the ego's thought system bravely. Be willing to judge it with perfect honesty. Open the dark cornerstone of terror on which it rests and bring it out into the light. There you will see that it rests on meaninglessness and that everything of which you have been afraid was based on nothing.
4
My brother, you are part of God and part of me. When you have at last looked at the ego's foundation without shrinking, you will also have looked upon
ours
. I come to you from our Father to offer you everything again. Do not refuse it in order to keep a dark cornerstone hidden, for
its
protection will not save you. I
give
you the lamp and I will go
with
you. You will not take this journey alone. I will lead you to your true Father, Who hath need of you as I have. Will you not answer the call of love with joy?
5
You have learned your need of healing. Would you bring anything else to the Sonship, recognizing your need of healing for yourself? For in this lies the beginning of knowledge, the foundation on which God will help you build again the thought system which you share with Him. Not one stone you place upon it but will be blessed by Him, for you will be restoring the holy dwelling place of His Son, where He wills His Son to be and where he is. In whatever part of the mind of God's Son you restore this reality, you restore it to yourself. For you dwell in the Mind of God with your brother, for God Himself did not will to be alone.
6
To be alone is to be separated from infinity, but how can this be if infinity has no end? No one can be
beyond
the limitless because what has no limits must be everywhere. There are no beginnings and no endings in God, Whose universe is Himself. Can you exclude yourself from the universe or from God, Who
is
the universe? I and my Father are one with
you
, for you are part of
us
. Do you really believe that part of God can be missing or lost to Him.
7
If you were not part of God, His Will would not be unified. Is this conceivable? Can part of His Mind contain nothing? If your place in His Mind cannot be filled by anyone
except
you, and your filling it
was
your creation,
without
you there would be an empty place in God's Mind. Extension cannot be blocked, and it
has
no voids. It continues forever, however much it is denied. Your denial of its reality arrests it in time but
not
in eternity. That is why your creations have not ceased to be extended and why so much is waiting for your return.
8
Waiting is possible
only
in time, but time has no meaning. You who made delay can leave time behind simply by recognizing that neither beginnings nor endings were created by the Eternal, Who placed no limits on His creation nor upon those who create like Him. You do not know this simply because you have tried to limit what
He
created, and so you believe that
all
creation is limited. How, then, could you know your creations, having
denied
infinity? The laws of the universe do not permit contradiction. What holds for God holds for
you
. If you believe
you
are absent from God, you
will
believe that He is absent from
you
.
9
Infinity is meaningless
without
you, and
you
are meaningless without God. There
is
no end to God and His Son, for we
are
the universe. God is not incomplete, and He is not childless. Because He did not will to be alone, He created a Son like Himself. Do not deny Him His Son, for your unwillingness to accept His Fatherhood has denied you
yours
. See His creations as
His
Son, for yours were created in honor of Him. The universe of love does not stop because you do not see it, and your closed eyes have not lost the ability to see. Look upon the glory of His creation, and you will learn what God has
kept
for you.
10
God has given you a place in His Mind which is yours forever. Yet you could keep it only by
giving
it, as it was given
you
. Could
you
be alone there if it was given you because God did not will to be alone? God's Mind cannot
be
lessened. It can
only
be increased, and everything He creates has the function of creating. Love does not limit, and what it creates is not limited. To give without limit is God's Will for you because only this can bring you the joy which is His and which He wills to
share
with you. Your love is as boundless as His because it
is
His.
11
Could any part of God be
without
His love and could any part of His love be contained? God is your heritage because His one gift is Himself. How can you give except like Him if you would know His gift to
you
? Give, then, without limit and without end to learn how much
He
has given
you
. Your ability to
accept
Him depends on your willingness to give as He gives. Your fatherhood and your Father
are
one. God willed to create, and your will is His. It follows, then, that
you
will to create since your will follows from His. And being an extension of His Will, yours must be the same.
12
Yet what you will you do not know. This is not strange when you realize that to deny is to "
not
know." God's Will is that you are His Son. By denying this, you denied your
own
will and therefore do
not
know what it is. The reason you must ask what God's Will is in everything is merely because it
is
yours. You do not know what it is, but the Holy Spirit remembers it
for
you. Ask Him, therefore, what God's Will is for you, and He will tell you
yours
. It cannot be too often repeated that you do
not
know it. Whenever what the Holy Spirit tells you appears to be coercive, it is only because you do not
recognize
your own will.
13
The projection of the ego makes it appear as if God's Will is
outside
yourself and therefore
not
yours. In this interpretation, it
is
possible for God's Will and yours to conflict. God then may
seem
to demand of you what you do not want to give and thus deprive you of what you want. Would God, who wants
only
your will, be capable of this? Your will is His Life, which He has given to you. Even in time you cannot live apart from Him, for sleep is not death. What He created can sleep, but it
cannot
die. Immortality is His Will for His Son and His Son's will for
himself
. God's Son cannot will death for himself because His Father is Life and His Son is like Him. Creation is your will
because
it is His.
14
You cannot be happy unless you do what you will truly, and you cannot change this because it is immutable. It is immutable by God's Will
and yours
, for otherwise His Will would not have been extended. You are afraid to know God's Will because you believe it is
not
yours. This belief is your whole sickness and your whole fear. Every symptom of sickness and fear arises here because this is the belief that makes you
want
not to know. Believing this, you hide in darkness, denying that the light is in you.
15
You are asked to trust the Holy Spirit only because He speaks for
you
. He is the Voice for God, but never forget that God did not will to be alone. He
shares
His Will with you; He does not thrust it
upon
you. Always remember that what He gives, He holds, so that nothing He gives can contradict Him. You who share His Life must share it to know it, for sharing
is
knowing. Blessed are you who learn that to hear the Will of your Father is to know your
own
. For it is
your
will to be like Him, Whose Will it is that it be so. God's Will is that His Son be one, and united with Him in His Oneness. That is why healing is the beginning of the recognition that your will
is
His.
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A Course in Miracles
WORKBOOK
Part I
Review III
1 Our third review begins today. We will review two of the last 20 ideas each day until we have reviewed them all. We will observe a special format for these practice periods which you are urged to follow as closely as you can. We understand, of course, that it may be impossible for you to undertake what is suggested here as optimal each day and every hour of the day.
2 Learning will not be hampered when you miss a practice period because it is impossible at the appointed time. Nor is it necessary that you make excessive efforts to be sure that you catch up in terms of numbers. Rituals are not our aim and would defeat our learning goal.
3 But learning will be hampered when you skip a practice period because you are unwilling to devote the time to it which you are asked to give. Do not deceive yourself in this. Unwillingness can be most carefully concealed behind a cloak of situations you cannot control. Learn to distinguish situations which are poorly suited to your practicing from those which you establish to uphold a camouflage for your unwillingness.
4 Those practice periods which you have lost because you did not want to do them for whatever reason should be done as soon as you have changed your mind about your goal. You are unwilling to cooperate in practicing salvation only if it interferes with goals you hold more dear. When you withdraw the value given them, allow your practice periods to be replacements for your litanies to them. They gave you nothing. But your practice periods offer you everything. Accept their offering and be at peace.
5 The format you should use for these reviews is this: devote five minutes twice a day or longer if you would prefer to contemplating the ideas assigned. Read over the ideas and comments which are written first in each day's exercises. Then begin to think about them quietly, letting your mind relate them to your needs, your seeming problems, and all your concerns.
6 Place the ideas within your mind, and let it use them as it chooses. Give it faith that it will use them wisely, being helped in its decisions by the One Who gave the thoughts to you. What can you trust but what is in your mind? Have faith, in these reviews, the means the Holy Spirit uses will not fail. The wisdom of your mind will come to your assistance. Give it direction at the start, then lean back in quiet faith, and let it use the ideas you have given it as they were given you.
7 You have been given them in perfect trust, in perfect confidence that you would use them well, in perfect faith that you would understand their messages and use them for yourself. Offer them to your mind in that same trust and confidence and faith. It will not fail. It is the Holy Spirit's chosen means for your salvation. And with His trust merits yours as well.
8 We emphasize the benefits to you if you devote the first five minutes of the day to your review and also give the last five minutes of your waking day to it. If this cannot be done, at least try to divide them so you undertake one in the morning, and the other in the hour just before you go to sleep.
9 The exercises to be done throughout the day are equally important and perhaps of even greater value. You have been inclined to do the exercises and then go on to other things, without applying what you learned to them. As a result, your learning has had little reinforcement, and you have not given it the opportunity to prove its worth to you.
10 Here is another chance to use it well. In these reviews we stress the need to let your learning not lie idly by between your longer practice periods. Attempt to give your daily two ideas a brief but serious review each hour. Use one on the hour and the other one a half an hour later. You need not give more than just a moment to each one.
11 Repeat it, and allow your mind to rest a little time in silence and in peace. Then turn to other things, but try to keep the thought with you and let it serve to help you keep your peace throughout the day. If you are shaken, think of it again. These practice periods are planned to help you form the habit of applying what you learn each day to everything you do.
12 Do not repeat it and then lay it down. Its usefulness is limitless to you. And it is meant to serve you in all ways, all times and places, and whenever you need help of any kind. Try, then, to take it with you in the business of the day and make it holy, worthy of God's Son, acceptable to God and to your Self.
13 Each day's review assignment will conclude with a restatement of the thought to use each hour and the one to be applied on each half hour as well. Forget them not. This second chance with each of these ideas will bring such large advances that we come from these reviews with learning gains so great that we begin again on solid ground.
14 Do not forget how little you have learned. Do not forget how much you can learn now. Do not forget your Father's need of you as you review these thoughts He gave to you.
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A Course in Miracles
WORKBOOK
Lesson 115
[Review of Lessons 99-100]
1
For morning and evening review:
[99] Salvation is my only function here.
2
My function here is to forgive the world for all the errors I have made. For thus am I released from them with all the world.
[
100] My part is essential to God's plan for salvation.
3
I am essential to the plan of God for the salvation of the world. For He gave me His plan that I might save the world.
4
On the hour:
5
Salvation is my only function here.
6
On the half hour:
7
My part is essential to God's plan for salvation.
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ACIM Edmonton
Sarah's Reflections
Lesson 115
Review III ~ Lessons 99-100
The focus of this Course is on forgiveness but not in the traditional way we think of forgiveness. It is, instead, as this first line says,
"My function here is to forgive the world for all the errors I have made."
(W.115.(99).1.2) Thus, in Course-based forgiveness, I do not forgive you for your mistakes but only for my own. How can that be? We need to understand that when we thought we had separated from God, we brought with us a load of guilt, which we still carry. The ego offered us a plan on how we might avoid responsibility for the guilt and simply "off-load" it. The ego sold us on an arrangement where we would not need to carry this guilt, as it is overwhelming to us. The ego proposal was for us to project the guilt onto the world with the assurance that this is how we would get rid of it, but that makes others responsible for how we feel. The ego’s plan was for us to blame others for our condition, which meant we give power to the illusion to victimize us. With the projection of our guilt onto others, the ego convinced us that now the guilt would no longer be ours. What the ego does not tell us is that projecting our guilt is actually how we keep it, and not only that, we actually attract even more guilt if we follow its program.
Our minds are like a movie projector, so what we see in the world (on the screen) is like the projection of the film in a projector. Think of the film running through the projector as the guilt in your wrong mind. The light coming through the projector is coming from your right mind and shines pure and clean of any images. It is like the light of your pristine, innocent being. But when there is guilt in the mind, this light is now obscured by dark images. When these dark, shadowy images are projected onto the screen, we experience fear. But when they are cleared away, the pure light can once again come through the projector.
When we think about suicide bombers, murderers, politicians we love to hate, parents who have abused us, and all the many ways "others" seem to cause pain, anger, distress, frustration, revenge, and loss of peace, it is challenging to imagine that they are all innocent. Instead, there may be a desire to retaliate, to make right, and to avenge the hurts we see and experience. Yet it is only our own thoughts about any situation that create pain for us. We project these thoughts of guilt onto others, who have conveniently provided us with the perfect situation to unload our guilt and make them responsible for our misery. Now the ego tells us that they have the guilt while we are innocent. We hope that the God we fear is taking note of these evil-doers, so they will be appropriately punished, and we will be off the hook. Our hope is that He will see who the guilty ones are and accept our innocence. After all, we tell ourselves that we tried so hard in the face of all the attacks we have experienced.
"This sickly picture of yourself is carefully preserved by the ego, whose image it is and which it loves, and placed outside you in the world."
(T.20.III.5.6) (ACIM OE T.20.IV.20)
It does seem that there are some situations and people that are more difficult and thus more challenging for us to release our anger and wish for revenge. The ego does not love us and urges us to keep this cycle of guilt going, even though this keeps us in hell. Jesus reminds us that there is no order of difficulty in the illusion. In other words, there are not some situations worse than others. I like to think of it as similar to my nighttime dreams. If someone robs me and burns down my house in my dream, has anything real happened? If they say an unkind word to me in my dream, would it be any different than my house being burned down? In the dream, it is all the same. It is all illusory. One problem is no bigger than another because neither of them is real. When we wake up, we can easily let it all go. That is what forgiveness does in this worldly dream. Any thought I hold that obscures the love in me from my awareness is painful and creates suffering.
Forgiveness is the only thing that breaks the cycle of sin, guilt, and fear. When we take responsibility for our murderous thoughts, our attacks, our hatred, and all emotions arising in us as a result of what we perceive "outside" ourselves, we take our first step in healing. When we hang onto grievances and see others as responsible for how we feel, we give all our power away. Forgiveness depends on understanding that nothing is happening outside of our own minds.
"It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition."
(T.21.IN.1.5) (ACIM OE T.21.I.1) Yet we have made an adjustment to this world that we believe is real and solid.
"And to this world must you adjust as long as you believe this picture is outside, and has you at its mercy."
(T.20.III.5.7) (ACIM OE T.20.IV.20) There is no world. Thus, forgiveness requires that we recognize we are forgiving nothing except our own interpretations.
Since there is just one mind and we all participate in this one mind, when we heal our thoughts, we are healing the world. The events that trigger our emotions and seem to cause us to lose our peace are precisely where our healing lies. We must look at our thoughts and emotions without judgment. See them for what they are---just thoughts. They have no power over us. For example, if I hate anyone whom I see as an enemy or wicked person and want him or her dead, I have an opportunity to look at the vengeance that is in
my
mind. As I release my judgments and my guilt, I can know peace.
This is what Jesus means by accepting the Atonement for myself. It is all about accepting the healing of my mind and opening to the miracle. To accept the Atonement is to accept the correction. We are not responsible for the error, but only for the correction. That is the only place where change can happen. This is how I learn about my true nature and know my true innocence. False innocence is what we try to achieve when we blame others for our loss of peace by seeing them as the guilty ones. We hope God sees how they are victimizing us and punishes them so we can get off scot-free! With true innocence, healing is extended through us to everyone. Rather than judging anyone for their misbehavior, we now see a call for love and understanding. It is our own inner call to recognize that there is nothing but love, no matter what it looks like.
"My function here is to forgive the world for all the errors I have made. For thus am I released from them with all the world."
(W.115.(99).1.2-3) It is only my errors I need to have removed from my mind. I have simply diverted blame from myself to others. All that I need to forgive is what I am holding in my own wrong mind. This Lesson is giving us another opportunity to look at our needs, concerns, and problems as coming from our own minds. Since the cause is in the mind, so is the solution. We are responsible for our own happiness. We have the power within us to heal our judgments and release the blocks to love through forgiveness. We cannot do this if we judge ourselves for our errors. Look at your mistakes with non-judgment. Look with the loving presence of Jesus, who will never judge you but will support your journey of healing every step of the way.
Getting in touch with our own innocence is a beautiful gift that we all yearn for. Guilt is a heavy burden on our minds. The only way to release it is to recognize our errors by being vigilant in watching our minds. When we ever have forgiven anyone even partially, we recognize what a burden is lifted from the mind. It releases us from the chains that bind us to the person we have not forgiven. Our mood lightens, our joy bubbles up, peace is restored, and stress is released. It is a wonder we don't commit to forgiving all the time with such gifts that we receive.
We need to stay vigilant to opportunities presented to us to forgive. These come up when we stand in line at the grocery store and get impatient, when we watch the news and get angry at events we see, when we get cut off in traffic, when a telemarketer calls at dinner time, when our investments crash, when the coke machine keeps our money and the coke as well, when a friend is always late, when our children disappoint us, and on and on. That is the nature of this classroom we call our lives. We become happy learners when we use these opportunities for forgiveness. We get to the point where we even welcome them. This Lesson reminds us that we are forgiving someone for what they did not do precisely because nothing here is real. It is our dream that we are dreaming. It is all coming from our own minds.
Imagine, no matter what we think we are doing on this planet, no matter what we think our function is, whatever role we play, nurse, teacher, lawyer, student, parent, daughter, son, computer analyst, hairdresser -- none of these are reasons for why we are here. They are just the backdrop for healing the mind and recognizing our own power. We are only here to learn forgiveness, which is our only function. The world is a classroom for this learning and serves no other purpose.
Jesus tells us that when our unconscious guilt is brought to the light and healed, we will see a different world. It is the world that vision will reveal to us.
"When you perceive yourself without deceit, you will accept the real world in place of the false one you have made."
(T.11. VIII.15.4) (ACIM OE T.10.VIII.90) When the guilt is released, the real world will be revealed.
Love and blessings, Sarah
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