ACIM Daily Lesson 332 Fear binds the world. Forgiveness sets it free. 1. The ego makes illusions. ²Truth undoes its evil dreams by shining them away.
Fear binds the world. Forgiveness sets it free.
Lesson 332
Fear binds the world. Forgiveness sets it free.
1. The ego makes illusions. ²Truth undoes its evil dreams by shining them away. ³Truth never makes attack. ⁴It merely is. ⁵And by its presence is the mind recalled from fantasies, awaking to the real. ⁶Forgiveness bids this presence enter in, and take its rightful place within the mind. ⁷Without forgiveness is the mind in chains, believing in its own futility. ⁸Yet with forgiveness does the light shine through the dream of darkness, offering it hope, and giving it the means to realize the freedom that is its inheritance.
2. We would not bind the world again today. ²Fear holds it prisoner. ³And yet Your Love has given us the means to set it free. ⁴Father, we would release it now. ⁵For as we offer freedom, it is given us. ⁶And we would not remain as prisoners, while You are holding freedom out to us.
Jesus has assured us that we are safe and that we are free.
He tells us that the only reason we think otherwise is that we believe that dreams are reality. As we undo these beliefs we are, for a while, conflicted. The world appears very real to us, and the body, with all its sensations, feels immediate and important. What we have made seems to prove that Jesus is wrong. On the other hand, the truth is in our minds. And even if we seem not to be consciously aware of it, we feel the call.
Peace calls us, and at the same time, fear can be compelling, and at the least, it is a habitual thought pattern. We might be afraid of sickness. Or we might be afraid of heights or the dentist. Most parents are afraid for their children. Some people are afraid of not having enough. Others are afraid of their guilt. The world makes some of these fears seem all too real, and sometimes there is nothing to account for the fears. We often go to ridiculous lengths to defend ourselves from our imagined fears. However, we seldom do anything to end them.
Jesus offers us a sure way to freedom. In A Course in Miracles, he tells us that forgiveness will make way for light to enter the mind and dispel the darkness. Forgiveness doesn’t make the problem real; it simply lets it go. The presence of truth then takes its place and we begin to remember who we are. When we awaken, we know that the world is not real and that we are. We know that who we are cannot be affected by what happens in dreams. And thus, fear fades away because there is nothing to fear.
My experience with fear is that I had to let go of it a little at a time.
I think this is probably almost everyone’s experience. I still have fearful thoughts, but I have few that I believe and none I would keep. When I was younger, and before my mind began to heal, fear drove everything I did. But as I learned to question all beliefs and to change my mind about most of them, this changed. As fears fell away, there was more light in my mind and thus less belief in the world. This is how I forgive the world.
This positive cycle of forgiveness lighting the mind to reveal the truth makes it progressively easier. It is the way I live now, but there are times when I stubbornly cling to a fear thought, and once again, it seems hard to release. I’m not fooled, though. “Seemingly” hard is the word because, in reality, nothing is hard to release. You just let it go. What is really happening when it seems like I cannot let go of fear is that there is some underlying belief that needs my attention. When that happens, I just continue to direct my mind to the truth. Eventually, it will shift as it must, being my good servant.
I spent most of my life in a fantasy world of attack and defense, guilt and fear.
But since I am not living like that anymore, I completely understand what is being said here. I really get that it was fear that held me bound to those beliefs for a long time. I also understand that it was forgiveness that dissolved those bonds.
As I forgave the belief that an attack got me anything I wanted, I forgave the idea that defending myself made me feel safe. I forgave the idea that grievances somehow protected me and that suffering gained me anything. I finally forgave the belief in guilt. Though I still see the strands of those beliefs trying to find a home in my mind, there is not much for them to stick to now.
I had a strange thing happen one night as I was falling asleep. I had a sudden fear course through me that there was something dark hovering above me or in the room with me. Immediately, I questioned that belief, thinking that couldn’t be right. The next thing I remember is waking up this morning. I am supposed to close my day with something true in my mind. I used to be pretty vigilant in doing this but became lax in that practice. this encouraged me to go back to doing it.
Regina’s Tips
Our new special theme begins by saying, “The ego is idolatry…”
We can stop right there. Already we have something to contemplate.
What is idolatry?
Idolatry is extreme admiration, love, or reverence for something or someone.
Ego is that which admires, loves, and reveres some thing. Ego is that which keeps us engaged in outward focus.
My Thoughts
This is something to think about. When Regina was explaining the principles of God, she said this about our return Home: “… returning in the way we came. We began at Home, in the First Principle of God as our Self. In this Self, however, there is no sense of self. There is awareness, but not awareness of. There is Truth without a subject to be aware of Truth.” This is why we are absent the ego.
So the ego is the “something” outside of the Self. It is the belief that there is something outside to admire, love, or revere. All That Is is already within, but we seek an idol that is not within, and then we pretend we found it where we sought it. This idol never satisfies, no matter what form it takes, but we keep trying to make it work.
We love chocolate. We love a particular person, and We love our children. Or maybe we love our work. The ego is the search for something to love, something to idolize. And because the ego is also the idea of separation, as it must be if it is fantasizing an “outside”, there is also an idol to hate. We hate some foods, some people, some circumstances, even those we love, we hate at times. It’s just the way of the ego, and the only solution is to awaken from the ego belief.
Regina
Fear is defined as an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain or a threat.
When it comes to the ego, fear is actually the belief that the absence of someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain or a threat.
Today’s lesson says, “ego makes illusions.” Another way of saying that is outward focus makes illusions. We could also say attachment to objects, including thoughts, makes illusions.
The lesson also says that “Truth undoes” these same illusions.
In our last special theme, we saw that truth is the opposite of illusions. That means it must also be the opposite of outward focus.
Of course, the opposite of outward focus is inward focus.
My Thoughts
I wonder how many times I convinced myself that someone or something “out there” was my problem and the solution also lay out there. Here is an example I wrote about this as part of one of my courses a while back.
In the past, if I had a problem, I would try to figure out how to fix it. I would think about what seemed to work in the past and what didn’t work. I might read a book by an expert or ask someone who should know. Using the thinking mind to work things out is the same thing as asking the ego what the situation means and how to manipulate it to give me the results I am looking for in light of my understanding of the problem.
The reason this doesn’t work most of the time is that I asked the ego to define the problem. Now I might be working on the right problem, but the chances are I am not. For instance, my ex-husband is an alcoholic. He would make decisions while in a drunken state which led to problems. I asked the ego (or, as I thought of it then, I used common sense) to figure out what the problem was and what to do about it.
Based on this ‘common sense, the answer seemed obvious to me.
His drinking was the reason I was so upset, so fearful, and angry, and the solution was that he should stop. I worked out in my mind how to get him to do that. I used reason, threats, pleading, and of course, guilt. Nothing worked, and eventually, I left him thinking that this was the final solution. It wasn’t. We had a son together, and so our lives are still interconnected, and I had to revisit the whole problem again recently.
This time when I had to deal with him and with his alcoholism, it was very different. He was drinking at a very inappropriate time and in a way that could be harmful to others. Because of our connection through our son, it was now in my life. At first, I was appalled and angry by his actions. But that didn’t last long, only a few minutes, really.
The reason I didn’t stay angry is that I realized that I had judged him, and this happened because I fell back on old methods of dealing with problems, probably because this was an old problem. But as soon as I saw what was happening, I changed my mind. I stopped asking the ego what the situation meant, and I asked the Holy Spirit instead.
It became very clear that I had no reason to expect anything else from him.
He is living the story of an alcoholic, and unless the alcoholic has managed their disease, then the alcoholic drinks. I realized that there was no reason for me to be angry and upset about it. I didn’t feel like judging him, and I never mentioned anything about it. My daughter and I figured out what to do about the situation to make it better, and we did it.
There was only one reason the two situations were so different. In the first, I was confused about the problem. I was upset and afraid, and I used the ego thinking mind to come to the conclusion that my husband was the problem. In the second, I was upset and afraid, and I used the Holy Spirit to come to the conclusion that my reaction to this situation was a choice I was making, and I was the problem.
This was good because, while I cannot change him, I absolutely can change me. I did just that as I saw that I didn’t have to react in fear and anger. I reacted with love and acceptance instead. My mind was clear, and I received inspiration on how to deal with it. This is why I don’t use the darkened mind to bring light to any situation. It can’t.
Past entry about special relationships
A few years ago, after a conversation with my son, I began to think that I had said the wrong thing and that I upset him, and that maybe I was wrong. I felt very anxious about this and didn’t know what to do. I let my mind run with these thoughts, and soon I was in fear, and the fear paralyzed me. So, I know what Jesus means when he says that fear holds us prisoner because that is how it felt to me. Thankfully, I did find my way through this, and with the Holy Spirit’s guidance, I was able to forgive the situation and gain my freedom.
I got there as I looked carefully at my feelings and realized that I was afraid of losing his love and affection. I was afraid of damaging this relationship that is very “special” to me. Though I recognized the error in my thinking, that didn’t seem to relieve the fear. I asked Holy Spirit to look with me, and I expressed the willingness to use this situation to heal my thinking.
“Holy Spirit, I need help. I don’t know what to do about this. I am willing to have this resolved one way or another, but I don’t want to drag it out forever. But I want to have my peace back, and I want to be happy again. What should I do to crack open this fear?”
Holy Spirit: Fear keeps you bound, sweet child.
Special relationships awaken fear in the mind because their specialness is incongruent with your reality. You are one, you are whole, there is nothing lacking in you, and yet the very thought of specialness is one of separation and lack. As long as you treasure one relationship above another, you will live in fear of loss because you have separated out a part of yourself and seemed to have made it different from yourself. Now, in your mind and therefore in your experience, though not, in reality, you are no longer whole. This is frightening.
Me: Yes, I can see what you mean. I have made this relationship with my child special, and so it seems to be something outside wholeness. Now I fear it will be snatched from me or lost in some way. Yet, to think of voluntarily giving up my special relationships feels like a loss, too. I can at least defend against the loss if it is threatened from without, but to just give it to You without a fight seems like an immediate and irrevocable loss. I know this is wrong-minded thinking, and I know that you have talked to me about this before, but in my fear of loss, my mind becomes muddled.
Holy Spirit: Do you remember the prayer I gave you?
“Please take the specialness from this relationship and leave only the love.” I am not asking you to sacrifice your relationship. I am asking you to let me remove the guilt, pain, and suffering from it. Would you be willing to trust me to do this? I am not going to leave you with less but will restore wholeness to your memory.
The fear and the pain that you often experience in your relationships are not things added to the relationship, but rather they are empty holes, the result of trying to break love into parts. As you give up wanting your “loved one” to fill those holes for you, you will understand that you lack nothing, and so need nothing from that person. Will that be a loss? I say to you that giving up the belief that you need something from someone is not loss.
As you remember that you are whole and need nothing, you have everything to offer and will offer it without hesitation. While you still believe you need something from your child, the only thing that passes between you is trade agreements. You give this, and in return, he gives that. That is not love, my friend. This sad exchange could only pass for love in an insane world. This is the only thing you are asked to sacrifice. And this is no sacrifice at all.
Me: And if he doesn’t like what I said and he withholds his affection from me?
This feels like loss to me, Holy Spirit, and it is not something I want to experience. I know that sounds pathetic, but it is what I feel. But I am willing to chance this heartbreak. I am willing to hear You.
Holy Spirit: You are giving Me your willingness to sacrifice, and I assure you I have no need of your sacrifice. You want me to prove to you that you lose nothing when you give Me the relationship you have with your child. You want that proof before you give it to me, and that is not possible. The proof comes in the giving. You know this is true as you have done this before. You are listening to the ego in your mind and are allowing it to confuse you.
Me: Ah, yes. That is right. I have trusted you many times, and I have never been disappointed. You have never asked me to give up anything except that which hurts me. Thank you, Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit has spoken to me of surrender.
As I am writing this, I realize that my biggest fear in this idea of surrender is related to the situation with my son. If I completely surrendered, I am saying that I am not going to try to control the outcome. I am not going to write a conciliatory email. I am not even going to want a particular outcome.
Surrender means letting go of all sense of control on the level of the ego. This situation would not be in my experience if I did not desire to experience it, so I am going to surrender to the experience. I am going to trust myself and trust my son. Myron is a thought in the mind of the Son, and so is my son. I am going to let him have his experience, not out of a sense of sacrifice but out of trust and love. I have taken many small steps toward giving my special relationships to the Holy Spirit to be transformed into holy relationships. This is another step, and I am glad to take it.
Contemplation 2025
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