ACIM The Escape from Darkness P 3. Darkness is lack of light as sin is lack of love. P 4 The emptiness engendered by fear must be replaced by forgiveness.
IV. The Escape from Darkness 3, 4
IV. The Escape from Darkness, P 3
3 Darkness is lack of light as sin is lack of love. It has no unique properties of its own. It is an example of the “scarcity” belief, from which only error can proceed. Truth is always abundant. Those who perceive and acknowledge that they have everything have no needs of any kind. The purpose of the Atonement is to restore everything to you; or rather, to restore it to your awareness. You were given everything when you were created, just as everyone was.
Ok, let me start at the end of this one. I was given everything. I was given everything when I was created. You were, too. Everyone was. So where did it go? Where did my sense of abundance go? Where did my sense of being loved, of being loving, of being lovable go? And where did my confidence, my certainty, go? Jesus says that it didn’t go anywhere and that I still have it all, the peace, the love, the joy, the certainty. He says that the purpose of the Atonement is to bring it all back into my awareness.
Jesus is telling me that if I acknowledge that I have everything, I will have no needs of any kind, and that makes perfect sense. If I really do have everything and the only thing keeping me from enjoying this wealth is my refusal to acknowledge it, then the solution to my poverty is simple. I am reminded of something I heard a long time ago, and the common sense of it caused it to stick.
Here Is a Simple Way to See This
Someone said that if I have a bank account with an endless supply of money, money that is replenished each time I use any of it, then that would be wonderful. Right? But what if I am unaware of the bank account? Technically, I am rich, but what good does it do me? No matter how rich I am, in order to benefit from my wealth, I must acknowledge it.
Now that I have the solution to my sense of lack, all I need to do is use it. Lack is not an evil force keeping me from my good. It is easily overcome. As Jesus says at the beginning of this paragraph, darkness is just the lack of light. So let’s shine some light on this situation. Now that I have been assured that I already have what I want, each time I notice a thought of lack, I know what to do. I deny the lack and thus shine away some darkness. I don’t need to look for abundance; it is already there, waiting for me to see it. The way I uncover it is through my willingness to see.
Unloved and Lonely
I keep doing this every time I see an opportunity. If I feel lonely and unloved, I remember that I have everything I need. I become willing to let go of the belief I could be unloved or even lonely. At first, I don’t know what that is supposed to accomplish or how, but I am willing to suspend my doubt and accept Jesus at his word. And I am willing to allow my mind to be healed and to allow the effects to unfold in my life in unexpected ways.
I can remember a few years ago when I began this process. I didn’t have friends, and I asked for that to change, though I didn’t see how it would. The Course was helping me come out from under the pall of years of depression. If anyone had liked me, I would not have recognized it, and what good is a friend if you don’t know you have one? I was so filled with unquestioned guilt that I didn’t believe I deserved love, so I didn’t let myself feel it. When anyone offered me friendship or love, I couldn’t believe in it and turned away from it.
Turning This Around
As I began the process of watching my thoughts and giving what willingness I had to be corrected, the light of truth showed just enough in my mind to allow me to ask for friendship, or at least to consider it possible to be loved. Thus, my thought (and all thoughts are prayers) are that I would like to have friends. First, I felt the love within myself. I began to accept it for myself. I started liking myself more, and I began to open up to the light of love.
Eventually, as I began to acknowledge that I have love to give, I began to feel the desire to share that love. My life began to fill with people who wanted and needed what I had to give. It took longer for my sense of worth to become strong enough to allow myself to acknowledge that love bounces both ways. But eventually, I began to recognize friendship when it occurred.
Now I understand. Love is what I am. I am an ocean of love. The love flows from me and then returns in great waves which break over me, covering me in love. Then it flows out again, only to return. Before, I was like a lonely creature standing on the shore, dripping wet, wishing for water. When it would break over me again, I would protect myself from its force and garb myself to prevent it’s touching me. I would wish for love but then do everything I could think of to protect myself from its touch. And wonder why I was lonely and unloved.
Shining Away the Darkness
The simplicity of it just astounds me. I am love, and I can’t be without love. I can only pretend I could lack love and defend against it to safeguard my pretense. Love will take whatever form I feel I need. More money. More health. Peace of mind and joy. It is all mine because those are just different experiences of love, and I am love. As I open up and more light shines away the darkness, I see so clearly that I have been hiding my good from myself.
I thought I didn’t deserve it. And I thought I could lose what I got, so it would be less painful not to have at all than to suffer the pain of loss. I thought I was a sinner and needed to be punished. I thought it was important to keep my holiness a secret, or God would find me. Darkness prevailed, but only at my authorization. As soon as I let those thoughts be healed, light flooded my mind, and I saw the truth. I saw that I am love itself. I am abundance of every kind. Not only do I not lack, I cannot lack.
I am learning to disbelieve all proof to the contrary, to question it, and to allow my mind to be healed. As my mind is healed, my thoughts change, and the effects of my thinking naturally change as well. It looks like where there was lack, there is now abundance, but that is an illusion. The truth is that where there was the belief in darkness, the belief in lack, there is now light to see that love was always there because there is nothing else.
IV. The Escape from Darkness, P 4
4 The emptiness engendered by fear must be replaced by forgiveness. That is what the Bible means by “There is no death,” and why I could demonstrate that death does not exist. I came to fulfill the law by reinterpreting it. The law itself, if properly understood, offers only protection. It is those who have not yet changed their minds who brought the “hell-fire” concept into it. I assure you that I will witness for anyone who lets me, and to whatever extent he permits it. Your witnessing demonstrates your belief, and thus strengthens it. Those who witness for me are expressing, through their miracles, that they have abandoned the belief in deprivation in favor of the abundance they have learned belongs to them.
Overwhelming Fear
It’s strange to think of fear as emptiness, as nothing. Fear seems so big and so overwhelming. When I was afraid for my son, fear felt so big that I couldn’t, for a while, feel anything else. It was like it filled me up, and nothing else could fit. When I think of being on a mountain, of driving around it, and not being able to see what is coming toward me from the other side, the fear seems huge. Or especially to think of driving and coming to a switchback. Of having that sensation of driving right off into air before the sharp turn that allows me to hug the mountain again, well, the fear is huge.
Just writing about it, I feel my stomach tighten, and I want to cry. This fear is even worse because it doesn’t make sense. And I don’t know what to do with it, how to let it go. It makes it seem like fear is bigger than God because, so far, I have not been able to give it over to Spirit to be healed. And here is Jesus saying that fear is nothing. Where I think that monstrous fear sits in the dark place in my mind, there is only… emptiness? How strange.
I have not yet been able to replace that particular fear with forgiveness. Maybe I will not in this lifetime achieve that, or maybe I will do it in a few minutes. I trust that this process is unfolding perfectly. At some point, I will forgive the fear of heights, which evidently is really the fear of death. Jesus showed (witnessed to me) that death is not real. He overcame death for himself and for me.
Fear Is Death
Actually, all fear is the fear of death given form. In Lesson 163, Jesus says this about fear and death. Death is a thought that takes on many forms, often unrecognized. ²It may appear as sadness, fear, anxiety or doubt; as anger, faithlessness and lack of trust; concern for bodies, envy, and all forms in which the wish to be as you are not may come to tempt you. (ACIM, W-163.1:1-2) Simply speaking, what is not Life is death. Speaking of fear, Jesus also reassures us that the scary parts of religion are only the result of interpretations by frightened people. When I first read that, it was a great relief.
Learning About Witnessing
Jesus uses the language of Christianity in the Course, sometimes redefining certain terms as he did with the word “forgiveness.” Since I was not raised Protestant, at first, I was confused by the word “witness” as used here. I looked it up in the dictionary, and it said that to witness is to testify to Christian beliefs, and this is done publicly.
I read some passages from the Bible, which didn’t enlighten me especially. But thinking about what I read there and how my protestant friends typically use the word witness, I gather that to witness is to say aloud how God has worked in your life for the purpose of spreading the word.
I was thinking about how this applies to witnessing through miracles. As I perform miracles, I show others that healing the mind works, and this encourages and motivates them to do the work for themselves. I have witnessed the healing of my mind, and that is, indeed, a miraculous experience. At times, as the mind changed, so did the form. But always, my experience of the situation changed as my mind changed.
I can tell you that my life has changed because I trust what Jesus says. But if I show you that I am consistently happier and more peaceful, if you see my life change for the better, my witnessing will be more powerful. For most of my life, I was depressed all the time. I am never depressed now. I used to be afraid of the rage that was always just below the surface and might burst out at any time. Now it is rare for me to be angry, and when I do, it passes quickly.
Jesus Will Witness for Anyone
I used to blame others, and outside circumstances for what happened to me, and I felt sorry for myself a lot. I rarely feel or act like a victim now and readily accept responsibility for everything in my world. Some people notice those changes in me. Or maybe they haven’t known me long enough to compare how I was before to how I am now. But if they want to know how it is that I am happy and peaceful most of the time, I will gladly witness with my words.
Jesus says that he will witness for anyone who lets him and to whatever extent he permits it. He whispers in my heart the truth when I ask for it. One day I started asking Spirit to take me to God and then spending a few moments in that space. I did not have any expectations as to what that might look like to me but just did it in trust. Then on a Thanksgiving morning, when I asked, something happened on a conscious level.
It Is Hard to Articulate This
I have a hard time finding words to match the experience, and I don’t want to explain it into something it was not. That’s so easy to do when I use the thinking mind. But very briefly, I seemed to have a fleeting thought of wondering what God is. I felt enormous power and maybe flinched from it. Then felt love; love like a mighty river flowing endlessly, a constant current of love. Harmless. I cried uncontrollably for a few minutes.
Afterward, I wondered at my reaction, and when I would think of God as benign, non-threatening, and harmless, I would start crying again. Thinking about it, I believe that Spirit witnessed to me. It was done in feelings rather than words, and the feelings were evoked in me.
It was as if Jesus were saying, “Before I can bring you to God, I must show you that you are afraid of Him and allow you to let go of that fear. We can’t do it all at once, but we can touch on it a little this morning.” So maybe this is the kind of thing that Jesus means when he says he witnesses to us as much as we allow.
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