ACIM Chapter 10. V. The Denial of God, P 3, 4

ACIM Chapter 10. V. The Denial of God, P 3, 4

V. The Denial of God, P 3

3. Allegiance to the denial of God is the ego’s religion. ²The god of sickness obviously demands the denial of health, because health is in direct opposition to its own survival. ³But consider what this means to you. ⁴Unless you are sick you cannot keep the gods you made, for only in sickness could you possibly want them. ⁵Blasphemy, then, is self-destructive, not God-destructive. ⁶It means that you are willing not to know yourself in order to be sick. ⁷This is the offering your god demands because, having made him out of your insanity, he is an insane idea. ⁸He has many forms, but although he may seem to be many different things he is but one idea;—the denial of God.

Sometimes as I read what has actually occurred in the mind in order to experience separation, I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. When I deny God, which I do every time I indulge in ego thinking, the drama, the guilt and fear, the pain and suffering, I deny not only God but also my Self. I deny what I am.

I have looked at a lot of thoughts and beliefs.

In the past, I had hidden them from myself. I saw the belief that I was unfairly treated, and I felt so sorry for myself that it made me cry. Sometimes, it made me so angry I lashed out. Then, I felt discouraged because it seemed I would never get to the end of these beliefs. I forgot that it is only one belief taking many forms. What I finally did was to look at the many forms in order to make the decision to finally release the belief in ‘unfairly treated’ to the Holy Spirit.

When I remembered what I was doing, I was able to detach somewhat from the emotional reaction, but when I forgot the purpose of this work, I just felt helpless. The ego mind is very attracted to the drama of hopelessness and will go there if I don’t stop the mind from doing so. I saw myself doing this one day, forgetting why I was looking at these thoughts and getting caught up in the beliefs and their effects.

Here is what it looked like.

One thing happened at work, and while it seemed a minor thing, it triggered a deeply rooted fear in my mind. I reacted to it, and then the ego mind dredged up more fears and it all just cascaded. There was enough detachment for me to realize that this was an ego reaction and so meaningless, but the emotion was really strong.

Last night, when I went to bed, I asked the Holy Spirit to teach me in my sleep and to heal my mind. When I do this, and especially when I listen to the Course in my sleep, my dreams reflect the Holy Spirit’s teaching in a very helpful and comforting way. I wake up from my sleep happy and encouraged.

This time, though, I had the strangest dreams. It was about people coming back from awakened states and saying that it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. These people were angry, there was struggling, and gunplay was involved. When I woke up, I was just confused. I didn’t understand how this was helpful, but I didn’t feel upset about the dream, so I knew it was symbolic.

I see now that this was the ego fighting against awakening.

It was the ego version of waking up, finding it unsatisfying, and wanting to return to the world of high drama. I see that this is what is happening in my mind now, the reason I keep falling into the rabbit hole and seemingly losing my way.

I am doing the work that needs to be done to release myself from the dream, and the part of my mind that is attached to the dream is doing what it can to keep me engaged. This is very wearering, but as I become more cognizant of what is happening, I am less affected. Just like yesterday, I would feel upset and weepy, then I would pull myself away from that emotion and remember that I have a purpose.

I would get angry and then remember that this is just the ego judgment of the situation and the ego belief in defense through attack, and I would pull myself away again and focus on my purpose. Not so long ago, it might have taken me days to disengage, and now it usually only takes minutes. The work is working.

And now I can report that it kept working.

I am learning the joy of full surrender, letting it all go, not just some of it, but all. It makes me so happy that I feel like laughing all the time as I surrender to the love of Jesus. I am aware of my ego fighting against this, with sad and discouraging thoughts one moment and angry, hateful thoughts the next. Having recognized what is happening and surrendered to Jesus again, it is like a dark and heavy weight is lifted from me.

V. The Denial of God, P 4

4 Sickness and death seemed to enter the mind of God’s Son against His Will. The “attack on God” made His Son think he was Fatherless, and out of his depression he made the god of depression. This was his alternative to joy, because he would not accept the fact that, although he was a creator, he had been created. Yet the Son is helpless without the Father, Who alone is his Help.

I seemed to attack God when I chose to experience something unlike Him. I read in A Course of Love that it might be easier to understand if I use the word Creation instead of God. So, I think I attacked Creation when I chose to experience something unlike Creation. Yes, that makes sense. That is exactly what we did.

We wanted to see what it would be like to make something that could not possibly occur and so the separation idea unfolded for us. Jesus says that this is when we made a detour into guilt. This is where the problem began. In our guilt, which, of course, led to fear, we became depressed, and so (having abandoned Love) we made a god of depression.

Having made ourselves Fatherless, we decided we were our own creators.

Now, we seem to be alone and without help. We just keep digging ourselves in deeper and deeper as we try to correct what we have done and try to do this alone. We need our Father’s help, but we have denied our Father, so we have no help. No wonder we are depressed.

I was a little confused by the idea that we made a god of depression, but I suppose that is what we did. When things go wrong, and nothing we do can fix them, we turn to depression. We try to appease the depression with new fixes, and when that doesn’t work, we turn to pharmaceuticals. If all else fails, we sacrifice ourselves on the altar of depression through sickness and death or even suicide.

The only way out of this is to accept that we are not our own creators and that we are ready to accept our Father and His help in undoing what we have done. In my practical, day-to-day experience of this, I see what I have been doing and what I must do to correct it. I see the dark thoughts that have been the natural consequence of separation thinking, and I turn to the Voice for God to receive correction.

It is a simple correction.

It requires only my desire for healing that is not of my own making. This would seem easy enough, considering all the proof I have that I cannot do this myself. Letting go of the fear of God and letting go of the desire to succeed on my own are the only two things I need in order to be successful in this endeavor. As I let go of my desire to succeed on my own and turn more and more often to the Guide home that God placed in my mind, the peace and joy I experience help me to see that God is Love and I have nothing to fear from Him.

Here is a book I have found very helpful: A Course in Miracles – The Direct Path.