ACIM Chapter 11. III. From Darkness to Light P 7, 8
ACIM Chapter 11. III. From Darkness to Light P 7, 8
III. From Darkness to Light P 7
7 Only God’s Comforter can comfort you. In the quiet of His temple, He waits to give you the peace that is yours. Give His peace, that you may enter the temple and find it waiting for you. But be holy in the Presence of God, or you will not know that you are there. For what is unlike God cannot enter His Mind, because it was not His Thought and therefore does not belong to Him. And your mind must be as pure as His, if you would know what belongs to you. Guard carefully His temple, for He Himself dwells there and abides in peace. You cannot enter God’s Presence with the dark companions beside you, but you also cannot enter alone. All your brothers must enter with you, for until you have accepted them you cannot enter. For you cannot understand wholeness unless you are whole, and no part of the Son can be excluded if he would know the Wholeness of his Father.
Jesus is telling us that we are in God’s temple right now, but we will not be aware of this until we have allowed our minds to be healed of all the false ego thinking. We must leave behind our dark companions, because we cannot enter into His presence (know that we are in Him) with them beside us, just as he tells us in another part of the Text, we cannot enter into His presence if we attack His Son. In fact, in this paragraph, Jesus elaborates on this when he tells us we cannot enter into His presence without our brothers. All of them.
When I was judging my friend last week, I was not at peace.
I had to bring this judgment to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to correct my thinking before I could accept the gift of peace. It was not that I was being denied peace as some kind of punishment for disobedience. I simply could not know I was given the gift of peace while I was in judgment.
It is really a simple concept for me to understand. God is wholeness. He is oneness. There is no thought of separation in the Mind of God. That is the nature of God. I cannot bring a foreign thought into God, or it would change His nature, and then He would not be God anymore. Judgment is a foreign concept as is separation. So, while I think that my sister is not me and while I think either of us is anything other than a perfect creation of God, I cannot enter into His presence. I must leave those dark thoughts behind if I would know myself as part of the Light.
One time, I was shopping at Walmart, and I noticed a young man with a woman and a child. He looked scruffy and somehow dangerous to me. This was, of course, just a story coming from my unhealed mind, but evidently, my disapproval of him must have shown on my face. He looked ashamed and turned away. It all happened very quickly. A glance, a judgment, his shame, and I never missed a step as I walked on.
But immediately, I deeply regretted my part in his shame.
I wanted very badly to take it back. I even turned around to find him, though I don’t know what I could have done or said to make it better. He was gone, though, and I have been haunted by my actions ever since. I so wish I could make it right. Now, of course, I must forgive myself. I am using the prayer at the end of Chapter 5.
6. Decision cannot be difficult. ²This is obvious, if you realize that you must already have decided not to be wholly joyous if that is how you feel. ³Therefore, the first step in the undoing is to recognize that you actively decided wrongly, but can as actively decide otherwise. ⁴Be very firm with yourself in this, and keep yourself fully aware that the undoing process, which does not come from you, is nevertheless within you because God placed it there. ⁵Your 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. ⁶Say this to yourself as sincerely as you can, remembering that the Holy Spirit will respond fully to your slightest invitation:
⁷I must have decided wrongly, because I am not at peace.
⁸I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.
⁹I want to decide otherwise, because I want to be at peace.
¹⁰I do not feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo all the consequences of my wrong decision if I will let Him.
¹¹I choose to let Him, by allowing Him to decide for God for me.
Today, I dedicate myself to bringing peace to each one I meet.
Holy Spirit, I ask that You purify my thoughts today so that I can be free of the dark thoughts I have allowed into my mind in the past. I cannot bring peace unless I am at peace. Help me to see my brother as my self. Vision is mine, and I want to learn to use it more consistently. I am ready to awaken from this dream that I am separate from Love, and so I am ready to relinquish all thoughts that are not Love.
III. From Darkness to Light P 8
8 In your mind you can accept the whole Sonship and bless it with the light your Father gave it. Then you will be worthy to dwell in the temple with Him, because it is your will not to be alone. God blessed His Son forever. If you will bless him in time, you will be in eternity. Time cannot separate you from God if you use it on behalf of the eternal.
Clearly, my goal while I am here is to accept the whole Sonship. That means I must accept the politician I love to hate. I must accept him fully and completely and love him with all my heart. The same goes for all my friends and neighbors, even the mean-spirited ones.
I must love the clerk at Walmart who was sullen and uncommunicative.
I must love the pedophile, the murderer, the thief, and the scam artist as fervently as I love my children. There must be no difference or degree in my love for these people because there is no difference between them. They are all of them part of me, and we are all part of God.
Can I love God if I hate parts of God? Can I be in God if hate separates me from part of God? And can I be part of Wholeness if hate means I must separate myself from some part of Wholeness? I cannot bring hate into God because God is Love. I recognize and accept that dislike, annoyance, and fear are just other more acceptable words for hate. My goal is to desire only Love, and in so doing, I welcome the Holy Spirit’s healing presence into my mind.
“Shine away those dark and foolish thoughts, Holy Spirit!”
To review Pathways of Light insights of this section, CLICK HERE.