ACIM Chapter 11. IV. The Inheritance of God’s Son P 6

ACIM Chapter 11. IV. The Inheritance of God’s Son P 6

IV. The Inheritance of God’s Son P 6

6 Christ is at God’s altar, waiting to welcome His Son. But come wholly without condemnation, for otherwise you will believe that the door is barred and you cannot enter. The door is not barred, and it is impossible that you cannot enter the place where God would have you be. But love yourself with the Love of Christ, for so does your Father love you. You can refuse to enter, but you cannot bar the door that Christ holds open. Come unto me who holds it open for you, for while I live it cannot be shut, and I live forever. God is my life and yours, and nothing is denied by God to His Son.

I cry when I read this. Brother Jesus is holding the door open for us, and this invitation is open for as long as we need it to be. My heart is filled with gratitude for him and for God, who would deny me nothing. I cannot enter, though it is held open for me if I come with condemnation in my heart. I noticed that it took a long time for me to lose the desire to condemn others but even longer to stop condemning myself.

Here is a quote by Mooji that felt very important to me.

“Once you have surrendered yourself then you should not be worried about any of these things. If you have surrendered yourself to the supreme existence, then you are not to take excessive care of yourself anymore. Otherwise you’re not really surrendered. Either this thing about surrendering is a joke; it’s just in the mind and we’re playing games, or it’s true. If you surrender, you surrender—you know? There can’t be surrendering and still waiting to see if it works or it doesn’t work. Then these thoughts don’t have a landing place. If they come, you say, “Take it up with the boss, okay? I don’t deal with it anymore; it’s not my business anymore. I’ve handed myself in.” – Mooji

I love the way Mooji says this with humor and certainty. Take it up with the boss. I’ve turned myself in. I had been trying this idea of surrendering my ego completely and had moved in that direction so that I knew that surrender is a peaceful, happy state. But I didn’t stay there. When I read what Mooji had to say about it, I knew surrender was right and what I wanted. Keeping any aspect of the ego keeps me from knowing my Self and my Creator.

But then, a thought surfaced, and I felt fear.

I remember standing in front of the mirror one day and thinking that I had gained more weight recently than I had in a very long time. At that moment, I felt panicked, and all I wanted was to lose some weight. I also felt conflicted because I was not comfortable with the old way of doing so.  I felt afraid because I didn’t want to go back to the old story of the body being in charge of my life, and I just had to find a way to control it from within the story, the right diet and the right exercise.

On the other hand, I was not completely convinced that I wanted to surrender this obsession with the body. I didn’t know if I could trust God with this. How interested is He going to be in fashion and the image I present to others? Not at all, right? And it doesn’t help that Mooji is kind of a chubby guy himself—proof that God doesn’t read GQ and Cosmopolitan. This is a problem.

Bear with me here.

I was trying to work this out in my mind and could only do so if I was completely honest about my thoughts. I felt real fear at the idea that I would turn over everything, completely surrender. On the other hand, I also felt really shallow and a bit embarrassed that the sticking point was my body image. But I had to go there because that is where the ego grabbed my attention, so it must have been true for me at the time.

I was also aware that I was receiving guidance about what I eat and being guided away from heavy foods and a lot of meat. I had no idea why this mattered, but then there were many things I didn’t know, so no surprise there. Later, I was to discover the purpose of that guidance. I also knew that I asked that my mind be healed about this business of the body and food. I wanted to be free of my lifelong obsession with food and how it affects my body. Especially, I wanted to be free of the insane belief that my mind had nothing to do with it. Since then, nothing I had used to control the body image in the past worked the way it had before. And while that was good, it was also frightening to someone still attached to body image.

I could not see myself returning to peace without full surrender.

Reading this paragraph is the reason I suddenly began to remember all this. It reminded me of how it felt when I condemned myself. I felt guilty for my body image concerns and for not following clear guidance. This felt wrong, and then other non-surrender thoughts came into my mind as the ego convinced me that body image was just the tip of the iceberg.

It is a silly notion I can laugh at even while guarding it against God. There are other more serious ways in which I defend against God and the ego mind points them out so that I will know that it is useless for me to try to enter the door. I am too guilty; I am condemned, and it will take me an untold amount of time to earn the right to enter that door. I feel so sad and so discouraged when I listen to that thought.

But I am not alone in my mind with the ego.

I am with God. I share God’s thoughts. Some of them are rising up in my mind at my invitation. I see that I don’t have to undo each thought of separation. I don’t have to meet every thought that I am this separate self in control of life, with the desire to surrender. In fact, I only need to decide on surrender, and all the thoughts of separation will cease to be meaningful. Thank you for that thought, God.  Everything was very dark there for a moment, and now the sun has come from behind the clouds, and it is light again.

I am more certain than ever right now that I surrender this life to God, and if I slip back into separate-self decisions, I am not going to condemn myself for it. I will just take Mooji’s words as my own. When they come, I will say, “Take it up with the boss, okay? I don’t deal with it anymore; it’s not my business anymore. I’ve handed myself in.” ~big smile~

To listen to Regina Dawn Akers’s excellent teaching on letting go of the ‘I am bad’ belief, CLICK HERE.