ACIM Chapter 12. VII.  Looking Within, P 7, 8

ACIM Chapter 12. VII.  Looking Within, P 7, 8

VII. Looking Within, P 7

⁷ I said before that what you project or extend is up to you, but you must do one or the other, for that is a law of mind, and you must look in before you look out. As you look in, you choose the guide for seeing. And then you look out and behold his witnesses. This is why you find what you seek. What you want in yourself you will make manifest, and you will accept it from the world because you put it there by wanting it. When you think you are projecting what you do not want, it is still because you do want it. This leads directly to dissociation, for it represents the acceptance of two goals, each perceived in a different place; separated from each other because you made them different. The mind then sees a divided world outside itself, but not within. This gives it an illusion of integrity, and enables it to believe that it is pursuing one goal. Yet as long as you perceive the world as split, you are not healed. For to be healed is to pursue one goal, because you have accepted only one and want but one.

What I project or extend is up to me, but I must do one or the other.

That is a helpful sentence. I cannot sit on some kind of neutral ground and do nothing. I cannot look at the world and say someone else did it. What I see when I look outward comes from my mind, not from something outside me, as there is nothing outside me. Let us say that I went to the store today and saw someone stealing an item from the shelf.

I first go within to choose an interpreter. I don’t say to myself I am going to do this. It is not a conscious decision, but it is one that is made. If I choose the ego as my interpreter, I will see a guilty person. There will probably be a lot of thoughts in my mind about this, according to what I have learned about this kind of behavior. Choosing ego as the interpreter is deciding on projection. I project onto the person doing the stealing judgments that come from my mind. I give their behavior all the meaning it has for me.

If I choose the Holy Spirit as my interpreter, I will have different thoughts about the person. When this kind of thing happened to me in the past, I saw a call for love. This person thinks they cannot be happy without having the thing being stolen. Perhaps they think they cannot be happy unless they have what they covet of another person, not so much the object, but just the idea of having what they think others have, and they don’t.

There is no reason to judge.

There is never a reason to judge. I know that people are confused about what happiness is and how to achieve it. There is no reason for pity. Confusion is not truth, so it is not real. They will overcome their confusion. That is what we do here. We look at our confusion, and we choose against it. Eventually.

If a person’s behavior upsets me, it is only because it triggers something in me that upsets me. It has nothing to do with them, their behavior, or their confusion. It is about my confusion. I see in another only what is in my mind. All judgment of another is judgment of self as seen in another.

As I look at this person who is stealing, and I look with the Holy Spirit, I see only a need for love, and so I give love. I may not say a word, but in my heart, I know the person for who they are, not what they fear. I know they are the Son of God and lack nothing. Their confusion does not fool me. This is extension.

When I choose projection, I suffer because projection causes suffering.

No one believes they want to suffer, but if we suffer, it is because we have chosen to suffer. There is nothing in our life we did not choose. We choose to suffer through choosing the ego interpretation, which leads to projection and suffering. So, we did it to ourselves.

Saying we don’t want to suffer when, clearly, that was our choice is having two goals. The mind is split. We have chosen to leave the Kingdom all over again. I suppose there is no other way we could see ourselves separate from God now unless we choose separation now. Having two goals is separation. So, at every moment, we decide to separate ourselves from God or to know our Self as one with God. It is the original “sin” all over again, over and over.

At the moment I see with Christ’s Vision this person who is stealing, I have extended love. I have returned to God. In the next moment, when I am faced with the choice between extension and projection, I might find myself projecting, and so I experience myself as outside the Kingdom. More and more often, the joy of extension motivates me to make that choice, and eventually, it will be my only choice. Then I will be awake in the world, seeing only what Love sees, being in joy all the time.

This is why I choose the peace of God as my only goal.

When I forget and choose something else as my goal, then I change my mind and return to my goal. If I think people should not steal, I have a different goal. If I think that people should not be grandiose and arrogant, I have a different goal. The ego sees many goals in the world, but I don’t have to embrace those goals as mine. I am free to return as quickly as possible to my one goal as I remember that the peace of God is everything I want.

VII. Looking Within, P 8

⁸ When you want only love you will see nothing else. The contradictory nature of the witnesses you perceive is merely the reflection of your conflicting invitations. You have looked upon your mind and accepted opposition there, having sought it there. But do not then believe that the witnesses for opposition are true, for they attest only to your decision about reality, returning to you the messages you gave them. Love, too, is recognized by its messengers. If you make love manifest, its messengers will come to you because you invited them.

Jesus is always telling me that what I have is what I want. He says that I am always doing this to myself and that the world I see is the result of my choice to see it. So, if I really want love, then I will see love and nothing else. He doesn’t say that I have to wait for the world to change or that I have to change it. He says that when I want only love I will see nothing else.

I accept that this is true. I don’t always understand how that can be, and I certainly don’t understand why I would issue an invitation for anything other than love. But I accept it as true anyway, and I work from there. I have had some days of floating blissfully above the battleground. No matter what has happened, I have been happy. I have felt joy welling up in me. I have felt that strong connection with Spirit.

It has not been an uninterrupted joy.

There were challenging moments, but I met them with the strength of God that is available to me, and they passed easily. But this morning, I woke up feeling heavy and earthbound. Nothing is really wrong; nothing bad is happening. I just feel like my feet are stuck in quicksand, and I am being held down. No more blissful floating.

I asked the Holy Spirit what was going on. It felt bad, and I had a moment of panic because I didn’t know what happened and couldn’t seem to do anything about it. I tried my surrender exercise. I tried to feel the connection. Where did all that joy go? Where did God go? I suspected He didn’t go anywhere, but evidently, I did. So, I asked. Where did the love go, God?

I was shown the thoughts I have had since yesterday. My son had something potentially problematic going on, and I worried about him. There is a hurricane in the Gulf, and it might hit us. What to prepare? Will it be strong enough to warrant evacuating? Or should I buy supplies and hunker down? My daughter has four chickens they are very attached to. I wonder what she would do if they had to evacuate. How would they do this with chickens?

I am starting to see where this is going.

When I look to my ego mind to judge what is happening, I feel very defensive. I want to defend against situations over which I have no control. No wonder I feel heavy and earthbound. So let me remember that it is in my defenselessness that my safety lies, not in arranging everything just right or even in trying to change someone else’s path or even in influencing that one toward a choice I prefer they make.

These are not the things that make me safe. These thoughts bring fear into my mind. When I defend myself, I teach myself that I need defense and have every right to be afraid. I can have fear, or I can have love. The circumstances in my life do not determine my choice. What I want determines my circumstances.

I chose love. It wasn’t hard. I just chose it. The joy is back. The floaty feeling is back. I am above the battleground again. I see the ego down there trying to get my attention, waving lists at me, warning me something could go wrong. So I wave back. Not interested, ego. (giggle) It is so funny how confused I sometimes become and how afraid of nothing. No matter what happens or doesn’t happen, love is a choice, and it is always available to me. The only requirement is that I want nothing else.