ACIM Chapter 13. I. Guiltlessness and Invulnerability, P 7, 8

ACIM Chapter 13. I. Guiltlessness and Invulnerability, P 7, 8

I. Guiltlessness and Invulnerability, P 7

7 As you perceive the holy companions who travel with you, you will realize that there is no journey, but only an awakening. The Son of God, who sleepeth not, has kept faith with his Father for you. There is no road to travel on, and no time to travel through. For God waits not for His Son in time, being forever unwilling to be without him. And so it has always been. Let the holiness of God’s Son shine away the cloud of guilt that darkens your mind, and by accepting his purity as yours, learn of him that it is yours.

Everything is really ok.

I am safe and untouched by the illusion of life without God. I am with God now because it is His Will. There is no world, no time, no betrayal or sin. None of this is real, and none of it is happening. There is a dark cloud of guilt that keeps me confused and blind, believing in the dream as if it were really occurring as if my dreams could overcome reality.

The cloud of guilt feels very real to those of us under its influence, but I trust that it is as insubstantial as all clouds. When I am flying, I can see the clouds out the window of the plane. They don’t stop the plane or slow it down. I see us moving through them as if they were not there. The cloud of guilt is the same as the clouds outside the plane. It has no power to stop us from awakening or even from slowing us down.

I pray every day to see my guiltlessness as I see my brothers as guiltless.

For a long time, it seemed as if some days I did very well. It seemed so easy, and I thought that guilt had been undone. I couldn’t imagine that I would ever again believe in guilt. But then something would happen, and I felt guilty or thought that someone else was guilty. Then, the clouds seemed to take on a solidity that was hard to get through and impossible to move. Imagine if your pilot refused to go through clouds because he thought they would stop the plane. When I would stay stuck in guilt because I believed the guilt was real, this is what I was doing. I was refusing to fly, refusing to continue this imagined journey.

But at least I knew this could not be true. I knew I must be mistaken, and I knew that I was fully supported as I went through the process of letting that belief go. If nothing else, even in my most difficult moments, I was filled with gratitude for A Course in Miracles. I could not have imagined doing this without the Course. I know other people awaken while on other paths, but for me, my help came from Jesus through his Course. No matter how difficult it might seem to forgive the grievance of the moment, I knew that it could be done and that I would do it.

And now…

Well, now I still slip into ego thinking sometimes, but I see it and choose God instead. I understand now that I am not my thoughts and feelings. I am that which is aware of them and making decisions about believing them or releasing them. This is a very different way to live and moves me along the imaginary journey more quickly and without so much drama. Thank you, Brother. I am so deeply grateful.

I. Guiltlessness and Invulnerability, P 8

8 You are invulnerable because you are guiltless. You can hold on to the past only through guilt. For guilt establishes that you will be punished for what you have done, and thus depends on one-dimensional time, proceeding from past to future. No one who believes this can understand what “always” means, and therefore guilt must deprive you of the appreciation of eternity. You are immortal because you are eternal, and “always” must be now. Guilt, then, is a way of holding past and future in your mind to ensure the ego’s continuity. For if what has been will be punished, the ego’s continuity is guaranteed. Yet the guarantee of your continuity is God’s, not the ego’s. And immortality is the opposite of time, for time passes away, while immortality is constant.

Jesus has told us that guilt is the cause of all sickness.

And now he tells us that we are invulnerable because we are guiltless, and also that guilt is the reason we made time. If we are to be punished for our sins, and we will believe this if we believe in guilt, then the punishment is to come and therefore, a linear timeline is essential.

But we are immortal because we are eternal. So, there cannot be time, though we will not really understand this if we keep our belief in guilt. I used to think that eternal meant time would continue forever, but that is not it all. Eternal is not something that continues in the since that it goes on year after year and never ends. Eternal is now and now is constant. It goes nowhere and never changes.

Sometimes, I try to experience now as if I didn’t believe in time. I let go of thinking and just exist in this now moment with no thought as to the next moment and no retreat into a past. I am not very good at this, and it never lasts long, but it is a peaceful exercise. Trying to accept timelessness is very hard. My mind is solidly fixed in time. So, what I am doing instead is letting go of guilt and this is leading me to let go of the belief in guilt. Without guilt, there will be no need for time.

Then

I am using a story from my past journal to illustrate how I came to understand this paragraph in an experiential way.

The company where I work has two owners. One of them is my brother, who is in charge of sales and marketing. I like working for him and appreciate his forward thinking and knowledge. The other boss is in charge of operations, and his approach is very different. They make a good balance, and everything has been mostly fine. Until tomorrow. Because then, my brother is retiring, and I will be under the other boss.

I had no idea that Paul was retiring this soon and it came as a shock when he made his announcement. I immediately went into fear and have had a hard time extricating myself. What I notice in this situation is that the fear (and subsequent blame and judgment) is based on a non-existent future. I have no idea what tomorrow will bring. I have no idea what the next moment will bring. So why should I be afraid?

This morning, I was sitting outside on my patio.

The birds were singing to me and the weather was still pleasant. It was a lovely way to begin my day. As I sat there drinking my coffee, I decided on the day I would have. I asked for help in this decision. The thought I was given was that I wanted today to be guilt free and to be fearless no matter what the circumstances were.

As I sat there thinking appreciating this decision and feeling thankful for the guidance, I imagined for a moment that I was guiltless, and so was everyone else. I imagined that this moment was the only one. I saw that I was completely at peace. The moment was perfect, nothing was wrong, I was happy.

Then I had the thought that I wished Paul had waited just a few more months to retire.

This was the same as saying he was guilty of retiring too soon and causing me problems. The spell was broken. I was back in time and no longer at peace. Guilt put me back in time, and I lost all appreciation for immortality and eternity and, therefore, peace.

It seemed sad to me at the time, but now, contemplating it, I see how lucky I am. I understand this paragraph perfectly because I watched it happen. I had a few moments of timelessness and sold it for a grievance. But having seen how this happens, I am ready to let go of the guilt associated with this change, and this brings me closer to being willing to give up guilt altogether.

And the end of the story.

I spent the rest of my time at that company, forgiving everyone and everything that happened. There were grievances I had held for so long that they felt solid and real and impossible to shift. Yet, through forgiveness, they melted away, and I came to love the people I had once hated. I had dreaded working for that company under the leadership of the other boss. All that turned around, and I enjoyed my time there and came to enjoy all the people who worked there, including my boss.

But most importantly, I discovered that guilt is the glue that holds the world together, and I am here to awaken from the world. Thus, guilt is not useful to me anymore. It doesn’t give me what I want and so is irrelevant to me. This makes it so much easier to laugh at it and let it go. Now, when it shows up, I almost never have a problem shifting out of it. Even on those rare occasions where I am tempted into holding a grievance, I am able to change my mind. I can experience guilt now, but I can no longer imagine staying in guilt.

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