ACIM Chapter 13. II. The Guiltless Son of God, P 3, 4

ACIM Chapter 13. II. The Guiltless Son of God, P 3, 4

II. THE GUILTLESS SON OF GOD, P 3

3 The darkest of your hidden cornerstones holds your belief in guilt from your awareness. For in that dark and secret place is the realization that you have betrayed God’s Son by condemning him to death. You do not even suspect this murderous but insane idea lies hidden there, for the ego’s destructive urge is so intense that nothing short of the crucifixion of God’s Son can ultimately satisfy it. It does not know who the Son of God is because it is blind. Yet let it perceive guiltlessness anywhere, and it will try to destroy it because it is afraid.

We chose the separation experience, and guilt came into existence from that choice.

All unfolded, and with it, pain, suffering, and death. So, in that sense, we condemned the Son of God to death through our choice of separation. We believe this happened in reality rather than in dreams, and the guilt for what we believe we did is so intense that we keep that belief buried deep within our minds. Guilt, fear, and insane beliefs can be hidden from our conscious awareness, but they still do their damage. The belief that we are guilty of condemning the Son of God to death shows up in so many ways throughout our day as forms of vengeance.

We crucify ourselves daily as we suffer sickness, poverty, hate, and so many forms of fear that they cannot all be named. So, we live lives of quiet desperation until the desperation becomes so intense that it takes a stronger and more destructive form. We push the unnamed guilt away by seeing it in someone else, not realizing that the someone else is part of ourselves, and so we intensify the sense of guilt rather than lose it.

But we remain the Son of God.

And into this awful scenario, A Course in Miracles is given, and a memory of innocence and purity is awakened. The ego really hates this and is deeply afraid of it. It will fight every step of the way to keep guiltlessness at bay, pointing out our sins and the hopelessness of the situation. Who has not felt that before?

Who has not tried to practice the lessons and failed? And who has not tried to see with Christ’s Vision and only succeeded in judging instead? The ego says this means we are guilty and that guiltlessness is a foolish dream. But it is not guiltlessness that is the dream, but the ego. We are the Sons of God. We are perfect and holy and guiltless. And though we can dream of death, we are eternal. We are all that in spite of the ego mind we made. Nothing destroys our perfection, and certainly not dreams of guilt.

II. THE GUILTLESS SON OF GOD, P 4

4 Much of the ego’s strange behavior is directly attributable to its definition of guilt. To the ego, the guiltless are guilty. Those who do not attack are its “enemies” because, by not valuing its interpretation of salvation, they are in an excellent position to let it go. They have approached the darkest and deepest cornerstone in the ego’s foundation, and while the ego can withstand your raising all else to question, it guards this one secret with its life, for its existence depends on keeping this secret. So it is this secret that we must look upon, for the ego cannot protect you against truth, and in its presence the ego is dispelled.

So, the ego sees us as guilty of “egocide” when we think we are guiltless.

Jeez. Accepting that Jesus is right and guilt is an illusion and doesn’t exist at all would undo the ego. It seems so simple and obvious that I don’t know what else to write. But I also know that even as I sit here writing this, I am so annoyed with this operating system that I could scream. What else is that except guilt? I find the program and the company that created it guilty. I wish the repairmen on the road would move on down. The noise is distracting. They are guilty of disturbing the peace of the morning that I so value. Wishing things were different is just another way of judging and finding guilt.

Guilt shows up in many ways, and some of those ways seem valuable to me. I will learn to live with computer frustrations and adjust to the noise outside, but it took me years to let go of the grievance against my ex-husband. That seemed hard even though there is no hierarchy of illusions, and so it is no different from the noisy repairmen. It seemed harder only because I valued the grievance against my ex more than I valued the grievance against the repairmen.

The truth is, we must give up guilt in all its forms if we are to undo the ego.

So, I do what I can. I notice guilty thoughts and I remember that the peace of God is everything I want. Do I want my ex-husband to be guilty, or do I want the peace of God? Do I want the morning to be filled with the songs of birds rather than the noise of street construction? Or do I want the peace of God? If the peace of God is everything I want, then I must decide. As I decide for the peace of God, guilt is undone because there is no guilt in peace. As the guilt is undone, so is the ego.

This is how we approach that dark cornerstone the ego guards so vigilantly. We allow ourselves to be aware of the dark thoughts in the mind and to look calmly and quietly. We look with Jesus without judgment rather than reacting in fear and anger. Looking without judgment is forgiveness, the simplest form of forgiveness. It is how the mind is healed and our memory of who we are returns.

I was having an existential crisis the other day. I felt like a failure as a teacher of God because I didn’t handle a situation with a student well. In my mind, if I fail as a teacher of God, I fail at my purpose. It feels like I let Jesus down and let my student and myself down. I lost my peace and wanted it back, so I tried to relax and become still. I would look at that thought and the accompanying feelings with Jesus so it could be healed.

The ego panics at this simple form of forgiveness because it has no defense against it.

Suddenly, my mind was filled with thoughts. There were thoughts of what I should have done, and thoughts of possible unhappy outcomes from what was said at the time. There was a lot of judgmental thoughts about myself and my student. I was resentful and angry. All this in much less time than it took to type it out. I felt overwhelmed and unable to focus.

So here is what I did. I went to my computer and pulled up my favorite picture of Jesus. I looked into his calm and loving eyes as I told him all about it. Then I just sat there with Brother Jesus and felt peace flow over me as my mind was healed. It all took less than two minutes. All the fear and anger left when I stopped judging and left the healing to Jesus, and I was at peace once again. Now, I don’t have to look at the picture to achieve this healing, but the image of Jesus remains in my mind as a reminder of a different choice.

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