ACIM Chapter 13. The Guiltless World. Introduction, P 3, 4

ACIM Chapter 13. The Guiltless World. Introduction, P 3, 4

Introduction, P3

³ If this were the real world, God would be cruel. For no Father could subject His children to this as the price of salvation and be loving. Love does not kill to save. If it did, attack would be salvation, and this is the ego’s interpretation, not God’s. Only the world of guilt could demand this, for only the guilty could conceive of it. Adam’s “sin” could have touched no one, had he not believed it was the Father Who drove him out of paradise. For in that belief the knowledge of the Father was lost, since only those who do not understand Him could believe it.

Do I repeat the “sin” of Adam? How about the mistake that Adam made? Do I repeat that? Do I look around and see pain, suffering, and death? And do I see a world of guilty people? Even when my mind is fairly clear and I realize the guilt-ridden thoughts in the mind are the product of the ego thought system and are not real, there are still subtle forms of guilt that I overlook or call something else.

I was watching a drama on TV.

I noticed that I was rooting for the good guy to overcome the bad guy. This is an example of a more subtle form of guilt. I could see one character as guilty only if I believed in guilt. Does it matter that I root for the good guy and against the bad guy? After all, it is just a movie. But the form of the belief is unimportant. It is still a belief in guilt, and guilt is the foundation of separation. The structure will not fall while the foundation is still firmly in place.

Actually, that movie is a perfect example of how we keep the illusion in place. There was a good guy and a bad guy. There was no oneness, no one self. Instead there was separation. The bad that all of us fear is part of us was projected onto one of the characters. It was his job to carry the “badness” so that the hero could be pure. This is what we do every day.

We see ourselves as separate from each other.

In this way, we can imagine that someone else is the bad one, and so we now believe we have preserved our goodness, at least to some degree. Then we try to “kill” the one who now represents the “bad” and so destroy all evidence that might lead back to us. Mostly, we don’t actually kill them. We kill their reputation or our closeness, divorcing ourselves from that other bad one, distancing ourselves from the bad. Sometimes, we do send them to the death chamber if we find them very guilty.

When we find ourselves guilty and cannot project it far enough away to destroy the belief in our guilt, we then suffer for what we did. We become isolated or depressed, or we punish ourselves with sickness or poverty. Often it is in smaller, less obvious ways that we punish ourselves, little accidents and little disappointments.

All the time we do these things, we deny the one thing that would save us. We refuse to give up guilt as a belief. We continue to use projection and attack to defend ourselves and our belief in guilt. Now is the time to begin a new tactic, if we haven’t already done so, one that will ultimately work. Personally, this is my way of doing this: When I see guilt in any form, directed inwardly or outwardly, I remind myself that guilt is not real. I ask that my mind be healed of this unfortunate belief. Then, I become still in my mind, if only for a moment, so that healing can occur. I will do this until there is no darkness in my mind.

Introduction, P 4

⁴ This world is a picture of the crucifixion of God’s Son. And until you realize that God’s Son cannot be crucified, this is the world you will see. Yet you will not realize this until you accept the eternal fact that God’s Son is not guilty. He deserves only love because he has given only love. He cannot be condemned because he has never condemned. The Atonement is the final lesson he need learn, for it teaches him that, never having sinned, he has no need of salvation.

Could it be true that I am guilty of nothing?

I say that guilt is not real, and I teach this constantly. I teach the most what I most need to learn. As I accept the Atonement, the great Undoing, I let go of the guilt that has held me in stasis for so long. I accept that I have never sinned and that I am not guilty of anything I seem to have done in this insane dream of life. When I see myself as completely and always innocent, then I will see everyone that way because I only see in others what I think is in me.

Here is another way this works. I notice I am judging someone and remember how destructive this is. So, I ask for the Atonement, and I want it more than I want to keep the other guilty. I feel the knowledge of his innocence settle over me, and I know I have forgiven him. In that forgiveness, I have forgiven myself. How could I experience that miracle and not be aware that it must also apply to me? In forgiving another, I am always forgiving myself. The guilt I saw on the other was just a thought in my mind, so when I forgive it, I am forgiven that thought, and my innocence dawns on my mind.

My final lesson, and everyone’s final lesson, is that there is nothing to forgive.

If it is not God’s Will, it is nothing. It does not exist and has never existed. The world we see is nothing. What we do in the world is nothing. We are saved because nothing has happened that is not God’s Will. So, what do I do with the judgmental thoughts in my mind? Though they are meaningless, if I believe them, then I experience their disturbing effects.

Today, I begin my day by deciding what kind of day I want to have, recognizing that I will be given this day if I make no decisions by myself. Here is what I did this morning. I surrendered this self to God. I decided with the Holy Spirit to have the peace of God today. This means that I would quickly notice any thought that was not true and realize I must have decided with ego what the situation meant. Obviously, thinking this way would make me unhappy, so I will accept the Holy Spirit’s interpretation instead.

Today, I will not judge myself or anyone else.

If I forget my decision, I will choose again by asking the Holy Spirit what He sees in the situation. Today, I will accept the Atonement as I realize that the world of injustice is an illusion. There is, after all, another world that the Holy Spirit will give me if I am willing to accept that what I see now is not real and if I am willing to let it go. This is the day I will have if I make no decisions with the ego mind.

I have been using the Rules for Decision for a long time now, and I can’t emphasize enough how helpful this has been. Every lesson I do, everything I learn in the Text or Manual for Teachers, is enhanced as I use the Rules for Decision to practice it. It is a small section of the Course, a couple of pages, but it is perfect practice, and each sentence is important and extremely helpful. You can find the Rules for Decision in Chapter 30 of the text.

To watch a Master Class on Rules for Decision by Cate Grieves, CLICK HERE.