ACIM Chapter 13. V. The Two Emotions, P 11

ACIM Chapter 13. V. The Two Emotions, P 11

V. The Two Emotions, P 11

11 The Holy Spirit is the light in which Christ stands revealed. And all who would behold Him can see Him, for they have asked for light. Nor will they see Him alone, for He is no more alone than they are. Because they saw the Son, they have risen in Him to the Father. And all this will they understand, because they looked within and saw beyond the darkness the Christ in them, and recognized Him. In the sanity of His vision they looked upon themselves with love, seeing themselves as the Holy Spirit sees them. And with this vision of the truth in them came all the beauty of the world to shine upon them.

I really long for the day that I look within and see only Christ. When that happens, I will then look without and see only Christ. I will see that there is nothing but God. Oh, holy day! I know this can and will happen. I have periods of time in which I feel perfectly at peace and in which I feel loving, loveable, and loved. I feel so much love welling up in me and as me that it obliterates the ego darkness for a while. So, I know this can happen and that it will happen, and eventually, the darkness will be a shadow of a memory.

And how does this glorious transformation take place?

It is simple. We look within past the darkness to see the Christ that we are. He is revealed in the light of the Holy Spirit. The Christ is there, right there in our minds, immediately available. It is up to us to choose the light over the darkness. We will all do this, so why not do it now?

This I know to be true, and so I do what I can to learn to look past the darkness. I continue my process of noticing dark thoughts and allowing them to be healed. I notice how my body feels, and if it isn’t healthy and pain-free, I take that as a symbol of the unhealthy, painful thoughts in my mind, and I ask for healing.

If I look at my bank account and notice it is dwindling, I watch my thoughts. Maybe I just wonder how the numbers will get larger and wait with curiosity and anticipation to see that happen. But if I get upset about the numbers, then I recognize this upset as a fear of lack and loss, and I bring that belief to the Holy Spirit to be undone.

If a relationship is imperiled, I ask the Holy Spirit to look with me and see what it is I have done.

Have I used this friend, or have I projected onto her or him? How does this relationship crisis make me feel? Am I sad or angry or maybe guilty? Does it trigger memories of relationships from the past that remained unforgiven? Whatever I find in my mind, I look at with the Holy Spirit, and I accept healing to the best of my ability at this time.

Forgiveness is always the answer to any experience that is not an effect of the Love that I am. My go-to for forgiveness is from the Workbook. Forgiveness, on the other hand, is still, and quietly does nothing. ²It offends no aspect of reality, nor seeks to twist it to appearances it likes. ³It merely looks, and waits, and judges not. (ACIM, W-pII.1.4:1-3)

This is the simplest process of forgiveness that I have ever found. You would think it was the easiest, but I find it difficult at times. It turns out that doing nothing is the ego’s least favorite response to anything. But, like all new things I learn in A Course in Miracles, practice makes perfect, and it is well worth the practice. Let’s say that I have a thought that I am sad my son has not called me since he went to work out of town. This thought represents the belief that something outside my own mind can affect me.

I look with Jesus at the thought and feel the sadness.

If I do this and nothing else, it takes very little time to disrupt that thought, and the truth becomes apparent. But the ego is like a fisherman. It casts out the bait that is most likely to catch my attention. If I bite, then the mind is off and running.

Since this is a belief that persists in my mind, even as I intend to forgive it, I take the bait, and I fail to do nothing. I want to twist the situation into something I prefer, and incredibly, what I seem to prefer is thinking a further story of abandonment and betrayal. I think how he calls when he needs something, how thoughtless he is, how foolish I am to trust. It goes on and on if I allow it to take hold. Soon, it occurred to me he could be dead. How would I know? Now, I have added fear of loss to the mix.

All of that was because I didn’t want to feel the emotion that my thought evoked. So, I go back to that emotion, and this time, I sit and wait and judge not. I do nothing to alleviate the feeling. It is uncomfortable, but I know from experience that it will fade unless I feed the ego with more story. The only thing forgiveness needs of me is that I do nothing. All I need to bring to the table is my awareness of a belief that needs to be corrected and my willingness for it to happen. The Holy Spirit does the rest. Now that I am getting the hang of this, it is becoming both simple and easier.

This morning, I had a memory of something that happened when my daughter was young.

I think she was maybe six years old. A friend and I took her out on the lake in a paddle boat. It seemed a safe outing for a child as the boat moved slowly, and the lake was smooth with no waves. There were no other boats anywhere around us. It was fun, and we enjoyed it. Suddenly, my friend, John, realized that Susan was no longer in the boat, nor could we see her. I was frozen in shock and terror. But John jumped overboard immediately and brought her up and into the boat.

This is a memory, some 45 years old, that comes into my mind periodically to torture me with thoughts that I was a terrible mom. I nearly let the unthinkable happen. When Susan’s daughter was born, she wanted me to get a car seat for her so that I could safely drive her around when I kept her. I refused. That long ago near tragic mistake still haunted me, and I would not take a chance on it happening again.

My granddaughter is now 8 years old, and I still have never driven her anywhere.

This morning, the memory of the near drowning came into my mind again and I felt sick to my stomach as I thought of it. But this time, I knew what to do with it. I knew to forgive it. As I sat here, allowing the memory to play out in my mind, I chose to do nothing.

It wasn’t pleasant because the feelings associated with the fear were so visceral, and I just wanted to get rid of them. But that would be doing something, so I sat with the memory and the feelings it evoked. I did this with the intention of allowing the Holy Spirit to heal my mind. The ego hates doing nothing and wants to think about it, to add more story in the form of “what ifs.” But that wouldn’t be doing nothing, so I let the impulse fade. In about a minute, the forgiveness was complete. Now, I can tell the story, and it is just a story. It has no distressing effect on me. The story lost its power to hurt me because today I chose to look beyond the darkness. Thank you, God!

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