ACIM Chapter 13. VI. Finding the Present, P 1-3

ACIM Chapter 13. VI. Finding the Present, P 1-3

VI. Finding the Present, P 1

1 To perceive truly is to be aware of all reality through the awareness of your own. But for this no illusions can rise to meet your sight, for reality leaves no room for any error. This means that you perceive a brother only as you see him now. His past has no reality in the present, so you cannot see it. Your past reactions to him are also not there, and if it is to them that you react, you see but an image of him that you made and cherish instead of him. In your questioning of illusions, ask yourself if it is really sane to perceive what was as now. If you remember the past as you look upon your brother, you will be unable to perceive the reality that is now.

I have really been practicing staying in the now and have had small success, but I’m not giving up. I keep practicing. Here is another way to practice. I can start to notice my thoughts about the people in my life. Then, I can notice if they have anything to do with the person I perceive in front of me at this moment or if they are just past thoughts carried forward. And that is on the level of form because if I saw him without any of my projections I would see his Divinity.

How might I do this?

I am sometimes jarred from my sleeping mind as I realize that I have been cherishing an image of a person rather than the person that they are. For instance, I have suddenly seen one of my children, really seen them, and realized that not only had I fixed in my mind an image of that one, but it was an image of my own making. It was really an image of my thoughts about that one. Those thoughts are no longer relevant if they ever were, and if I keep cherishing them, I will not ever know this person I love.

As I think about this, the illusion I seem so fond of gets blurry and seems to waver. Could everything I have believed was real and indisputable be just images projected from my mind, just like Jesus has been saying? Ha ha ha. Yep. I was thinking about a friend of mine. There was a “fact” about her that I absolutely believed, and one day, she said something that shattered that “truth” about her.

Again, I was startled to realize that I didn’t really know this person either.

I just know my thoughts and beliefs about her, just like I do with my children. How deep does this go? Is there anything about her that I didn’t make up through my thoughts? Does everyone she knows have an image of her that is entirely different than mine? I know for sure that some of the people in her life think of her differently than I do. And I can almost guarantee that she knows herself differently than I know her. I made her up out of my thoughts and beliefs, and she made herself up out of her thoughts and beliefs. Gosh, the world I see continues to shimmer in and out of focus.

So now I have to ask myself if I am courageous enough to let the images go entirely so that I can see what lies behind them, what is actually real and true. Honestly, it seems impossible when I view this from the ego’s perspective. What makes it possible is that I am not doing anything to make it happen. I am making a choice for seeing with Christ rather than with ego. That is all. I will have to trust this and will have to remind myself often, but that is all. What has always been true will dawn on my mind as I am ready to accept it.

VI. Finding the Present, P 2

2 You consider it “natural” to use your past experience as the reference point from which to judge the present. Yet this is unnatural because it is delusional. When you have learned to look on everyone with no reference at all to the past, either his or yours as you perceive it, you will be able to learn from what you see now. For the past can cast no shadow to darken the present, unless you are afraid of light. And only if you are would you choose to bring darkness with you, and by holding it in your mind, see it as a dark cloud that shrouds your brothers and conceals their reality from your sight.

Jesus is telling me in this paragraph that it feels“natural” to use your past experience as the reference point from which to judge the present.” It does feel natural to me, and in fact, it feels necessary and inescapable.  From the point of view of the ego mind, it is unimaginable that there is another way to be. And yet, Jesus says that I am choosing to bring the past into the present and furthermore, that I am doing so to darken the present because I am afraid of the light.

I’m not in touch with that fear.

so I have to take his word for it, and it seems it must be true because I keep doing it. The good news is that I must also be ready to stop doing it. I am reading this, and I believe what I am reading. I am practicing choosing differently. In doing all of this, I am strengthening my willingness and my desire to awaken from this unnatural and delusional pattern. The ego mind is afraid of light because light will undo the ego. I am not my ego, so I have a choice, and I am not bound to ego desires.

VI. Finding the Present, P 3

3 This darkness is in you. The Christ as revealed to you now has no past, for He is changeless, and in His changelessness lies your release. For if He is as He was created, there is no guilt in Him. No cloud of guilt has risen to obscure Him, and He stands revealed in everyone you meet because you see Him through Himself. To be born again is to let the past go, and look without condemnation upon the present. The cloud that obscures God’s Son to you is the past, and if you would have it past and gone, you must not see it now. If you see it now in your illusions, it has not gone from you, although it is not there.

Everyone I see is exactly as they were created. God did not create cruelty, rage, unkindness, fear, or guilt. He did not create sickness, pain, or suffering. Thus, when I see these things in someone and believe what I see, I am not really seeing it in someone else because it is not there. I am seeing what I believe is in me. It is not there either, but I think it is there, and so I see it everywhere else. It is as if I were looking through dirty glasses and thought the dirt I was seeing was on the person I was looking at.

This understanding is why I often pray for another by asking that my mind be healed of what I see in that one.

I am asking for help cleaning my glasses. It can be very confusing to me sometimes because I forget what seeing actually is. I think I see with the body’s eyes. I think these eyes of mine show me a sick or guilty person, but the body’s eyes show me my thoughts projected outward.

If I believe in guilt, I will see guilt. If I resist seeing it in myself, I will project it and see it as if it is in another. I will use my eyes to prove to me that the guilt I reject is over there somewhere. Howver, I do have another way to see. I can see (perceive) with Christ Vision. I can see what is actually there rather than what I projected. To do this, I must forgive my own thoughts, recognize they are not true, and accept that they are not true. Then, I must also remember that my eyes show me only what I believe, not what is actually there.

This would be impossible if I were trying to do it on my own.

I made the illusion of guilt, and I believe in it. I made the body’s eyes and gave them a purpose that I believe in. Because of my belief, I need something outside my illusion to help me undo it. The Holy Spirit was given to me for that purpose. Here are the steps I go through as I accept healing.

I read A Course in Miracles, and this helps me to become open to the truth and so to desire it. I ask for help to recognize that my past judgment was wrong and can no longer be trusted, so I let it go. Then I ask the Holy Spirit to correct my thinking and heal my mind. To the degree I accept His help, I begin to use real vision to perceive the truth in myself and everyone else.

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