ACIM Chapter 13. X. Release from Guilt, 9-11

ACIM Chapter 13. X. Release from Guilt, 9-11

X. Release from Guilt, P 9

9 You who have been unmerciful to yourself do not remember your Father’s Love. And looking without mercy upon your brothers, you do not remember how much you love Him. Yet it is forever true. In shining peace within you is the perfect purity in which you were created. Fear not to look upon the lovely truth in you. Look through the cloud of guilt that dims your vision, and look past darkness to the holy place where you will see the light. The altar to your Father is as pure as He Who raised it to Himself. Nothing can keep from you what Christ would have you see. His Will is like His Father’s, and He offers mercy to every child of God, as He would have you do.

The emphasis here is that we are not the ego, the separate self that is represented by the body. We are God’s Son with all the power and glory that goes with that. He tells us that it is guilt that is hiding this from us. What we are is within and is unsullied by our imagined guilt, so we don’t need to be afraid to look there. Knowing this, my practice is focused on always moving toward the remembrance of who I am.

This is why I watch my mind for any sign of the belief in guilt.

I look at it with the Holy Spirit and watch it dissolve away. I don’t have to do anything with it because it is an illusion. This is not hard at all and has been very effective. I also remind myself of the truth often. I remind myself that I am not this body and I do not exist in the world. The truth is that I am spirit only, and I am where God placed me in my creation. This is His Will, and thus, it is my will, too, since I am part of God.

When I think about what I am, I don’t have anything solid to hold onto, and this can feel scary. Even as I remind myself that this story of a separate self is not peaceful nor joyous, it is familiar. It may not be much, but it is what I know. Jesus knew we would have this reaction and so he addressed it in A Course in Miracles.

3. If you do not know what your reality is, why would you be so sure that it is fearful? ²The association of truth and fear, which would be highly artificial at most, is particularly inappropriate in the minds of those who do not know what truth is. ³All this could mean is that you are arbitrarily associating something beyond your awareness with something you do not want. ⁴It is evident, then, that you are judging something of which you are totally unaware. (ACIM, T-9.I.3:1-4)

It makes me laugh, really, when I read this.

I am God the Son, but I think it is safer to be this fragile body born only to die? What a strange idea. It could only be an ego thought and so without meaning. So, I watch for guilt, and I remind myself of the truth. I also remind myself that my identity is shared, so I must see in everyone else the truth I find within, or I will have lost the miracle. This one is now much easier for me, but it still requires vigilance on my part.

Every present moment is filled with potential for success. That is encouraging, and I have actually learned to enjoy the practice of recalling myself to the eternal present. Without the past, where is guilt now? Without focusing on the past, the ego will cease to exist because I will not carry it into the future. The ego has so many objections to my hopefulness, but as I give each one to the Holy Spirit for re-interpretation, I see how hollow the ego’s beliefs are. This morning, I choose to believe the promises that Jesus makes. In this moment, I choose to believe that nothing can keep from me what Christ would have me see.

X. Release from Guilt, P 10

10 Release from guilt as you would be released. There is no other way to look within and see the light of love, shining as steadily and as surely as God Himself has always loved His Son. And as His Son loves Him. There is no fear in love, for love is guiltless. You who have always loved your Father can have no fear, for any reason, to look within and see your holiness. You cannot be as you believed you were. Your guilt is without reason because it is not in the Mind of God, where you are. And this is reason, which the Holy Spirit would restore to you. He would remove only illusions. All else He would have you see. And in Christ’s vision He would show you the perfect purity that is forever within God’s Son.

Release guilt as you would be released, says Jesus. There is no other way. I will not look within, and I will not find the Atonement if I am holding grievances, not even what I would think of as little or careless grievances. As he says in another place in the Course, “You cannot enter God’s presence if you attack His Son.” God’s presence is within us, but I will not know this, will not see it, nor enter there while I still attack.

This feels right to me.

But I was wondering how it is I reach the Atonement, which is the undoing, the healing, the correction if I cannot see it within me for the dark clouds of guilt? It seems a catch 22 at first glance. But my experience has taught me that my desire will bring me where I need to be. With all my heart, I desire to be free of a grievance, and it is done. I am in the Atonement, melting into It, blessed by It, loved by It. And if my desire is not complete, I will be healed to the degree I allow, and this creates a stronger desire within me for the Atonement.

I am very holy, and I want to remember that holiness.

As Jesus says, I cannot be what I believe I am. I cannot be separated from God. Thus, I cannot be fearful and guilty. I can only imagine these states of being because they cannot exist within God’s Creation, and there is nothing except His Creation. As I am able to remember and accept this, I find it impossible to assign guilt. When I get too deeply attached to a story, I forget that the story is not real, and when I believe in the story, I am unable to believe in the truth.

More than anything else, I might think I want today, Jesus, I want to remember this truth.

Each time I have a guilt thought about someone else or myself, please remind me to look again, this time with vision. How could it be true that these holy sons of God could be guilty when they are so holy? How could there be guilt within God where we all reside? Yes, we are guilty of many things in time, but time is not real, and we are not in it. We are in eternity.

Release from Guilt, P 11

11 You cannot enter into real relationships with any of God’s Sons unless you love them all and equally. Love is not special. If you single out part of the Sonship for your love, you are imposing guilt on all your relationships and making them unreal. You can love only as God loves. Seek not to love unlike Him, for there is no love apart from His. Until you recognize that this is true, you will have no idea what love is like. No one who condemns a brother can see himself as guiltless and in the peace of God. If he is guiltless and in peace and sees it not, he is delusional, and has not looked upon himself. To him I say, Behold the Son of God, and look upon his purity and be still. In quiet look upon his holiness, and offer thanks unto his Father that no guilt has ever touched him.

Clearly, I have never entered into a real relationship with anyone because I have not loved all equally. There are some people in my life I love more or differently than I do others. I also have some in my life that I love less or not at all. I used to be very confused by passages like this. That is because I thought it meant that the love I feel for my children, for instance, is wrong because it makes them special to me.

Now, I understand that there is nothing wrong with the love I feel for my children.

The problem is that I reserve that love only for them. In doing so, I have made love something it could never be. I have limited it, and love is limitless. So now I don’t really know what love is; I only know what I have made to take its place. Even my love for my children, the purest form of love that I can know in this reduced state, is tainted by the belief in guilt. This sentence stands out to me, and I know that it is essential that I understand and accept it: No one who condemns a brother can see himself as guiltless and in the peace of God.

So, to make this very simple for myself, I will say what I want to do about it. I know that I want to remember love, real love, the love of God. And I want to extend that love so that others will have that present experience, too. I think this must be possible because Jesus is asking me to do it. So here is my plan. I am not going to try to be more loving. And I am going to increase my willingness to desire love above all things.

I am going to notice the signs that I am making someone special.

It doesn’t matter if I see them in special love or special hate. I am going to be vigilant for signs of specialness. Then, I am going to recognize that I have chosen the ego as my guide as to what love is and how to return to it, at which point I will change my mind and choose the Holy Spirit as my guide. I will ask that my mind be healed of the belief in special love and the belief that I need it. I will ask to be healed of the belief that there is an opposite to love and that it has some value.

Then, I will sit in stillness for a moment and allow the healing to occur.

I will give myself this present moment, this holy instant, in which I will accept the healing. The idea of special love and special hate is as ingrained as is the belief in guilt, so I will be patient and gentle with myself as I do this practice. If it takes time, then I will remember that this is now the purpose I have given time and is the only value time has for me.

I am grateful for this understanding, and I think that Jesus has given us the perfect prayer to use in our practice.

Behold the Son of God, and look upon his purity and be still. In quiet look upon his holiness, and offer thanks unto his Father that no guilt has ever touched him.

I know that the Holy Spirit will bring into my mind the relationships that need my attention. In fact, I know the very one to work with right now, and so I will…  What happened first is that I saw his guilt, and seeing it, I knew what was obscuring the truth, So I rested my mind a moment and asked the Holy Spirit to show me his holiness instead. Then I thanked my Father that no guilt had ever touched him. This is a good practice. It will be successful if I make no exceptions.

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