ACIM Chapter 14. III. The Decision for Guiltlessness P 8

ACIM Chapter 14. III. The Decision for Guiltlessness P 8

III. The Decision for Guiltlessness P 8

8. God is the only Cause, and guilt is not of Him. ²Teach no one he has hurt you, for if you do, you teach yourself that what is not of God has power over you. ³The causeless cannot be. ⁴Do not attest to it, and do not foster belief in it in any mind. ⁵Remember always that mind is one, and cause is one. ⁶You will learn communication with this oneness only when you learn to deny the causeless, and accept the Cause of God as yours. ⁷The power that God has given to His Son is his, and nothing else can His Son see or choose to look upon without imposing on himself the penalty of guilt, in place of all the happy teaching the Holy Spirit would gladly offer him.

Here is something that has stuck with me since I first read the Course. ²Teach no one he has hurt you… That doesn’t mean that I stopped projecting guilt onto others from the moment I read this paragraph. But I did become aware when I was doing it, and eventually, it sank in to the point that I don’t do this anymore. I never deliberately make someone feel guilty for hurting me.

First, I understand now that if I feel hurt, it is my thoughts that are hurting me. The only solution is to look at those thoughts with the Holy Spirit so they can be corrected. Every once in a while, though, I feel like someone hurt my feelings. That I feel like this doesn’t change anything. I still look at my thoughts with the Holy Spirit to see what it is I believe is true when it is not true.

Nothing not of God has power over me.

That is just a fact. I can tell myself sad stories, but that does not make them true. Years ago, when I was still just learning this, I believed my stories of being a victim and being mistreated. Sometimes when I was working, my boss would get angry with me because of something that happened over which I had no control. He was feeling powerless and would lash out at me. At first, I reacted, feeling unfairly treated. In retrospect, I seemed to get some satisfaction out of feeling like this, as if it proved something I always knew to be true. But as I continued to practice the Course and gained more confidence and peace of mind, I lost interest in being a victim.

I still remember the first time I recognized his words as fear, and instead of defending myself, I let the words flow over me without effect. I sincerely felt unharmed. Winning an argument with him didn’t give me the sense of power I had always sought. But knowing that his words were without harm, I knew the power of forgiveness and felt only compassion for him.

The compassion for my boss did not come from effort — it came from refusing to teach myself that he had hurt me. I didn’t rise above the situation; I let the causeless fall away. That is the miracle. I never forgot that moment; it changed me forever. I could still be triggered, but not fooled. Nothing not of God has power over me.

Sentence 7 is a whopper!

⁷The power that God has given to His Son is his, and nothing else can His Son see or choose to look upon without imposing on himself the penalty of guilt in place of all the happy teaching the Holy Spirit would gladly offer him.

When I learned to deny what God did not create, I became aware of the power this bestows on me. When we choose to believe the causeless, I suffer guilt. Guilt has been the major causeless belief I have had to deal with. Guilt and fear, but I think they are so closely related that I treat them as one. Where I find one, I find the other.

Some of the situations that trigger this response in me feel big, and many feel small. But this is an artificial difference. Either I am at peace, or I am not, so I treat them the same. I feel outrage or disgust sometimes when I read the news. I can continue to judge my fellow members of the Christ Mind and suffer the guilt I impose on them. Or I can forgive these judgments and let them go so that I can accept the happy teachings of the Holy Spirit. Choice is my superpower, and I want to use it to the benefit of the Sonship.

There is nothing bigger or smaller, closer or farther away; there is nothing less or greater, truer or more false. There is only reality and illusion. And illusion is causeless and thus doesn’t exist. Each moment I choose reality, I bring more light into my mind and into all minds. That is not a small thing, is it?