ACIM Chapter 14. Introduction, I. The Conditions of Learning P 1, 2

Photo by John Gardiner of Whangarei, New Zealand

Introduction

1. Yes, you are blessed indeed. ²Yet in this world you do not know it. ³But you have the means for learning it and seeing it quite clearly. ⁴The Holy Spirit uses logic as easily and as well as does the ego, except that His conclusions are not insane. ⁵They take a direction exactly opposite, pointing as clearly to Heaven as the ego points to darkness and to death. ⁶We have followed much of the ego’s logic, and have seen its logical conclusions. ⁷And having seen them, we have realized that they cannot be seen except in illusions, for there alone their seeming clearness seems to be clearly seen. ⁸Let us now turn away from them, and follow the simple logic by which the Holy Spirit teaches the simple conclusions that speak for truth, and only truth.

Oh yes, I have seen the ego’s use of logic and have watched it take me to many dark places. When I was younger, I spoke from my unworthiness, and in doing so, I attacked more than I loved. I hurt the feelings of people I cared about and made enemies out of friends. It all made sense to the ego, which only knows how to defend through attack, and while I listened to that mind, I believed it too. What I was really learning then was not how to communicate, but which teacher I was choosing—the ego, which defends by attacking, or the Holy Spirit, who teaches me that I need no defense at all.

I remember one time when I spoke carelessly to my brother and my sister-in-law pointed out that I had hurt his feelings. I was sorry, but I didn’t know what to do about it. I had learned to defend myself through attack, and I thought admitting I was wrong or apologizing would leave me exposed. It never occurred to me that the very need to defend was the weakness.

Now I am learning that I am not weak or defenseless. I don’t need to protect myself. I haven’t learned this lesson completely, because I still feel the temptation to defend at times, but usually I notice it before I act on it. Then I can ask the Holy Spirit to show me another way to see this, because I know I must be mistaken. As a result, I seldom need to apologize, and when I do unintentionally hurt someone, I genuinely want to make amends. I no longer want to leave anyone feeling as if they have been attacked.

I no longer want to teach the ego’s lessons, because I finally see that whatever I teach, I learn first. If I teach someone they are weak, I am teaching myself that I am weak. What I give, I receive. When I stopped attacking people, I stopped feeling attacked. Not that I never notice words that could be taken as an attack, but I no longer experience them that way. Without a story of being attacked, I feel no need to defend. I recognize a call for love and choose to give love instead, even if only silently within my own mind.

Of course, since I am not yet perfectly healed, I sometimes still feel a twinge of being attacked. Someone may say something that feels hurtful, and for a moment I want to defend my position or explain myself so the threat will go away. But when I ask the Holy Spirit to help me see it differently, I often recognize their fear—and I know that feeling well, because I just felt it myself. Then forgiveness becomes the natural choice. I am really forgiving my own fear, and I cannot do that without being willing to forgive theirs.

The ego says, “Protect yourself.” The Holy Spirit says, “You are safe.” This is the logic of the Holy Spirit, and having lived both ways, I know the ego’s reasoning is insane. It only leads me to suffering, and I no longer want to go there. In choosing to look past fear and guilt to the Love that is actually present, I begin to recognize the love that I am. Forgiving my false interpretations, I am learning that forgiveness is the key to happiness. That is the only logic that has ever brought me peace.

I. The Conditions of Learning, P 1 2023

1. If you are blessed and do not know it, you need to learn it must be so. ²The knowledge is not taught, but its conditions must be acquired for it is they that have been thrown away. ³You can learn to bless, and cannot give what you have not. ⁴If, then, you offer blessing, it must have come first to yourself. ⁵And you must also have accepted it as yours, for how else could you give it away? ⁶That is why miracles offer you the testimony that you are blessed. ⁷If what you offer is complete forgiveness you must have let guilt go, accepting the Atonement for yourself and learning you are guiltless. ⁸How could you learn what has been done for you, unknown to you, unless you do what you would have to do if it had been done for you?

I often pray for others. There have been times when I hesitated, wondering how I could pray for their healing when I needed the same healing. Surely, someone else would be better qualified to take this prayer request. But Jesus is telling us that I was wrong about that. We all are blessed with the knowledge that we are still as God created us. Thus, we have abundance and health, happiness and peace. We simply have thrown that knowledge away and now must acquire what has always been ours.

To do this, we must give what is ours.

We give even if we don’t remember we have it, even if our life seems to prove we don’t have it. For most of my life, I have believed that I labored under a heavy burden of guilt. I could prove it to you if you doubted me. I could tell you all the stories of how wrong I have been, how unkind, and even mean. The story of Myron was full of missteps based on fear that I was not enough and was undeserving of the love I didn’t believe was mine. Oh, what a tale of woe it would be! But you probably have your own stories and don’t need mine.

But I pray for them anyway, bestowing the blessings of God’s gifts because Jesus says we must. I begin to realize that what he says in this paragraph is true. It seems that what I give is given me in the sense of receiving a reward for good behavior. But that’s not it at all. In giving it, I realize I must have it to give. How did that happen without my effort, I wonder. The Holy Spirit heals my mind at my request. I need do nothing to facilitate this healing other than to want it. Evidently, even my wanting does not need to be on a conscious level. It has been done for me, unknown to me. As I share it, I see the logic, and I come to believe I have it.

I also appreciate this reinforcement of the idea from the Workbook.

5. Do nothing, then, and let forgiveness show you what to do, through Him Who is your Guide, your Savior and Protector, strong in hope, and certain of your ultimate success. ²He has forgiven you already, for such is His function, given Him by God. ³Now must you share His function, and forgive whom He has saved, whose sinlessness He sees, and whom He honors as the Son of God. (ACIM, W-pII.1.5:1-3)

I. The Conditions of Learning, P 2

2. Indirect proof of truth is needed in a world made of denial and without direction. ²You will perceive the need for this if you realize that to deny is the decision not to know. ³The logic of the world must therefore lead to nothing, for its goal is nothing. ⁴If you decide to have and give and be nothing except a dream, you must direct your thoughts unto oblivion. ⁵And if you have and give and are everything, and all this has been denied, your thought system is closed off and wholly separated from the truth. ⁶This is an insane world, and do not underestimate the extent of its insanity. ⁷There is no area of your perception that it has not touched, and your dream is sacred to you. ⁸That is why God placed the Holy Spirit in you, where you placed the dream.

⁶This is an insane world, and do not underestimate the extent of its insanity.

Of course, it is insane. We are an extension of God and are in Him where He placed us. God created His Sons by extending His Thought, and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind. (ACIM, T-6.II.8:1) This is reality. We believe that we are bodies in separation from each other and from our Creator. We believe we are in a world of form and time when, actually, we are in a world of Thought, and there is no time. While we are eternal and changeless, we believe that we are frail and continuously changing until we die. What can this level of confusion be called except insanity?

This confusion affects us at all levels within the illusion of life we are experiencing right now. Believing I am a body, which by definition is vulnerable, I spend much of my time on its maintenance. This means that I am constantly reinforcing the belief that I am, indeed, a body, and thus, I am vulnerable. So many things threaten the body, and if I believe I am the body, I will feel threatened. Thus, I spend my life in constant defensiveness. Which, by the way, is not good for the body. Since I believe that I am separate from all other bodies, I defend myself against those ‘others’ who would threaten the health and well-being or even the life of the body. Instead of all that is being part of my Self, I now see all there is as a threat to my body. Just pure insanity.

Here is an example from my life and how I transcended the error.

I used to feel pretty neutral about politics. I knew where I stood and which party I would vote with, but elections didn’t upset me or cause me undue stress. This changed a couple of elections ago, and I experienced extreme stress as I began to judge the other party rather than simply voting for my party. This caused me to suffer because the effect of judgment is suffering.

There was further suffering as the sense of separation increased, and with it, instead of being vigilant on behalf of God, I became vigilant against His children. I began to divide His creation according to their party affiliation and let that decide for me who was worthy and who was not. I didn’t allow myself to see this as clearly as I do in retrospect, but that was what was going on. It took me years to work through this, but finally I did.

At first, I would be aware of judgment in my mind and would attempt to forgive it, but mostly, I would mouth the words and then justify my failure to forgive. This just dug me in more deeply and is the reason it took so long to accept healing. No matter how many times I ask for healing, if my heart is not in it, the healing will not be apparent to me. Finally, I tired of suffering, and I began forgiving in the way Jesus teaches.

I stopped trying to heal myself and allowed the Holy Spirit to do His job.

Each time I noticed judgment, I would let myself experience it fully. I would invoke the Holy Spirit and then allow the thoughts to be expressed in my mind. I would let myself feel all that came with that decision: the anger, the guilt, the fear. And I would do nothing. It was very unpleasant to face my choices in this way and especially unpleasant to feel the effects of that choice. However, I knew this was necessary if I ever wanted to be free. It took a while. I kept picking it back up and having to choose again and again, but I did it.

I didn’t notice any dramatic moment in which everything changed. But slowly, it was changing. I no longer react to politics. I still vote in the way that seems the most helpful. What I don’t do is judge either side as the best or the worst. I don’t automatically put people into one category or another depending on which party they vote with. I have stopped separating us like this, and that matters far more than who gets elected. It actually surprised me as I don’t do this in a deliberate manner. It simply is what happens now.

The world is an illusion.

And what we do here affects us while we are here, but not at all once the story ends for us. All we take with us when our part is done is the love we experienced and shared. Now my mind is calmer and my heart at ease. The work is not done until there is nothing in my mind except love, and that hasn’t happened yet. But this success has proved to me that it can and will be done and that I want it done.

This is a contemplation from 2026 on Paragraph 1.

Contemplation 2026 P 2

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