ACIM The Origins of Separation, P 4, 5. All fear is ultimately reducible to the basic misperception that you have the ability to usurp the power of God.
I. The Origins of Separation, P 4, 5
I. The Origins of Separation, P 4
4 All fear is ultimately reducible to the basic misperception that you have the ability to usurp the power of God. Of course, you neither can nor have been able to do this. Here is the real basis for your escape from fear. The escape is brought about by your acceptance of the Atonement, which enables you to realize that your errors never really occurred. Only after the deep sleep fell upon Adam could he experience nightmares. If a light is suddenly turned on while someone is dreaming a fearful dream, he may initially interpret the light itself as part of his dream and be afraid of it. However, when he awakens, the light is correctly perceived as the release from the dream, which is then no longer accorded reality. This release does not depend on illusions. The knowledge that illuminates not only sets you free, but also shows you clearly that you are free.
Innocence
I am innocent, and nothing is happening. I am dreaming, and sometimes that dream is a nightmare. There is nothing to be afraid of because nothing is happening. I am not guilty of misusing my creative powers because I cannot create amiss. All that I have done, though it is truly amazing to see, is nothing. The whole world and everything that has ever happened . . . hasn’t happened.
There is a part of my mind that knows this. There is also a part of my mind that can still be afraid. This part of my mind will sometimes look at the world as if it is real and feels both pleasure and pain. I can still become distracted by and drawn into the illusion. The difference now is that I never really believe it, and even when it feels its most real, the world begins to recede again as I ask for help. “Holy Spirit, please heal my mind and undo what I have done.”
I used to make this jump into illusion and out again dozens of times during the day. Most of the time, it was just little things that barely affected me. I would think about something that happened in the past and feel a sense of shame or guilt. Then I would remember my innocence. It happened as it was meant to happen. It could not have happened any other way. And in truth, it didn’t happen at all in reality. Sometimes I was a little giddy as I let that truth set in a bit more.
The World Can Seem Very Real
Sometimes the jump felt really big, like when I was wrapped up in my son’s story of pain and suffering. In times like that, the world feels very real, and it is so hard to remember the world is not real, and yet, my mind never lets go of the truth. I knew I was wrong even while I was believing in what I saw with my eyes. I continued to say my prayer even as my heart was breaking and my emotions were sweeping me away.
My experience of the world changed slowly, a step at a time. I learned not to be concerned about any of the apparent “failures.” Or how long it takes to awaken fully. As the Manual for Teachers says, the teacher of God is not perfect but teaches perfection over and over until she learns it. So, I look at whatever is in front of me, and I ask Spirit what I am to do with this. What am I to learn? What am I to say, and to whom? Where am I to go next? Then I write about the experience and whatever understanding Spirit gives me. And I share it with anyone ready to hear it. This is the process I have been given to wake up.
A Deep Sleep
But the awakening is not about the story. The illusion does not wake us up. Nor does the illusion indicate the depth of the sleep. The illusion is just an illusion. It is meaningless until we give it meaning. The meaning I am choosing is to see it as a useful way to see what needs healing within the mind, and that is all.
I have been in a deep sleep, but now I am awakening from that sleep, and if I doze off again once in a while, I am not worried about it. I know that I am sleeping, and that makes all the difference in the world. The story and my continued part in it don’t mean I am not awakening. It has, as I have allowed healing, become a tool for the awakening. And I know what to do to continue the slow awakening. Thank you, God, for that.
I. The Origins of Separation, P 5
5 Whatever lies you may believe are of no concern to the miracle, which can heal any of them with equal ease. It makes no distinctions among misperceptions. Its sole concern is to distinguish between truth on the one hand, and error on the other. Some miracles may seem to be of greater magnitude than others. But remember the first principle in this course; there is no order of difficulty in miracles. In reality you are perfectly unaffected by all expressions of lack of love. These can be from yourself and others, from yourself to others, or from others to you. Peace is an attribute in you. You cannot find it outside. Illness is some form of external searching. Health is inner peace. It enables you to remain unshaken by lack of love from without and capable, through your acceptance of miracles, of correcting the conditions proceeding from lack of love in others.
I just love that first sentence! It doesn’t matter what form an untruth takes or how big or complicated it seems. The miracle is unaffected. It simply is true, or it is not. This really simplifies things, doesn’t it? I see now that the reason it seems like some miracles feel different than others is that I believe in some falsehoods more than others.
Miracles Can Seem Big and Little
When looking for a parking place, I call on my parking angel. My parking angel really rocks! She’s the best parking angel ever. I’m never surprised anymore when I go straight to an excellent parking place, even in holiday shopping crowds. This feels like a tiny miracle and hardly worth mentioning, and even a little embarrassing. The kind of thing you tell someone and then laugh like it’s a joke. But really, why should I expect my life to be difficult as if expecting a convenient parking place would put a strain on the universe?
In the past, I have asked for healing of some sort, and the mind would come up with reasons why I should not ask or question if “good” would be the most helpful response. For instance, I would ask for ease in dealing with a difficult person, and the thought would be that maybe having to deal with adversity was what I really needed. I would ask for someone else’s healing and would question if that was the best prayer. Maybe they are supposed to go through this sickness.
There Are Other Reasons I Doubt the Miracle
And, of course, I have had the thought that I can’t believe something can be healed. It just doesn’t seem possible because it is so awful or so real. Or seen in some other way that it is too difficult for me to imagine it being simply gone or changed. All of these objections to miracles result from me believing in the lie more than I believed in the miracle. It is also the result of believing that all of these effects are outside the mind.
When I believe that the body is outside the mind, I think it is separate and out of my sphere of direct influence. It then seems as if there is the body, and separate from that is my mind that will now have to affect something not part of itself. Now that separation is established in my mind with that thought, I see everything as separate.
A separate entity, the doctor, must be called upon. Separate medicines must be used, and I can only hope the right one is available and works for me because I am separate and unique from others. Because we are different, it might work for them, but not me. A separate and unreliable God can be prayed to, but since He is mad at me for being separate, I don’t always feel deserving of His help, so my supplications are tentative.
More Imagined Complications
It gets even more complicated if I see someone else suffering and want to help or if someone seems to be a threat to me somehow. I have to deal with the insurance people today, and this feels like a threat, with them wanting one thing and me another. If I think they are outside my mind and thus separate from me, I feel confused about how to pray.
Would it be correct to pray that I influence them, or would that be unfair to them? What if I influence them to see things my way, and then they get in trouble and lose their job? What would be the right prayer?
Here is what I did instead. I realized that I don’t know the right outcome for myself or anyone else, so I ask for the right outcome without any attachment to what that might look like. Also, I realize that I am meant to be free and joyful and at peace and that there is no reason for me to experience anything else, nor is there any reason for anyone else to have a different experience. I am innocent, and I am loved. Everyone else is innocent and loved.
All of the world, everyone in it, and every dream we are having is in the mind. Jesus says there is nothing outside the mind, and that was an unequivocal statement. I accept that and believe that. Since the body and the insurance people, and the situations I am dealing with are all in my mind, I ask that my mind be healed of any mistaken thought that the outcome should be less than loving, joyful, and peaceful for all involved.
It Is Always the Thoughts in My Mind
When I notice a thought in my mind that does not feel loving, peaceful, or joyful, I know that this is not a true thought. That is as far as I need to go with it. The form the thought takes is not of concern. It is either true, or it is not true. I give thought to the Holy Spirit in full expectation of the miracle. I have every right and reason to expect a healed mind. As my mind is healed, my dream shifts and takes on a happy aspect.
Because I know this to be true, I am not disturbed by anything in the dream that is taking time to shift. My certainty allows me to wait in happy anticipation to see how life works itself out. Sometimes I have been delighted to see that all I needed to be happy was the acceptance of what was happening. I didn’t actually need the picture to change at all. Sometimes I laughed as the scene before me dissolved into something else.
An Outward Change
Here is an example of this outward change. Once, I got kidney stones. The doctor gave me a very large bottle of Vicodin and told me to go home and wait for them to pass. I had never had this condition, but that bottle of pain pills told me that I wasn’t going to like it. I prefer not to have pain, so each time I felt any pain, I imagined a strong hand crushing the stone to pieces so tiny I wouldn’t feel anything as it passed.
It took so long to pass that the doctor kept taking images of it, waiting to see if it would move. It never did, and so he performed a procedure to remove it. When he went in, there was nothing to remove. Over the weekend, it had disappeared, and I never felt it pass. I have had many examples of my outward condition changing as I changed my inward thoughts.
Without the stress of doubt and uncertainty, life is simply interesting. If I become confused and forget what is real and what isn’t, if I start seeing the story as if it is happening “out there,” the stress returns. I feel anxious and panicky. I make the mistake of thinking that one mistaken thought was more powerful than another, and so some things can be fixed and some not. But now that I know why this happens, I can just take a moment to give these untrue thoughts to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to undo what I have done.
To hear Regina Dawn Akers teach on Living Discernment, CLICK HERE.