ACIM Chapter 2. VII. Cause and Effect, P 3, 4

ACIM VII. Cause and Effect P 3, 4. Both miracles and fear come from thoughts.

VII. Cause and Effect, P 3

3 Both miracles and fear come from thoughts. If you are not free to choose one, you would also not be free to choose the other. By choosing the miracle you have rejected fear, if only temporarily. You have been fearful of everyone and everything. You are afraid of God, of me and of yourself. You have misperceived or miscreated Us, and believe in what you have made. You would not have done this if you were not afraid of your own thoughts. The fearful must miscreate, because they misperceive creation. When you miscreate you are in pain. The cause and effect principle now becomes a real expediter, though only temporarily. Actually, “Cause” is a term properly belonging to God, and His “Effect” is His Son. This entails a set of Cause and Effect relationships totally different from those you introduce into miscreation. The fundamental conflict in this world, then, is between creation and miscreation. All fear is implicit in the second, and all love in the first. The conflict is therefore one between love and fear.

Cause and Effect Relationships

There is actually only one Cause, and that is God. The Effect is His Son, and there is only love in this creation. Through our misperception of everything, we have set into motion another set of cause and effect relationships, this one based on fear. So, beneath every conflict we experience, there is the fundamental conflict, that is, between creation and miscreation or, said another way, between love and fear.

We are creators, and when we miscreate, we are afraid of what we have done because it is unnatural. We have misperceived God and are afraid of our miscreation. In an effort to be rid of the fear, we project it, and so we have these stories going on. It seems that it is easier to believe that we are afraid of not having enough money or that someone we love is dying or could die than it is to own up to our misperceptions.

As long as we keep the miscreations in the world, we can always tell ourselves that we can fix it, or that this too shall pass, or if it doesn’t kill us, it will make us stronger. Or a personal non-favorite is that we suffer for God. That must be right up there with the most misguided of miscreations. God is Love Itself, and we have, through our faulty thinking, made of Him an idol to fear.

Shifting from Fear to Love

Here is an example of how this plays out in my life and how I am shifting from fear to love. I wrote about this when I was still working. Yesterday I lost a customer, which for me means I lost income. Immediately, the ego goes into panic mode. I feel a rush of adrenaline. Then I remember that this is only a mistaken thought, a miscreation, and I ask for the Atonement in this situation. I feel better immediately because I know I made the right choice, but then the ego begins its usual rant.

What could I be thinking? How could this not matter? I am going to wind up without enough money to pay for the house I just bought. Then what? What will my boss say? The ego can go on and on until it sees me living huddled in a cardboard box, eating out of dumpsters. But for the moment, all the objections seem to make sense, and I am confused. But I know one thing. I know that I am not meant for fear, and this cannot be truth.

For just this one moment, I am willing to disregard appearances and open my mind to the Holy Spirit. I ask for the Atonement in this situation, and I accept it. I am at peace. The peace may not be permanent; fear may rise in my mind again. But every time I do this, the fear is not as strong, and it does not last as long. This time the fear did not even last long enough for me to project it onto others. I never even looked for someone to blame.

Nothing Is Happening

As my mind began to calm, I remembered something important. Nothing is really happening. I am not afraid because I lost a customer. I lost a customer because I am afraid. The fear comes first and is then projected as a story in this life I seem to be living. Yesterday, in spite of my fear, I looked at my story with the Holy Spirit, and I saw it for what it was, a misperception, a miscreation, just a mistaken thought. When I refused to accept the lies and asked for healing, the fear simply went away. Fear is only a mistaken thought, and peace is a true thought.

What followed was an idea that may help me recover that customer. I passed it on to one of my workers, who acted on it. It may work out just fine, but if it doesn’t, that’s ok, too. I am always just a thought away from perfect peace and perfect joy, just a thought away from a healed mind. As a fearful mind projects fearful stories, a healed mind projects peaceful stories, so I am always only a thought away from living the happy dream.

VII. Cause and Effect, P 4

4 It has already been said that you believe you cannot control fear because you yourself made it, and your belief in it seems to render it out of your control. Yet any attempt to resolve the error through attempting the mastery of fear is useless. In fact, it asserts the power of fear by the very assumption that it need be mastered. The true resolution rests entirely on mastery through love. In the interim, however, the sense of conflict is inevitable, since you have placed yourself in a position where you believe in the power of what does not exist.

In one sentence, Jesus lets me know why I have not yet let go of fear. I have been trying to master fear. I am beginning to notice when I do this and to choose differently. Here is the way it can happen. A common source of fear for me used to be that I would lose my source of income. I seldom have that fear anymore, but once in a while, fear of lack and loss will show up in some way. The following describes how this change occurred.

When I was young, if my income was threatened, I would panic, and if things didn’t resolve soon, or even if they did resolve, I would become very depressed and feel hopeless until something changed in my life that cheered me up.

Unity and A Course in Miracles

Later, after I discovered Unity and began to realize I had some control over my life by controlling my thoughts, I reacted differently. I would panic, then I would remember that I could think differently, and sometimes that helped. I would start using mantras and replacing negative thoughts with positive ones. If it seemed to work, I felt exultant and encouraged. When it didn’t seem to work, I felt afraid because I didn’t know what else to do and because it was scary to think my new hope was unfounded.

Then after I found A Course in Miracles, I underwent a different progression of changes as my understanding grew. I slowly learned that healing took place in my mind, not in the world, though sometimes a healed mind did reflect a changed world. I began to realize that praying for a certain outcome was a mistake because I didn’t understand what anything was for. So, I learned to ask for a perfect solution and to trust that the Holy Spirit would know what needed to happen.

Learning Not to Try to Control Fear

But what I did not learn for a long time was how to approach fear without trying to control it. I learned not to try to control fear through manipulating circumstances. And I learned that I could not control fear by praying it away. I learned I could not control fear by confronting it with a force of will, even if I used all the spiritual words in the world.

Though I did have moments when fear would dissolve away, for a long time, I didn’t see that it was the moment when I gave up trying to control. I didn’t connect the healing to the moment that I surrendered completely to the Holy Spirit. In that moment of surrender, I stopped trying to control fear and allowed it to be healed by Love.

My Progression from Fear to the Atonement

So going back to my example of being afraid of losing my income, this is how it looked.
· I would try to manipulate the world to make things safe.
· I would try to manipulate God to get Him to make things safe.
· Then, I would try to control the fearful conditions by controlling my thoughts.
· I would try to control my fear by controlling my thoughts.
· And finally, I stopped trying to control the fear and accepted the Atonement Solution.

I accepted the Atonement in that situation, or I accepted Love or God or healing. I asked the Holy Spirit to heal my mind or to undo what I had done. All of these are the same thing. I completely surrender the problem to Love and allow it to be undone without my input or help or direction.

Because the mind is split, there is the belief in loss and lack, and there is the belief in Love which does not know of loss or lack. As I have progressed through the steps that have led me to where I am now, my focus has been drawn away from the ego mind and toward the mind I share with God.

I still get distracted by ego thoughts and sometimes respond to them, but I never entirely lose sight of the part of my mind that knows this cannot be true. Even when I get entangled in ego beliefs, I do so only briefly. I know how to be free now. I stop trying to disentangle myself, and I simply accept the solution. By accepting the Atonement, I allow Love to heal my mind.

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