ACIM Chapter 4, I. Right Teaching and Right Learning, P 13

ACIM T-4. I. Right Teaching and Right Learning, P 13. I will substitute for your ego if you wish, but never for your spirit.

I. Right Teaching and Right Learning, P 13

13 I will substitute for your ego if you wish, but never for your spirit. A father can safely leave a child with an elder brother who has shown himself responsible, but this involves no confusion about the child’s origin. The brother can protect the child’s body and his ego, but he does not confuse himself with the father because he does this. I can be entrusted with your body and your ego only because this enables you not to be concerned with them, and lets me teach you their unimportance. I could not understand their importance to you if I had not once been tempted to believe in them myself. Let us undertake to learn this lesson together so we can be free of them together. I need devoted teachers who share my aim of healing the mind. Remember this:

In this world you need not have tribulation because I have overcome the world. That is why you should be of good cheer.

Gratitude for Jesus

Oh, dear God, I feel such gratitude for Jesus that I cannot express it in words. I am learning to read the words in this book and take them at face value. It is cracking open something in me I didn’t know was there, and gratitude pours out. I am my spirit, and my spirit is just fine! It is safe and has not suffered for my foray into ego land. It is invulnerable and doesn’t need my concern or protection. When I think of the worst thing I ever did, the ego holds it up as proof that I am ruined by it. Spirit doesn’t even glance at it. Spirit is proof against my imagined sins.

Jesus says:

I can be entrusted with your body and your ego only because this enables you not to be concerned with them, and lets me teach you their unimportance.

Looking for a Solution

I have been writing off and on about my desire to finally and completely let go of the idea that food or anything outside my mind is the cause. In the past, I have always thought that what I eat determines how my body looks and feels. I have, for a while now, suspected that this doesn’t make sense. In fact, Holy Spirit told me as much several years ago in a meditation. He said it isn’t food that makes me gain weight, but guilt does. I believed Him and didn’t believe Him. (I wonder if my mind is split on this? Hahaha.)

I finally reached a point where I was ready to let go of these childish ideas about the body. It began when I started taking Jesus seriously and believing he meant what he said through A Course in Miracles. I began to let him show me that pain is not real. Then he offered to show me that some medicine I was taking was not real.

Strengthening Confidence

These steps have strengthened my confidence in both Jesus and in me. Perhaps that is why I was given the thought that I wanted to end this war with my body over weight. This idea, that the body is a real thing and apart from my mind, is firmly rooted in my ego belief system and is not going down without a fight. I have had my ups and downs with it.

(Stay with me here. I am going to relate this to the promise Jesus made to us in this paragraph.)

Shortly after I began this project, I received absolute clarity about the body and food. It was so clear and obvious that I couldn’t believe I had ever been confused about this. I would share this with you if I could, but the ego part of my mind blocked it out completely. How could that happen?? Or a better question would be, “Why am I surprised it happened?” The ego thinks of the body as its home and fortress against God. It might concede a battle, but it is not conceding the war.

So, I went right back to confusion, and the ego offered to help me out. It reminded me that losing weight is easy. We know how to do this. When I balked at the idea of abandoning my plan to end the war on my body, it cajoled me with the promise this was a temporary measure. The deceitful little devil said we could go back to working with Spirit when we got the weight thing under control. I had lots of good reasons for doing it this way, and for a brief time, I was convinced of its plan. I forgot that there is no meeting ground for Spirit and ego.

What Worked Now Didn’t Work

I have always fallen back on the Atkins Diet (low carb) as a quick and easy way to control my eating and lose weight quickly. It is easy and always successful for me. But this time it didn’t work at all, and in fact, the inexplicable happened. The more carefully I ate, the more I gained. In fact, I was gaining at an alarming rate. I was forced to look at what was happening.

I asked to be shown that my body is not outside my mind, so nothing outside my mind can affect it. In this case, I was looking specifically at food. This was my prayer, and it was being answered. I was seeing that fear and guilt were the cause of the weight gain and that it had nothing to do with the food. The more nervous I got about my body image, the more out of control it seemed. I ate a lot and gained a lot. I ate in a way that always brought me weight loss results; instead, I gained a lot. It was like Jesus was saying, “See, I told you it had nothing to do with the food.”

There Is Another Way

And here is where that passage comes in. Jesus said that he could be entrusted with my body and my ego and that this would relieve me of my concern with them and teach me their unimportance. So this year, I surrendered my body and my ego to Jesus. I admitted I was flummoxed and had no idea what to do about the whole body thing.

I told Jesus that I didn’t know what to eat, and when I eat anything now, I feel afraid and guilty. But I remember him saying in the Course that when I make a decision if I ask if he agrees, there will be no fear. So, I am through making diet plans on my own and making decisions by myself. In fact, I am through with the whole thing. I give my body and my ego to you, Jesus. Please guide me in all things.

I know I don’t have to tolerate this tribulation in the world because Jesus has overcome the world, and once done, it is done for all. I am just catching up with the program, that is all. Gratitude doesn’t begin to cover it when I reflect on this. Since the moment of surrender, all the conflict has fallen away, and I am at peace. I don’t know what will happen with the food, the weight, and how I feel about the body, but it all seems so remote and unimportant next to the peace that it is now mine.

Discovering a Diamond

I want to discuss this paragraph a little more before moving on. I feel like Jesus placed a diamond in this field of words, and I am just now discovering it. It is amazing that in the past, I have just casually read through this paragraph and never noticed how important it was. Of course, that is because I did not want to notice it. Jesus says that he can substitute for my ego.

Has anyone reading this ever tried this? Have you ever read this as if it were true and decided to let Jesus replace your ego? I know we do this in many little ways as we practice the Course. Every time I am mindful of my thoughts and ask that a dark thought be healed, I am entrusting my ego to Jesus. Every time I surrender my plans and decisions, I entrust my ego to Jesus.

When I experience sickness or some other body thing, and I become willing to see it differently, I am entrusting my body to Jesus. When I choose to let him guide me through a body situation instead of resorting to magical remedies, I am entrusting my body to him. But have you ever made a decision to allow Jesus to replace the ego, to fully entrust your body and ego to him? When I think of this, I am . . . I don’t know what I am. I feel light, and I feel like crying in relief. It is something I have trouble putting into words. Not exactly excitement, but happy anticipation, maybe. I feel a shift coming on!

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