ACIM III. Love Without Conflict, P 8, 9. Watch carefully and see what it is you are really asking for. Be very honest with yourself in this, for we must hide nothing from each other.
ACIM Chapter 4, III. Love Without Conflict, P 8, 9
III. Love Without Conflict, P 8
8 Watch carefully and see what it is you are really asking for. Be very honest with yourself in this, for we must hide nothing from each other. If you will really try to do this, you have taken the first step toward preparing your mind for the Holy One to enter. We will prepare for this together, for once He has come, you will be ready to help me to make other minds ready for Him. How long will you deny Him His Kingdom?
I completely accept that I must hide nothing from Jesus. I trust that he will not hide anything from me. Still, I notice that, despite my true desire to be completely open and frank with Jesus, I hide things from him by hiding them from myself. For instance, when I look outward for the cause of my problem, I am doing this. I am pretending that there could be something in my life that I do not want. This can’t be true. In lesson 152, Jesus tells us this.
⁵Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. ⁶Here is your world, complete in all details. ⁷Here is its whole reality for you. (ACIM, W-152.1:5-7)
While I still hide my true motives from myself at times, I don’t do so nearly as much as I used to. I am committed to preparing my mind for the Holy One to enter, so I am vigilant for that old thinking and willing to see differently.
Different Forms, Same Old Problem
Several things are happening in my story right now. My son lost his job and is having trouble finding another. I have had some financial setbacks. Next week I am going on vacation. My mind is a very chaotic place right now as I seem to be obsessed with details.
These seem like different problems with different solutions when viewed with the ego mind. But I know there is always only one problem and one solution. It seems like some are more important. But actually, all are equal in their meaninglessness because each is representative of an untrue thought. No untrue thought is more untrue than another untrue thought. All thoughts are only true or not true.
I am watching my mind vigilantly to stay aware of what I am asking for in each situation. I am striving to be as honest with myself as I can so that I can. In this way, I share with Jesus what is on my mind and receive his support and help. For instance, I had the thought I wished my son would get a job soon. I reminded myself that I didn’t know what needed to happen, so I didn’t wish for anything. But then I saw the worry thought again and realized I was not being honest. I really do wish he would get a job.
Asking for What I Don’t Want
I can ask for healing only if I accept that I need healing. This is why I must be vigilant. It’s ok, and I am not guilty. Now that I am being honest with myself, I can look at my fear with Jesus and allow my mind to be healed. I am doing what I need to do to prepare my mind. And I am willing to see what needs to be seen and willing to accept healing for what needs to be healed.
Money has been flowing out of my bank account at an alarming rate this month. I must be asking for something I don’t want. I know I am asking for it because it is in my life, and while I don’t want the consequences, evidently, I want the belief, or it would not be there. Money is nothing. It is meaningless until I give it meaning. It seems that I have recently used money to prove that I am vulnerable to lack and loss. This cannot be true because it is not the Will of God. I change my mind about that. I choose again. This time, I choose only what God wills for me.
This is how I prepare my mind for the Holy One to enter. I do this diligently because that is my purpose. I choose not to allow the ego to rule my kingdom. The ego is in my mind, but so is Holy Spirit. I choose the Voice for God, and when I choose ego instead, I change my mind. Everything else is done for me.
9 III. Love Without Conflict, P 9
9 In your own mind, though denied by the ego, is the declaration of your release. God has given you everything. This one fact means the ego does not exist, and this makes it profoundly afraid. In the ego’s language, “to have” and “to be” are different, but they are identical to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit knows that you both have everything and are everything. Any distinction in this respect is meaningful only when the idea of “getting,” which implies a lack, has already been accepted. That is why we make no distinction between having the Kingdom of God and being the Kingdom of God.
It is hard to grasp that I have everything because I am everything. First, I believe that I lack some things. In this story of Myron, I lack the ability to carry a tune. I lack physical beauty. I lack the ability to remember things even as well as I used to, and my memory was never all that good, even when I was young. Speaking of youth, I lack that, too. I lack the ability to comprehend math easily. I’m not as smart as some people and not as rich.
There Is No Personal Self
This list seems to prove that I have not been given everything and that I lack many things. I am learning to accept that none of the above is true. That person is an illusion, just a projection of a cluster of beliefs, none of which is true. Myron is just a picture of what I believe about myself, not the truth of it. In truth, there is no personal self. I am everything. I am all there is. There is nothing for me to gain because I am that. I am abundance and beauty and perfection. I will not go to Heaven or gain Heaven; I am Heaven.
Because the ego mind does not want to cease to exist, it seeks desperately to convince me that it is preposterous to believe I am as God created me and that I am like God, in God, a part of God. It tries to convince me that it created me, and so I am like the ego when actually I made the ego. I want to believe the ego because I don’t feel worthy of God, and I fear Him. So instead of identifying with God, I identify with the ego and believe in lack and loss.
Ego Laws
The ego’s fear of not existing is why it has so many laws. It says that the body needs a certain amount of sleep, and if it doesn’t get it, I will be tired and listless. If this goes on too long, there will be dire consequences. Studies have been done, and articles written. Sleep deficit, the researchers say, is a real thing and dangerous to health. Sleep deprivation is used as torture.
I bought it because I believed in every law we made up to defend against the truth and establish the ego as real. My whole life revolved around the conflict of getting enough sleep and still having time to commune with the Holy Spirit before work. But finally, I questioned that law. In the Course, Jesus says that time is not real, so I decided that his word was more likely to be true than the ego’s law. I began to sleep as much as I slept and to trust that it was enough. I gave time to the Holy Spirit and trusted that it was adequate.
So Far, So Good
Guess what! So far, so good! I am OK with however much sleep I get. Eight hours is fine. Six hours is equally acceptable. Because I now forget all day long that I should be tired when I don’t have enough sleep so I am not tired. I watch in amazement as time stretches like an elastic band to accommodate my writing. I will write and write and then look at the clock, and only a few minutes have passed. It makes me laugh out loud at the miracle.
This has happened so often that you would think I never worry about sleep or time anymore, but it is an old and long-honored law of the ego, and I seem reluctant to release it entirely from my mind. Now, however, I see the thought in my mind and dismiss it most of the time, or at least, eventually.
It is very important, these little morning miracles, because they are teaching me that I made up the laws, and I can dismiss them because they are not absolute laws like the laws of God. As I learn not to believe in and live by the ego’s laws, I become willing to believe in the Laws of God. For instance, I started to believe that He created me like Himself, and that cannot change.
Praying Differently
Another thing that has changed is the way I pray. I don’t pray for specifics. For instance, when my bank account started going down at an alarming rate this month, I didn’t pray for more money. Instead, I prayed for my mind to be healed of a belief in lack and loss. Praying for more money would have implied that I am less than whole, and this is not what I want to teach myself anymore. It is clear that I have everything, and accepting this as true will reveal that there is no such thing as lack and loss. I have everything. I am everything. Where is there room for the concept of lack and loss in that picture?
I can hide from my reality, but I can’t change it, and pretending to be ego, while painful, is not a permanent condition. My ego is not real, and I am. The ego will disappear when I no longer believe in it, and I am eternal. Right now, I am letting go of the idea of ego and learning to accept my reality. I could change my mind and be done with the ego, but there is still fear in my mind, so I take it a step at a time. Well no. That’s not true anymore. Actually, I am taking it a leap at a time. I am so done with the ego.
III. Love Without Conflict, P 10
10 The calm being of God’s Kingdom, which in your sane mind is perfectly conscious, is ruthlessly banished from the part of the mind the ego rules. The ego is desperate because it opposes literally invincible odds, whether you are asleep or awake. Consider how much vigilance you have been willing to exert to protect your ego, and how little to protect your right mind. Who but the insane would undertake to believe what is not true, and then protect this belief at the cost of truth?
I have learned to be very vigilant for ego thoughts and to ask for healing. And this is good. It has been beneficial in undoing the ego. It is what Jesus asks us to do. Sometimes, though, it starts to feel like I am fighting a formidable enemy, especially when I am letting go of some deeply held and cherished belief. Recently, I discovered a hidden and long-held belief.
A Brilliant Process
I read something Keith Kavanagh wrote about healing the mind. In part, it says this.
Over and over again, when people get stuck with forgiveness, this is the big mistake every time.
You’re trying to fix your discomfort.
You’re trying to fight the darkness.
Your guilt is coming up so it can be released.
Stop messing that up by trying to be rid of it and to push it back down.
The Holy Spirit is using it to free you of what’s keeping you from God.
This is the way Home.
1. So when upset comes up, unwind projection.
Nobody put these feelings in you.
2. Don’t believe the insane voice talking to itself in your mind. It is not you. You don’t have to silence it. You just have to stop believing anything it’s saying.
3. You relax.
Not the feelings.
They’re not going to relax.
YOU relax behind the feelings!
YOU join with Jesus in your mind where you’re not a body and be OK with the guilt coming up to be released.
Yes, the anger or anxiety will get more intense.
Relax.
Be OK in your mind with Jesus.
Yes, the discomfort will worsen with nothing to blame.
Relax in your mind with Jesus.
Yes, the feeling will continue raging.
Don’t touch it.
Relax in your mind with Jesus.
Do this however long it takes with infinite patience.
2 minutes, 2 hours, 2 days….
“Forgiveness merely looks and waits and judges not.”
How I Used This
There is more, and I am putting a link to it so you can read the rest. When I read this, I thought it was brilliant and wondered if I did this. Did I try to fix my discomfort? Almost immediately, I had my answer. My son had an eye infection, and when he returned from the doctor, I asked him how it went. I got single-word sentences from him. I expressed my frustration that he wasn’t being forthcoming.
When I heard myself say these things, I stopped and went to my room. I had my answer. I was touching this, and I needed to stop. What I wanted was for my son to tell me that everything was under control. I wanted reassurance and maybe a hug. I was trying to fix my anxiety, and what I needed to do was to forgive my anxiety. So I sat with it and felt it. It raged through me until it was done. It wasn’t fun, but knowing my mind was being healed made it easier.
What if my son had given me what I wanted? What if he had said the doctor gave him medicine and assured him that all was well? I would have felt better because I had comforted the anxiety, but nothing would have healed. I would have gone through the same thing in many forms until I finally stopped trying to fix my anxiety so that the Holy Spirit could heal it instead.
The Calm Being of God
Then I read today’s paragraph, and I was so touched by the first few words, “The calm being of God…” which further comforted me because they so closely echoed the Holy Spirit’s message to me this morning. The calm being of God’s Kingdom is always in my mind. It is there even when I fight to keep its awareness from my mind. It is there even when I am in a desperate struggle within myself. I am not fighting a strong enemy in the ego. I am fighting fiercely to ignore the truth. This is a battle I will lose and in losing it, I will win.
“Holy Spirit, I surrender my mind to You. I surrender my battle to You. And I won’t try to fix the problem and instead, let it go to you. I lay down my arms in trust that You love me and want only my good and that You know what that good is. I open my heart, and I invite God’s Love to flow through me, healing me. Thank you.”
Click Here to read Keith Kavanagh’s forgiveness process.