ACIM IV. This Need Not Be, P 3, 4, 5. When you are sad, know this need not be. When you are anxious, realize that anxiety comes from the capriciousness of the ego, and know this need not be. While you feel guilty your ego is in command, because only the ego can experience guilt. This need not be.
ACIM Chapter 4, IV. This Need Not Be, P 3, 4, 5
IV. This Need Not Be, P 3
3 When you are sad, know this need not be. Depression comes from a sense of being deprived of something you want and do not have. Remember that you are deprived of nothing except by your own decisions, and then decide otherwise.
I used to be depressed pretty much all the time, but A Course in Miracles changed that for me. The more I practiced the Course the less I experienced depression until one day, I realized that I couldn’t remember the last time I was depressed. Once in a while, I will suddenly feel sad or mentally tired, but when I do, I realize that I have made a choice for sadness, and I ask for help.
Here is what I discovered about sadness. I don’t get rid of it by trying not to think sad thoughts. I get rid of it by realizing that I am deliberately choosing to think sad thoughts and then asking the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of believing those thoughts could be true. The result is often immediate. If it is not, I know that I still find some value in my belief, and I ask for clarity.
Loneliness
In every case, I see that I feel deprived. I think I need something I don’t have. For instance, maybe I feel lonely and think I need someone to be with me. I am one with all there is. How could I feel alone? Alone is a word, a state of being, a feeling I made up. I can’t be alone. To feel alone requires that I suspend reality. Loneliness is not something that just happens to me, it requires my active participation. To feel lonely, I must decide to feel lonely, and then I must be vigilant against the truth to have that experience.
All that is required to stop feeling lonely is to no longer want that feeling. I have made that choice many times and am very familiar with the process. Something I noticed is that the more I do it, the more aware I am of any resistance to letting it go. I have seen my mind argue for loneliness. Now that I have seen my resistance, I understand that I did, after all, make the choice for sadness. Once seen, it is easier to choose differently.
4 IV. This Need Not Be, P4
4 When you are anxious, realize that anxiety comes from the capriciousness of the ego, and know this need not be. You can be as vigilant against the ego’s dictates as for them.
Anxiety is a choice I still make more often than I do for sadness. But, like sadness, anxiety requires my full cooperation. First I have to leave the present. Anxiety occurs when I am mentally in the past or the future. If I am thinking about the past, I go over my old stories and try to rewrite them. It is like the past wasn’t bad enough the first time, and I have to go back and relive it. It’s like self-torture. This could only happen because I want it to.
When I dwell mentally in the future, I imagine possible stories I could write. It seems they all lead to anxiety, even when they start off as pleasant stories. For instance, I used to fantasize about a future in which I win the lottery, and I would imagine what I would do with all that money. Inevitably I would run into trouble in my stories. I would become anxious about how I would divide it up. And what if I squandered it, or what if my wealth changed my relationships with my family? There was often an uncomfortable element to those fantasies.
Fear Based Stories Fueled by Guilt
I had a workshop to present. Sometimes when I would think about the workshop, I felt anxious. What if I didn’t do a good job? What if something went wrong? The ego mind starts thinking of ways to prevent disaster. I should stop what I am doing and make plans, prepare talks, and do whatever I could think of to fix this problem. In actuality, there was no problem. If I continued this thinking, I would believe in the problem and be very uncomfortable no matter what I decided to do.
The ego mind is always going to create stories that bring us discomfort because its stories are always about separation. Thus they are based on fear and fueled by guilt. But they are all just stories. Nothing is happening. Yet the ego cannot let the mind be still because it is afraid of the stillness. Afraid we will discover the truth about the ego and make that final choice for reality. So it keeps the stories coming. When I notice that I am feeling anxious, I do the same thing I have done for sadness. I realize that I am choosing anxiety and making another choice. I ask the Holy Spirit to heal my mind of the beliefs that are driving the anxiety.
5 IV. This Need Not Be, P 5
5 When you feel guilty, remember that the ego has indeed violated the laws of God, but you have not. Leave the “sins” of the ego to me. That is what Atonement is for. But until you change your mind about those whom your ego has hurt, the Atonement cannot release you. While you feel guilty your ego is in command, because only the ego can experience guilt. This need not be.
Earlier in the Text, Jesus said that I could entrust my ego to him, and now he is telling me to leave the “sins” of the ego to him. This is why he made the Atonement, to wipe out the sins of the ego. I’m reminded of when I was Catholic, and every week I would go to confession. The idea of confession is that you tell the priest what you did wrong, he gives you a little punishment to Atone for your wrongdoing, and after it’s complete, you leave knowing you are alright with God again.
The Atonement process is a little different, though. I tell the Holy Spirit what it is that I think I did wrong, and He tells me nothing happened and that I am still innocent. As I become open to forgiveness without blame, guilt, or punishment, and as I begin to truly want to change my mind about this, it is done.
Atonement Is Different than Confession
I’ll make a little confession now. I hated going to confession. Even though they were relatively minor in nature, I dreaded laying out all my sins to the priest. I hated being judged, and I felt small and sinful every time. I felt so much relief at it being over that I gladly did my penance, and I did feel some relief to know that I was once again sinless. The priest always ended the session with the words, “Go and sin no more,” and I felt guilty. I knew I would sin again and feel hopeless because I would never live up to that admonition. I felt like a fraud accepting my forgiveness.
That is where the Atonement is different. I am not going to the Holy Spirit with a behavior and telling Him I am sorry I did it and want to be forgiven for my sin. I am talking to Him about my behavior and asking Him to show me what I believe caused me to act like that. Then I ask Him to correct my thinking and heal my mind so that the incorrect thought will no longer inform my behavior.
How My Sins Are Forgiven
The Holy Spirit offers me the healing I want. If I want the grievance more than I want to be at peace, more than I want to awaken, that desire creates a block that prevents the correction from taking place. If I don’t really want the healing yet, it waits for me until I change my mind. There is no sense of being judged, and there is no penance because I was already innocent when I called on His help. The ego does sin, but I am not the ego, and that is what I am ultimately learning through this healing process. That is why the Atonement doesn’t correct behavior but heals the mind that thinks it is that behavior.
The Holy Spirit is not wiping out my sins; He is wiping out the belief I could sin. I cannot accept this correction if I am attached to my grievance. As long as I still project onto the one I have a grievance against, the Holy Spirit cannot show me I am guiltless. My desire to make the other guilty holds the belief in guilt in place and keeps me from believing in the truth of innocence. As long as I feel guilty, I know that I have not accepted the Atonement, but I also know that it is mine when I am ready.
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