ACIM Chapter 5. V. The Ego’s Use of Guilt P 1, 2, 3, 4

ACIM 5. V. The Ego’s Use of Guilt P 1, 2, 3, 4. Perhaps some of our concepts will become clearer and more personally meaningful if the ego’s use of guilt is clarified.

V. The Ego’s Use of Guilt P 1

¹ Perhaps some of our concepts will become clearer and more personally meaningful if the ego’s use of guilt is clarified. The ego has a purpose, just as the Holy Spirit has. The ego’s purpose is fear, because only the fearful can be egotistic. The ego’s logic is as impeccable as that of the Holy Spirit, because your mind has the means at its disposal to side with Heaven or earth, as it elects. But again, remember that both are in you.  

I am reminded that my mind has both ego and Holy Spirit in it. I choose which I will believe, and I do this in every moment. Jesus tells us in Chapter 30 that we make decisions continuously. That is not often, but continuously. So am I deciding on God or ego? I am always choosing one or the other. When I choose ego, I choose fear. This is all the ego has to offer. I may not realize it is fear I am choosing. In fact, I may think I am choosing protection. I may think I am choosing salvation.  

Vigilant for Ego Beliefs

Here is an example I have noticed in the past. I would notice that, once again, my clothes were getting too tight, and I would be upset. The ego would offer me the thought that it is not fair that I eat much less than many people, and yet I get fat, and they don’t. I liked that thought. It helped me feel like an innocent victim of random genes, making me feel better, less culpable. But in choosing to believe that ego thought, I was actually making myself feel weak. I was imprisoning my will and denying my divinity. I caused myself to feel helpless, and that felt frightening. So, I began to see the ego’s solution was fear.  

I’ve learned to be vigilant for ego thinking. When I am tempted to accept the ego solution, I remember where it will inevitably lead me. I turn to the truth, which is also in my mind. I remember that I am never the victim of the world I see. And I remember that my thoughts are powerful. I remember that I but do this to myself.  

When the ego suggests that I got a cold from a friend, I listen to Spirit instead and remember that I gave myself a cold. If someone else gave it to me, I would be helpless to protect myself. So again, the ego offers me only fear. If I accept responsibility for the effects of my thoughts, I can then change my mind and have different effects. This is genuinely empowering and will not lead to fear. What comes from my right-minded thinking comes from God, and there is no fear in God.  

V. The Ego’s Use of Guilt, P 2

² In Heaven there is no guilt, because the Kingdom is attained through the Atonement, which releases you to create. The word “create” is appropriate here because, once what you have made is undone by the Holy Spirit, the blessed residue is restored and therefore continues in creation. What is truly blessed is incapable of giving rise to guilt, and must give rise to joy. This makes it invulnerable to the ego because its peace is unassailable. It is invulnerable to disruption because it is whole. Guilt is always disruptive. Anything that engenders fear is divisive because it obeys the law of division. If the ego is the symbol of the separation, it is also the symbol of guilt. Guilt is more than merely not of God. It is the symbol of attack on God. This is a totally meaningless concept except to the ego, but do not underestimate the power of the ego’s belief in it. This is the belief from which all guilt really stems.  

Creating Versus Making

We cannot create while in this separated state. Healing is as close as we can get to creating here. But that will not be so once the Atonement is complete. The Holy Spirit will undo what we have made, and we will return to Oneness and so to truly creating. Actually, I see that Jesus says we continue to create. He makes that distinction because this is an illusion, and separation is impossible. Thus, creation remains uninterrupted.  

We remain unaware of Reality because, in our minds, we have separated ourselves from it, but that changes nothing. Creation cannot be disrupted; only our awareness of creation can be affected. And so, the part of the mind that imagines itself separate is healed of this belief. Thus it is restored, and we become aware that creation continues as if nothing happened because nothing happened. ⁶Your starting point is truth, and you must return to your Beginning. ⁷Much has been seen since then, but nothing has really happened. (ACIM, T-3.VII.5:6-7)  

Guilt Seen As Real

Guilt stands between us and the healing of the mind. Ego says that we are too guilty to be healed. It says that our guilt has made us unworthy of healing. It says that what we have done in separating ourselves from God has not only been accomplished against God’s Will, but God is aware of our transgression and is not about to overlook it. The ego says that our guilt is real and punishable and permanent.  

Because we believe what the ego says, we believe in guilt. Guilt is the filter through which all things must pass. It is the foundation on which we built the world we see, including our bodies and our identity with these bodies. All the stories we make that we think of as our lives are based on this belief. So, what happens is this. We believe in guilt. Our belief makes up stories of guilt. These stories prove our guilt. We feel guiltier with each story. The ego has us in an endless cycle of guilt. No wonder we live in fear.  

Because we believe in guilt, we cannot undo guilt on our own. If I believe something, I cannot teach myself the opposite. The way out of the guilt loop we have made through our belief is to accept help outside the loop. We listen to a different teacher and learn that guilt is not real. Jesus calls this solution the Atonement. It is through accepting the Atonement that all we made is undone, and we return our mind to the Kingdom. And all continues as it always has.  

V. The Ego’s Use of Guilt, P 3

³ The ego is the part of the mind that believes in division. How could part of God detach itself without believing it is attacking Him? We spoke before of the authority problem as based on the concept of usurping God’s power. The ego believes that this is what you did because it believes that it is you. If you identify with the ego, you must perceive yourself as guilty. Whenever you respond to your ego you will experience guilt, and you will fear punishment. The ego is quite literally a fearful thought. However ridiculous the idea of attacking God may be to the sane mind, never forget that the ego is not sane. It represents a delusional system, and speaks for it. Listening to the ego’s voice means that you believe it is possible to attack God, and that a part of Him has been torn away by you. Fear of retaliation from without follows, because the severity of the guilt is so acute that it must be projected.  

Understanding the Belief in Guilt

This paragraph is very helpful in understanding guilt. Here is how I understand it. I think I separated a part of God from Himself, and I think I will be punished for that. I feel intensely guilty and afraid. The guilt is overwhelming, so I project it and think the punishment will come from without. I am very afraid of God, and so I pretend to love Him while actually doing everything I can to avoid Him.  

Here is what really happened. I had a thought of separation and imagined what it would be like. Now the mind is split. A part of it is now the ego belief that God could be attacked, some part of Its Self could be taken from It, and God will retaliate for this assault. The world we see, and experience is the effect of this insane thought. The ego also thinks that it is me. When I identify with the ego, I also believe that the ego is me.  

The rest of my mind is sane. It knows the truth that God cannot be attacked, and God cannot suffer loss. Nothing has actually happened. I am not the ego; the ego is not anything, just a weird belief that somehow took hold in the mind. I can allow this belief to be undone for me through the Holy Spirit. God cannot be angry, and God cannot punish because God is only Love. I have done nothing wrong. And I am innocent and loved. I am free.  

V. The Ego’s Use of Guilt, P 4

⁴ Whatever you accept into your mind has reality for you. It is your acceptance of it that makes it real. If you enthrone the ego in your mind, your allowing it to enter makes it your reality. This is because the mind is capable of creating reality or making illusions. I said before that you must learn to think with God. To think with Him is to think like Him. This engenders joy, not guilt, because it is natural. Guilt is a sure sign that your thinking is unnatural. Unnatural thinking will always be attended with guilt, because it is the belief in sin. The ego does not perceive sin as a lack of love, but as a positive act of assault. This is necessary to the ego’s survival because, as soon as you regard sin as a lack, you will automatically attempt to remedy the situation. And you will succeed. The ego regards this as doom, but you must learn to regard it as freedom.  

Guilt and Fear Thoughts

The ego is always whispering in my mind of attacks I need to defend against and attacks I need to carry out. There is a constant barrage of guilt and fear thoughts. And so thoughts of pain and suffering, lack and loss. How do I not allow this in my mind? It seems already to be there. I think these thoughts are dropping into my mind or floating in, offering themselves to me. When I am attracted to them, they stay and become my reality. When I have no interest in them, they float on through, hardly slowing.  

At first, I noticed the thoughts as they appeared in my awareness, and I consciously and deliberately decided to believe them or not to believe them. At times I had to tear my attention from them, and put my foot down, so to speak. I took a stand against them, believing what Jesus told me. Eventually, I noticed the thoughts as if in my peripheral vision and turned from them without much effort.  

Choosing What I Will Believe.

Now I notice that the ego is subtler in its efforts to entangle me in its fear thoughts. For instance, this morning, as I was reading the Lesson for the day, I thought I still had so many ego thoughts, which means I would not awaken any time soon. In that moment of believing, I felt sad, discouraged, and guilty. It all happened in the briefest of moments, and there were not the words I used here to describe it. It was more like a feeling. But when I felt the guilt and the discouragement, I knew I had chosen to believe something untrue. In that realization, I chose again.  

The choice was made quickly, and I see as I read this selection from the Course that the brief stab of guilt resulted from believing I am lacking. It was the belief that I don’t have God’s love and approval, that I am bereft of hope, that I am separated from my Creator and alone in the world, and that I may never again be part of Him. That belief had a strong hold on my mind at one time, and it would have opened the door to many more ego thoughts and eventually led to depression.  

It is different now. I saw the thought. I considered it ever so briefly, then I answered it with love. It was a call for love, and I responded with love. I turned from that dark thought to the light in my mind and allowed the thoughts I think with God to fill me. I am His holy Son in whom He is well pleased. Everything else is meaningless. And once again, I am free.

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