ACIM II. The Alternative to Projection P 11. The ego can accept the idea that return is necessary because it can so easily make the idea seem difficult.
ACIM Chapter 6. II.The Alternative to Projection P 11
II. The Alternative to Projection, P 11
11 The ego can accept the idea that return is necessary because it can so easily make the idea seem difficult. Yet the Holy Spirit tells you that even return is unnecessary, because what never happened cannot be difficult. However, you can make the idea of return both necessary and difficult. Yet it is surely clear that the perfect need nothing, and you cannot experience perfection as a difficult accomplishment, because that is what you are. This is the way in which you must perceive God’s creations, bringing all of your perceptions into the one line the Holy Spirit sees. This line is the direct line of communication with God, and lets your mind converge with His. There is no conflict anywhere in this perception, because it means that all perception is guided by the Holy Spirit, Whose Mind is fixed on God. Only the Holy Spirit can resolve conflict, because only the Holy Spirit is conflict-free. He perceives only what is true in your mind, and extends outward only to what is true in other minds.
Does it have to take a long time to awaken?
This idea that I can spend eons letting go and never finishing the process keeps coming up for me this morning. I was guided to it as I read my passage from the Manual for Teachers and was given some thoughts about it. Now I look at today’s paragraph from the Text, and again I see that Jesus wants me to know that it does not have to be hard or time-consuming to awaken. I am not really going anywhere, and I am already what I seek to be.
This is equally true for everyone else. When I look at my brother and see him as less than a perfect creation, it is because I still don’t want to remember my own perfection. I am merely projecting onto my brother what I am determined to see in myself. How hard it must be for me to keep up this façade! I must look at perfection and never allow myself to see it. How do I do that?
I am tired of the game, and I want to allow all blocks to Vision to be removed from my mind. This was the plan all along, and now it is time. It is a simple thing to allow my mind to be brought into alignment with what actually Is. “Holy Spirit, let’s go straight to the core, straight to the original error, the desire to experience separation. I want to remember the truth about who I am. I want to see the truth of this reflected in my brothers, in every facet of this life and this world.”
Shall I continue to chip away at the problem, or blow it up?
I was reading from I Am Word, and they spoke about beliefs as boulders sitting in the room and how we have learned to live with these boulders and accommodate them. One night, I looked at one of my boulders and realized that I had been chipping away at it, but only cautiously. It was as if I feared that if I chipped too diligently, I might lose it before I was ready. I see that I must have believed that this debilitating belief had some value and was somehow protective.
At first, it made me want to cry to see the boulder so clearly and realize how much I believed in it and how painful that was. Now, I tend to laugh when I discover these hidden beliefs. After all, who hid them? Me, right? So, from that experience, I learned to allow memories to show me how these boulders start. I see how it is that my continuing to believe the same thing adds layers and layers to it. Soon, it looms so high and solid in my mind I can’t imagine it being gone. But I have learned that I can choose again.
It truly feels like a miracle when it just disappears.
I gave my permission for the boulder of a belief to be blasted out of existence! Wow! I just did it, and it was nothing really, not the huge, devastating explosion I expected, but just a small explosion with a little dust. I had to laugh. We don’t have any real boulders, just shadows that seem to loom big in our minds because we have believed in them, valued them, and defended them for so long.
The truth is that we are perfect right now, as we have always been. We were created perfect, and creation does not change. We remain as we were created no matter what mind games we play. I want to have a clear mind because what we believe is true for us. Believing in sin and suffering is not something I want to continue. I also understand that I will not believe in my innocence unless I believe in yours. My mind must be sick if it believes any creation of God could be less than perfect. Thus, it needs healing. So, if I perceive someone, anyone, as less than a perfect creation of God, I ask the Holy Spirit to guide my perception.
“Holy Spirit, I know now that this does not have to be the arduous journey I have made of it. I open my heart to You, and give You full access to my mind. I ask that You heal me completely. “
Recently, I have been reading a book called The Only Little Prayer You Need by Debra Landwehr Engle. It is very helpful in explaining in the simplest terms how our thoughts affect us and how to change them. If you are interested, I bought my copy from Pathways of Light at this link. CLICK HERE.