ACIM Chapter 6. II.The Alternative to Projection P 8, 9

ACIM II. The Alternative to Projection P 8, 9. God created His Sons by extending His Thought, and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind.

II. The Alternative to Projection, P 8

8 God created His Sons by extending His Thought, and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind. All His Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other. The Holy Spirit enables you to perceive this wholeness now. God created you to create. You cannot extend His Kingdom until you know of its wholeness.

Though we used to the power of creation to make this world, it is not true creation. Rather than extending the Love that we are, we projected our fear and guilt, and so the world is one of suffering. We seem separate from our Creator and each other, but Jesus reassures us that this cannot be.  While the world we made is not creation, we are. When God created us, He extended His Thought but also held His Thought within His Mind. This is why we can never truly be separate from God.

We are not only like God, we are in God. We are perfectly united within each other and within God. The world we made is a world of separation where we each seem to be discrete and unconnected, and yet, that is obviously not possible. We are One Whole Self. The belief that we are separated from each other and from God is the only thing holding us in our illusion and holding our illusion together. Just a belief. This is the belief we must let go so we can once again know our wholeness and extend His Kingdom.

As we let go of the thought of separation, we wake up to our true Self and know ourselves in God.

We return home to discover we never really left and were just dreaming of being separate. We wake up to our Father and our true creations. It really is that simple. So, why do we resist awakening? We imagine the world keeps us safe from a vengeful God. It makes no sense, though. Since we have never left God, we would already be destroyed if He were truly vengeful. We are like children afraid of the monsters in the dark. We sit with our eyes tightly closed and imagine that we are safe because we don’t see the monster. All the time, there is no monster, just the imagined shadows of our fear.

Being in God, we are perfectly protected and are in no danger from our illusions. We are safe no matter what seems to happen to these illusory bodies. We can dream of being separate and in danger, but that cannot actually happen. And because we are in God, it is possible and perfectly safe to awaken from this dream.

But do I truly believe that I am safe at home in God and that I only imagine this world? I remember something that happened several years ago when contemplating this idea. I asked myself that very question and heard only whispers of dissent. The ego was afraid, but I am not the ego, and its voice was fading from my mind. Then, the ego asked if I believed my son was not real and reminded me of his upcoming surgery.

So, I considered this.

Will I be so certain he is not real when he is under the knife and in danger? I asked the Holy Spirit about this, and He reminded me that my son is very real and he is with me in God. It is the story of his suffering that is the illusion. I asked that my mind be healed of the lingering belief in the illusion. So I sat with my thoughts and fears, looking with the Holy Spirit.

I imagined myself in that situation, sitting in the waiting room with my son’s fiancée, and I felt the fear in the clinching of my stomach and the tightening in my chest. I felt it moving up my throat and making a lump there that I could barely breathe around. The fear melted out of me as tears.

I watched this happening, knowing that this was exactly what needed to be healed. It was not pleasant feeling that awful fear, but it didn’t take long to pass since I didn’t fight it. It came up so that the Holy Spirit and I could look together and, together, agree that this cannot be. How can a Thought of God be endangered? This is so much better than the way I used to do it.

I used to ask for help and then put up a wall against that help.

It seemed so wrong, so disloyal, to not be afraid for my son. But I learned to look at that wall with the Holy Spirit, and together, we agreed that it was unnecessary. I saw that Love is not fear, and I watched as the wall crumbled before my eyes. The ego tried to worm its way into that moment with the Holy Spirit, asking what we are to do next to achieve this healing, and I am told that my part was done. The Holy Spirit would do the rest. I was to rest in Trust and allow it to happen.

II. The Alternative to Projection, P 9

9 Thoughts begin in the mind of the thinker, from which they reach outward. This is as true of God’s Thinking as it is of yours. Because your mind is split, you can perceive as well as think. Yet perception cannot escape the basic laws of mind. You perceive from your mind and project your perceptions outward. Although perception of any kind is unreal, you made it and the Holy Spirit can therefore use it well. He can inspire perception and lead it toward God. This convergence seems to be far in the future only because your mind is not in perfect alignment with the idea, and therefore does not want it now.

This first sentence explains how we made the world we see. First, we thought of it, and then the thoughts took form. This is the way God made us as well. We know from the previous paragraph that God’s Thoughts remain in His mind, so we know that this is true of our thoughts as well. What we made as the world is in our mind, just as we are in God’s Mind.

Because our mind is split, we both think and perceive, and perception follows the same rules as thinking. The world we made is a perceived world. It is not real because it is not created but made up of impossible thoughts. Still, because we made it, the Holy Spirit can use it. The way He uses it is to help align our thinking with truth. He inspires our perceptions and, therefore, turns them toward God.

Last night my daughter was getting ready to leave the house.

I asked her if she remembered her phone. She tends to forget things. She said she had it and drove off. I found her phone on the kitchen table. I told those still at the house that this girl tests my faith. Every time she leaves, I worry because she seems to be so unaware. I meant it as a joke, but it didn’t feel funny to me when I said it out loud. I immediately regretted my words.

Here is how the Holy Spirit inspires my perceptions and turns them toward God.

The Holy Spirit showed me that the reason I felt bad about what I said was that it was an attack on my daughter. I see her as less than what she is. I overlook her holiness and see her behavior instead. When I asked for help, the Holy Spirit inspired my perception, and I could see my daughter as the brilliant being she is. What is her story of forgetfulness next to the truth of her holy Self?

Then, the Holy Spirit also helped me see my guilty feelings differently. I saw that I did not ever mean to attack my daughter. The attack was a projection of my fear for her. We looked at the fear together, and I was reminded that fear is not real but something we made up through our faulty perceptions.

This helped turn my perceptions away from the darkness to the light. The Holy Spirit gave me a vision of my daughter and I sitting together, enjoying the story of Susan and Mom. This story is better than anything on TV and just as unreal.  We are not guilty because nothing is really happening. Our stories cannot alter what God created.

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