ACIM Chapter 6. V. C. Be Vigilant Only for God and His Kingdom, P 5, 6. Choosing through the Holy Spirit will lead you to the Kingdom.
ACIM Chapter 6. V. C. Be Vigilant Only for God and His Kingdom, P 5, 6
C. Be Vigilant Only for God and His Kingdom, P 5
5 Choosing through the Holy Spirit will lead you to the Kingdom. You create by your true being, but what you are you must learn to remember. The way to remember it is inherent in the third step, which brings together the lessons implied in the others, and goes beyond them towards real integration. If you allow yourself to have in your mind only what God put there, you are acknowledging your mind as God created it. Therefore, you are accepting it as it is. Since it is whole, you are teaching peace because you believe in it. The final step will still be taken for you by God, but by the third step the Holy Spirit has prepared you for God. He is getting you ready for the translation of having into being by the very nature of the steps you must take with Him.
May this day, all my choices be made through the Holy Spirit.
I am running so late this morning that I thought I might skip this writing, but I set aside what I thought I should do and left my heart open to guidance. I would make no decisions on my own nor make any plans without the Holy Spirit’s guidance. The ego doubts the Holy Spirit’s choice and feels nervous about the time. But I remember how often I thought I knew something and how wrong I was. I remember the times I turned to Spirit for guidance, and I cannot remember a single time that I was misled.
I used to treasure the right to make choices, and I felt uneasy and resentful at surrendering that right. Now, I notice the ego’s grumbling about it, but I feel relieved that I am no longer trying to make decisions based on the little bit I actually know and understand. I am peaceful to know that I am being led step by step to the remembrance of my true Self. I am exhilarated to see what unfolds without my interference.
Choice is the only freedom I have in this illusion. But there are not an unlimited number of things from which to choose. There are only two choices from which to pick: I can decide to live from the ego or decide to be lived by Spirit. I have made my choice, and so I will spend today protecting that choice. I am allowing the Holy Spirit to prepare me for God.
C. Be Vigilant Only for God and His Kingdom, P6
6 You learn first that having rests on giving, and not on getting. Next you learn that you learn what you teach, and that you want to learn peace. This is the condition for identifying with the Kingdom, since it is the condition of the Kingdom. You have believed that you are without the Kingdom, and have therefore excluded yourself from it in your belief. It is therefore essential to teach you that you must be included, and that the belief that you are not is the only thing that you must exclude.
I believe that I have left the Kingdom of God, but the only thing that has happened is that I have a belief. My belief convinces me that something has actually happened and that I am guilty of it. I try to rid myself of the intolerable burden of this guilt by projecting it. The Garden of Eden story is my attempt to project it onto God. Every time I think blame thoughts in any form, it is my attempt to project it onto someone else or onto some situation. But it doesn’t work, of course, because what I give is mine. What I teach is what I learn.
Jesus is showing us the way out of this.
He is the way out. I was reading something I wrote earlier about the crucifixion and resurrection, which was his part in the awakening. This is, in part, what I said:
The useless journey, or the journey to the cross, is death in its many forms. It is sickness, loss, lack, hatred, anger, fear, judgment, jealousy, and depression. All suffering is a form of death. Then, of course, there is the death of the body, the coup de gras, the final proof that I am not what God created, that I am indeed my own creation. The journey through suffering and finally to my death is my ultimate victory against God.
Jesus overcame death, and in doing so, it is done. All that is required of me is that I accept this gift, and then it is done for me, too. His was meant to be the last useless journey, done for all of us and done for the last time. Instead, we have chosen sacrifice (a form of death). It seems that we have taken the wrong lesson from his life and death. We have chosen to follow in his footsteps to crucifixion rather than life eternal. And so we endlessly reenact the crucifixion while rejecting the resurrection, which proved that death is not real and proved that the ego/body/ cannot overcome God’s Will.
Since what is done by one is done for all, the real lesson to take from the crucifixion is it is done and over.
Our part now is to accept it as done. We do this as we reject every form of death, and in so doing, we will be resurrected from this dream of separation and begin to truly live. We do this whenever we notice untrue beliefs in our mind and ask for and accept the Atonement for those thoughts. And we do it every time we stop trying to give away our guilt and simply allow it to be healed.
Each time we reject a wrong-minded belief, it is a little step toward the Kingdom. We will take this journey a step at a time until the mind has healed to the point that we are ready for resurrection and then ascension. The Kingdom has already been won. All we are doing is preparing ourselves to accept our place in it, and we do this by rejecting anything that is not part of the Kingdom.
I used to have this crazy belief that I would finally be at peace when my children were at peace. Or I would be at peace when I got my house and car paid off. I would be at peace when I retired or when I had more time. Peace would come when I had made amends for all my mistakes. When my body was healed. All these conditions I put on peace are barriers to the Kingdom of Heaven. I stand at the door with my heavy burden of needs, and all I need to do to enter is lay that burden aside. Just lay it down and go on in. The way has been made.
I would stand there with my grievances piled high.
My dad was an alcoholic. I never knew a normal relationship with a father. Thus I formed the belief this scarred me and kept me from forming healthy relationships with men. My ex-husband was not the man I needed him to be. Friends betrayed me. My kids don’t give me what I think I need from them. People keep letting me down. People are unkind and close-minded and the cause of my misery. I stand at the gate with my list of grievances, the proof that these people are unworthy and should not be allowed entrance. And so, of course, I cannot enter either because then, who would bar the door?
All I need to do to enter the Kingdom is throw away my list of grievances. I cannot approach God with hate in my heart. This is not because I am guilty of my hate, but because hate is not in God. To know my nature and to return to truth, I must reject all that is not God’s nature because that is my nature, too. It is simple logic, really. I cannot know myself as the Son of God if I believe I am the ego.
I have learned to distinguish between the untrue beliefs in my mind and the beliefs that are in alignment with truth.
And I have been shown that untrue beliefs have no value and that being only beliefs, I can let them go. This is a decision I have made, and now I practice until that decision has been mastered. Ultimately, we are all being guided to a place beyond belief. This is because belief implies question, and what is of God is not questionable. As long as there is still doubt and uncertainty in the mind, we must continue our vigilance on behalf of God. We must allow our minds to be healed of all ego beliefs.
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