ACIM Chapter 7.VI. From Vigilance to Peace, P 11-13

ACIM Chapter 7. VI. From Vigilance to Peace, P 11-13. Perceived without your part in it, God’s creation is seen as weak, and those who see themselves as weakened do attack.

VI. From Vigilance to Peace, P 11

¹¹ Perceived without your part in it, God’s creation is seen as weak, and those who see themselves as weakened do attack. The attack must be blind, however, because there is nothing to attack. Therefore they make up images, perceive them as unworthy and attack them for their unworthiness. That is all the world of the ego is. Nothing. It has no meaning. It does not exist. Do not try to understand it because, if you do, you are believing that it can be understood and is therefore capable of being appreciated and loved. That would justify its existence, which cannot be justified. You cannot make the meaningless meaningful. This can only be an insane attempt.

Oh, man! This brings a lot of clarity to what we see as the world. In an attempt to experience separation from God, we perceived ourselves as no longer whole since we thought we were no longer part of God. Simply being separate rather than whole made it seem as if we were weak, and feeling weak, we felt defensive, and so felt the need to attack.

But what could we attack?

We had to “make up images, perceive them as unworthy, and attack them for their unworthiness.” Voila, separate bodies! How perfect is that? We have these bodies that are weak and vulnerable and will ultimately die and decay. These bodies interact in painful and cruel ways.

Even with good intentions, they hurt each other. They have twisted the idea of love until it barely resembles itself. Because they were made out of fear, they are fearful. How else can we see these images except as unworthy? All made up. All are serving the purpose of giving us something to defend ourselves against because we made ourselves feel weak.

Jesus then warns us not to try to understand the world we made, not to appreciate or love it because we don’t want to justify it. It is meaningless, and we cannot make it meaningful. That’s why we are still here; we keep trying to find meaning where there is none. We keep trying to justify our existence as egos.

But we are not that. We are not bodies.

We are not weak and vulnerable. Nor are we not fearful and guilty. We are not hateful and we have no need to defend ourselves, and nothing to defend against. We are simply confused. However, if we continue trying to understand and improve the illusion, this insane world we imagined, we will continue to think that this is exactly what we are.

We could have reason to love and appreciate the world, or to hate the world, only if the world were meaningful and it is not. This is why I don’t pray for a better, more loveable world, but rather, I pray that I awake from the dream of the world. I dream that I live in this hellish expression of confusion and fear, then I dream that I die from it. Then I pop back in and dream that this time I will have a better “life,” and then I dream for a while, and I die. It is an endless cycle of nothing happening.

If I did not believe in it this whole thing would be funny, but as Jesus tells us in the Course, what I believe in is real for me, so it is more tragic than funny. But thank God, it is never real. I can wake up from the dreams of life and death. Thank God, I am still as I was created, and my real life has not ceased because part of my mind is involved in this insane dream.

12 VI. From Vigilance to Peace, P 12

¹² Allowing insanity to enter your mind means that you have not judged sanity as wholly desirable. If you want something else you will make something else, but because it is something else, it will attack your thought system and divide your allegiance. You cannot create in this divided state, and you must be vigilant against this divided state because only peace can be extended. Your divided mind is blocking the extension of the Kingdom, and its extension is your joy. If you do not extend the Kingdom, you are not thinking with your Creator and creating as He created.

I want to be one with my Creator and to create as He creates. I want to think as He thinks, to be joyful as He is joyful, and to be peaceful as He is peaceful. This is possible – no, it is inevitable. But it happens only from a state of mind conducive to this, and the only state of mind from which this is possible is one of wholeness.

I can have something else because of the power of my mind.

It cannot be real, but I can have it, and it will appear real to me. But if I do have it, it will keep me from having what I truly want. Wanting something else disrupts the oneness of mind from which all things God are extended. And so, through my desire for something different, I have deprived myself of everything worth having.

The solution to this quandary is in my mind. The Holy Spirit will correct all my errors and return my mind to Wholeness if I want Him to do so. Just as I had to want something else for it to be manifested, I must want wholeness for me to become aware that I have it, that I am it. If I say I want wholeness but am unwilling to meet its conditions, then I don’t really want it.

An example of this process in action would look like this.

I am annoyed with someone I know. I have projected onto him and judged my projections. Thus, in my mind, he is now guilty and the cause of my distress. This decision has strengthened my belief in and need for separation. I cannot know wholeness because I belive I need someone else to carry the guilt. And I keep this in place through what I now believe is justified anger.

I notice that my decisions in this matter cost me my peace. So, I decided I wanted peace more than judgment and anger. I ask the Holy Spirit to correct my thinking and heal my mind. Suddenly, I saw what happened, what it was in myself that needed healing. And that I chose to project rather than to face.

In withdrawing my projections from this man and allowing them to be healed, I have aligned my mind with truth. I can experience unity with this brother of mine rather than separation. In doing so, I am reminded of wholeness, and my desire for a permanent state of wholeness increases. I continue this process, and with each choice for wholeness, I become more willing and more certain that sanity is wholly desired.

13 VI. From Vigilance to Peace, P 13

¹³ In this depressing state the Holy Spirit reminds you gently that you are sad because you are not fulfilling your function as co-creator with God, and are therefore depriving yourself of joy. This is not God’s choice but yours. If your mind could be out of accord with God’s, you would be willing without meaning. Yet because God’s Will is unchangeable, no conflict of will is possible. This is the Holy Spirit’s perfectly consistent teaching. Creation, not separation, is your will because it is God’s, and nothing that opposes this means anything at all. Being a perfect accomplishment, the Sonship can only accomplish perfectly, extending the joy in which it was created, and identifying itself with both its Creator and its creations, knowing They are One.

We are confused about the order in which things happen.

Our sadness, our guilt, fear, anger, and all the emotions we experience seem to be in reaction to something that is happening in our lives. The truth is that our “lives” are the projection of our beliefs. The belief comes first, then the story that seems to explain the belief. So, when I am sad, it is not because I feel lonely; no one is visiting me or calling me. I believe I can be alone, and I quickly make a story of being alone, which explains the feeling to me. Then the ego says, “Oh, that’s why I am sad.” In this way, I keep myself from knowing that I am sad because I am not fulfilling my function as co-creator with God.

The next time I feel sad, I will remind myself that there is no story to explain that sadness. There is only one reason I am sad. I long to be my Self. I miss God, and I miss my real Life. All the sad stories in the illusion are just reflections of that one thing. I want to return to my place as co-creator with God. I will remind myself that I am making up all these stories. The truth is very simple. There is God, there is His creation, the Sonship, and there are my creations, and They are One. All of this other stuff that “seems” to exist is just part of a dream of separation. It will disappear as soon as I am through with it.

To review Pathways of Light insights on this section, CLICK HERE.