ACIM Chapter 7.VI. From Vigilance to Peace, P 8-10

ACIM Chapter 7.VI. From Vigilance to Peace, P 8-10. I have repeatedly emphasized that the ego does believe it can attack God, and tries to persuade you that you have done this.

VI. From Vigilance to Peace, P 8

⁸ I have repeatedly emphasized that the ego does believe it can attack God, and tries to persuade you that you have done this. If the mind cannot attack, the ego proceeds perfectly logically to the belief that you must be a body. By not seeing you as you are, it can see itself as it wants to be. Aware of its weakness the ego wants your allegiance, but not as you really are. The ego therefore wants to engage your mind in its own delusional system, because otherwise the light of your understanding would dispel it. It wants no part of truth, because the ego itself is not true. If truth is total, the untrue cannot exist. Commitment to either must be total; they cannot coexist in your mind without splitting it. If they cannot coexist in peace, and if you want peace, you must give up the idea of conflict entirely and for all time. This requires vigilance only as long as you do not recognize what is true. While you believe that two totally contradictory thought systems share truth, your need for vigilance is apparent.

The error I make is confusing myself with the ego.

I am not the ego. That is the truth, and that makes all the difference in the world. The ego really does believe it can attack God, and it tries to convince me that I am the one attacking God. When I identify with the ego, I believe I have done this and so the guilt I feel is immense, so immense that I hide from it instead of bringing it into the Light for healing. As I have allowed more and more healing of my mind, I have withdrawn my allegiance from the ego.

I see that I cannot keep dividing my allegiance between ego and Truth. This has split my mind and put me in a perpetual state of conflict, which has become intolerable. I have decided to choose God once and for all. This requires vigilance on my part to be aware of the tendency to choose conflict over peace. Either the vigilance became so automatic and natural that I hardly notice it anymore, or my natural state has become my default more often. For whatever reason, there is less conflict in my mind, much less.

I never stay in conflict when I am aware that I am doing it. If I see that I am angry with someone, anyone, for any reason, I choose to forgive. I forgive the person, the situation, and myself. I cannot have this conflict and be at peace, and I choose peace every time. There are times when I might have to talk myself into making this choice. And even that is not necessary most of the time. But whatever it takes to remain in peace, I do that.

My vigilance must be strongest for the conflict that is not as obvious.

Sometimes, I notice that I feel anxious and don’t know why. This is conflict that I am hiding from myself. I become willing to see it, and my willingness exposes the problem. Then I can confront my conflicted thoughts and ask for and accept the Atonement for them.

Here is something from my past journal that perfectly describes how it is possible to hide the cause of conflict even from myself. One day, I noticed that I was feeling little twinges of anger at one person and then another. I felt impatient with them. This is unusual enough for me to take notice and ask Spirit for clarity. Suddenly I felt grief-stricken and cried. It was then that I realized what was really happening. I was trying to avoid feeling upset about my sister-in-law being close to death.

It was like I had two thoughts in my mind; “Brinda is going to die,” and “I am not going to think about Brinda dying.” There was a little battle going on in my mind, and in trying to be unaware of this inner war, I was projecting the upset onto other people. But I am very vigilant for conflict, and my truest desire is to be free of conflict, so I let the Holy Spirit show me the problem, and I accepted healing. I let myself feel the grief rather than shielding myself from it.

I want peace, and so I am determined to give up the idea of conflict entirely and for all time.

The truth is that God creates only mind awake, thus we must all be awake. So why do we feel like we are still dreaming? It is only because we are focused on the false identity. In giving up conflict for all time, we will be focused entirely on our true identity. This is how we awaken from the dream.

VI. From Vigilance to Peace, P 9

⁹ Your mind is dividing its allegiance between two kingdoms, and you are totally committed to neither. Your identification with the Kingdom is totally beyond question except by you, when you are thinking insanely. What you are is not established by your perception, and is not influenced by it at all. Perceived problems in identification at any level are not problems of fact. They are problems of understanding, since their presence implies a belief that what you are is up to you to decide. The ego believes this totally, being fully committed to it. It is not true. The ego therefore is totally committed to untruth, perceiving in total contradiction to the Holy Spirit and to the knowledge of God.

Part of my mind believes I am this body/personality.

It gives its allegiance to the idea that I am Myron and that I live in this body and in this world, and I will die here. This part of my mind believes that it is up to me to decide what I am and that I can make my decision true simply by deciding on it. I don’t know anything; I perceive and I think that my perceptions are meaningful.

Part of my mind knows who and what I am. I am God’s Son, free and whole and perfect, and I exit in Him and as part of Him. This part of the mind doesn’t just think this; it knows it. In my right mind, I am not influenced in any way by the part of the mind that is insane. No matter what I think, I simply am as I was created, and nothing I think or do can alter that in any way. I am a creator, but I am not my own creator.

As long as I try to hold onto both ideas, I will be in conflict. If I want peace, and I do, I must let go of one identity and become totally dedicated to the other. It is impossible to be totally committed to a lie, and why would I want to anyway? I have already made my decision to return my whole mind to God, and now it is just a matter of commitment and vigilance.

I watch my mind for the dark thoughts that take me deeper into the illusion.

As I remembered that they were meaningless, I lost interest in them. This is not hard to do, and when it seems hard, it is only because I have placed value where there is none, and I change my mind. I don’t have to do anything to be my Self, I just stop trying to be something else.

When the ego-self starts to feel real to me, I realize that I am having an identity crisis. I am identifying with the ego. But that changes nothing. I remind myself that my identity has not changed since God established it. I am as I was created, even when my awareness has drifted to the illusory self. Each time I lose focus and bring myself back, my desire to see myself as something other than What I Am lessens. Body identification loses more of its allure as I return to my true identity more frequently. I breathe a sigh of relief.

²Spirit am I, a holy Son of God, free of all limits, safe and healed and whole, free to forgive, and free to save the world. (ACIM, W-97.7:2)

VI. From Vigilance to Peace, P 10

¹⁰ You can be perceived with meaning only by the Holy Spirit because your being is the knowledge of God. Any belief you accept apart from this will obscure God’s Voice in you, and will therefore obscure God to you. Unless you perceive His creation truly you cannot know the Creator, since God and His creation are not separate. The oneness of the Creator and the creation is your wholeness, your sanity and your limitless power. This limitless power is God’s gift to you, because it is what you are. If you dissociate your mind from it you are perceiving the most powerful force in the universe as if it were weak, because you do not believe you are part of it.

God created me like Himself, with limitless power. Limitless power! When I first read this, I had to go back and read it again. I just didn’t understand it, and of course, that means I just didn’t believe it because it is not hard to understand. I was created one with God, and that oneness is my wholeness, my sanity, and my limitless power. The reason I had trouble with this paragraph is that I had dissociated myself from this truth.

This means that I was pretending to be separate from God and from my power. I was pretending that this was even possible. I was pretending that it is possible to perceive the most powerful force in the universe as if it is weak. It is the only way I could have this separation experience. Now that I am waking up from this nightmare, I am beginning to remember some things about my Self.

Sometimes, my experience includes pain, both physical and emotional.

This pain seems to prove that I have no power, and yet Jesus says that I have limitless power. He has made it clear that I return to my natural state by letting go of what I taught myself in order to experience separation. I do this by becoming aware of my thought errors and agreeing to have them corrected.

It is very simple, but when I am in pain, it can seem impossible. I used to be discouraged, but making this decision many times, I know it is really easy. It always felt hard only when I would sit on the fence, teetering toward ego, then toward spirit, putting off the inevitable decision. Now, I don’t experience it as hard. And I know that I will ultimately choose God because of who I am because perception is not knowledge, and because I am known.

The Holy Spirit provides all the help I need to make the decision to fall into God.

I have the Course as well as other books, prayers, and processes. I have teachers, guides, and angels, and I have mighty companions. And I have experienced success in the past and these successes have built one on another so that the temptation to choose illusion over truth is easily overcome.

This morning I was guided to listen to a guided meditation by Nouk Sanchez. It reminded me that there is no pain or sickness or loss that is greater than the power of God. This gift was just another way that the Holy Spirit is helping me to remember the truth and to remind me that I want the truth. My desire for an experience other than reality is the only cause of pain or distress of any kind, and the decision to choose otherwise is the only cure.

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