ACIM Chapter 7.VII. The Totality of the Kingdom, P 2, 3

ACIM Chapter 7.VII. The Totality of the Kingdom, P 2, 3. When a brother acts insanely, he is offering you an opportunity to bless him. His need is yours.

VII. The Totality of the Kingdom, P 2

² When a brother acts insanely, he is offering you an opportunity to bless him. His need is yours. You need the blessing you can offer him. There is no way for you to have it except by giving it. This is the law of God, and it has no exceptions. What you deny you lack, not because it is lacking, but because you have denied it in another and are therefore not aware of it in yourself. Every response you make is determined by what you think you are, and what you want to be is what you think you are. What you want to be, then, must determine every response you make.

I love the clear and easy stuff from the Course, which we have here. When my brother acts insanely (attacks), I have an opportunity to bless him. I need to bless him because I need the blessing myself, and giving it is the only way I can receive it. That is so clear and so unequivocal. He emphasizes that by saying: “This is the law of God, and it has no exceptions.”

No matter what my brother does or says, he is asking for my blessing whether he understands this or not, and he probably doesn’t. If he is attacking, it is because he is afraid and feeling defensive. He thinks he must protect himself, and asking for a blessing is the furthest thing from his mind. Therefore, being the saner one at the time, it is up to me to understand what he needs and give it to him. 

How do I bless him?

What does that look like? The form changes according to circumstances, but the content remains love. It can be as simple as a smile or a nod of understanding. I can tell an angry brother that I can see how upset he is. I can give him my attention. When someone is grieving, I can hug her and offer my condolences.

Even if the attack is directed at me, I can be defenseless, and I can ask the Holy Spirit what response is most loving in this situation. Here is an example. I wrote something and shared it on a forum. Someone reading it attacked the content. I felt the attack as if it were personal, and so I asked the Holy Spirit to heal my mind.

From that place of clarity, I realized that my words had triggered something in the other person, and I felt compassion because I knew how that felt. I thanked the person for sharing her thoughts and feelings. Sometimes, it might be more appropriate just to let it be. What is never helpful is to argue or become defensive.

What I give, I receive, and I don’t need to teach myself defensiveness. I already know that posture too well. What I want is to teach forgiveness and innocence because that is what I most need to learn. I let what I want to be, determine my response.

VII. The Totality of the Kingdom, P 3

³ You do not need God’s blessing because that you have forever, but you do need yours. The ego’s picture of you is deprived, unloving and vulnerable. You cannot love this. Yet you can very easily escape from this image by leaving it behind. You are not there and that is not you. Do not see this picture in anyone, or you have accepted it as you. All illusions about the Sonship are dispelled together as they were made together. Teach no one that he is what you would not want to be. Your brother is the mirror in which you see the image of yourself as long as perception lasts. And perception will last until the Sonship knows itself as whole. You made perception and it must last as long as you want it.

I have noticed that as I allow my mind to be healed, I tend to experience the effects of my beliefs more quickly and clearly. I think this is because I am open to seeing this now, and I want to be healed, so I am shown what needs healing and see it without delay. It seems to be all about the level of my willingness. I get what I want, and to the degree I want it.

For a while this week, I experienced a lot of inner conflict.

It felt like I’d been walking backward on this path and could not seem to turn myself around. It has been very frustrating. I never go all the way back. In other words, I might be judgmental, but I never think that the judgment is justified. But after being mostly free of the desire to judge for a while now, it feels depressing to pick that back up, even though I know this is just some ego stuff coming back up so that I can master my desire to let go of judgment.

I have been asking the Holy Spirit to help me see the source of this problem. And this morning, as I read our paragraph of the day, I realized that I have been judging someone in my life without realizing I was doing so. I judge this person, and since judgment is not discreet, as I judge others, I judge myself. As Jesus says, Do not see this picture in anyone, or you have accepted it as you. Judgment is like a virus. It spreads quickly and indiscriminately.

I didn’t realize I was judging initially because it was not obvious. I seemed to be simply noticing something true about her. Then, this morning, the Holy Spirit helped me to see that this could not be true about her because it is not true about the Christ, so I was judging her as less than the Christ, or something other than the Christ. The effect of this judgment is that I began to see myself in this way. I see her as sick, and I see myself as sick because I cannot believe about myself what I am unwilling to believe about my sister.

Suddenly, it became very clear to me that I had been judging my perception as true.

My perception isn’t a fact; it is just a way of seeing. I seem to be right because my perception is projected as images into the world. The proof seemed to be right in front of my eyes, and so my perception appeared to prove itself to me. I have another option, though. Now that I remember that what I see represents a perception that I chose to believe, I can now ask for and receive a healed perception from the Holy Spirit.

One of the blocks to my acceptance has been the ego thought that no matter how I choose to see this problem, it is unlikely to change. This morning, I see that my reasoning is faulty. My part in this is to remember the truth. I can do this whether I see a change in the images or not. What is not God is not true. This is all I need to remember.

Sickness, fear, anger, guilt, suffering, and death are not true and never will be, regardless of appearances. I cannot make them true, but as long as I believe in them, my life will reflect them as if they are true. And if I believe these things about someone else, I will not be able to see myself free of them. 

I am ready to turn around now.

The world will remain a reflection of faulty perception as long as I value that perception. And perception will last as long as I want perception. My job right this moment is to allow my perception to be healed. The next step of giving up perception altogether will unfold in perfect timing according to our willingness. For today, I am willing to know the truth rather than to believe in the images of faulty perception. I feel lighter and freer already.

To listen to or read Regina Dawn Akers’s teaching on What I Think I See, CLICK HERE.