ACIM Chapter 7. X. The Confusion of Pain and Joy, P 1, 2. It is surely clear that you can both accept into your mind what is not there, and deny what is.
ACIM Chapter 7. X. The Confusion of Pain and Joy, P 1, 2.
X. The Confusion of Pain and Joy, P 1
1 The Kingdom is the result of premises, just as this world is. You may have carried the ego’s reasoning to its logical conclusion, which is total confusion about everything. If you really saw this result you could not want it. The only reason you could possibly want any part of it is because you do not see the whole of it. You are willing to look at the ego’s premises, but not at their logical outcome. Is it not possible that you have done the same thing with the premises of God? Your creations are the logical outcome of His premises. His thinking has established them for you. They are exactly where they belong. They belong in your mind as part of your identification with His, but your state of mind and your recognition of what is in it depend on what you believe about your mind. Whatever these beliefs may be, they are the premises that will determine what you accept into your mind.
It took me a long time, but now I see exactly where the ego will lead us if we follow it to its logical conclusion, and it is not a pretty thing.
The reason I held onto the ego for so long, was because I had looked at it in bits and pieces. I tried to keep the parts I valued while letting go of the parts that were clearly painful. I tried to have some ego and some God. This doesn’t work. It was so confusing that I could not even tell what was valuable and what was not, what was pain and what was a pleasure.
I was once married to a paranoid schizophrenic. His condition when full blown was an example of nearly total confusion. He could not tell what was real and what wasn’t. He couldn’t tell friend from foe, and so everyone was an enemy or potential enemy, even those he loved and who loved him. His fear was complete because there was no trust; he could not even trust himself.
After I discovered A Course in Miracles and thought about Charlie, I realized that this is what it is like to be very deeply identified with ego. Charlie was in and out of this state but never completely free of it. Imagine, though, if the ego premise was carried to its logical conclusion and this was the state that everyone endured, and endured without respite. Imagine what a nightmare life would be.
How about God’s premise?
If the ego’s premise taken to its logical conclusion is total confusion, where will God’s premise take us in Its logical conclusion? Would it be crystal clarity? Would it be absolute certainty and complete stability? If God created me by extending Himself, does that mean I am crystal clear, certain, and stable? Does it mean I am unlimited and unchanging? If the premise is that I am created by and of God and that God is good, doesn’t that mean that I am good?
Does it not also follow that I create as God creates? Ideas leave not their source, and so I am in the Mind of God. Therefore, my creations are in my mind. Since I am in the Mind of God, confusion is an illusion because the Mind of God is crystal clear, and being in it, I am crystal clear. The confusion of ego cannot be there, or the Mind would not be what It is.
The Mind is eternal and I am in the Mind so I am eternal.
The body, which is mortal, must be an illusion. God is Life and so nothing that dies can be in God. I am in God; therefore, I cannot die. God is Love, and therefore, I am Love. There is only God, so there is only Love. There is nothing to oppose because All is One. Peace is possible because there is only Love.
Because God is only Love, there is no guilt, pain, fear, or suffering in the Mind, so these things cannot be real and cannot be in me either. If I think they are, I must be dreaming. To the extent I believe what must logically be true, I will accept only what is God in my mind. If I want something else, I will believe in something else, and that is what I will accept into my mind. Thus, it is simple. Keep in my mind only what is true, only that which is in God. There is nothing to become. I am already that. This is what Jesus wants us to know.
2 X. The Confusion of Pain and Joy, P 2
2 It is surely clear that you can both accept into your mind what is not there, and deny what is. Yet the function God Himself gave your mind through His you may deny, but you cannot prevent. It is the logical outcome of what you are. The ability to see a logical outcome depends on the willingness to see it, but its truth has nothing to do with your willingness. Truth is God’s Will. Share His Will and you share what He knows. Deny His Will as yours, and you are denying His Kingdom and yours.
I have the Kingdom of God and am in the Kingdom of God, and nothing can change this because I am that I am. This is not up for debate, nor is it possible to alter it. However, if I choose not to acknowledge my reality, it is as if I am not that. I will seem to be something different and somewhere different. But seeming and being is hardly the same thing.
If it is my will, I can prevent myself from being aware of the truth.
I will simply refuse to accept it. It is possible for me to do this through my unlimited freedom as God’s Son. However, though I am free to disregard the truth, I cannot prevent the truth from being true. And so, it remains in my mind even if I deny its presence. It simply is. Because what I am is always available to me, all I would need to do to know my Self again is to decide not to block it from my memory. This is done through the Holy Spirit, Which is also in my mind.
Not only would I be hiding my truth from myself and refusing to accept what is in my mind, but I would also be accepting something else instead. I could accept all sorts of impossibilities as if they were gospel truth and did so for most of my life. We all do this until we make a different decision. We accept that we are separate from God as if that could ever happen. And we accept that we are separate from our brothers and from every living thing.
We accept guilt and fear as real and inevitable. We accept the idea that projection will save us from our imagined fears and that we can save ourselves by throwing our brothers under the bus. “Here, God, you angry and scary guy, here is someone who is guiltier than me. Take him.” We accept all sorts of insane thoughts into our minds. We think we are bodies, or at the least, imprisoned in this flesh. And we think the body can be affected by something outside our minds. The list of insanity just goes on and on.
What we accept as true is true for us, but only in our dream of being something we are not.
The truth remains and is quite unaffected by our imaginings. In the meantime, since what we believe is true for us, and we believe we suffer, that seems to be true. We think we are suffering so we feel like we are suffering. We believe that this body is real and is what we are and is afflicted by all sorts of outside forces. And so, this is the experience we have. We think we get sick and die and that we lose the ones we love. We think we can be impoverished.
It is through our own decisions that we suffer, and while we suffer it seems of little consequence that it is not really happening. So now that I know suffering is not inevitable, and I am told, not even real, I am motivated to allow the Holy Spirit to heal the only part of me that is sick and needs healing, my mind. I open to the truth by doing my part. I gladly and enthusiastically hand over the false beliefs that are blocking my Self from my awareness. “Holy Spirit, I ask for the Atonement and I accept and receive it. Amen.”
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