ACIM Chapter 8. III.The Holy Encounter, P 3-5

ACIM Chapter 8. III.The Holy Encounter, P 3-5. The Will of the Father and of the Son are one, by their extension.

III. The Holy Encounter, P 3

3 The Will of the Father and of the Son are one, by their extension. Their extension is the result of Their oneness, holding Their unity together by extending Their joint Will. This is perfect creation by the perfectly created, in union with the Perfect Creator. The Father must give fatherhood to His Son, because His Own Fatherhood must be extended outward. You who belong in God have the holy function of extending His Fatherhood by placing no limits upon it. Let the Holy Spirit teach you how to do this, for you can know what it means only of God Himself.

My will must be God’s Will because He created me like Himself. The Course talks about the Father and Son, and of the Will of the Father and the Son as being the same, and it speaks of a perfect creation of a Perfect Creator. I think of it this way. The Father creates through extending Himself, so the Son is an extension of the Father. The Son, in His turn, creates through extending Himself so that His creation is an extension of Himself and a further extension of God. It is Perfection creating more Perfection, which creates more Perfection without end.

Now I see myself dreaming I am outside of this perfection.

I see myself using my power of creation to make imperfect things rather than creating perfectly. I have placed limits on creation through my decision to experience something else. And I have forgotten how to return to the flow of Perfection and even that I want to do so.

But Perfection does not leave a question unanswered, so the Holy Spirit was placed in my mind. Its function is to wait patiently for the son to ask for His Father, and then It answers with Love, Peace and Comfort and guides us out of the wilderness of our imagination. As we answer our holy function, the perfection of Creation continues without interruption.

III. The Holy Encounter, P4

4 When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him you will see yourself. As you treat him you will treat yourself. As you think of him you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself. Whenever two Sons of God meet, they are given another chance at salvation. Do not leave anyone without giving salvation to him and receiving it yourself. For I am always there with you, in remembrance of you.

This is one of my favorite paragraphs in the Course. When I read it, I feel like crying, it makes me so happy to know that salvation is only as far away as the next encounter with a brother. It makes me so grateful for my brothers and so happy to remember that we are not these separate individuals with each our own different goals, our own private thoughts and our own needs that are in opposition to each other. We are part of each other, and part of our Creator.

We each have a part in this play of life and so it seems that we are sometimes stranger and sometimes enemy, but in Real Life, we must laugh at such a ridiculous idea. Today, even from within the story, I will laugh at such folly. I ask the Holy Spirit to show me the Son of God in each encounter with a brother. I am willing to set aside what my character thinks of as her personal needs and personal goals and personal will. So I will see my brother for Who He is.

I will have to remember my desire and not get distracted by his play acting.

My brother is likely not in on the switch today so he will still be engrossed in his part. I know from long experience how easy it is to fall back into my own role as one thing or another triggers my character. I pray for help to remember the truth today, to peek from behind the veil and see the glorious, beautiful truth hidden behind the mask of separate individual characters.

Maybe Spirit will use this opportunity to bring into my sphere of influence some brother who is ready to be reminded of his true self, and our meeting, brief as it may be, will awaken an ancient memory of Unity. And maybe that memory will be with us from now on, to never be completely lost again.  Every encounter with a brother is a holy one, but today, Jesus, I will remember this, and I am appreciative that you are there with me, helping me.

III. The Holy Encounter, P 5

5 The goal of the curriculum, regardless of the teacher you choose, is “Know thyself.” There is nothing else to seek. Everyone is looking for himself and for the power and glory he thinks he has lost. Whenever you are with anyone, you have another opportunity to find them. Your power and glory are in him because they are yours. The ego tries to find them in yourself alone, because it does not know where to look. The Holy Spirit teaches you that if you look only at yourself you cannot find yourself, because that is not what you are. Whenever you are with a brother, you are learning what you are because you are teaching what you are. He will respond either with pain or with joy, depending on which teacher you are following. He will be imprisoned or released according to your decision, and so will you. Never forget your responsibility to him, because it is your responsibility to yourself. Give him his place in the Kingdom and you will have yours.

Again, my day will be filled with opportunities to remember what I am.

Each brother I meet offers me that gift. I can ask the Holy Spirit who this brother is, or I can ask the ego. Yesterday, I can think of one specific time when I asked the ego. I caught myself and tried to back out of it, but I saw that I was really attached to the ego version of this brother of mine. I saw him as incompetent and I resented him for his incompetence. And I did not want to let go of that perception of him.

Because this is how I perceived him and because I believed my perception, everything he did seemed to prove that I am right. I saw his every action and word as if it were passing through a filter of incompetence. Here is an example of how that works. He was supposed to do something and then report on it. I saw that he did not provide a complete report, and my mind saw incompetence. Later, I discovered the reason the report was incomplete was that it was not physically possible for him to complete the project.

Seeing this error on my part, this judgment that was based on incomplete information, helped to snap me out of my wrong-minded thinking. I stopped listening to the ego and began to listen instead to the Holy Spirit. The ego had been telling me that I could find my true self only in myself. In fact, it says I can find my true self only as I compare myself to someone lesser. That man is incompetent compared to me, is what the ego says, so now I know what I am; I am competent. That is, I am competent until I see my own incompetence compared to someone more competent.

I understand now that I didn’t before.

I cannot see in myself what I am unwilling to see in the other person because we are one. That we are separate is just an illusion. I look at my brother, and I see incompetence, and I have taught myself incompetence. I have claimed it for myself. As I look to him to see what I am not, whether that is something better or worse, I have taught myself that we are separate. How can I find myself if I am looking for proof that I am a separate individual with no connection to others? That is not what I am.

I ask the Holy Spirit to show me my brother and I will see his beauty and glory and perfection. Thus, I will teach myself that I am beautiful, glorious, and perfect. When I ask the Holy Spirit to show me my brother, I am asking the Holy Spirit to show me myself and so to show me that we are one. Allowing my mind to be guided to the truth of my unity, to all there is, is how I remember what I am.

I felt sad as I realized the missed opportunity yesterday.

Even though I asked the Holy Spirit to remove the disordered thoughts from my mind, I did not entirely want Him to, and so I kept going back to my judgment. This morning, I want to be free of this untrue story of my brother. I want to look at him with the Holy Spirit and not the ego. Thankfully, it is never too late to change my mind.

I want never to turn to the ego to teach me who this brother is. I have had this long-standing story of a brother who is different from me and who is guilty of incompetence. But I don’t need this story anymore. I ask the Holy Spirit to remove from my mind the belief that I can find myself in myself alone. I ask that He remove from my mind the untrue thoughts about my brother so I can see the love and unity that is there. And I ask that the Holy Spirit remove from my mind the thought that I am guilty of my error yesterday.

To read Pathways of Light insights of this section, CLICK HERE.