ACIM Chapter 8. IV. The Gift of Freedom, P 4, 5

ACIM Chapter 8. IV. The Gift of Freedom, P 4, 5. Do you not think the world needs peace as much as you do?

IV. The Gift of Freedom P 4

4 Do you not think the world needs peace as much as you do? Do you not want to give it to the world as much as you want to receive it? For unless you do, you will not receive it. If you want to have it of me, you must give it. Healing does not come from anyone else. You must accept guidance from within. The guidance must be what you want, or it will be meaningless to you. That is why healing is a collaborative venture. I can tell you what to do, but you must collaborate by believing that I know what you should do. Only then will your mind choose to follow me. Without this choice you could not be healed because you would have decided against healing, and this rejection of my decision for you makes healing impossible.

These are the ideas that stand out to me in this paragraph.

If I want peace, I must want it equally for everyone else. That idea is more important than I first thought. There is still a tendency in my mind to see others as separate from me. For instance, when I read about someone in town getting robbed, I feel empathy for them and the one who did the robbing. I pray for their peace of mind. I pray that my mind be healed of the beliefs that create that kind of thinking.  

When I read about someone being hurt in another country, I don’t experience the same degree of empathy. They seem far away, and I can’t relate to their lives. And yet, they are part of me. And, no matter how different on the surface, they want the same things I want. They want to be happy. They want peace. In other words, they want salvation, just as I do.

I ask that my mind be healed of the belief that I am separate in any way from anything I see. We are all part of the One Self, and what I want for any part of the Sonship, I want for all of it, or I don’t want it for myself. And if I don’t want it for myself and everyone else, then I will not have it. Peace is not forced on me. I must want it in order to have it. To have peace, I must want it, and I must give it.

The next idea, which is related, is that I must accept Guidance from within.

I must ask the Holy Spirit to guide me so that I can both recognize and desire peace. For such a long time, I thought peace was something I had to steal from someone else. For me to gain, I often saw it as necessary that someone else lose.

I obviously didn’t know what peace was, and I had to learn. The Holy Spirit has helped me with that. When I am not at peace, I ask the Holy Spirit to heal me of wrong-minded thinking. I would ask that He remove from my mind the thoughts that were blocking my peace. I must truly want the healing, or I will not understand the guidance when I receive it.

Last night I woke up with a problem on my mind, and the more I thought about it, the more complicated and upsetting it seemed. Finally, I pulled myself out of the semi-awakeness and came fully to. I read a bit from A Course in Miracles – The Direct Path and was reminded that I want the Holy Spirit to make all decisions for me. Of course I do. I let each thought come into my mind, and each time, I said: Holy Spirit, decide for me. I felt peace descend on me and fell back to sleep. When I woke up, the peace was still there, and I know that when the time comes, I will be given the words I need.

That brings us to the next idea, one we have been touching on.

Healing is a collaborative venture. This is my part: I must want the healing more than I want the problem. I must ask for the healing and be willing to accept it. The Holy Spirit then does His part and heals my mind. He removes from my mind all that blocks the healing. This works every time as long as I am doing my part.

Where it can get clogged up is when I want to feel better and want to be at peace, but I also want to hold onto my grievance, my fear, and guilt. In this case, I might want peace, but I am not meeting its conditions, and so I don’t really want it. What I want is my problem without the consequences, and of course, this is not a real request. To receive the answer to the prayer for peace, I must truly want peace above all else. Then it is mine.

I have learned to trust the Holy Spirit. He knows what it is that I need to be happy. He knows me much better than I do. I accepted His judgment and laid aside all I thought I knew, and then the healing was done. As long as I believe I know what I need, my mind will not accept His Answer.  I won’t even understand the guidance. It won’t make sense to me. But as soon as I decide that I don’t know anything except that I want peace for myself and everyone else, it is done. It is always up to me.

IV. The Gift of Freedom P 5

5 Healing reflects our joint will. This is obvious when you consider what healing is for. Healing is the way in which the separation is overcome. Separation is overcome by union. It cannot be overcome by separating. The decision to unite must be unequivocal, or the mind itself is divided and not whole. Your mind is the means by which you determine your own condition, because mind is the mechanism of decision. It is the power by which you separate or join, and experience pain or joy accordingly. My decision cannot overcome yours, because yours is as powerful as mine. If it were not so the Sons of God would be unequal. All things are possible through our joint decision, but mine alone cannot help you. Your will is as free as mine, and God Himself would not go against it. I cannot will what God does not will. I can offer my strength to make yours invincible, but I cannot oppose your decision without competing with it and thereby violating God’s Will for you.

Jesus reminds us that healing is the way the separation is overcome and that separation is overcome by union. In other words, we must unite. We unite with our brothers, and we unite our will with God’s Will. Sometimes, this is done in a single prayer. When I am angry with someone, I ask that my mind be healed of this wrong-minded belief. In this prayer, I am asking that the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence be removed from my mind. This joins me with God. At the same time, it makes it possible for me to join with my brother, which joins my will with God’s Will.

For this to be effective, my uniting must be unequivocal.

If I am forgiving my brother (forgiving my projections onto him), I must do so with no caveats. Here is an example. In the past, I have held a grievance against a fellow worker. When I became uncomfortable with my judgments, I asked that my mind be healed. I really wanted to be free of my discomfort, but I didn’t want to let him off the hook. I wanted him to change. There was no real joining intended in that request.

Then I finally reached the point that when I said I wanted to be free of my judgment, I meant it. But when he did something else, I saw his behavior this time as different than it was before, so I went right back to judging and to my own discomfort. I had to recognize that these were just different forms of the same problem, and I let go of them so that I could be at peace. Every time I saw him, I asked the Holy Spirit if there was forgiveness to be done. I wanted our joining, and the only way I could have it was if my desire is unequivocal, no exceptions.

And that is just the one person. I cannot enter the presence of God if I attack His Son. This, too, must be an unequivocal decision on my part. I must be willing to give up judging everyone, including myself. That seems like a tall order sometimes, but it is my only real choice. Nothing else will restore my mind to God; nothing else will return my will to God’s Will. Thus nothing else will heal.

Jesus tells us that our mind is the means by which we determine our own condition.

Returning to God is simply a matter of deciding to do so. But again, the decision must be unequivocal. This means I must decide against anything that would keep me in the illusion. That is why I ask for mind healing all day long. It is the reason I ask the Holy Spirit to remove from my mind the thought that is blocking my return.

Only I can decide for God; this cannot be done for me. Once I make that decision, the Holy Spirit becomes the mechanism that makes it possible. But only after I decide. Jesus says he cannot overpower our will because it is not God’s Will that we be forced into peace and happiness. It is always going to be our choice. It would seem like an easy choice, and I have often thought I made that choice only to discover there was still something I wanted more than Heaven.

What helped me get this far is that I have so much help. Jesus offers me his strength to make mine invincible. He says I can imagine holding his hand, and then he assured me this would be no idle fantasy. He said he is with me always. And he says he will help me or he will wait until I am ready for his help. The Holy Spirit responds quickly and fully to my slightest invitation. I have unseen help and present help. And it is made so simple and flawless if I simply ask that He make all my decisions while I still have a split mind. How could I fail, except it is my decision to do so?