ACIM Chapter 8. VI.The Treasure of God, P 3, 4. Let us glorify Him Whom the world denies, for over His Kingdom the world has no power.
ACIM Chapter 8. VI.The Treasure of God, P 3, 4
VI. The Treasure of God
3 Let us glorify Him Whom the world denies, for over His Kingdom the world has no power. No one created by God can find joy in anything except the eternal; not because he is deprived of anything else, but because nothing else is worthy of him. What God and His Sons create is eternal, and in this and this only is their joy.
We have made a veil to hide our true nature from ourselves. We call this veil, the world. How else could we play this child’s game of making up the impossible and living it as if it were real? We are not guilty of this. After all, we are created free to have any experience we want. But we never meant this illusion to be our home. The veil is thin and the memory of our true home is preserved in our mind so that we could never be lost in our fantasy.
Jesus talks about this in Chapter 21.
In Section V, P 5, Jesus tells us that the solution was accepted by us and placed in our mind in the moment it was needed.
5. God’s plan for your salvation could not have been established without your will and your consent. ²It must have been accepted by the Son of God, for what God wills for him he must receive. ³For God wills not apart from him, nor does the Will of God wait upon time to be accomplished. ⁴Therefore, what joined the Will of God must be in you now, being eternal. ⁵You must have set aside a place in which the Holy Spirit can abide, and where He is. ⁶He must have been there since the need for Him arose, and was fulfilled in the same instant.
The endgame is to wake up from the dream of play and return to eternity. That is all we are doing now. Jesus found the path out and has provided us with this book, these lessons, and his help so that we, too, can return Home. He reminds us that we want to end the game, and he reminds us of the Voice that guides our every decision and corrects our thinking.
It would seem that the hardest part of this is believing that there is something joyful and eternal that I could have instead of what I have come to believe is my life. How can I believe in something I cannot even imagine? But that is the flaw in the ego’s argument for remaining in the illusion. I can imagine. I can remember. This is possible because the memory of eternity is in my mind right next to the illusion I made up. It isn’t hidden from me, but hidden by me. I can change my mind at any time and make a choice for reality.
The undoing itself is already accomplished.
This apparent slow undoing of the ego is just a way to remember that I want to be free of the ego. I have allowed myself to notice how uncomfortable I am in the illusion. I have become very sensitive to the pain and suffering of this world, and at the same time, the Holy Spirit has drawn my attention to the truth in my mind.
So, each time I become aware of discomfort, I look at the belief that caused the discomfort. I realize that I chose this and that I can choose differently. I choose differently as I ask the Holy Spirit to choose for me. My mind becomes clearer than before, and I notice discomfort and make new choices more quickly and with more enthusiasm. I am learning that not only do I no longer want to play the game of separation, but there is a way to stop, and there is something infinitely better waiting for me. Thus, I am learning that I want to do this and that I can do this.
VI. The Treasure of God
4 Listen to the story of the prodigal son, and learn what God’s treasure is and yours: This son of a loving father left his home and thought he had squandered everything for nothing of any value, although he had not understood its worthlessness at the time. He was ashamed to return to his father, because he thought he had hurt him. Yet when he came home the father welcomed him with joy, because the son himself was his father’s treasure. He wanted nothing else.
Of course, his father welcomed him home! I would welcome my child regardless of what he had done, and I barely know anything about love. My Father, Who is Love, certainly does as well as I do. Here is a difference, though: I love my children in spite of their mistakes, and my Father sees no mistakes. He sees only his perfect creations acting from their perfect freedom. There is that difference because I sometimes still perceive from the perspective of the ego mind that believes in sin.
God does not wait for us to make ourselves better or to atone for our sins. He does not need us to replace the treasure we squandered. He treasures us, just as we are because we are as God created us. God loves us and wants for us only our joy and freedom. It is the ego mind that believes we have sinned and needs to atone, and believes that God holds our sins against us, so we must make up for it somehow.
The ego tells us we must fix ourselves so we have something holy to offer God.
Then it tells us we cannot fix ourselves, and so must stay in hiding. But in truth, there is nothing to fix. The undoing that we are dedicated to is only for the purpose of choosing to awaken from this fantasy life finally. We are learning we want to wake up and learning what it is we have to let go of in order to awaken.
All this work we do, all the dedication and devotion to the process is for our highest good. We are allowing untrue thoughts to be removed from our minds so that we become aware of what we are and always have been and always will be. We are not trying to make ourselves something different, but just getting stuff out of the way so that we can have what we are revealed to us. God does not need anything from us.
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