ACIM Chapter 9. III. The Correction of Error P 4-6

ACIM Chapter 9. III. The Correction of Error P 4-6

III. The Correction of Error, P 4

4 When you react at all to errors, you are not listening to the Holy Spirit. He has merely disregarded them, and if you attend to them you are not hearing Him. If you do not hear Him, you are listening to your ego and making as little sense as the brother whose errors you perceive. This cannot be correction. Yet it is more than merely a lack of correction for him. It is the giving up of correction in yourself.

First, I notice that Jesus is telling me that if I react to my brother’s errors, I am not listening to the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, my brother is speaking from the ego, and I am aware of that. But if I react to it, it means that I am giving it credence. I believe his words have meaning, and they do not. If I were listening to the Holy Spirit, I would disregard the ego words of my brother because that is what the Holy Spirit does. He doesn’t believe my wrong-minded words and then forgives them. The Holy Spirit sees them as meaningless and simply disregards them.

I love that this is true.

I never have to apologize to God for my errors. He doesn’t give them any meaning and so they have none. He disregards my errors as if they didn’t exist because they don’t. This is what I want to do, too. I want to learn through the Holy Spirit’s instruction to disregard my own errors as if they did not exist. This is what it means to be guiltless. I haven’t achieved this yet. I sometimes still experience guilt when I am in error and even when I remember a past error. I do recognize when I do it, and I ask for correction, so I know that I am learning to disregard error.

The other thing Jesus is telling us in this paragraph is that I must disregard my brother’s errors as well, and not just for his sake. I do this because if I correct my brother, I am making as little sense as he is. In my correction, I am in error, too, and this is setting up one of those endless cycles that the ego depends on to keep us engaged in the illusion. If I correct my brother, I teach myself to believe in error, and so I will believe in my own error as well.

Yes, my ego can be in error and probably is, but I am not my ego. My brother is not his ego. There is a vast difference between recognizing that I have spoken in error and believing I am guilty of speaking in error. A friend sent me a message recently, and in her words, I heard where she got off course. I saw the error in her thinking. My first (ego) response was to point this out to her.

Then sanity prevailed.

I heard the Holy Spirit gently remind me that I was the messenger, not the writer of the message. So, I waited for instructions and when none came, I did nothing. Later, she saw her own error and wrote about it. It was a more powerful lesson for her to receive instruction from within than it would have been to receive it from me.

I was happy to see that I did not have to argue with myself to resist correcting her. I was simply grateful to have heard the Holy Spirit in my mind. That was not always true, so I see I have grown. There was no belief in my mind that her error was important or that it in any way defined her. That also was growth for me because I used to think errors were meaningful, and I might have thought that knowing what she didn’t know meant I was better than or higher than her. It’s a relief not to be burdened with that mistaken thought. I hope it is completely healed and gone forever.

5 III. The Correction of Error, P 5

5 When a brother behaves insanely, you can heal him only by perceiving the sanity in him. If you perceive his errors and accept them, you are accepting yours. If you want to give yours over to the Holy Spirit, you must do this with his. Unless this becomes the one way in which you handle all errors, you cannot understand how all errors are undone. How is this different from telling you that what you teach you learn? Your brother is as right as you are, and if you think he is wrong you are condemning yourself.

This paragraph tells me both why I must not accept my perception of my bother’s insane behavior and what to do with that perception. First, if I accept my perception that my bother is acting insanely, I cannot heal him because I heal through my certainty of health, and if I believe what I am trying to heal is real, I have no certainty.

This gets worse because if I believe my brother can be in error, I believe in the error, and so in believing in the error, I have now opened the possibility (no, the probability) that I, too, am in error or will be in error. I have taught myself that error is real for everyone. The ego mind insists that this is true, and anyone can see that it is true.

I disagree.

Here is what I say to the ego’s “proof” that I can see my brother is in error and that I often am in error, as well. I see the insane behavior for what it is: an ego reaction to fear. It is an ego reaction to an ego emotion. What does that have to do with reality? God did not create ego nor its effect, fear. Neither is real or true. I am seeing an illusion. An illusion can appear very real, but it cannot be real.

Now, this is how I get free of both the belief in my own insanity and that of my brother. I stop using this ego behavior to separate myself from my holy Self. Instead, wherever I see insane behavior or when I experience insane thinking in my own mind, I give my perception to the Holy Spirit to heal for me.

I notice my brother’s insane behavior and see it for what it is, but I do not mistake it for reality. If I do, momentarily, believe in it, I recognize what I have done. I have become as insane as I think my brother is. So, I give that belief to the Holy Spirit to be corrected. From this healed place, I know the truth. I am as God created me, and my brother is as God created him. No matter how confused my brother is about that, I know the truth, and the light that is in my mind will extend to him and heal him.

6 III. The Correction of Error, P 6

6 You cannot correct yourself. Is it possible, then, for you to correct another? Yet you can see him truly, because it is possible for you to see yourself truly. It is not up to you to change your brother, but merely to accept him as he is. His errors do not come from the truth that is in him, and only this truth is yours. His errors cannot change this, and can have no effect at all on the truth in you. To perceive errors in anyone, and to react to them as if they were real, is to make them real to you. You will not escape paying the price for this, not because you are being punished for it, but because you are following the wrong guide and will therefore lose your way.

I was spending some time with a friend who was upset that she had gained weight. I know how this feels, this gaining weight when you think you shouldn’t, and when you think it means something. I know very well because I used to become confused about that. In the past, I would have wanted to commiserate and suggest solutions. Mostly, I just listened. I talked a little about guilt as the real culprit rather than food, but mostly I just let her talk.

But I kept thinking about it, and I noticed my stomach tightening a little.

Yep, this can still be an issue for me. I considered sending her a note this morning telling her I know how she feels and talking about it in a positive way. But as I noticed my reaction, this “need” to help, I realized that I couldn’t help. If I am still identified with the problem, even a little, from that place, I can only add to the confusion.

I want to help because I love this person. but I think she needs help (correction) because I believe she has a real problem. I want to help because it makes me uncomfortable to see her error. I see her error, and my stomach tightens because it mirrors a problem in my mind that I don’t want to acknowledge. So, this morning, instead of giving advice or commiserating, I did something helpful. I asked that my mind be healed. I remembered that above all else I want to see. I am grateful to the Holy Spirit for helping me see in myself what I might otherwise choose to overlook.