ACIM Chapter 9. VI. The Acceptance of Your Brother. P 6, 7

ACIM Chapter 9. VI. The Acceptance of Your Brother. P 6, 7

VI. The Acceptance of Your Brother, P 6

6 Miracles have no place in eternity, because they are reparative. Yet while you still need healing, your miracles are the only witnesses to your reality that you can recognize. You cannot perform a miracle for yourself, because miracles are a way of giving acceptance and receiving it. In time the giving comes first, though they are simultaneous in eternity, where they cannot be separated. When you have learned they are the same, the need for time is over.

I understand that miracles are for here where we need them. In eternity, there is no need for miracles. I also understand that miracles are the only witness to our reality that we can recognize. In reality we are the Christ, the Son of God, whole and complete, powerful and eternal.  In the illusion, we are little separate people, frail and vulnerable, destined to suffer and die. Through miracles, we experience ourselves outside of time and space and outside the laws of the world. In this way, we begin to remember what we really are.

One time I had a problem that was causing me excruciating pain and I needed the pain to go away while I attended a workshop. I gave my trust that this could happen. The world says that if we have a sickness or disease, there are steps to take. We need to see a doctor, get medicine, and maybe have a procedure done. It all takes time, and sometimes it works, and sometimes not.

But I believe in miracles.

I believe that it is God’s Will that I not suffer. At the time this happened, my belief was compromised by my doubt, but it was strong enough to ask for pain relief while I flew to this workshop, received what I needed from it, and flew home. The pain immediately stopped and didn’t start again until my plane touched down at my home airport.

It was a miracle. I might have allowed the problem to be healed completely, but as I said, my trust was not unopposed. But I will never completely believe that I am a victim of sickness again. The miracle witnessed to my reality. Things like this have happened often since. Each time they do, my trust grows because I see that I am not what I thought I was.

There have been other experiences. I was very afraid and very angry. I would be sure I was justified in my feelings, but couldn’t pull myself out of them. But then, I have asked for a miracle and seen the feelings dispelled instantly, leaving barely a memory of their presence, sometimes not even that. Where did those thoughts go? Where did those strong emotions go? Back into the nothingness from which they came. It was miraculous because that isn’t the way it happens in the world we made.

I didn’t need to wrestle with the thoughts and feelings.

I didn’t need to let them play out. Nor did I need to change the circumstances, receive an apology, or change anything in the world. I didn’t need to use logic and positive thought or any of the other mental tricks I have learned over the years to experience peace. I didn’t need to understand. All I needed to do was desire peace more than I desired the upsetting thoughts, and the miracle occurred. All that upset me was simply gone, and I was at peace. The peaceful mind was witness to my true reality.

The many miracles I experienced were done through me, not by me. They required only that I desired them, and it was done according to my desire. Through the miracle, I gave my acceptance, and I received that which I desired. In eternity, this is one step, not two. They occur simultaneously. Here, in time, I am learning to accept so that I can receive and, ultimately, that giving and receiving are the same thing. Maybe that moment of knowing is the ultimate miracle, and time ceases. As Jesus says: In time the giving comes first, though they are simultaneous in eternity, where they cannot be separated. When you have learned they are the same, the need for time is over.

VI. The Acceptance of Your Brother, P 7

7 Eternity is one time, its only dimension being “always.” This cannot mean anything to you until you remember God’s open Arms, and finally know His open Mind. Like Him, you are “always”; in His Mind and with a mind like His. In your open mind are your creations, in perfect communication born of perfect understanding. Could you but accept one of them you would not want anything the world has to offer. Everything else would be totally meaningless. God’s meaning is incomplete without you, and you are incomplete without your creations. Accept your brother in this world and accept nothing else, for in him you will find your creations because he created them with you. You will never know that you are co-creator with God until you learn that your brother is co-creator with you.

Oh my gosh! I am always. Not always as I will become what I will be in the future, because in reality there is no future and no past. There is only always. I cannot even grab onto this as a concept; I can only accept it. What breaks my heart wide open is that I will know God’s open Arms, His open Mind. I will know this because I am like Him, in His Mind and with a mind like His. I am that! It makes me cry to read this because I don’t feel it right now. I cry tears of grief but also tears of joy, grief for what I have given up, and joy that it is not lost, just forgotten.

Here, more than anywhere else, Jesus talks about my creations.

They are created from my open mind, and this means that we, the Christ, the Sonship, create them. My creations love me and complete me, and next to them, nothing else has meaning. To know my creations, I must know my brother because he is co-creator with me. I must know my co-creators to know that I am co-creator with God. Is this motivation to release all grievances, to let them die on my tongue before my complaint leaves my mouth, to let them whither in my mind before they take form?

It is a long-held belief that I need my brothers to hold my guilt. I have misused them for eons. I have seen them as separate from me and pretended that projecting my guilt onto them freed me of it. It is hard to believe that I ever thought this would work and that it was a good idea.

Now that I am withdrawing those projections so they can be healed and remembering my union with my brothers, I notice the ego trying harder than ever to encourage projection. The ego would have me use these brothers, these parts of my holy Self, for this awful purpose. Holy Spirit, help me remember today that I am that I am. Help me realize that I cannot know this unless I know it for everyone else, too. Everyone. Without exception.

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