ACIM Chapter 9. VII. The Two Evaluations. P 5-8
ACIM Chapter 9. VII. The Two Evaluations. P 5-8
VII. The Two Evaluations, P 5
5 If you choose to see yourself as unloving you will not be happy. You are condemning yourself and must therefore regard yourself as inadequate. Would you look to the ego to help you escape from a sense of inadequacy it has produced, and must maintain for its existence? Can you escape from its evaluation of you by using its methods for keeping this picture intact?
In the past, my problem was that I would do unloving things or have unloving thoughts, and I used this as proof that I was unloving. I held grievances against even people I loved. And I avoided people I didn’t like. I laughed at unkind jokes and shared gossip at the water cooler. How could I see myself as good when it was obvious I was not good?
Slowly, as I studied and practiced the Course and lived it the best I could, I began to understand that what I do is not what I am. With just this little bit of understanding, I was able to start using the unloving acts and thoughts as an indication that there was still something in my mind that was sick and needed healing. Instead of being something that caused me shame, I was often able to see them as red flags or indicators and know that they could change.
I was also eventually able to detach from these thoughts and their effects.
It is easier knowing that we all share them. While I seemed to be healing myself, I was really healing the Sonship, as I allowed the Holy Spirit to correct my thinking. I forget this sometimes, and there are times when I am unable to detach, at least at first. Eventually, I remember my function and remember that I am the light of the world.
My part is so small, so simple. I desire to forgive all I think is true now—just that. I desire. When I notice I desire something else, I release that to the Holy Spirit. I do this until all I desire is God. I disregard appearances and follow my guide as if there were nothing to see but light all around me because that is the truth.
VII. The Two Evaluations, P 6
6 You cannot evaluate an insane belief system from within it. Its range precludes this. You can only go beyond it, look back from a point where sanity exists and see the contrast. Only by this contrast can insanity be judged as insane. With the grandeur of God in you, you have chosen to be little and to lament your littleness. Within the system that dictated this choice the lament is inevitable. Your littleness is taken for granted there and you do not ask, “Who granted it?” The question is meaningless within the ego’s thought system, because it would open the whole thought system to question.
I understand what Jesus is saying about being unable to evaluate an insane belief system from within it. My ex-husband, Charlie, who was schizophrenic, would experience his illness in cycles. There were times when he was perfectly sane (or at least as sane as any of us), and then he would go into a cycle where his brain misfired, and he thought everyone was out to get him. He would imagine things and believe them. He would hear voices that no one else heard, and he thought they were real.
When he was in a good cycle, he would recognize that he had a mental illness.
And he could see that his behavior had been erratic at best. He knew that he did not think straight when this happened. He even asked me to put him away someplace if that became necessary because he didn’t want to hurt anyone. But when he went into the cycle where he didn’t think straight, all that went out the door. He couldn’t, from within that insane thought system, realize that he was not thinking clearly. From within that strange thought system, it seemed as if everyone else was insane.
I see that his condition is not uncommon, simply extreme. When I became caught up in an ego storm of some sort, I became very confused. I forgot what it was like to be sane. In those times, I thought that fear, guilt, anger, and depression were not only normal but absolutely justified. I thought that there was nothing else to feel.
This is not so extreme for me now, but that is because I have been out of the ego system enough that even when I get temporarily confused in ego, I can still remember enough to know what is happening. For this reason, I can get out of it faster and not suffer so much while in it. I can even see that someday, maybe soon, I will no longer fall back into that thought system. Even now, I can laugh at it when I see what is happening, so perfect freedom can’t be too far off.
VII. The Two Evaluations, P 7
7 I have said that the ego does not know what a real question is. Lack of knowledge of any kind is always associated with unwillingness to know, and this produces a total lack of knowledge simply because knowledge is total. Not to question your littleness therefore is to deny all knowledge, and keep the ego’s whole thought system intact. You cannot retain part of a thought system, because it can be questioned only at its foundation. And this must be questioned from beyond it, because within it its foundation does stand. The Holy Spirit judges against the reality of the ego’s thought system merely because He knows its foundation is not true. Therefore, nothing that arises from it means anything. He judges every belief you hold in terms of where it comes from. If it comes from God, He knows it to be true. If it does not, He knows that it is meaningless.
There are two things I want to take away from this paragraph.
One is that to question any part of my current thought system is to question it all and to keep any part of it is to keep it all. If I believe that the neighbor who turns out to be a pedophile is guilty, then I will never believe that I am innocent, even if I believe that every other being on earth is innocent.
If I believe that my neighbor who doesn’t cut his grass often enough is guilty, then I will never know that I am innocent, even if I think that everyone else is innocent. And if I judge either of those two neighbors and only those two and no one else, judgment is still part of my belief system, and I will always judge myself and believe others are judging me.
Thought systems are not a buffet line. I don’t get to pick and choose, to believe in one moment and when inconvenient to believe, in the next moment, disbelieve. Belief systems are whole. To believe any part of it is to believe it all. I have moments when I wholly believe what the Holy Spirit tells me about my true nature, and in that moment, I am in Heaven, both figuratively and actually. But in any one moment I cannot hold two different systems in my mind, and to be happy, I must stop jumping from one to the other.
There is another thing I take from this paragraph.
It is the simplicity of the Holy Spirit’s judgment. He has one criterion to judge my beliefs. If it comes from God, it is true, and if it comes from ego, it is meaningless. Because it is simple and straightforward, it is easy to understand and simple to live by. The ego mind would make it complicated and impossible to understand as it argued for exceptions and justifications. The spiritual ego would throw out desperate excuses for the one it could not forgive instead of simply knowing that if it did not come from God, it is not real, so there is nothing to forgive.
I cannot yet reliably know what is real and what is not within my thought system because I am still too identified with my ego. But the Holy Spirit is the truth in my mind, and He will choose for me if I ask Him to. That is His function, and He never fails to respond when I ask. I only need to notice when I am unhappy and realize that it is not God’s Will, so I must be thinking something God would not think. Then I ask that my mind be healed. I ask that my thoughts be corrected and that I see differently. I ask for the Atonement.
VII. The Two Evaluations, P 8
8 Whenever you question your value, say:
God Himself is incomplete without me.
Remember this when the ego speaks, and you will not hear it. The truth about you is so lofty that nothing unworthy of God is worthy of you. Choose, then, what you want in these terms, and accept nothing that you would not offer to God as wholly fitting for Him. You do not want anything else. Return your part to Him, and He will give you all of Himself in exchange for the return of what belongs to Him and renders Him complete.
How do I stop hearing the ego voice? I remember that God Himself is incomplete without me. What could the ego say that could matter to me, that could mean anything? The ego is busy telling me how separate and alone I am and thinking of ways to improve that. Invite folks over, finagle an invitation to a party or out to eat, manipulate folks into being with me. But the problem is made up, as are the ineffective solutions. How could I be alone when I am one with all of creation and with the Creator of all?
The ego tries to convince me that I am guilty.
It does this by bringing up bad behavior from the past and possible sins of the future. Then it tries to fix it all by rewriting the past in my mind, by making it someone else’s fault, by planning carefully, thinking ahead what I will say or do so I look innocent. But again, the problem is not real and needs no solution. I am innocent because that is how God created me. Nothing in this illusion can alter that fact. As I am innocent, so is everyone else.
The ego points out all I lack and all I have lost. It warns me of losses to come and offers me all sorts of plans to compensate for losses and ward off future losses. But how can the Son of God lack anything? How can he lose anything? Let me remember always to turn away from these foolish thoughts of loss, lack, guilt, loneliness, and all the other “gifts” of the ego. I would bring nothing to myself that I would not share with God.
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