ACIM Chapter 9. VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity. P 10, 11

ACIM Chapter 9. VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity. P 10, 11

VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P 10

10 You are altogether irreplaceable in the Mind of God. No one else can fill your part in it, and while you leave your part of it empty your eternal place merely waits for your return. God, through His Voice, reminds you of it, and God Himself keeps your extensions safe within it. Yet you do not know them until you return to them. You cannot replace the Kingdom, and you cannot replace yourself. God, Who knows your value, would not have it so, and so it is not so. Your value is in God’s Mind, and therefore not in yours alone. To accept yourself as God created you cannot be arrogance, because it is the denial of arrogance. To accept your littleness is arrogant, because it means that you believe your evaluation of yourself is truer than God’s.

I think this paragraph is the clearest yet.

Jesus tells us that it is not arrogance to accept ourselves as God created us—quite the opposite. True arrogance is insisting that we have changed Reality. I have made myself different from what God created me. I used to think that this was possible because God gave me free will.

Now, I understand that I am free to have any experience I want, but I am not free to change the unchangeable.  I think of it like this, I am free to break the law, but I am not free to change the law. I am free to jump off a mountain, but I am not free to suspend gravity. In the same way, I am free to play the part of a separate body in a world of separation, but I am not free to change God. And to see myself apart from and different from God is to imagine I can change God.

Jesus is helping us remember that God is whole and indivisible.

He is eternal and unchangeable. We are so accustomed to the shifting, changing nature of the world we made that it is hard for us to grasp the unchangeable, but this is the nature of Reality. We are part of God, and there is nothing that can alter that. And this is an amazing thing to know: we are irreplaceable in the mind of God. The Voice for God reminds us of this truth.

Our extensions are also held safe in God’s mind. They wait for our return. Do you begin to understand what you are as you read this? Do you get just a tiny taste of your grandeur? I sit here in the quiet and peace of early morning, contemplating my grandeur. It seems odd to think of myself this way, but if this is God’s Will for me, then it must be true.

Here is something I wrote in a journal some time ago.

It makes me laugh, but is also a valuable insight.

I can imagine the life of Myron as a story unfolding in my mind. I can participate in the story while remembering that it is not a true story, just imagination. Then I get up from my desk to get dressed. I realize I can’t wear my favorite pants because I gained weight, and I feel like an idiot for eating every desert in front of me. I wonder what is wrong with me that I think life isn’t worth living without ice cream. And once again I have embraced my littleness, forgetting all about my grandeur, which now seems like a faraway dream of something impossible.

I opened a document at random earlier this morning, and this is what I read.

“I looked in the mirror, and instead of thinking, “This is my body,” I thought, “This is an image I have made.” Then, I followed it back to the source of the image. “This is an out-picturing of a desire I have.” I had a desire, and I made an image of that desire, and I projected the image as the body of Myron. Looking again at the image I made, I had to ask myself a different question; “What was I thinking!”

I giggled at that thought, but it is a good question and the key to my second way of using this lesson. (Lesson 325) What was I thinking? If I look around my world, I can ask myself this question about each image. Is the image I made a reflection of the Love that I am? Is it worthy of the Son of God?

It is perfectly ok for me to project a body, but the body I project tells me something about the beliefs I hold. If I want a slimmer, healthier body, and that is not the image I have made, there must be a disconnect somewhere. Do I think I am not worthy of the body I want? Do I think I am too guilty to have that body?

Evidently I still need to be convinced of what I am.

I am the holy Son of God. I am perfect in every way because this is how I was created. In my creation, God gave Himself to me, so I must be worthy. Guilt cannot be real because it is not what God gave me as Himself; it is not part of God. So, it must be an artifact of the separation idea, and therefore, I am free to let that idea go. It is a false idea that I have been renting space to in my mind. It is a bad tenant, and it’s time to evict it.

Now, when I look in the mirror, if I am not happy with the image I made, I know that there is a belief in my mind that is obscuring my reality. I know it is guilt that must be undone. This is the same thing I knew before. I have been looking at guilty thoughts and asking for healing for a while, but now that I understand how all things I see reflect ideas in my mind, I can see in some of these images the guilt that colored them. “

That was pretty good guidance to read this particular writing today, Holy Spirit. Thanks.  I need to think about these things to remind me that what I look at is not reality. It is just an idea in my mind. What I am is an eternal, divine being. I am part of God. I am irreplaceable in the Mind of God. What could that body in the mirror be but a strange idea I thought to experience? As I watch it play out, I invite the Holy Spirit, the Voice for God, to gently wake me up from this dreamy experience I am having.

VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P 11

11 Yet if truth is indivisible, your evaluation of yourself must be God’s. You did not establish your value and it needs no defense. Nothing can attack it nor prevail over it. It does not vary. It merely is. Ask the Holy Spirit what it is and He will tell you, but do not be afraid of His answer, because it comes from God. It is an exalted answer because of its Source, but the Source is true and so is its answer. Listen and do not question what you hear, for God does not deceive. He would have you replace the ego’s belief in littleness with His Own exalted Answer to what you are, so that you can cease to question it and know it for what it is.

When I first read this, I didn’t know what to say about it.

Jesus wants me to ask the Holy Spirit what I am and to believe His answer rather than my own. I cried as I read this. I cried because I wanted the answer: to know what I am. And I cried to know that I was not the little self that the ego wanted me to believe in. In fact, I am something else altogether, something very different. Mostly, I cried because I was afraid to ask. What if I didn’t hear anything at all?

Jesus told me to ask anyway and suggested I simply allow the answer to come as it will and when it will. He said to open my heart to the answer and then step away from both question and answer. Step away and trust. I did that. I trusted that the answer would be exalted because of its Source and that it would be true because of its Source. And I trusted that I would receive an answer because it is my true desire to know my Self.

I saw the wisdom in stepping aside once the question had been asked.

It was still too easy for me to slip back into the ego, and that wouldn’t bring me an answer. It would only interfere with it as the ego added its own confused thoughts. There is a concept of what I am, but what I wanted was a true knowing, not just an idea I am willing to embrace, but a knowing that goes all the way to the heart, to the center of my being.

I don’t know how it works with others, but for me, it has been a gradual process. I have forgiven many beliefs, but not all. The answer is coming in just the same way, gradually. This is perfect for me, and I am grateful. I can still become confused, but only temporarily. I have opened my heart to Love’s Presence, and I feel that Love as I extend it. It brings me joy like I have never felt before.

I gladly release the personal self I made so that the Self can take its place entirely. I am willing, and where my willingness is not unopposed, I lean on the strength of God in me. When I asked the Holy Spirit about my value, He answered me, and this is how I have accepted the answer and continue to accept it until I know what I am and know nothing else.

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