ACIM Chapter 9. VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity. P 5, 6

ACIM Chapter 9. VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity. P 5, 6

VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P 5

5 From your grandeur you can only bless, because your grandeur is your abundance. By blessing you hold it in your mind, protecting it from illusions and keeping yourself in the Mind of God. Remember always that you cannot be anywhere except in the Mind of God. When you forget this, you will despair and you will attack.

I remind myself that I am in the Mind of God. I do this often. Probably the reminder I use nearly every day is that My mind is part of God’s. I am very holy, and there is nothing my holiness cannot do. And I bless others when I envelop them in my holiness. I use these reminders often because the world can be compelling. Everything exists in the Mind of God, or it doesn’t exist at all. If I perceive anything as existing outside the Mind of God, and I do this when I see guilt in anyone, I automatically eject myself from my Heaven. While I cannot actually do this, I can believe I do, and what I believe is real for me, and thus I suffer as if it were true.

An absolute like this can be easily forgotten because we choose to experience ourselves as outside the Mind of God and then choose great amnesia to cover the truth. It makes for a very realistic experience, but it also makes it feel hard to recover our memories. I will be doing fine, and then I will see something in the illusion that I am still attached to, and, whoop! Down the rabbit hole I go. This is an experience we all have until we are fully awake. It is not a sin, and no one is guilty of it, but it does cause suffering.

A Course in Miracles is my ladder out of the rabbit hole.

These days, I seldom find myself in a rabbit hole. But in the past, when I was in despair, or when I was at war with myself or someone else, anytime I was not happy, I asked the Holy Spirit to correct my thinking because I knew that it was my thinking that attracted me to the rabbit hole, to begin with. When it happens now, I do the same thing I did to become more peaceful. I will begin to remember what Jesus tells me through the Course, and with each true thought, I climb another rung until I am free of the insanity once more.

Usually, I just walk around that rabbit hole. One of these days, I will stop peeking in to see if there is anything interesting there, and then I won’t slip in anymore. Soon, I think. Every time I climb back out, I swear I am never going back in, and when my mind is clear, I can’t imagine choosing the ego again. I do see that I am not as attracted to what might be down that hole as I used to be, so I don’t go there as often. I also see that it is easier to find the ladder than it used to be and that I am quicker to lose interest in ego thoughts, which encourages and motivates me. It seems that I have begun to accept my grandeur.

VIII. Grandeur versus Grandiosity, P 6

6 The ego depends solely on your willingness to tolerate it. If you are willing to look upon your grandeur you cannot despair, and therefore you cannot want the ego. Your grandeur is God’s answer to the ego, because it is true. Littleness and grandeur cannot coexist, nor is it possible for them to alternate. Littleness and grandiosity can and must alternate, since both are untrue and are therefore on the same level. Being the level of shift, it is experienced as shifting and extremes are its essential characteristic.

I am so encouraged when I read something like that first line. “The ego depends solely on your willingness to tolerate it.” I am free to stop listening to the ego thinking and free to listen to the Holy Spirit instead. I am free to finally stop thinking the ego at all, and without my desire for it, the ego will cease to exist. When I believe the thoughts in my mind, it seems like separation is very real, but it is not. That is why I question my thoughts. The Holy Spirit is the arbitrator in this questioning, and His judgment is final

The other thing in this paragraph that caught my attention is that littleness and grandiosity alternate. Yeah, no kidding! They alternate wildly sometimes. It has become more obvious lately because I have been paying attention. The ego does not care if I feel arrogant or despairing at my worthlessness as long as I see myself as separate and special.

I don’t really know how any of us remain even nominally sane.

This is especially true when you consider how unstable a life based on separation is. I can be ridiculously proud of some completely unimportant accomplishment and think how much better I am than someone else, then in the next moment feel terribly guilty for that thought. The ego loves all this internal drama and projects it outward so life can feel like one drama after another.

The contrast is obvious now that I am beginning to accept my reality. I can go for longer periods of time now, feeling more like my Self, and it is like being able to breathe freely after being short of breath for a long time. Or like the sun has come out after a lifetime of living in shadow. For a while, this change was a little scary. It felt good but also different. I felt too big and exposed to God, I assume. Because of this uncertainty, I can still retreat into my littleness or grandiosity, but I am getting used to my grandeur. ~smile~

Pathways of Light has a blog for its ministers called Minsters Inner Healing Journals. To read about their healing journey, CLICK HERE.