ACIM Workbook Daily Lesson 2. What Is Salvation? Year 2022

ACIM Workbook 2. What Is Salvation? 1. Salvation is a promise, made by God, that you would find your way to Him at last.

2. What Is Salvation?

1. Salvation is a promise, made by God, that you would find your way to Him at last. ²It cannot but be kept. ³It guarantees that time will have an end, and all the thoughts that have been born in time will end as well. ⁴God’s Word is given every mind which thinks that it has separate thoughts, and will replace these thoughts of conflict with the Thought of peace.

Thank you, dear God, for this promise! His promise is the reason we are not guilty and the reason we don’t change our Self through our stories. No matter how ugly the story becomes, we remain as God created us. We never left God because we cannot. However, we can imagine such a scenario. So while we cannot do permanent damage, we can and do suffer. ³Delay does not matter in eternity, but it is tragic in time. (ACIM, T-5.VI.1:3)

The Thought of Peace Was Given to God’s Son

2. The Thought of peace was given to God’s Son the instant that his mind had thought of war. ²There was no need for such a Thought before, for peace was given without opposite, and merely was. ³But when the mind is split there is a need of healing. ⁴So the Thought that has the power to heal the split became a part of every fragment of the mind that still was one, but failed to recognize its oneness. ⁵Now it did not know itself, and thought its own Identity was lost. 

This Thought of peace is what we call the Holy Spirit. At the moment that we chose to have this experience, God placed His Guarantee of salvation in our mind. In this way, He has given us the wherewithal to return Home when we were ready. We imagined all the scripts and all the variations on those scripts that represent the desire for specialness and separation. In the same instant, the Holy Spirit gave us the corrected version of those scripts. Our job is to choose His version over and over until it is the only version of the script that we live. Thus, the mind that has always been one is healed and will know its Oneness. 

Salvation Undoes Illusions by Not Supporting Them

3. Salvation is undoing in the sense that it does nothing, failing to support the world of dreams and malice. ²Thus it lets illusions go. ³By not supporting them, it merely lets them quietly go down to dust. ⁴And what they hid is now revealed; an altar to the holy Name of God whereon His Word is written, with the gifts of your forgiveness laid before it, and the memory of God not far behind. 

When I am unhappy, I know it is because I believe something that is not true. I ask the Holy Spirit to look with me on this belief and to correct my mind. This is how I call on the Thought that has the power to heal. It brings my mind back to wholeness. When I am in fear and confusion, I call on that Thought to guide me to truth. And this, too, helps restore the mind to the memory of wholeness. Though I have not lost my wholeness, I have forgotten it. This leaves me with an experience of separation that is the cause of my suffering. 

The Healing Begins.

The moment we recognize that we are entertaining ego thoughts, the healing begins. We don’t have to do anything to accomplish the healing. We simply need to be willing to see what needs correction and to want that correction. Then we will see what has always been there. ⁴And what they hid is now revealed; an altar to the holy Name of God whereon His Word is written, with the gifts of your forgiveness laid before it, and the memory of God not far behind. 

Come Daily in Silence

4. Let us come daily to this holy place, and spend a while together. ²Here we share our final dream. ³It is a dream in which there is no sorrow, for it holds a hint of all the glory given us by God. ⁴The grass is pushing through the soil, the trees are budding now, and birds have come to live within their branches. ⁵Earth is being born again in new perspective. ⁶Night has gone, and we have come together in the light.

From nearly the beginning of the Workbook, it requires that we spend time with the idea of the day and do so in ever-increasing increments. It is necessary that we take these breaks from the ego-mind so that we can learn to remember what peace is and that we want it. There is no peace in the ego. There is no salvation in the ego. We need to give ourselves a rest from the world every day.

We Give Salvation to the World.

5. From here we give salvation to the world, for it is here salvation was received. ²The song of our rejoicing is the call to all the world that freedom is returned, that time is almost over, and God’s Son has but an instant more to wait until his Father is remembered, dreams are done, eternity has shined away the world, and only Heaven now exists at all.  

What happens as the mind is healed is that the conflict of everyday life subsides. The anxiety that comes from separation goes away, and life becomes very peaceful. Happiness becomes a consistent state. We lose interest in judgment and grievances. Because we always give what we have, the world benefits from this shift and is saved.  

Jesus says that at this point, it is only an instant more before the Father is remembered and dreams are done. Consequently, the world is shined away, and only Heaven exists. I think it will feel like more than an instant to us. Or maybe the way it happens is that each of us begins to experience this Heaven on earth transformation. At some point, all the world experiences it, and then maybe it is only an instant before God takes that last step. 

Salvation is undoing in the sense that it does nothing, failing to support the world of dreams and malice. 

This is another healing story from when I was still working.

I left my cell phone in Orlando yesterday. It is really inconvenient not to have it. There are few payphones left in the world and so I have no way to contact those I need to talk to. I am working, going from customer to customer, and can’t even call ahead to let them know I am coming. Nor can I locate them if they are not where I expect them to be. I can’t call the office to get information. And worse of all, my customers will call me and think I am not returning their calls. 

There was a time when I would be very upset about this.

I would worry and fret and probably make bad decisions about what to do. Fear of messing up will cloud the mind with confusion. I would feel stupid for having done it. I would wonder why I could not be as organized as other people. Probably I would wonder if I forgot my phone because I am getting older and my memory is not so good. This would bring on more worry. In other words, I would be supporting the idea of separation and making it stronger within the mind. 

Now I approach this differently. I am aware of the challenges of not having a phone present and become quiet so that I can be guided to the best action. Then I follow that guidance. No worry, no judgments, no projecting into the future possible outcomes. Just ask for guidance and move with that guidance. In this way, I fail to support the ego separation idea, and so I begin to unravel it. When I have done this often enough, it becomes a way of life, and one day there will be no memory of that thought system left in my mind. 

Giving it my entire focus.

I am still using this practice, and now I have given it my entire focus. I have decided that I want only the peace of God. Each divisive thought is brought to the Holy Spirit to be removed from my holy mind. I do this all day long, every day now. Sometimes I am not aware of a thought that needs correction, only that I am not happy. Noticing that I am not happy and choosing to stay in that state is a choice for something besides the peace of God. So I bring this, too, to the Holy Spirit. 

Contemplation 2025