Purification is of God

Purification is of God

Purification Is of God

Miracles are our right. In fact, if we are not living a miraculous life, something has gone wrong. That something is guilt, in which case purification of our thinking is necessary. When I first began the study of the Course, I didn’t understand what Jesus meant by purification. Actually, as it turns out, it is simple. Purification is forgiveness. It is an awareness of thinking that is out of alignment with the thoughts we think with God, coupled with the willingness to be corrected or purified by the Holy Spirit.

Next, I had to realize that my part in this process was limited. This was not a welcome realization to my ego. Eventually, as I allowed the purification process to work in my mind, I became grateful that this was my only part. In Chapter 18, Section IV, I found a passage that helped me to understand my part and what was not my part.

It takes just a little willingness.

5. You merely ask the question. ²The answer is given. ³Seek not to answer, but merely to receive the answer as it is given. ⁴In preparing for the holy instant, do not attempt to make yourself holy to be ready to receive it. ⁵That is but to confuse your role with God’s. ⁶Atonement cannot come to those who think that they must first atone, but only to those who offer it nothing more than simple willingness to make way for it. ⁷Purification is of God alone, and therefore for you. ⁸Rather than seek to prepare yourself for Him, try to think thus:

⁹I who am host to God am worthy of Him.
¹⁰He Who established His dwelling place in me created it as He would have it be.
¹¹It is not needful that I make it ready for Him, but only that I do not interfere with His plan to restore to me my own awareness of my readiness, which is eternal.
¹²I need add nothing to His plan.
¹³But to receive it, I must be willing not to substitute my own in place of it. (ACIM, T-18.IV.5:1-13)

It seemed impossible to me that something so healing and so necessary could be this easy.

When I first read this, it felt personally insulting that my part was indeed so small. Of course, when I think of myself as personal, I am thinking with the ego. There is nothing personal about any of us. We are all integral parts of a whole, not separate selves. The body/personality self doesn’t actually exist, so defending it is defending nothing. It took quite a number of times to allow the purification of the belief in a personal self to take root. Once that belief had been at least shaken loose, the idea of purification became something I wanted.

At first, I made the common mistake Jesus refers to in the above passage. I would notice ego thoughts and would feel guilty for having them. Then, I would try to do something about these thoughts. I would push them away or try to exchange them for better thoughts. But that is not forgiveness, which is still and quietly does nothing. In fact, it is exactly what Jesus tells us not to do when he says “Seek not to answer, but merely to receive the answer as it is given. I merely ask the question and accept the answer. So, now I ask for purification of my confused thoughts, and then I wait for purification, not interfering with the process.

Sometimes, this is simple and easy.

I was shopping yesterday, and I heard an altercation between a father and his child. I used to respond to this kind of thing with judgment, thinking that the father was an adult and should be able to find a better solution than angrily arguing with a child. My response to the situation was fraught because I had not accepted the atonement for my own wounded inner child. Now that I have done some work with this issue, it is not so upsetting to me when I encounter it in others, but it is not completely healed. So, I immediately passed judgment on the man. I noticed what I was doing and pushed the thought down. Of course, what goes down must come up, and it did. So, I replaced it with a better thought. I remembered that I cannot be a victim of anything outside my own mind.

Now, this is a true thought.

But in this case, I was grabbing onto it to soothe myself. This is not the same thing as forgiving it. I did not give my judgment over to the Holy Spirit for purification, so no healing took place. The thought is now free to show up again in a similar situation or in a different form. Once I got home, I looked with the Holy Spirit at what I had done, and I made way for Him to correct my mind. With a healed mind, I was able to see the situation differently.

I had interpreted it to mean that the father was a bully and was harming his child. Now, I saw him as frustrated and maybe embarrassed at being caught out as ignorant of the right thing to do. I remembered that both the father and son were on their path to awakening, and this situation was important to that awakening for both of them, just as my awareness of the situation was important to my awakening. How beautifully everything comes together for the good of the whole.

Another example of the purification process occurred between myself and someone I love very much. She made a careless and critical remark about me in my hearing. Because, unlike the previous encounter, this felt personal so my reaction was stronger. I am grateful that I didn’t say anything at the time. But I felt the sting of her words, and the more I thought about it, the worse I felt. The problem with adding more story to the situation is that it becomes more difficult to be willing to let it go.

I made the same mistake as in the previous situation.

I tried to get rid of the problem by ignoring my reaction. That didn’t work because trying to avoid my feelings does not heal the cause. So, I tried to think of a different interpretation, but I was, by this time, certain I had been wronged. I cannot forgive what I made real in my mind. Usually, in cases like this, I realize that these were just thoughts and so meaningless, and it is easy to let them go to the Holy Spirit for correction. But the personal aspect and the fear she was right led to mental confusion, and I resisted the healing I wanted. It was like I was at war with my own mind. I want to be healed; I want to be right.

The ego offered me the idea that I should talk to her and let her know how hurtful her words were. In other words, I should reinforce the belief in guilt in both our minds. That thought snapped me out of the ego fugue I was in. I am not going to spread guilt. The belief in guilt is what I am here to undo, not reinforce. I was also certain that it was my interpretation of her words that was the problem, and so it was my mind that needed correction. If I had followed through on the ego’s plan to use this situation to project guilt, I would have missed an opportunity to accept the purification of my mind.

I have learned a few things about purification.

The problem never exists outside my mind, and neither does the solution. It is always my thoughts that are the cause of my upsets, and it is the correction of these thoughts that relieves the upset. And it is not my job to purify my own mind. It is the Holy Spirit’s function to do this. Mine is to desire the purification and to allow it without interfering.

So, the ego mind continues to pump out thoughts, but I don’t have to believe them. When I do believe them, I know to ask for and accept purification. As a bonus, when my mind was healed of the belief that I had been offended by my loved one, I was reminded to look at the situation without all the story I had added to it. I saw that the only thing that happened was that she said something about me to someone else. Everything else was just story and could be reinterpreted by a healed mind. Good to know.