A Course in Miracles Text Made Simple

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Chapter 28: the Undoing of Fear

Section II. Reversing Effect and Cause

Read A Course in Miracles, Chapter 28, Section II. (pages 592-595)

Why are we just like our Father?

Here Jesus reinforces the idea that God (Love) extends Itself eternally. This eternal extension of Love is What Creation is and the Cause of all that Is. In previous sections we are told Love shares all of Itself with All, eternally. This sharing quality of Love is why we all have and are all of what Love has and Is. This is why Love is the same as Oneness. Love is the Source and the Father of all Cause.

Because we are Love’s extension, we extend Love or create just like our Father. We know our Identity is Love as we extend Love like our Father does. This is why Jesus tells us, “The circle of creation has no end. Its starting and its ending are the same. But in itself it holds the universe of all creation, without beginning and without an end.” (1:6-8)

Why is purity not of the body?

Because we are purely of our Father, we cannot be contained by a body. Our Father is universal and being one with our Father, we are universal. We are the idea of Love in the Mind of Love, just like our Father is. In paragraph 2 we are told, “Purity is not confined. It is the nature of the innocent to be forever uncontained, without a barrier or limitation. Thus is purity not of the body. Nor can it be found where limitation is.” (2:3-6)

In Chapter 15, Section VI, Jesus explains it this way: “You do not find it difficult to believe that when another calls on God or Love, your call remains as strong. Nor do you think that when God answers him, your hope of answer is diminished. On the contrary, you are more inclined to regard his success as witness to the possibility of yours. That is because you recognize, however dimly, that God is an idea, and so your faith in Him is strengthened by sharing. What you find difficult to accept is the fact that, like your Father, you are an idea. And like Him, you can give yourself completely, wholly without loss and only with gain. Herein lies peace, for here there is no conflict.” (T-15.VI.4:1-7 italics added)

What happens when we try to ‘father’ our own ‘creation’?

What happens is that we dream a dream of being unlike our Father. As we come to recognize that we are the one who is making up the dream and that it is not being forced upon us by an ‘outside’ force, we can learn to choose once again, and this time choose the Holy Spirit’s healing dream instead of dreams of death (separation).

Jesus tells us, “Yet if you are the dreamer, you perceive this much at least: That you have caused the dream, and can accept another dream as well. But for this change in content of the dream, it must be realized that it is you who dreamed the dreaming that you do not like. It is but an effect that you have caused, and you would not be cause of this effect.” (5:2-4)

What does Jesus say is a crucial step in dealing with illusions?

We are fearful of our illusions because we do not realize that they are just dreams and that we are making them up ourselves. Jesus wants us to understand that we can realize that we are the author of the dream. We can realize that we are just attempting to ‘father’ our own creation and that the content of the dream is untrue. We can realize that we remain as our Father created us and are still safe in God.

Jesus explains it this way: “The miracle establishes you dream a dream, and that its content is not true. This is a crucial step in dealing with illusions. No one is afraid of them when he perceives he made them up. The fear was held in place because he did not see that he was author of the dream, and not a figure in the dream. He gives himself the consequences that he dreams he gave his brother. And it is but this the dream has put together and has offered him, to show him that his wishes have been done. …The miracle does nothing but to show him that he has done nothing.” (7:1-6, 10)

How does the ego thought system try to reverse effect and cause?

Inherent in the ego thought system is the denial of the fact that we are experiencing the dream of separation from our Source because we want the dream of differences to be true. We want our stories of being different from God to be true. We want to deny that we are rejecting the truth that we share one Mind with God because we can’t stand the guilt that comes with rejecting and trying to leave our Father.

Because this denial of wanting to be separate from our Source is what holds the ego world in place, the ego’s stories are set up to make it look like we are not the creator of the dream, but rather its victim. In our dreams, the figures in the dream take on the role as the creator of the dream and we are at the dream’s mercy. In the ego’s thinking, these stories of vulnerability, victimhood and death of the body prove that we are not the maker of the dream.

Jesus explains it this way: “In the dream, the dreamer made himself. But what he made has turned against him, taking on the role of its creator, as the dreamer had. And as he hated his Creator, so the figures in the dream have hated him. His body is their slave, which they abuse because the motives he has given it have they adopted as their own. And hate it for the vengeance it would offer them. It is their vengeance on the body which appears to prove the dreamer could not be the maker of the dream. [This is how] effect and cause are first split off, and then reversed, so that effect becomes a cause; the cause effect.” (8:2-8)

Here we see just how crazy and upside down the dream we are trying to make real is. Here we see why there is so much fear around recognizing that we are the author of the dream. We try to make it look like we are the effect of a cause that is not our own decision. That is why victimhood and death of the body stories are the core of the ego’s defense system.

How does the Holy Spirit free us from the fearful effects we see?

Because of the need to project guilt, the ego’s dream script demonstrates that our brother’s are guilty and that we are at the guilty world’s mercy. The Holy Spirit’s forgiving dreams reverse this script to show us the Christ in every brother, which helps us recognize our own innocence. In forgiving dreams the Holy Spirit brings we no longer need to reverse effect and cause because guilt is removed.

In paragraph 10 we are told: “In His forgiving dreams are the effects of [your dreams] undone, and hated enemies perceived as friends with merciful intent. Their enmity is seen as causeless now, because they did not make [the dream]. And you can accept the role of maker of their hate, because you see that [the dream of hate] has no effects.” (10:3-5)

What is the lesson the miracle brings?

Here we are seeing that we continue to experience fearful thoughts of sickness and death and being at the mercy of a sinful world because we are still choosing to replace our true Identity as Love’s extension. As we let go of denying we are the cause of dream scripts, we no longer need dreams of pain and suffering in order to project guilt. As we choose to let Holy Spirit’s miracles replace what we made, we learn the following lesson: “The lesson is the mind was sick that thought the body could be sick; projecting out its guilt caused nothing, and had no effects.” (11:7)

As we are willing to let go of our barriers and return to our Father in Heaven, the fear disappears and we remember that we are still as God created us. We know that we never left Heaven.

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