A Course in Miracles Text Made Simple

To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Text Made Simple, we recommend that
you read the corresponding chapter and section in the Text of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.

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Chapter 7: The Gifts of the Kingdom

Section II: The Law of the Kingdom

Read ACIM Chapter 7, Section II (pages 114-116)

What does it mean ‘to heal’?

To heal is to listen to the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the world. The Holy Spirit knows that every story in this world is unreal and will correct our perception if we open our mind to Him. The Holy Spirit teaches us that what is not of God does not really exist. Love, which is the Kingdom, is formless, eternal and changeless.

The ego’s perception will always attempt to validate the world and is the opposite of healing. The ego’s perception is sick because it is the denial of the truth. If we believe in the false ideas of the ego, it obscures what is true in our mind and makes it difficult to hear the Holy Spirit. Belief in lies obscures the truth. This means that if we give any credence to sickness or any form, the Kingdom of God is obscured to us. “What you project or extend is real for you. This is an immutable law of the mind in this world as well as in the Kingdom.” (2:4-5)

When the ego in others bothers us, what are we identifying with?

We are identifying with the ego when we focus on the ego in others. When we get angry with what someone says or does, we are making the false ideas of the ego real in our mind and reinforcing the ego thought system in our brother. We are making the error real and obscuring what is real.

Who are we helping when we focus on the Holy Spirit in another?

We are identifying with the Holy Spirit when we are willing to focus on the Holy Spirit, or the truth in others. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of wholeness, the Spirit of truth that resides in everyone’s mind, whether they recognize It or not. When we focus on the Holy Spirit in anyone, we are helping both them and ourselves awaken to the truth.

We heal as we learn to recognize the Holy Spirit in our brother, which is the truth about him. When we see the Holy Spirit in our brother, we are teaching ourselves that the Holy Spirit is in us. The one thing that we have in common with all our brothers is the Holy Spirit, which unifies us as one. As we learn to see in this way, we are preparing ourselves to accept the oneness that is the condition of the Kingdom of God.

What does Jesus tell us is the at the core of the thought system of separation?

The wish for specialness, to be unique, different and have an identity we can call our own, is at the core of the thought system of separation. It is why the ego teaches that it is form that has meaning. Everything we see with the body’s eyes shows us different forms. We interpret the meaning of these forms according to what we have learned is valuable and valueless. Because form is paramount to the ego, form gets all of our attention. Rarely do we look for content. We cannot see the Love that is the same in all things when our attention is captivated by form. This attention to form is important to those who want specialness.

It is only form that makes us seem different. The Course is teaching us that the truth about us is that we are Love and nothing else. The Love we are is the same Love that God is. In Love we are one and the same. There can be no differences. When we give our attention to form, we cannot recognize our Self as God created It. We are unaware of Love. Thus to know ourselves we must learn to disregard form as meaningless.

Where does all meaning come from?

All meaning comes from God. Therefore all meaning is Love. Because only Love is real, there can be no meaning in anything else. As we practice listening to the Holy Spirit, He will teach us to see the real meaning — the Love — in all things. We will no longer need to defend a separate, unique identity, for we will know that our safety lies in the Love that we are, which is changeless and unchangeable.

There is nothing more certain than the eternal, and Love is eternal. Only Love matters. That is why we are told that the Holy Spirit “...opposes the idea that differences in form are meaningful, emphasizing always that these differences do not matter. The meaning of His message is always the same; only the meaning matters.” (5:3-4)

The Holy Spirit teaches us to remember what really matters and forget what does not matter. “He teaches remembering and forgetting, but the forgetting is only to make the remembering consistent. You forget in order to remember better.” (6:4-5) When we listen to both the ego and the Holy Spirit we will remain in conflict. The Holy Spirit helps us to let go of the ego’s concept of separation in all its forms so that we learn the truth and teach the truth. “The extension of truth, which is the law of the Kingdom, rests only on the knowledge of what truth is.” (5:6)

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