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.
Read ACIM Chapter 7, Section X (pages 133-135)
This section is about belief, willingness and the changelessness of What we are, the changelessness of God’s Creation. No matter what we believe we are, we cannot change God’s Creation and thus cannot change our Self. But our beliefs can and do affect our perception of ourselves. If we believe in false premises, we will have a false perception of ourselves.
God is one and it is His Will that everything He creates is one with Him. Separation is not His Will and is therefore impossible. Because this world comes from the belief in separation, all our perceptions in the world that are based on this belief are false. This whole world can be completely undone by withdrawing belief in separation. But because we believe in separation, it is real to us and to withdraw that belief we need help from outside that belief system to guide us back to Reality. That is the Holy Spirit’s role in our mind. Our belief in lies has confused us about the truth. We need to learn to turn to the Holy Spirit, Who will help us out of this confusion and avoid pain.
Remember that what we believe is true for us. That does not make it true in reality, but we experience it as true because of our belief. Recently I had an experience in which I had been told information and I believed it was true. I relayed the information, fully believing it was true. Then I learned from a source with a bigger picture that the information I had received was only a potential for truth sometime in the future but not yet a “fact” in this world. With this new information I changed my belief so what had seemed to be true was no longer true for me.
This second source of information could be likened to the Holy Spirit in our minds. The Holy Spirit sees all of totality. From this perspective, He is able to bring us a bigger picture, if we are willing to receive His insight. This allows us to recognize where we have been believing in a falsity. “His Voice will teach you how to distinguish between pain and joy, and will lead you out of the confusion you have made.” (7:3)
No one believes in a lie they recognize as a lie. And so with the Holy Spirit’s help, we can let go of our false beliefs and learn to accept into our minds only what is true. That is our only need: To let go of the false and accept only what is true into our minds. This is how we return to the Heaven of our unity with Love.
The ego’s premise is that we can have a will different from God’s Will. Since God’s Will is to extend Love and nothing else (creation), the ego’s “will” must be to do something different — not to extend Love. Since Love is Life, not to extend Love must be death. This is the logical outcome of the ego’s premise that it does not want us to see. Belief in the ego’s premise has left us confused about what we will and what we are. “If you are God’s Will and do not accept His Will, you are denying joy. The miracle is therefore a lesson in what joy is. Being a lesson in sharing it is a lesson in love, which is joy.” (8:3-5)
Since Love is truth, as we learn to extend only Love, we are learning to let go of pain and accept joy in our lives. We are learning to accept that God’s Will and our will are one. We no longer believe that we can find happiness in a world of separation that is trying to be in competition with God. We learn to learn to distinguish between the ego’s fleeting moments of false happiness and the eternal joy of sharing Love with all.
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