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Chapter 6: The Lessons of Love

Section IV: The Only Answer

Read ACIM Chapter 6, Section IV (pages 100-103)

What is the ego?

The ego is the belief that we are separate and outside the Mind of God. When we forgot to laugh at this tiny, mad idea, we questioned our Identity. This was the beginning of doubt. Here we are being clearly shown the insanity and unreality of the ego thought system. “The ego, which is not real, attempts to persuade the mind, which is real, that the mind is the ego’s learning device, and further, that the body is more real than the mind is. No one in his right mind could possibly believe this, and no one in his right mind does believe it.” (5:3-4)

Because the ego is the thought of separation from Love, it sees itself as separate from you who are Love and so it does not know you. To maintain its seeming existence, the ego needs your belief in it. When you believe in it, you lose awareness of the Love you are. You doubt your true Identity. The ego does not mean you well. It knows that at any time you may withdraw your belief from it so it must constantly entice you to give it your allegiance. You give it your allegiance whenever you feel guilty, anxious or fearful. So the ego always wants to bring you thoughts of guilt, anxiety and fear to maintain your belief in it.

What is God’s Answer to this impossible dream of separation?

The Holy Spirit is the Answer to the confusion we introduced by believing separation from the Mind of Love could occur. When we chose to believe in the thought of separation (the ego), we lost our awareness of the Kingdom of God. “You could not remain within the Kingdom without love, and since the Kingdom is love, you believe that you are without it.” (2:4)

Through our belief in the thought of separation, we have made the ability to make illusions of separation seem real so we must be taught to recognize that the illusions of the ego are unreal. That is why God gave us a Teacher in the form of the Holy Spirit in our mind. As we learn to listen to the Holy Spirit, He will teach us to recognize the unreality of the myriad forms of illusions the ego makes up in this dream of separation. “Your dreams contain many of the ego’s symbols and they have confused you. Yet that was only because you were asleep and did not know.” (6:5-6)

Listening to the Holy Spirit is how we will learn to find our way out of the “impossible” situation we have made in the dream and awaken to the Kingdom. “When you wake you will see the truth around you and in you, and you will no longer believe in dreams because they will have no reality for you. Yet the Kingdom and all that you have created there will have great reality for you, because they are beautiful and true.” (6:7-8)

Looking out through the body’s eyes, it seems hard to fathom that this world never really occurred. Yet the fact that the world never occurred is why it is possible to return to full awareness of our Home in the Kingdom. If separation had really occurred, its reversal would be impossible. But because separation is only a belief and not a fact, we can learn to let that belief go and return to full knowledge of our unity in Love.

The idea that this world never really happened is brought up again and again throughout the Course. This is because the ego defends against it heavily. We need repeated reminders to break through the resistance generated by our allegiance to the ego. The ego knows the moment we fully recognize the unreality of the world of separation, we will let it go. And that will be the ego’s end.

It is difficult to grasp that this world is not real only because we have identified ourselves with it and want it to be real so we can keep our unique, individual identity. As we learn from the Holy Spirit to recognize that being a separate identity with a separate body is not what we are, we are released from the illusion of a loveless world. He teaches us, “You are a child of God, a priceless part of His Kingdom, which He created as part of Him. Nothing else exists and only this is real.” (6:1-2)

The Holy Spirit knows that because we are part of God, inequality does not exist. Because God gives us all of His power to create, or extend Love as He does, He cannot interfere with what we do with that power. He knows us as perfect as Himself. Were He to interfere with our misuse of the power to create — making a world of illusions — He would no longer be seeing us as equal, nor would He be knowing us as perfect. He could not do this and be Himself. “That is why the Holy Spirit never commands. To command is to assume inequality, which the Holy Spirit demonstrates does not exist.” (11:1-2)

The decision to separate is the decision to deny the oneness of Love. This denial blocks our communion with Love so that we are unaware of It. Since peace is an attribute of Love, when we deny Love we cannot experience peace. Denying Love does not mean that Love is not present. It only makes us unaware of It. This is a lack of communication. When we chose the strident voice of the ego, God gave the Answer, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit bridges us back to true communication, or communion in Love.

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