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 8: The Journey Back

Section IX: Healing as Corrected Perception

Read ACIM Chapter 8, Section IX (pages 157-159)

What does Jesus tell us is the underlying cause of sickness?

In this section we are learning that healing is the process of letting go of our belief that we could ever be separated from God’s universal Love. That is why we are reminded that the Holy Spirit is the answer. Jesus explains that the underlying cause of sickness is fear of awakening to the one Love we all are.

The ego’s world tries to teach us that sickness comes from germs, chemicals, pollen, too much sun, the wrong foods — an endless list of external forces. All these external sources of harm simply reinforce fear and make the dream of separation seem more real.

For the ego’s existence to be maintained, we must not recognize the power of our minds and that a decision in our mind to awaken would be the end of sickness. Thus the ego will always strive to make our minds seem powerless and make external forces seem to have complete control over us. The Holy Spirit teaches us this is not so. Since only oneness is real, there is nothing external, nothing separate that could cause harm.

The ego is the decision to be separate from the universal Love of God. It “...is the wish that things be as they are not.” (2:1) It is this desire to be separate that the Holy Spirit helps us undo. Because we have so strongly identified with the body and a separate image as what we are, the undoing of the decision to be separate is a gradual process. Because of this strong investment in a separate identity, we have to be taught that there is no value in being a separate identity, there is no value in being unique and special. We need to learn that our choice for specialness is an attack on our wholeness. As we cease to value separation, we will naturally make the decision for wholeness.

What happens as we learn to let go of identification with the body?

The Holy Spirit teaches that in truth we are all of one mind and that mind we share with God, which is forever whole, complete and healthy. The Holy Spirit teaches us that the body is not what we are. As we learn to let go of identification with the body, the body no longer tells us whether we are healthy or sick. We are told, “Ask, rather, that the Holy Spirit teach you the right perception of the body, for perception alone can be distorted. Only perception can be sick, because only perception can be wrong.” (1:6-7)

The Holy Spirit teaches us to perceive the body as a communication device to be helpful to ourselves and all our brothers by using it to express our unity and the Love that we are. With this perception the body becomes harmless, which is the condition of reality. Thus our minds become open to the reality of extending Love as our only purpose. Attack becomes unthinkable because there is nothing perceived as external to attack. There is no idea of separation. It is to this recognition that the Holy Spirit leads us. This is the healing or correction of our perception.

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Chapter 8: The Journey Back

Section VIII: The Body as Means or End

Read ACIM Chapter 8, Section VIII (pages 155-157)

What decides what the body is used for?

In the last section we were told that the body has no purpose at all apart from the mind. It is the mind that decides what the body is used for. In this dream of a world that comes from the belief in separation, the mind seems to have a choice of voices or guides to listen to. One voice seeks only to separate and uses the body to attack for this purpose. The other Voice seeks only to unify and uses the body to communicate with ‘other’ minds to remind them of our unity. We are always free to choose which voice to listen to, though only one is real.

What is the body to the ego?

When we choose to listen to the unreal voice of the ego, we will always be directed to perceive separation, which attacks our wholeness in God. To the ego then, the body is a weapon, to be used in defense of separation. The ego equates us with the body which seems to demonstrate that we have separated from God. By equating us with the body, the ego teaches us that we are separate from God and therefore do not share God’s strength. The ego also teaches that because we no longer share God’s strength, we are weak and vulnerable. “Sickness is a way of demonstrating that you can be hurt. It is a witness to your frailty, your vulnerability, and your extreme need to depend on external guidance. The ego uses this as its best argument for your need for its guidance.” (6:1-3)

What happens when we give the function of judgment to the Holy Spirit?

On the other hand the Holy Spirit sees the body as a means of communicating our unity. “The Holy Spirit teaches you to use your body only to reach your brothers, so he can teach His message through you. This will heal them and therefore heal you.” (9:1-2) As we are willing to give the function of judgment to the Holy Spirit, we will see the false ideas of the ego for what they are and lay them aside. We will lay down our perceptions of littleness and vulnerability. We will let go of all attempts to use the body lovelessly. “Health is the beginning of the proper perspective on life under the guidance of the one Teacher Who knows what life is, being the Voice for Life Itself.” (9:10)

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Chapter 8: The Journey Back

Section VII: The Body as a Means of Communication

Read ACIM Chapter 8, Section VII (pages 151-154)

When we see our brother as a body, what are we believing about ourselves?

In this section we are brought to understand that believing in separation (believing in the physical world) is attack. We are reminded that when we see our brother as a physical entity, we are attacking him by perceiving him as separate. “When you see a brother as a body, you are condemning him because you have condemned yourself.” (15:7) We only see separation when we choose to give value to separation through belief. Because of the power of our minds, the truth is lost to us when we believe in the false ideas of the ego. That is why Jesus tells us we are attacking and belittling ourselves when we limit our identity to a body. “But when you look upon a brother as a physical entity, his power and glory are ‘lost’ to you and so are yours. You have attacked him but you must have attacked yourself first. Do not see him this way for your own salvation, which must bring him his.” (5:3-5)

How does the Holy Spirit see the body?

We are also learning that there is a better way to look on ourselves and our brother. This way of perceiving comes from the Holy Spirit, which was established by God as part of us. The Holy Spirit is the part of our minds that remembers our unity with God. The Holy Spirit sees the body as a communication device to end separation and communicate our unity in the one Mind we all share. The Holy Spirit teaches us to “regard bodies solely as a means of joining minds and uniting them with yours and mine.” (2:5) The Holy Spirit uses the body only as a means to teach that we are not bodies. This is how we will recognize the truth that we are only mind and come to understand the power of our mind.

What happens when we see our brother’s holiness?

It is essential that we let the Holy Spirit interpret all our perceptions on our behalf. If we think we can interpret anything on our own, we have already made the mistake of believing we are separate and our interpretations will be wrong. The Holy Spirit helps us see past our brother’s limited image of himself to his true holiness and glory. As we learn to see this in our brothers, we learn to see it in ourselves.

“Thought cannot be made into flesh except by belief, since thought is not physical.” (7:4) Flesh is used here to represent any form. Thought is abstract and formless. To attempt to give form reality is to attempt to make illusion real. This interferes with our awareness of reality by substituting illusion for truth. A body, which is form, cannot be real. The only reality is God Who is Love and nothing else. His Thoughts must only be Love; thus only our Thoughts of unified Love are real.

Most of what we think of as thoughts in this world are in some way tied to body and form images. These are not real thoughts, but illusions that block our awareness of our real Thoughts, which extend God’s Love and nothing else. “The removal of blocks, then, is the only way to guarantee help and healing. Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind that is working through the body, but not in it.” (11:1-2)

Under the Holy Spirit’s guidance, how is the body used?

While we believe we are separate, we need a means to let go of the belief in separation that blocks the extension of Love. The Holy Spirit can use the body for communication, which is the sharing of thought. Under the Holy Spirit’s guidance, the body is used to take us beyond identification with the body to the recognition that we are mind unified with all minds in the one Mind of God. As we replace our devotion to the ego with dedication to following only the Holy Spirit’s guidance, the body becomes the Holy Spirit’s temple. No longer used for attack, the body is now a means for help and healing. We are brought to the remembrance that we are mind with unlimited power to extend Love, which is our only purpose. “The power of wholeness is extension. Do not arrest your thought in this world, and you will open your mind to creation in God.” (16:7-8)

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Chapter 8: The Journey Back

Section VI: The Treasure of God

Read ACIM Chapter 8, Section VI (pages 148-150)

What is God’s treasure?

In the Mind of God, Love extends forever. God’s extension of Love is the Sonship, which is God’s treasure. God’s Will is only to extend Love. Because we are part of God, that is also our will. We are the extension of God’s Love and as Love, we too extend It. We know what we are by being what we are. To be Love, we must extend or give Love. That is our only will because it is Love’s Will. Nothing else can bring us joy. Nothing else can satisfy.

When we choose to keep love for ourselves alone, we lose awareness of what Love is. By the grace of God this insane wish cannot and does not change reality at all. God knows that we remain part of Him and so we are. The insane belief that we are separate blocks our awareness of What we are, but it does not change It. Herein lies our salvation. We simply need to let go of this false belief and truth will dawn upon our minds. God’s Will that we remain one with Him saves us from our illusion of being a separate self. The truth of what we are is held safely in God’s Mind for us, undisturbed and shimmering in God’s radiance, waiting for our awakening from the dream of separation.

How are we like the prodigal son?

Like the prodigal son, we are coming to the awareness that what we thought would bring us happiness has only brought us emptiness and suffering. That is why Jesus tells us, “Forget not the Kingdom of God for anything the world has to offer.” (1:5) We are realizing that we have made a mistake. The Course is telling us that this mistake has not changed God’s Will for us. God’s Will is that we be one with Him. His joy is that we remain part of Him and extend His Love as He extends it to us. We are God’s treasure, and as Love, our extensions of Love are our treasure. They remain in our mind as we remain in God’s Mind. Love extends forever in the Mind of God.

What do we do when we join with Jesus?

Because Jesus has already completed the journey Home, he knows that he is not alone nor is he separate from us. He is asking us to join with him so we can learn that we are not alone. As we join with him, we invite all our brothers to join with us as Jesus does. Knowing that we are not alone, we offer all that we learn to everyone and our strength grows. We become aware that “the whole power of God’s Son lies in all of us, but not in any of us alone.” (8:5)

Jesus teaches us we cannot return to the Kingdom alone because we cannot be alone. Thinking we are alone is a denial of God’s Will and makes us unaware of What we are. To return to awareness of What we are, we need to join with our brothers. “We begin the journey back by setting out together, and gather in our brothers as we continue together. Every gain in our strength is offered for all, so they too can lay aside their weakness and add their strength to us.” (1:2-3)

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Chapter 8: The Journey Back

Section V: The Undivided Will of the Sonship

Read ACIM Chapter 8, Section V (pages 146-148)

What does Jesus tell us healing is?

In this world, we are not at peace because we have dissociated from our true Identity as part of God and thus believe our will opposes His. We have preferred delusions of separation, judging our oneness as something we do not want. We use our illusions of individuality to block remembering the truth. In truth we are unified in the Mind of God. We cannot believe we are separate from the undivided Will of God and remember what we are. Because we are the Will of God, to heal is to make whole. “Therefore, to heal is to unite with those who are like you, because perceiving this likeness is to recognize the Father.” (2:5)

Jesus represents the successful accomplishment of the Atonement. Because he has successfully traveled the path to Atonement, he can be our guide along that path. He knows the way, having completely renounced the ego. He offers us his unified mind. By joining with him, we are accepting the means to reach the Atonement.

What is the only difference between us and Jesus?

We were created the same as Jesus, our brother. The only difference between us and him is that he accepts his union with our Creator and nothing else. All our fear and uncertainty comes from believing there is something other than our Creator. When we join with Jesus completely, we are really joining with God and all our brothers, for he knows that his reality is in his oneness with God and all God’s creations.

At first we may try to hang on to the ego’s beliefs as we also try to follow Jesus’ guidance. This attempt to follow two guides brings us confusion, yet Jesus remains steadfast in his willingness to help. He knows that we are no more excluded from him than he is excluded from God. He holds this remembrance for us like holding a picture in front of us that reminds us of Who we are. We may turn away from the picture and lose our way temporarily, but Jesus holds that awareness for us so we can return to it whenever we are willing.

Why is Jesus so patient and compassionate?

His compassion and patience come from knowing that we are part of Him as he is part of God and part of us. There is no separation in Creation. He offers us his hand with all of his strength to guide us and empower us on the journey Home. He is eternally our mighty Companion who remains undeceived by any of the ego’s illusions. There can be no greater Friend.

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Chapter 8: The Journey Back

Section IV: The Gift of Freedom

Read ACIM Chapter 8, Section IV (pages 143-146)

Why do we sometimes feel lonely and helpless?

This world was made to be a replacement for God’s unified Kingdom of Love. This world reflects the decision to separate or dissociate from Love, which is everything. This dissociation from all that is real brings with it the illusion of isolation, which generates loneliness. Because we are denying Love’s unity, which is all there is, we feel helpless and alone. We are denying ourselves the gift of freedom that comes with accepting God’s Will for us. “When you are not at peace it can only be because you do not believe you are in Him. Yet He is All in all.” (1:3-4)

What does Jesus represent and why is he here for us?

Jesus represents the bridge to the full remembrance of our unity with God and the denial of the idea of separation. Because he recognizes the unity of all creation, he is truly with us always because he is one with us. Jesus tells us, “The remembrance of me is the remembrance of yourself, and of Him Who sent me to you.” (2:13)

Jesus is here to bring us the awareness of oneness, which is our Father’s Will. The world has a problem accepting this because the world is the rejection of the unity of Love. As we accept that he is with us always by joining with him in the recognition of our unity in Love, we share his Light and become the Light of the world with him. When we accept his guidance, we will extend peace and union as he does.

Jesus emphasizes in this section that healing our mind does not come from outside us. It comes from the guidance we receive in our minds by joining with Jesus or the Holy Spirit. The ego tries to convince us that if we follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance we will be asked to sacrifice. So we fear the very guidance that will heal us and set us free. The ego does not tell us that the only thing we will lose is the illusion of being separate and alone. When we give up the ego, this “loss” is replaced by the peace and joy of God.

Is the ego’s idea of independence really imprisonment?

The ego equates independence with freedom. Yet it is actually imprisonment because to be independent of God’s Love we must limit ourselves and lose awareness of God’s limitless, eternal Love. Love is Life because Love is Creation. The ego’s independence is thus the denial of our Life in God. The ego does not tell us that the terrible price we pay for its “gift” of independence is belief in death. The Course is helping us to recognize this so we will realize that the ego has no value. It offers us nothing we really want. As we recognize this, we become willing to accept the Holy Spirit’s lessons.

What happens when we make the decision to unite with Jesus?

As we make the decision to unite with Jesus, we are learning to return to the union of Love and reject the separation of the world. Jesus knows how to guide us and as our willingness to listen and follow grows, we learn the Will of the Father. Jesus tells us, “I can teach you, but only you can choose to listen to my teaching.” (6:5)

Jesus always teaches us of union. The Father and the Son are one and indivisible. Our identity is with both the Father and the Son. We are part of Both because They are one. We also must learn to see our brother as one with us. To see him as a separate body with a separate mind is to imprison him and ourselves. No part of Creation can be imprisoned if It is to be known in truth. Accepting our oneness with our brothers and our Father is the gift of freedom to ourselves and our brother.

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Chapter 8: The Journey Back

Section III: The Holy Encounter

Read ACIM Chapter 8, Section III (pages 141-143)

How do we receive understanding and enlightenment?

In the beginning of this section, Jesus reminds us that we can receive understanding and enlightenment because it has already been given to us. The decision to accept enlightenment is the decision to listen to the Holy Spirit, Who knows the perfect way to help us. Learning the Holy Spirit’s lessons requires our willingness to receive his teaching, which leads us to the experience of perfect joy and peace. It is only when we wish for the experience of individuality that the Holy Spirit’s Voice is blocked.

How do we block the extension of Love?

When we think of ourselves as alone and separate, we are blocking the extension of Love. Love’s Will is to eternally extend. Being Love’s extension, the Son’s will is also to extend Love. Love is our Father so the extension of the Father and the Son “is the result of Their oneness, holding Their unity together by extending Their Will. This is perfect creation by the perfectly created, in union with the Perfect Creator.” (3:2-3)

What does how we view others have to do with returning to Heaven?

Jesus explains that how we view others will either keep us locked in the dream of separation or be a path leading us Home to the full awareness of our oneness in Love. “When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him you will see yourself. As you treat him you will treat yourself. As you think of him you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself. Whenever two Sons of God meet, they are given another chance at salvation.” (4:1-6)

Our power is lost to us when we think we are alone. We can only know our power and glory by accepting our oneness with everyone in Love. It is our responsibility to ourselves and to our brothers to recognize the loving Self we share that unites us with our Creator. We do this by forgiving the illusions we have held about ourselves and our brothers.

Our brother is in the Kingdom and remembering this helps us remember our Identity and our function. We are all Love and our function is to extend Love. “You can encounter only part of yourself because you are part of God, Who is everything.” (7:1) Extending Love is how we remember we are Love. We can remember to do this in every situation with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Our willingness to listen and be led is all that is needed.

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Chapter 8: The Journey Back

Section II: The Difference between Imprisonment and Freedom

Read ACIM Chapter 8, Section II (pages 139-141)

Why do we experience uncertainty, doubt, pain and depression?

The ego does not know what we are, yet it tries to teach us what we are. If we believe what it teaches, we are believing in an illusion of what we are. That is the basis of this world. Since illusions have no foundation in reality, they are inevitably confusing. The result is that we experience continual uncertainty about who we are as long as we follow the ego’s teachings. Because the ego teaches contrary to our natural path, our learning from the ego is depressing.

What the ego teaches denies the Love and accompanying joy that is our nature. Because this learning is inherently painful, we have come to believe that learning is unpleasant and so we resist learning. This resistance manifests in resistance to change. We fear change because the changes that came with learning the ego’s lessons are so painful. The pain is the result of loss of our true Identity, loss of the strength we share with God, loss of the safety that comes with being one with our Source. The ego teaches that it is giving us free will, but it is really imprisoning our will.

What is the ego’s mantra?

The ego’s mantra is “independence.” In this world, independence is highly valued. Being able to be our own person, be in charge of our life, take control, not be subject to anyone else, is often sought for with great determination, starting with our teenage years. We honor those who seem to have successfully achieved their personal goals in the world. We do not recognize that the real cost of striving for this independence is the denial of our free will. The ego is really offering us independence from joy because our joy can only be found in the Will we share with God.

In truth we were created by God’s Will and are one with His Will. Since God is all of reality, we were created one with all reality. We already are one with all that is. There is nothing else to have or be. To be independent from this oneness we must give up all that is and limit what we think we are to something that is separate from reality. Thus to be independent is to be imprisoned because it is to be limited.

The ego does not tell us this. It holds the idol of independence before us, trying to convince us of its great value. Yet it is an empty image with no value of its own. By choosing independence, we choose limitation and thus we are not free. God’s Will for us is that we are free to share all of His joy, all of His Love, all that is real. Choosing less than that cannot be free will. It is this the Holy Spirit teaches us. As we learn to recognize that the ego can only offer limitation and imprisonment, we will cease to value its images and we will awaken to our Home in the Kingdom.

Why is it so important to stop and listen to the Holy Spirit?

When we listen to the Holy Spirit, we learn that we are in union with Love and cannot be without It. Love’s Will is our will. Learning this returns us to our innate joy and freedom. This learning also brings us an awareness of Love’s boundless peace and strength. We learn that we are as unlimited as God is because we are one with Him. The Holy Spirit’s teaching brings us to this acknowledgment. “When you acknowledge this you bring the acknowledgment automatically to everyone, because you have acknowledged everyone. By your recognition you awaken theirs, and through [their recognition] yours is extended.” (8:3-4) As we recognize the difference between imprisonment and freedom we help everyone.

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Chapter 8: The Journey Back

Section I: The Direction of the Curriculum

Read ACIM Chapter 8, Section I (pages 138-139)

What does Jesus tell us is the purpose for learning this Course?

When we choose to believe that we are separate from the Love we are, we are contradicting our true nature. We experience conflict instead of the peace that is our natural condition. Peace is the condition of knowledge and knowledge is the experience of the beingness of God, the beingness of Love. God’s Will is only Love. Knowing Love and being Love are God’s Will.

Joining with the ego’s hallucinations is trying to do the opposite of God’s Will. The ego always sees conflict because the ego is the idea of separation from Love. When we believe in the ego, we believe in separate bodies with separate minds. This is in conflict with the oneness of the Love we are as God created us. When we join with the ego, we are throwing peace away. This is what the Course calls hell. The purpose for learning this Course is to return to peace. By teaching us to see the Love that every brother is, we learn that there is no cause for conflict because the hallucinations of the ego are not real.

Why do we pay attention to the ego?

We pay attention to the ego because we think it offers us something we want. The idea of being unique, independent and having something we can call our own appeals to us. The glitter of its appeal blinds us to the price we pay in seeking it. The price we pay is loss of peace because where there are differences, conflict is inevitable. The Course is helping us recognize the price of believing in specialness. As we learn to recognize that the cost of specialness is loss of joy and peace, it loses its appeal. When we no longer want it, it will be removed from our mind for us and the joy and peace of Heaven will return to our awareness.

Why does the Course seem to be difficult to understand?

The reason the Course seems to be difficult to understand is because we are trying to listen to two teachers. Since the two teachers are teaching completely opposite curriculums, one is like a foreign language to the other. The teacher that gives lessons in separation cannot comprehend oneness. Likewise the Teacher of oneness cannot comprehend separation.

Trying to understand both the Holy Spirit’s lessons of oneness and the ego’s lessons of separation is literally mind boggling. It leaves us feeling mentally immobilized. “Your reality is unaffected by both, but if you listen to both, your mind will be split about what your reality is.” (6:5) This confusion comes only because we think there is some value in separation, in having a unique and special identity we can call our own. If we saw no value in separation, we would simply disregard the ego’s lessons because they would be meaningless to us. Confusion would disappear and we would remember the Love that we are in God.

What does it take to experience miracles?

To experience miracles, we must be taught to realize that the idea of separation has no value to us and in fact is wholly undesirable. It never satisfies because it brings us only what we do not really want. Believing in separation does not make us happy. As we recognize this, we are motivated to learn the Holy Spirit’s curriculum that brings us peace instead of conflict, joy instead of despair.

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Chapter 7: The Gifts of the Kingdom

Section XI: The State of Grace

Read ACIM Chapter 7, Section XI (pages 136-137)

What does it mean to be in a state of grace?

We were all created by Love to be Love. Being Love is extending Love. Extending Love is our natural state. When we extend Love, we can feel It. We know we are in Love. This is our joy. This is the state of grace. We naturally have joy because when we are extending Love, we are extending joy. When we are not extending Love, we are not in our natural state and will therefore experience strain. We do not function well in the ego’s alien environment because this is not where we belong.

Jesus reminds us that we can return to our natural state. We do this by extending the Love of God we have and are to everyone. “You who could give the Love of God to everything you see and touch and remember, are literally denying Heaven to yourself.” (3:11) We are denying Heaven to ourselves when we withhold extension of the Love of God. When we withhold Love, we are not being what we are and this causes all our difficulties.

Why does Jesus tell us that Love is always the answer?

You may have heard many times that Love is the answer. Here we are seeing that when we do not extend Love, we are not in a state of grace. Not extending Love is alien to our very nature and is out of accord with why we were created. We were created to be Love and extend Love. When we are not extending Love, we are not accepting our inheritance and we are not happy. Not being what we are is fearful because fear is the absence of Love. Giving Love is really our joy and without giving Love we do not experience joy.

How do we hold Love in our mind?

Jesus is making it very clear in this section that it is only through extending Love that we hold Love in our mind. This is how we teach Love. Love is all there is, and remembering this returns us to our natural state of grace. “The Majesty of God is there, for you to recognize and appreciate and know. Recognizing the Majesty of God as your brother is to accept your own inheritance. God gives only equally.” (5:3-5)

So our job here is to recognize every brother as the Majesty of God. This is how we teach the Kingdom to the Kingdom. “There are no exceptions to this lesson because the lack of exceptions is the lesson. Every Son who returns to the Kingdom with this lesson in his heart has healed the Sonship and given thanks to God.” (4:2-3) As we learn to recognize every brother as the Majesty of God without exception, that is what we teach and that is what we learn.

Being willing to see only Love is how we return to knowing that we are in God and with God. Being willing to extend only Love returns us to our natural state. When we are in our natural state, we feel God’s grace and God’s joy. We are all the same Love. This is the lesson we came to learn and to teach. “Being is known by sharing. Because God shared His Being with you, you can know Him.” (7:6-7) When we know the truth about every Son of God, we are accepting all of God without exception.

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Chapter 7: The Gifts of the Kingdom

Section X: The Confusion of Pain and Joy

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.

How is this world undone?

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.

What is the ego’s premise on which this world is based?

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)

How do we let go of pain?

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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Chapter 7: The Gifts of the Kingdom

Section IX: The Extension of the Kingdom

Read ACIM Chapter 7, Section IX (pages 132-133)

How does God’s Kingdom extend?

There are some key principles of the Course to be kept in mind to understand this section. First, God is Love and nothing else. Second, creation is the extension of Love; to create is to extend Love, which is to extend God. As it says in the Clarification of Terms (1. Mind - Spirit), Spirit is the Thought of God and thus Spirit is the Son of God. Since God is Love, His Thoughts are Thoughts of Love, so Spirit is Love. There is no duality in Love, there is only oneness.

The Self we are that God created also must be Love and nothing else. Love, by Its nature, forever extends Love and is thus always creating. Since we are Love, we are always creating; we are always extending the Love that we are. When we believe in the ego and accept its thought system of limitation and separation, we are unaware of our continuous extension of Love. Though this extension of Love is unaffected by our unawareness, we cannot experience the joy and fulfillment of Love while we align ourselves with the ego. It is this insane allegiance that must be undone. By the grace of God, we have the Holy Spirit to lead us out of our mistaken identification with the ego and back to full awareness of our Being in Love.

What does Jesus mean by ‘accepting the miracle’?

The Kingdom of Love is always extending because that is what Love is and what Love does. Because we are part of the Kingdom, that is what we are and do. When we accept our Self we are accepting wholeness, oneness. We know there is no duality. We remember that individual selves could never be real. This is accepting the miracle. “Be confident that you have never lost your Identity and the extensions which maintain It in wholeness and peace. Miracles are an expression of this confidence.” (7:1-2)

How do we go from experiencing selfishness to the experience of Self-fullness?

As we let go of selfishness (thinking of ourself alone) and open to Self-fullness, we open to Its joy, peace and deep fulfillment. Love overflows and cannot be contained. This is what we were created for and this is what we are. This is the extension of Love’s Being and is our only function. This Self-fullness must include all our brothers to be Itself. In Love’s wholeness, every brother’s extension of Love is our extension of Love because we are one. “The creations of every Son of God are yours, since every creation belongs to everyone, being created for the Sonship as a whole.” (5:3) Love is always all inclusive. As miracle workers, we are learning this and are letting the miracle of Holy Spirit’s correction of our perception return us to our one and only vocation that has any meaning.

What is the one lesson we are learning?

This is the one lesson that we are learning as we awaken to the totality of the Kingdom and Its constant extension. Love is one and forever extending. All is included in this Love. It is all there is and all there ever will be. As we let go of blocking Love’s extension, we are letting go of the ego, which is the idea of trying to hold a little for itself alone. The ego is selfishness and Love is Self-fullness. Simply put, the return Home is letting go of selfishness and accepting Self-fullness. Accepting Self-fullness is accepting oneness and accepting God, which is accepting Love as It is.

To know Love, we must extend It. “Being must be extended. That is how it retains the knowledge of itself.” (2:6-7) The joy we experience with Love motivates us to extend It, for It cannot be contained. What is of Love shares Love’s Being and we are Love.

When we withhold Love, we block ourselves from the awareness of Love. When we block ourselves from the awareness of Love, we lose awareness of our Identity as Love. If we want to be happy, we need to extend Love. Nothing else will satisfy because nothing else is real. Everything else is an empty shell.

Extending Love displaces the ego. It is the opposite of selfishness. Selfishness is trying to keep love for ourselves alone. Extending Love is giving it away in order to recognize that it is ours. As we fully realize that extending Love is our only function, we come into the true happiness that is eternally ours. We come back to our Self. What was lost is found. The prodigal son returns home to what is eternally his. Being a miracle worker is extending Love. When we are being Love, we do not wish to contain Love but to extend it.

When we practice focusing on being Love as we go through our day, we will clearly see all the thoughts that are blocking the extension of Love and let them go. Being Love becomes our only function. We know that this is what makes us happy and we know we would not want to stop doing what brings us happiness.

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Chapter 7: The Gifts of the Kingdom

Section VIII: The Unbelievable Belief

Read ACIM Chapter 7, Section VIII (pages 129-131)

What is the fundamental law of mind that is always in operation?

This section explains the fundamental law of mind that is always in operation in our minds. This fundamental law of mind is the foundation for both extension and projection. Here we are led to understand what this fundamental law of mind is and the difference between extension, which is used in God’s Kingdom, and projection, which is used in the ego’s world. “To the ego, the law is perceived as a means of getting rid of something it does not want. To the Holy Spirit, it is the fundamental law of sharing, by which you give what you value in order to keep it in your mind.” (1:5-6) Because we are mind and only mind, this fundamental law is always in effect, so our mind must either extend or project, because that is how it lives or exists.

Extension uses the fundamental law of mind through sharing, which maintains our awareness of our unity with Love. Love lives by Its extension. To know our real Life in God’s Kingdom, we must share or extend Love in order to know that we are Love. Being Love is synonymous with giving or extending Love. That is why the Holy Spirit always leads us to share the truth of Love in every mind.

If we try to see (or project) anything else, we are denying Love, and thus rejecting It. Projection rejects the seamless oneness of Love and perceives our identities as separate from It. With projection we are rejecting Love as God created it and since the thoughts in our mind do not leave our mind, what we experience is rejection. We are rejecting our Self as God created us. Rejection is in our mind and ideas leave not their source. Because we have joined with the ego thought system, we have joined with rejection and therefore will experience rejection and lack of Love.

Because we hate the feelings of rejection and conflict that come with thoughts of separation, the ego has devised a warped version of the power of the mind to solve that problem. “It projects conflict from your mind to other minds, in an attempt to persuade you that you have gotten rid of the problem.” (2:6) This effort to hurl the conflict within our minds onto other minds does not work because ideas do not leave their source. Instead of getting rid of conflict, it only preserves conflict. “Since the projections have not left their minds, they are forced to engage in constant activity in order not to recognize this.” (3:12)

Jesus is helping us understand here that the mind is one and continues to be one, no matter what delusions we may believe in. The mind cannot be broken into pieces. The mind cannot separate. Projection creates the illusion that this has happened, but we are learning that delusions cannot make reality. “It is the product of the misapplication of the laws of God by distorted minds that are misusing their power.” (4:9)

What does the ego need from us in order to reside in our mind?

The ego is not our master. We are not its subjects. The ego depends entirely on our belief in it. Since projection is the ego’s chief defense mechanism, it tries to protect itself by persuading us to project the responsibility for our belief in it onto others. This seems to provide relief, but actually preserves our belief in the ego because we cannot hold a belief about others without also believing it about ourselves. “The belief that by seeing it outside you have excluded it from within is a complete distortion of the power of extension.” (3:8)

What is needed to release the perpetuation of the ego?

To get out of the circular thought system that perpetuates the ego, we need to accept sole responsibility for the ego’s existence in our mind. This is the key to our freedom because it returns control of our awareness of reality back to us. The ego will cease to seem to exist the moment we withdraw our belief from it. We have the power to change our belief in every moment. The ego is simply an error, not to be punished or battled against, but to be corrected.

Because we made the ego by our belief, we need help from beyond our belief to correct the error. This is why as we learn to recognize the errors of our belief in the ego, it is important that we “give them over quickly to the Holy Spirit to be undone completely, so that all their effects will vanish from your mind and from the Sonship as a whole.” (5:6)

The Holy Spirit teaches us how to recognize the ego’s meaninglessness. As we learn to recognize this, we will naturally let go of our belief in the ego because “...no one can keep a belief he has judged to be unbelievable.” (6:2) The more we join with the Holy Spirit, the more we will recognize that the ego is an unbelievable belief. When we accept the Holy Spirit as our Guide, we are accepting the Atonement, realizing that we are not alone.

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Chapter 7: The Gifts of the Kingdom

Section VII: The Totality of the Kingdom

Read ACIM Chapter 7, Section VII (pages 127-129)

How does God’s Law of ‘the totality of the Kingdom’ affect our life experience?

This section continues the Holy Spirit’s lessons about the power of our mind. “If you use [your mind] to deny reality, reality is gone for you.” (1:6) It also discusses the wholeness of the one Mind of God and the effects of denying the totality of God’s oneness. “Reality cannot be partly appreciated. That is why denying any part of it means you have lost the awareness of all of [reality].” (1:7-8) That is why when we do not extend Love (blessing) to one brother, we lose awareness of the Love we are. Denying a blessing to a brother means that we are separating ourselves from him. Thus we cannot know the Love in ourselves because we have made an exclusion. If Love is not total and all inclusive, it is not Love.

What is the basis for our perceiving attack and vulnerability?

The thought systems of the Holy Spirit and the ego are mutually exclusive, being complete opposites. Neither thought system can understand the other. Built upon the belief in separation, everything the ego perceives is separate. In this perception it is impossible to have everything because everything seems to be broken into individual parts. This necessarily leads to a perception of attack, incompletion and potential for loss or vulnerability. This is the world of the ego. It is impossible for the ego to feel complete because it is the idea of being incomplete, separated off from the whole.

How do we become aware that we dwell in a place of perfect safety and Love’s abundance?

The Holy Spirit knows only of our unity in Love. It remembers for us that we remain part of the Love that God Is and share all of His Love with all that Is. Sharing all with all, it is impossible to lack anything. Loss is impossible and only perfect safety is known. Because this oneness with Love is our true Self and our only reality, it is impossible that our Self can be changed. Through denial we can lose awareness of it, but we cannot change it.

Though we may actively deny Love, we cannot obliterate it, because only Love is real. It is forever calling to us in our minds and is the reason why everyone in this world is searching to find what they believe they have lost. In our searching, we may look where it cannot be found, which is how the ego will guide us, but search we must. The search will be over when we learn to follow the Holy Spirit with no reservation. The need to search stems from our innate desire to be our Self, at one with our Creator, at Home in Heaven.

We return to our Home in Heaven by appreciating all of Reality, appreciating the totality of the Kingdom. We cannot deny any part of the Kingdom and be aware of the Kingdom. In the service of the Holy Spirit, denial is used to recognize the wholeness of Spirit in every brother by denying that the ego’s images have any reality. When you see the wholeness in your brother, you are blessing him. “You need the blessing you can offer him. There is no way for you to have it except by giving it.” (2:2-3) You do not want to see the ego’s picture of your brother because that is the picture you will hold of yourself.

Until we are willing to let go of separation and accept the totality of the Kingdom or God’s oneness with the whole Sonship, we will not be aware of our true Identity as part of God. Choosing to make illusions real is not a way to dispel illusions. As long as we choose to focus on them, we will receive their effects and the truth will be lost to us. We will not be aware of the real life we live in God. It is only when we are willing to accept seeing everyone’s true life as being Love that we are able to remember reality again. “You cannot know your own perfection until you have honored all those who were created like you.” (6:6)

It is the Holy Spirit which is in every mind that teaches us to remember the truth. When we remember the truth, we are patient. We remember that every brother is an equal extension of God’s Love, no matter what illusions of scarcity they may be holding on to in their minds.

What must be in our minds in order to experience lack or deprivation?

If we meet attack with attack, we are not helping our brother or ourselves. When we understand that every attack comes from a belief in lack, then the truly helpful response would be to fill the lack. Lack or deprivation may appear in many forms, but they are all reflections of belief in lack of Love. Thus we can only fill the lack by extending Love. The Holy Spirit will guide us as to the form that will be most helpful in the moment.

When we feel lack or deprivation, it is helpful to remember that it is our own rejection the totality of God’s Kingdom that is the cause of our experience of lack. That is why forgiveness, or letting go of rejection, is the answer to every form of lack. That is why the Course tells us that forgiveness is the answer to every apprehension, every care and every form of suffering. “If you choose to separate yourself from God, that is what you will think others are doing to you.” (9:5)

When does the totality of the Kingdom become more obvious to us?

As we let go of denying what we are, the totality of the Kingdom will become more obvious to us. The Holy Spirit’s thoughts will become more clearly understood and accepted. “But the see the Love of God in you, and you will see it everywhere because it is everywhere. See His abundance in everyone, and you will know that you are in Him and with them. They are part of you, as you are part of God.” (10:4-6)

The whole awakening process centers around seeing the ego thought system as “wholly delusional and wholly undesirable” and accepting the Holy Spirit’s vision which will show us the totality of the Kingdom. We cannot hold awareness of both the ego and the Holy Spirit in our minds. As we withdraw investment from the ego, the Holy Spirit will be present, bringing us the awareness of the totality of the Kingdom. Only Love is real. Love is all there is.

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Chapter 7: The Gifts of the Kingdom

Section VI: From Vigilance to Peace

Read ACIM Chapter 7, Section VI (pages 123-126)

If we believe we are separate, are we rejecting God and the Sonship?

The truth is the Sonship is one with God, so if we reject or deny any part of It, we attack all of It, including ourselves since we are part of It. When we reject our oneness with the Sonship, which is also oneness with God, we are attacking the Sonship and God. When we believe attack is possible, we have joined with the ego throught system and fear is inevitable. Jesus tells us, “The ingeniousness of the ego to preserve itself is enormous, but it stems from the very power of the mind the ego denies. This means that the ego attacks what is preserving it, which must result in extreme anxiety.” (3:1-2)

Where did the idea of an angry and punishing God come from?

When we are in fear, we cannot know Love. What we believe we can do, we believe can and will be done to  us by other people and by God. We believe God has the same ability to attack what we believe we have, so we make an image of Him as a God Who can be angry and punishing. Our belief in attack makes us unable to recognize Love (God) and so we replace God with an image that has fearful attributes. With this belief, we do not see God as a Friend, but as an adversary to be feared because we believe God’s Will opposes ours.

This belief system has left us in utter confusion because we have lost awareness of the Love we are. We believe in a substitute image that is unreliable because it is made up and unreal. This instability can lead only to uncertainty and anxiety. “Your thinking has done this because of its power, but your thinking can also save you from this because its power is not of your making.” (2:5)

How do we reverse these insane ideas?

The good news is that we have the ability to direct our thinking. In order to return to peace, we must learn to accept the power of our thoughts. The ego does not want us to recognize the power of our thinking because it knows that if we do, we will choose against the ego by accepting our real power, which is the power of Love. We will realize the ego has no power of its own.

“Your ability to direct your thinking as you choose is part of [your mind’s] power. If you do not believe you can do this you have denied the power of your thought, and thus rendered it powerless in your belief.” (2:6-7) The ego does not want us to recognize the power of our thinking or that we have the ability to direct our thinking. Denying this ability keeps the ego in charge. As long as we continue to give allegiance to belief in separation, it will continue to reproduce fearful thoughts. Fearful thoughts deny Love, which is our real power. The power of Love gives us everything and the ego’s one goal is to keep us from realizing this. The moment we realize that Love gives us everything, we will reject the ego.

What does the ego do so we will forget about our ability to direct our thinking?

To guard against this, the ego tries to engage us in its delusional thought system. It does this by teaching us that we are a body, not mind. This hides the power of our mind and our real Identity from our awareness. “This ensures [the ego’s] continuance if you side with it, by guaranteeing that you will not know your own Safety.” (3:10)

What does the Light in our minds show us?

As we remember that our real power is in the Light in our minds, we will let go of belief in being powerless. The Light in our minds shows us that the whole ego thought system is meaningless because it is not true. Believing in illusions introduces conflict to our minds because it now seems that both reality and illusions are true. “When you believe something, you have made it true for you.” (7:7) When we try to hold opposing thought systems as both true, our mind becomes split, conflicted and confused. “The Holy Spirit does not want you to understand conflict; He wants you to realize that, because conflict is meaningless, it is not understandable.” (6:5) It is impossible to make sense of the world because it is made up of meaningless images of separation.

As we learn to align our thinking with the Holy Spirit, we are led to let go of the ego’s denial of the power of our thinking. We are led to let go of the fearful thoughts that produced the ego. Then we are able to appreciate God because we recognize that His Love is ours. We find joy in extending that Love to the whole Sonship.

How does the ego maintain the illusion of separation?

Its helpful to remember that the ego is the idea of separation. Because mind always reproduces as it was produced, the ego will always reproduce separation. It is impossible for the ego to perceive anything as part of it because the idea of separation is totally opposed to inclusion. Perceiving itself as an outsider, it always perceives everything else as outside.

The ego maintains this illusion by judging everything. This judgment may be as seemingly harmless as seeing one tree as different from another or as seemingly destructive as dropping an atomic bomb on a country perceived as wrong. Both are the same mistake because both are based upon the thought that what is perceived is separate from the perceiver. They are both based on the belief in the reality of separation. While belief makes it real to the believer, it cannot change the fact that every illusion remains illusion. Judgment is a principal defense of the ego because it holds the perception of separation in place.

What part of our mind remembers What we are and calls to us unceasingly?

Despite the ego’s dedication to separation and denial of the oneness of Love, there remains a part of our mind that remembers What created us and What we are. That part remembers we are Love, one with all Love. By denying It the ego makes this part of our mind seem unknown to us. Yet this part of our mind calls to us unceasingly because it is the call from our Self to awaken to Who we are.

Because Love is all that is real and Love is changeless, we cannot change What we are in truth. The call to return to Love can never be extinguished. It can be denied and ignored, but the call remains. This call, when it is heard and accepted, will mean the end of the ego, for it is the end of belief in separation. Thus the ego perceives an unknown adversary that it must constantly defend against to maintain its own existence. It does not know what this adversary is because the ego cannot know its opposite. But it does perceive a threat that must be guarded against.

Why does the ego keep our minds focused on forms and bodies?

By judging everything as a mechanism to maintain a sense of difference and exclusion, the ego maintains a veil to hide the awareness of Love from our minds. To make this veil seem real and impenetrable, it keeps our mind focused on forms and bodies. As long as we think bodies and forms are real without question, the ego thinks it is protected from the oneness of Love that would be its undoing.

How do we reverse this ego defense?

To reverse this ego defense, we must learn a way of thinking that focuses on the truth in our brothers by seeing past bodies and forms to the kind, loving and gentle Self that is the truth in everyone. We must let go of believing in the reality of any form. Because we made the forms through our allegiance to the ego thought system, we believe in them. To let them go we need Help from outside that belief system. That Help is the Holy Spirit, the Voice for God that speaks to us of the part of our mind that has never changed and remains as God created it.

Our vigilance is required to keep our attention on the Voice for God only because we have so long given our allegiance to the ego. As we practice listening to the Holy Spirit’s teaching, we will learn that nothing that the ego offers has any meaning or value. We will freely lay it down for we will see the value of the gift the Holy Spirit offers. It is the gift of God Himself. It is the gift of eternal happiness, perfect peace and Love without limit.

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Or send a check to Pathways of Light, 12530 Lions Chase Court, Huntley, IL 60142.

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