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 22, Section VI. (pages 480-484)
In this section we learn that everyone yearns for either freedom of the body or freedom of the mind. Jesus tells us, “No one but yearns for freedom and tries to find it. Yet he will seek for it [freedom] where he believes it is and can be found. He will believe it possible of mind or body, and he will make the other serve his choice as means to find it. (1:8-10)
When we yearn for freedom of the body, we will try to make the mind serve this purpose. (Using the mind to make separate bodies appear to be real) With this choice we want the free will to make the body into what we would have it be. We try to pretend we are a separate individual who makes decisions on our own. We use the power of the mind to make up images that fit with our decision to experience an ‘individual life.’
Jesus cautions us that we can imagine this but we cannot make it real. He says, “Yet freedom of the body has no meaning, and so the mind is dedicated to serve illusions. This is a situation so contradictory and so impossible that anyone who chooses this has no idea of what is valuable. (2:2-3)
True freedom comes with serving not our individual will, but the Will of the Holy Spirit. Here we are told, “But be you rather grateful that you can be the means to serve His end. This is the only service that leads to freedom. To serve this end the body must be perceived as sinless, because the goal is sinlessness. The lack of contradiction makes the soft transition from means to end as easy as is the shift from hate to gratitude before forgiving eyes. You will be sanctified by your brother, using your body only to serve the sinless. And it will be impossible for you to hate what serves whom you would heal.” (3:2-7)
As we serve the Will of the Holy Spirit, we are led to see past the images of separate bodies to the truth of our eternal oneness in God. We open to the truth that illusions of separation and really nothing and nowhere. There is no guilt because nothing has really happened. Here the mind is brought to true freedom, true peace, true happiness that never ends.
Jesus happily tells us: “The gentle service that you give the Holy Spirit is service to yourself. You who are now His means must love all that He loves. And what you bring is your remembrance of everything that is eternal. No trace of anything in time can long remain in a mind that serves the timeless. And no illusion can disturb the peace of a relationship that has become the means of peace. (6:5-9)
When we serve the Holy Spirit, we are serving the gentle remembrance of our oneness in God. We are serving remembrance our true Home, where we are eternally. We are serving the letting go of illusions of separation. We are serving the Holy Spirit’s purpose of helping us wake up from the dream, not reinforcing the continuance of our belief in the dream of separation. As we serve the awakening, we awaken.
We learn to overlook all mistakes in every brother. We learn to see the innocence behind every form of suffering. We learn to see all form as illusion, as a mistake to be forgiven. We are able to look past all form to the truth without fear of loss. We now use all form in the service of awakening from the dream.
Jesus tells us: “You will see your value through your brother’s eyes, and each one is released as he beholds his savior in place of the attacker who he thought was there. Through this releasing is the world released. This is your part in bringing peace.” (8:1-3)
Jesus answers this with the following: “Be not concerned with darkness; look away from it and toward [the truth of] your brother. And let the darkness be dispelled by Him Who knows the light, and lays it gently in each quiet smile of faith and confidence with which you bless your brother.” (9:10-11)
This answer that Jesus gives us helps us be confident that the Holy Spirit knows the perfect way to help and we do not. As we are willing to remember the truth in every brother instead of focusing on his or her story of being a separate body, we help ourselves and we help the world.
Jesus answers this with the following: “If you were one with God and recognized this oneness, you would know His power is yours. But you will not remember this while you believe attack of any kind means anything. (12:1-2) “Attack is neither safe nor dangerous. It is impossible. And this is so because the universe is one.” (12:8-9) “Only the different can attack.” (13:1) “Because you and your brother are not different, you cannot attack.” (13:4) “And therefore it is necessary that you have other experiences, more in line with truth, to teach you what is natural and true.” (13:10) “This is the function of your holy relationship. For what one thinks, the other will experience with him.” (14:1-2)
Here we see that our job is to see the holiness of every brother. Our job is to see that there are no differences in reality. As we practice this we help ourselves know our true power and we bring the experience of awakening to the truth to our brother because minds are joined. As we practice this we bring to awareness our union with each other and with God. This is our true power.
In paragraph 14 we are told: “Joy is unlimited because each shining thought of Love extends Its being and creates more of Itself. There is no difference anywhere in It, for every thought is like Itself. The Light that joins you and your brother shines throughout the universe, and because It joins you and him, so It makes you and him one with your Creator. And in Him is all creation joined.” (14:8-9, 15:1-2)
We will experience this unlimited joy more and more as we continue to practice seeing only the Christ in every brother and see that we are all the same in Christ’s one universal experience as Love and only Love.
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