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 23, Section III (pages 495-496)
Here we learn that seeing our brother as a body (the opposite of the truth about him) and judging him guilty is the same as attack and murder. Jesus tell us, “Withhold forgiveness (seeing past separation to the truth of holiness) from your brother and you attack him. You give him nothing, and receive of him but what you gave.” (2:5-6)
In this world we don’t tend to think of seeing our brother as vulnerable and weak or even thinking of him or her as separate from us is attack. Here we see that when we do this we are attacking ourselves by joining with the ego thought system. We are attacking the truth about ourselves and our brother. We are forgetting that this (attacking the truth) is the source of our pain.
We are compromising the truth when we believe that differences have really occurred or that God’s Son has changed from how he was created by God. Jesus tells us that doing this (compromising the truth) does not bring salvation but just the opposite experience. “It [salvation’s purpose] is denied where compromise has been accepted, for compromise is the belief salvation is impossible. It would maintain you can attack [judge as separate] a little, love a little, and know the difference. Thus it would teach a little of the same can still be different, and yet the same remain intact, as one.” (3:6-8)
Here we see that when we fluctuate between the ego thought system of separation and the truth of oneness, we will experience stress and confusion until we accept salvation without compromise. This section reinforces that the way to a lasting experience of peace is to accept the truth and let illusions (images of separation) go. We are either still one Self, still as God created us or we are separate and alone, vulnerable and guilty. We cannot hold on to both and experience peace.
When we think we have enemies or think that anger, judgment and condemnation of others is justified in any way, we are attacking our experience of peace. When we compromise the truth of our oneness in Love with illusions of separation, we are attacking our peace and forgetting that peace is inherent in what we are.
Jesus tells us, “To be released from conflict means that it is over. The door is open; you have left the battleground. You have not lingered there in cowering hope that it will not return because the guns are stilled an instant, and the fear that haunts the place of death is not apparent. There is no safety in a battleground. You can look down on it in safety from above and not be touched.” (6:2-6)
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