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Study of Text, C 15: VII. The Needless Sacrifice, P 12. 4-25-18

VII. The Needless Sacrifice, P 12
12 The illusion of the autonomy of the body and its ability to overcome loneliness is but the working of the ego’s plan to establish its own autonomy. As long as you believe that to be with a body is companionship, you will be compelled to attempt to keep your brother in his body, held there by guilt. And you will see safety in guilt and danger in communication. For the ego will always teach that loneliness is solved by guilt, and that communication is the cause of loneliness. And despite the evident insanity of this lesson, many have learned it.

Journal
The ego wants to be autonomous. It wants to be self-directed, to be its own God. It uses the body for this purpose. One way it tries to establish its own autonomy is to use the body to overcome loneliness. I have gone along with this plan more than once. I would feel lonely and start calling people to see whom I could use to soothe this feeling.

I stopped doing that for two reasons. One is that I began to see that using people was not something I wanted to do anymore. I began to desire only to share, not to use. The second reason is because of what Jesus is telling us here.
Going along with the belief that loneliness is undone by being in the presence of other bodies is just strengthening the ego’s autonomy in my mind.

Anytime the ego is involved, there you will find guilt, and this effort to relieve loneliness through being with bodies is no different. Jesus says that as long as we believe that to be with a body is companionship, we will be compelled to attempt to keep our brother in his body, held there by guilt. I was thinking about this, wondering how that worked.

The thought that came to my mind was of being married. I remember feeling lonely when my husband was off with his friends instead of being with me. I thought the solution was to keep him at home in some way and would use guilt to do that, intimating that if he loved me he would be here with me.

I see how it is that I used to believe that my safety was dependent on guilt as I tried to use guilt to solve my loneliness problem. Looking at the next thing Jesus tells us in this paragraph, that we believe communication is the cause of loneliness, I wonder about that. The ego thinks that speaking a lot of meaningless words is to communication. It thinks that telling someone they are guilty in order to control their behavior is communication.

I redefine communication in the way Jesus does, and communication becomes the sharing of love. I communicate love to the other and there is no need for bodies to be together to do that. I love each of my children very much and that love flows from me whether these bodies are in proximity or not. Just thinking of them fills me with love and makes me happy.

This is real communication and as far as I can tell, the only kind of communication. I might express that communication with my body when appropriate. Yesterday, my daughter asked me to babysit while she was at the doctor and I did that, not out of a need to be with her body or the baby’s body, but just because it felt like love to do it.

The ego must hate this because it undoes its effort to establish autonomy through loneliness. So to the ego, communication is dangerous to its plans. If I am identifying with the ego as myself, then this will be my belief as well. As I let go of the ego (personal self) identity, I become more identified with spirit and so more open to true communication.

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Manual for Teachers: 10. HOW IS JUDGMENT RELINQUISHED? P3. 4-24-18

10. HOW IS JUDGMENT RELINQUISHED? P 3
3 The aim of our curriculum, unlike the goal of the world’s learning, is the recognition that judgment in the usual sense is impossible. This is not an opinion but a fact. In order to judge anything rightly, one would have to be fully aware of an inconceivably wide range of things; past, present and to come. One would have to recognize in advance all the effects of his judgments on everyone and everything involved in them in any way. And one would have to be certain there is no distortion in his perception, so that his judgment would be wholly fair to everyone on whom it rests now and in the future. Who is in a position to do this? Who except in grandiose fantasies would claim this for himself?

Journal
This is the paragraph that made all the difference in my life. When I read this paragraph, I understood that I have no business judging anything, not that I shouldn’t but that I can’t. I didn’t stop judging immediately, but I did start noticing when I was judging; I became willing not to judge. It felt strange to me at first, and I felt the ego’s objections very strongly. After all, how could I navigate the world without judging? Just crossing the street required a judgment of timing for safety’s sake.

So what I did was to take it in steps. My first step was to look at the judgments that seemed most obvious and with the most potential for harm. I asked the Holy Spirit to guide me in this, to point me to the ones He wanted me to look at, and then to correct my thinking about them. I began to notice when I was angry with someone, or resentful toward them, and realized I must have judged him. I would bring this judgment to the Holy Spirit and let Him reinterpret it for me.
I began to do this when I was unhappy about a situation. I would realize that I must have judged it, and so I would ask the Holy Spirit to take that judgment from my mind and to give me a correct judgment. Really, the only reason I decided it was bad was that I asked the ego what it meant. Do I really want the ego mind making decisions for me? So it wasn’t that hard to change my mind. The Holy Spirit knows everything and so can make a decision for me that will help and not harm.

This all sounds so simple and straight forward as I write about it, but while I was developing this new way of making decisions it was pretty messy. I would vacillate between judging with the ego and accepting the Holy Spirit’s judgment. I would balk at times, insisting I knew the right judgment. I would sometimes feel resentful to have lost this “right” to judge. But I trust Jesus and so I kept at it and the excellent results of giving judgment to the Holy Spirit convinced me this was the way to go.

At some point, I began to open more completely to the Holy Spirit, asking for guidance in all things. I began the process of learning to fully surrender to the One Who Knows. I went through the same messy process as I made this shift as well, but it wasn’t as hard because the Holy Spirit had already proved Itself to me. I had tasted the freedom of giving up a job that I was unprepared to do and letting it be done for me. Now, I was just extending that surrender and gaining more freedom.

I am still mastering this decision. I make mistakes and sometimes get pulled back into the old way of fumbling through the world without a clue. But there has been another shift for me even if it is not completely accepted yet. It is harder for me to explain. My trust is so much greater now that I have surrendered on a deeper level. I trust the Holy Spirit to decide for me most things, and I no longer think about each judgment.

In fact, the only time I notice judgment is when I have tried to do it on my own again. I change my mind as quickly as I can because I don’t want to go back to that insane way of living. I want to move forward, surrendering more and more of the ego until I am no longer struggling to live, but am being lived. That is not my experience yet, but it is closer to it than ever before.

The ego hates this idea of not being in charge of my life and recognizes its eventual demise if this keeps up and so it throws up objections and blocks, but this is a done deal. Now it is all just details. I practice surrender of that part of the mind and I experience living from my holy mind, and the ego begins to recede into background noise. Then something gets triggered and it’s loud and obnoxious again until I bring it to the Holy Spirit. Eventually, though, this will end. There is no doubt in my mind that the ego is on its way out because that is my truest desire.

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Manual for Teachers: 10. HOW IS JUDGMENT RELINQUISHED? P2. 4-20-18

10. HOW IS JUDGMENT RELINQUISHED? P 2
2 It is necessary for the teacher of God to realize, not that he should not judge, but that he cannot. In giving up judgment, he is merely giving up what he did not have. He gives up an illusion; or better, he has an illusion of giving up. He has actually merely become more honest. Recognizing that judgment was always impossible for him, he no longer attempts it. This is no sacrifice. On the contrary, he puts himself in a position where judgment through him rather than by him can occur. And this judgment is neither “good” nor “bad.” It is the only judgment there is, and it is only one: “God’s Son is guiltless, and sin does not exist.”

Journal
This is one of my favorite passages from ACIM because it changed forever and for the better the way I live my life. Now, more often than not, I ask the Holy Spirit to decide for me. I am a wanderer, lost in a land not my own. I don’t know where I am or what anything here means. For, the longest time I have been like Moses wandering in the desert. For, the longest time I had no destination, only wanting the journey to be as safe and productive as I could make it, but not knowing how to do that, and often failing.

It is different now. I have discovered that I have a Guide who knows everything! This guide knows where I am going and how to get there. He knows how to help me avoid the perils and to extract myself from the pitfalls when I ignore His help. He decides for me whatever needs to be done. All I have to do is turn to Him and ask for help. He is ever with me, ready to help me as much as I will let Him, and to wait patiently when I fail to call on Him.

I often ask these questions now. What does this mean? What would You have me know about this? What is this for? What would you have me say and to whom? Where would you have me go? I ask Him to show me another way to perceive each uncomfortable situation. Instead of judging for myself, I wait and allow His judgment to come through me. I am grateful because He is never distracted by appearances and always shows me my innate innocence and that of everyone else.

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Study of Text, C 15: VII. The Needless Sacrifice, P 11. 4-19-18

VII. The Needless Sacrifice, P 11
11 The Holy Spirit cannot teach through fear. And how can He communicate with you, while you believe that to communicate is to make yourself alone? It is clearly insane to believe that by communicating you will be abandoned. And yet many do believe it. For they think their minds must be kept private or they will lose them, but if their bodies are together their minds remain their own. The union of bodies thus becomes the way in which they would keep minds apart. For bodies cannot forgive. They can only do as the mind directs.

Journal
In this paragraph Jesus is continuing to make the point that we are afraid to communicate with the Holy Spirit, afraid that if we share our mind with Him, we will lose it to Him. I remind myself that the Holy Spirit is representative of God and thus I have a fear of losing myself to God. A better way to say this is losing my self to God, and yes, I truly would lose that little self to Him.

Though I long to do just that, to let go of the little self completely and thus to know the uninterrupted bliss of oneness, I also know that I keep parts of the self separate and defended against God. There must still be fear of loss, fear of God, unconscious but there in my mind. Sigh.

Symbolic of this separation from God and part of the separation from God, is the separation from each other. I am much more in touch with the fear of sharing my mind with other aspects of my self, my brothers and sisters in time. I am pretty transparent, but I definitely shy away from the idea of sharing minds. I still feel too much guilt for total transparency.

And yet, if all minds were recognized as one and so were open to each other, there would never be misunderstandings. There would never be judgments or grievances because all would see the innocence beyond the actions and words, the fear that drove the behavior, and the yearning to be understood and accepted and loved.

Soon there would be no negative behavior because everyone would feel the love and connection they so deeply desire. And no one would ever again feel alone and lonely. Can you imagine a world like that? It would be a happy world in which we could enjoy our happy dream for a while before being lifted into God.

This cannot be achieved while we insist that we can “communicate” only through bodies, and really, what kind of communication is that while it is so limited. While our bodies are gathered and inadequate words are being exchanged and misunderstood, I don’t know you at all. I only know what I believe about you. No wonder we feel alone. There is not a single person in the world that knows our heart.

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Manual for Teachers: 10. HOW IS JUDGMENT RELINQUISHED? P1. 4-18-18

10. HOW IS JUDGMENT RELINQUISHED?
1 Judgment, like other devices by which the world of illusions is maintained, is totally misunderstood by the world. It is actually confused with wisdom, and substitutes for truth. As the world uses the term, an individual is capable of “good” and “bad” judgment, and his education aims at strengthening the former and minimizing the latter. There is, however, considerable confusion about what these categories mean. What is “good” judgment to one is “bad” judgment to another. Further, even the same person classifies the same action as showing “good” judgment at one time and “bad” judgment at another time. Nor can any consistent criteria for determining what these categories are be really taught. At any time the student may disagree with what his would-be teacher says about them, and the teacher himself may well be inconsistent in what he believes. “Good” judgment, in these terms, does not mean anything. No more does “bad.”

Journal
This is very clear. We think we have to judge and we think we must use good judgment. At the same time, we are very confused about how to do this, or even what the categories good and bad mean. I fully accept this because I have seen how undependable my judgments are. I might make a judgment about someone one day and then feel entirely different about him tomorrow.

How does this happen? Maybe I discovered something different about him, or more likely, he said or did something that I accept or agree with. How can I use criteria so unstable as my opinion to judge someone else? My opinions change all the time, and they, too, are the result of judgments made in the past and who says those judgments are dependable.

No one really teaches us how to judge, and who could do that anyway, since they came by their judgments the same way we do? I tried to teach my children to make good judgments and I doubt I did a very good job and I see in retrospect that sometimes I did a very poor job. This is because I didn’t know how to make good judgments. I was just fumbling around like everyone else.

And yet, we keep trying to judge everything. Right now, I have been thinking about putting some of my writing into book form. There are different ways I could do this. There are things to take into consideration. I have to decide if it would be worth the effort and if I want to use my time like that. There are so many aspects to look at, and even when I do look at them, how do I know I perceive the answers in the best way? That requires a judgment, too.

There are many reasons to question our judgment and few reasons to keep being the judge of all we say and think and do and even more reason to not judge what others think and say and do. This would seem to put us in an impossible situation, but it actually gives us the only solution that works. To the best of my ability, I stop trying to judge and I ask the Holy Spirit to judge for me.

I have no way of knowing what I need to know in order to judge anything at all, but He does. I am a fool not to use His judgment. This is what I decided to do about the book thing. I’m letting go of both, “I want to” and “I don’t want to.” I’m just resting in the idea and asking the Holy Spirit what this idea of a book is for. If it’s to go forward, the idea will begin to grow in me. If not, it will die. Whew! That feels much better.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of Text, C 15: VII. The Needless Sacrifice, P 10. 4-17-18

VII. The Needless Sacrifice, P 10
10 Whenever you are angry, you can be sure that you have formed a special relationship which the ego has “blessed,” for anger is its blessing. Anger takes many forms, but it cannot long deceive those who will learn that love brings no guilt at all, and what brings guilt cannot be love and must be anger. All anger is nothing more than an attempt to make someone feel guilty, and this attempt is the only basis the ego accepts for special relationships. Guilt is the only need the ego has, and as long as you identify with it, guilt will remain attractive to you. Yet remember this; to be with a body is not communication. And if you think it is, you will feel guilty about communication and will be afraid to hear the Holy Spirit, recognizing in His Voice your own need to communicate.

Journal
There are some important ideas in this paragraph. First, he tells us that anger is a sign we have formed a special relationship. It’s good to get these clues, especially the ones that help me in the moment. If I am with someone and I feel anger toward him or her, I know that specialness is involved and immediately, I can ask the Holy Spirit to transform this relationship. I like that immediacy. No wasted time letting the relationship get further out of hand, letting the specialness gain momentum and getting more entrenched in my mind.

Another thing he does is point out the relationship between anger and guilt. If there is anger, there will be guilt and I suppose it is also true that where there is guilt, there will be anger. Once again, as Jesus will do frequently in the Course, he lets us know that we must let go of the sick attraction to guilt. As he says, guilt is the only need the ego has and if we are attracted to guilt it means that we are still identified with the ego.

“All anger is nothing more than an attempt to make someone feel guilty…” is a phrase that was meaningful to me the first time I read it. I did not immediately stop using anger to control through guilt, but I caught it when I did and eventually, through consistent decision, I stopped doing that. It simply lost its attraction. Knowing what I was doing made it impossible for me to keep doing it.

The last thing he tells us may be the most important. Being with a body is not communication. This is so opposite what we believe that I had to re-read it to be sure I got it right. How do we communicate if not with the body? I went back to something he has told us before. Communication is love.

Do I need a body with me to love the one who is represented by that body? Clearly not. The most loving thing I have ever done for others is to know the truth about them even when they didn’t, and I did that without being with them. In fact, I did it more completely without the distraction of the body.

Jesus goes on to tell us that if we think communication is being with a body, we will feel guilty about communication. This kind of guilt is unconscious. It comes from a deep knowing that what we are doing is inherently wrong even if we don’t consciously know why. This guilt will bring fear of communication and it will transfer to fear of communication with the Holy Spirit.

I am afraid of His Voice because I hear in it my need to communicate but I have made myself afraid of communication. This is why I think this part of the paragraph is so important. This is why I am paying close attention to this and asking the Holy Spirit to help me undo this fear.

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Study of Text, C 15: VII. The Needless Sacrifice, P 9. 4-12-18

VII. The Needless Sacrifice, P 9
9 Suffering and sacrifice are the gifts with which the ego would “bless” all unions. And those who are united at its altar accept suffering and sacrifice as the price of union. In their angry alliances, born of the fear of loneliness and yet dedicated to the continuance of loneliness, each seeks relief from guilt by increasing it in the other. For each believes that this decreases guilt in him. The other seems always to be attacking and wounding him, perhaps in little ways, perhaps “unconsciously,” yet never without demand of sacrifice. The fury of those joined at the ego’s altar far exceeds your awareness of it. For what the ego really wants you do not realize.

Journal
What a stark picture Jesus paints of our special relationships. As I read these words, I could see how they are true as I remembered my previous marriage. At the time, it seemed that we had a mixed bag of good and bad with the bad slowly becoming the norm. But there was also love and kindness in the relationship and many good things.

Still, I can see now that it was never a purely loving relationship. It was built on the fear of loneliness and yet we did things to each other that kept us from truly joining and thus relieving the loneliness.

We were not deliberately unkind or cruel to each other; it was more that we wounded each other out of thoughtlessness and defensiveness. We threw guilt at each other without even realizing it and later in the marriage we more deliberately sought to make the other guilty. And, oh, how we demanded sacrifice of each other.

What I did not understand about the dynamic is that it was driven by the need to off-load all that unconscious guilt in my mind. I was making him guilty so as to decrease the guilt in my own mind. I didn’t see that at all, but understanding it now, it makes perfect sense. It is simply what the ego mind does, and particularly at the end of the marriage, I was operating from my ego mind more than from my holy mind.

My entire life has been one of entering into special relationships for the purpose of using others to relieve my loneliness and my guilt, generally at their expense. But since I began to study A Course in Miracles, it has also been one in which I have allowed those relationships to be transformed by the Holy Spirit.

It has been a slow, sometimes painful process, but I feel like I have accomplished much. Now I that I am aware of the ego use of relationships, I catch these beliefs so much faster and I know what to do with them. I give them to the Holy Spirit to be undone. My relationships are becoming truly loving.  They are not without the ego’s influence, but they are closer to being the holy relationships we are meant to have.

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