I’ve been studying ACIM for a long time, 25 years or so. Now I am beginning to see that the joke is on me. How can something so simple require 25 years of study? It all seems to boil down to a few simple things. I am not what I seem. I am still as God created me. So is everyone else. We are all innocent. I forgive the world for what I thought it was, I forgive you for what you did not do, I forgive myself.
Now it did require 25 years and counting of practice. But now that I understand the simplicity of it I can practice without so much anxiety and without the guilt I imposed on myself in the past. I just notice my errors, realize they do not make me guilty, just mistaken. I am still innocent and I am still as God created me. And, the more I notice these errors the less they show up in my life. Who would have thought it could be this simple?
What I am also becoming aware of is that there is not a certain way to do this. It is sooo ego the way many of us grab hold of a certain way of studying the Course and declare everyone else as wrong. This person sees himself as a Robert Perry student, and that one as a Kenneth Wapnick student. One person sees the world through David Hoffmeister’s eyes and someone else thinks that Gary Renard has all the answers. This group only reads the first edition and that group sticks with the Urtext, and many think their version is the only “legitimate” one. This is pretty funny when you think about it. Jesus sent us a book to help us realize that there is only wholeness and unity and so in typical fashion we divide up into opposing groups to study it.
I think a problem I had is that I wanted every word to be mathematically correct. I wanted to study each word until I had squeezed the truth out of it. I wanted to think my way through the Course. But more and more I am understanding that I was wrong. I am learning to put aside my ego thinking and just allow the truth to make itself known to me. I cannot think my way to the truth. I can’t figure it out or find a formula that gets me there. I left the Catholic church because of its rules and its smothering structure, and then I tried to turn the Course into its replacement; different form, same objections.
I look at how my fellow students go about their own awakening process and each one is valid even though it is different. I don’t really believe you need any book or any special process to do this. I found it helpful, but it isn’t a requirement. Now I am reading and listening to The Way of Mastery. It isn’t important that I do so and I don’t need anyone else to read it in order to validate my experience. Thank you God for that sign of growth! I don’t need to read it or practice it in the way Jeshua suggests, but I do it because it simply makes my heart sing.
I don’t have any reason for writing this except that I am learning to hold it all very loosely and it feels good. I just wanted to share.
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