Whenever I am angry, annoyed, impatient, bored, overwhelmed or depressed, I need to look to the root of the feeling. The core of any feeling in the world of dreams which is not Love, is FEAR. There is either Love (and its subcategories) or Fear (and its subcategories). In God's World there is only Love. In the world I created ~ a world without God ~ there is FEAR or some form of fear....fear of being alone and lost forever; fear of usurping the power of God, fear of being "apart from" God. In a world without God I created everything that God is not, and that indeed is a fearful world.
The Message of the Crucifixion. In the world of dreams I will always feel as if I am being crucified or victimized, because I have hidden from my Awareness that I, myself, created the madness I see.
It seems possible that bodies can be attacked and destroyed. I do not doubt this in any way. To think otherwise in the dream-world is madness. I can look around and see madness in unlimited forms. The crucifixion-story can teach me that it is not necessary to believe in madness.
If I want to believe I am being persecuted and attacked, I can. It is my choice and I will react accordingly. In the Jesus-story, he was persecuted as the world defines persecution, but he did not believe in what the body's eyes were showing him . He did not become angry or resist. Because He did not share the belief of "persecution," he did not strengthen it in his own mind. He offered a different interpretation of attack: If I believe I can be attacked and react accordingly, I will reinforce the dream.
God does not ask me to be crucified for Him. I can follow the example of Jesus in the face of my own much less extreme temptations to believe in the dream. There is NO justification for fear and anger. As God's Son, I cannot be injured. I am Whole, Perfect and have Everything. This is the lesson of the Jesus-story.
My salvation is my re-Awakening. It is the dawning on my mind of What is already in it.
In another example of the Jesus-story, the disciples slept during the "agony in the garden." Jesus could not have been angry with them for "abandoning" him because he knew he could not be abandoned. His story demonstrates that the most outrageous assault does not matter. An innocent man was betrayed, abandoned, beaten, tortured and killed. If anyone had justification to retaliate, it was Jesus. He did not retaliate. His example showed......IT IS NOT REAL. I do not have to have the same Jesus-experience. I can learn from his. I am never called to sacrifice.
The Jesus-story showed me that he was not persecuted, nor am I. If I am from the Christian tradition, I can perceive the world through Jesus' example. Teach only Love, for Love is what I am. Jesus could not hate Judas for his betrayal. He knew that betrayal was impossible. Was it likely that Jesus would condemn Judas when He was ready to demonstrate that condemnation is impossible?
I will not let fear enter into my thoughts. There is no need for martyrs, only students. I am not punished for sin because there is no sin. No Son of God is capable of sin, though I am capable of miscreation and misunderstanding.
God does not need my gratitude and appreciation, but I do. I cannot love what I do not appreciate, because fear makes Right-Thinking impossible.
I must think with God if I am to Know Him again. God Knows only of Love. I cannot hurt others or be hurt myself. The world of dreams needs my forgiveness and blessing.
An Alternative to Projection. Any split in the mind involves rejection of part of the mind, and this is the belief in the separation. The Peace of God can only be appreciated by a Whole Mind. Through the separation, I dissociate myself from Heaven. Projection is the main defense keeping the dream foremost in my mind.
What I project, I disown. Say a man is cheating on his spouse, but in his guilt he accuses her of cheating on him. He projects his own "sins" onto her. This happens in my mind unconsciously all the time. Through ACIM I learn to understand this and bring it into Light. When I pass judgment on someone, I am "separating" myself from him. My "brothers" and I are One, but I have made my Self into two (....billions!). I project my "sins" onto "others" "out there," but it is all happening inside my mind. I project and attack, project and attack. This continues to keep the dream of separation foremost in my experience. I keep the fact that I am doing this to myself out of my Awareness.
Projection will always hurt ME. It reinforces my belief in separation. It is a device of ego to to keep me firmly entrenched in the dream. Everything that seems to be happening "out in the world" is all happening in my mind.
There is only One Mind. I have seemingly split the One Mind into many "beings." All beings that are not "me" are doing things to hurt, annoy or anger me, and my attack on them appears justified.
I am doing it all to MYSELF!
The good news is, there an alternative to projection. God helps me see myself as the Perfect Being I am. I share this Perfection with "others" and it is strengthened in the One Mind. This is the only way to find Happiness in this world. God's World is Inclusive and Loving. The dream-world is unhappy............but I am not of this world. How else can I find Joy in a joyless place except by realizing that I am not of this world. "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33. Anything God creates is Inclusive, Unalterable, Perfect, and True. Everything Unites in the Creator.
God created His Son(s) by extending His Thought. He retains the extensions of His Thought (me) in His Mind. All His Thoughts are Perfectly United within themselves and each other. I can perceive this Wholeness NOW. God created me, a creative being like Himself. Yet I cannot truly know my Self as His Son until I am Whole. I AM Whole, but I have forgotten.
Perception involves judgment, options, and choices. Though perception of any kind is unreal, I made it and God can use it for Good. He uses perception to lead me to Truth. The end result seems far in the future, yet "time" is a miscreation and exists only in my fantasies.
The Atonement (the undoing of the dream) is the recognition that the separation never occurred. The world as I think I know it does not exist; the many people that seem to populate the world are not there; "I" as an individual do not exist.
There is no Heaven to return to, there are no sins I need to atone for, there is no sacrifice asked of me. I AM in Heaven. I have not "sinned." I am Whole and Perfect with God right NOW.
Ego can accept that "someday" I will return to God. This it can accept. But ego will make all attempts at that return difficult and convoluted.
ACIM will help my mind think with the Thoughts of God. Then God Himself takes the final step. I start by forgiving everyone and everything. I will finally realize there was nothing and no one to forgive, the world does not exist, and I am Perfectly at Home with God. I am the Son of God. But until I realize this I can practice seeing the Son of God in everyone I meet. The Great Peace of God's Kingdom Shines in my mind, but I am lost in a dream. I will let that Peace Shine outward so that I become Aware of It. No darkness abides anywhere in the Kingdom. My part is only to allow no darkness to abide in my own mind. I will replace dark thoughts, with thoughts of forgiveness. I will invite God into my mind. He will guide me.
The Relinquishment of Attack. Every idea begins in the mind of the thinker. What goes forth from the mind, remains with the mind as well. By extending, the mind knows itself. I can certainly see examples in the world I created. My deeds first start with thoughts in my mind. Thoughts extend outward becoming deeds. The thoughts in my mind are clearly seen by my actions. I may try to keep some of my deeds secret, but my actions will always reflect my thoughts, even if I am the only one who sees them. All change must begin in the mind. God will never attack my thoughts or deeds. My "deeds" do not exist and my thoughts, He will never attack. He will only help me to see them differently. Like Pig Pen from the Peanuts comic strip, I can walk around in my own stink for as long as I want, but when I am ready to make a change, God is there at my asking. He will never force anything upon me. He waits for my willingness.
My God-like mind can never be defiled, but I have taught myself to believe that I am something other than the Son of God. Now I will embrace only the lessons of God. Every lesson I believe, I reinforce in myself. I will extend only Love and do this by forgiving everyone and everything. As I do this I will learn and reinforce Truth in my mind.
Those who are Safe, hurt no one. They bless others, because they know they are blessed. Without fear and anxiety, the mind is Wholly Kind and Beneficent. Safety is the complete relinquishment of attack. Teach any form of attack by my words and actions, and I will reinforce it in myself and it will hurt me. I cannot NOT teach. I am teaching constantly with my words and actions, and my words and actions are only a reflection of what is going on in my mind.
The only way to have Peace is to teach Peace. By teaching (extending) It, I learn It. Only in this way, can I win back the Knowledge I threw away by seemingly separating myself from God.
Everything I teach, I am learning. I will teach only Love, and learn that Love is mine and I am Love.
The Only Answer. Ego is capricious and does not mean me well. Ego is the part of my mind that believes it is separated from God. It is entirely caught up in creating dreams for itself. Ego speaks for the part of my mind that believes I am separate and outside the Mind of God. I can never find myself within an ego. Ego answers no questions, but raises many. Ego cannot hear God's Voice. Ego believes that the best defense is attack and uses everything I miscreate to reinforce "separation from" God. Ego uses the body to reinforce the "reality" of the separation. I am preoccupied with my body ~ its needs, wants and desires, its health or sickness, its strength or weakness. In dreams the body's abilities must be developed and learned before I can use them. This is not true of anything God creates. Being preoccupied with the body keeps me lost in the dream. God's Creations are Whole, Complete, Perfect, and Eternal. Is the body any of these? No one in their Right Mind could believe the body or anything in this world is Real.
The "separation" cannot shatter the Peace of God, but it can shatter mine. In God's Love and Compassion, I created a problem and He immediately gave Answer.
God has One Answer to all questions that have ever been asked or will ever be asked: I am a child of God, a Priceless Part of His Kingdom. Nothing else exists and only This is Real. I have chosen a sleep in which I have had many bad dreams, but this sleep is not Real and God calls me to Awaken and be glad. There will be nothing left of my dreams when I hear Him. When I Awaken, I will see Truth around me and my dreams will disappear. The Kingdom will have Great Reality for me, because It is Beautiful and True.
God's Lessons. How can I wake a child in a more kindly way than with a gentle voice that will not frighten him, but only remind him that night is over and the day has come? I do not try to convince him his nightmare is not real, because a child believes in scary monsters. I just reassure him that he is safe now. Then I help him recognize the difference between sleeping and waking so he will understand that he does not need to be afraid of dreams. When bad dreams come again, he will learn not to fear.
God teaches me what to do to have Joy. He does not say, "avoid this, do not do that, stay away from that, this will hurt you, that will make you unsafe." Instead He tells me "Do only that!" Short, simple, perfectly clear, easily understood and remembered. I am like a child who lacks wisdom and confuses fantasy and Reality, and I am frightened because I cannot tell the difference. God will show me that dreams contain nothing Real. He will always answer my call. His Light Shines away my dreams. His Dependability will make me more Certain. His is the call to Awaken and be glad.
To Have, Give. When my ego and body and dreams are gone, I will last Forever. Right now I think this is accomplished through death, but nothing is accomplished through death, because death is nothing. Everything is accomplished through Life, and Life is of the mind and in the mind. The body neither lives nor dies, it does not exist and it could never contain me, who is Life. In the dream-world the body is destructible and separates my "brothers" and I, and therefore could not have been made by God. What God makes is Indestructible. What I have "created" "apart from" God is unreal. My body is sick and destructible, and it is a dream. My mind created a sick body for purposes of ego. The mind can heal the body, if it so chooses. Only Mind is Real, because only Mind can be shared. The body is meaningless. Ego uses the body for attack, pleasure, and pride. God sees the body only as a means of Communication. Communication is sharing, and through sharing is Communion. Perhaps I think fear can be shared as well as Love. This is not so. Those who communicate fear, promote attack. Attack always breaks Communication, making It impossible. Egos join temporarily in fear, but only for what benefits each individual ego.
I will learn that to have, I must give. This begins the reversal of my perception. I am never alone in Atonement.
To have Peace, Teach Peace. When I believe in the separation, I fear retaliation, abandonment, attack, and rejection. What I perceive, I teach and reinforce in myself. Strongly aware of ego in myself, I respond primarily to ego in others. Upside down as always, ego perceives Truth as insane. "Having" appears to be the opposite of giving. But the increasing Clarity of God's Voice makes it impossible for me not to listen. I want Peace or I would not have called upon the Voice for Peace to help me, and I did call upon Him by my search for answers. There really can be no conflict between Sanity and insanity. Only one is True, only one is Real. Truth was decided by God and nothing can change that. God's World is Changeless. I will begin to realize the Quiet Power of Truth and Its Perfect Consistency. I will allow Reality to lead the way. I will follow God and He will tell me what to do. The alternative to conflict is Peace, and I want Peace. Alternatives have been considered and only One will bring me Contentment.
Be Vigilant Only for God and His Kingdom. Heaven will sort out the True from the false in my mind and teach me to judge every thought by God's Light. Ego knows many moods and emotions. Heaven gives rise only to Joy. Everything that does not foster Joy, He rejects for me. I am told not to judge others, because God has Judged His Son and found Him Whole, Perfect, and Worthy. I would be in error to judge otherwise. I can be as vigilant against ego as I am for it. I can and must be consistent. While there seems to be choice, I must learn to choose for God and His Kingdom. Yet this is really is no choice. The only choice is Truth, and Truth Is, It does not need to be chosen. Yet in the dream-world, I need to make a choice. This will liberate my mind from choice and direct it toward the Kingdom. Choosing with Truth will lead me to the Kingdom. I learn to remember who I am. I will allow in my mind only what God put there: Peace, Joy, Happiness, and Wholeness. I believe I am without the Kingdom. I have dissociated myself from It. Vigilance is not necessary for Truth, but it is necessary against illusions. As long as I doubt God and His Kingdom, Truth will not be apparent to me. Truth is without illusion. Everything "outside" God's Kingdom is illusion. By making another kingdom, my mind became split. What I made imprisoned my will and gave me a sick mind that must be healed. Once my mind is healed, it radiates health and teaches healing. I must know my goal and relinquish everything else. If I want Peace, I need choose only Peace. Vigilance requires effort, but only until I learn that effort itself is unnecessary. I exert great effort to preserve the world of illusions. Now I will turn my effort against it. Only this will cancel out the need for effort. What is True needs no effort at all. I will call upon the Father and He will answer me.
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