For twenty-five years of my adult life I was committed to making the world a better place. I was well informed, worked with great people, a true optimist.  But I was also a realist and eventually concluded that either fundamental change was not possible or my fundamental assumptions about the world were incorrect. To my great surprise, I now realize it was the latter. My experience is succinctly described in a passage near the end of the Text which seemed to be written just for me! —-Learn now, without despair, there is no hope of answer in the world. ⁴But do not judge the lesson that is but begun with this. ⁵Seek not another signpost in the world that seems to point to still another road. ⁶No longer look for hope where there is none. ⁷Make fast your learning now, and understand you but waste time unless you go beyond what you have learned to what is yet to learn. ⁸For from this lowest point will learning lead to heights of happiness, in which you see the purpose of the lesson shining clear, and perfectly within your learning grasp. (ACIM, T-31.IV.4:3-8) —Generally speaking, until one has entertained the idea: there must be a better way of perceiving the world, the Course will probably not be of interest to you.  — No evidence will convince you of the truth of what you do not want.  (ACIM, T-16.II.6:1-2)⁶

The origin of our experience of guilt is the belief in the separation which occurred as one dissociated mind. Therefore, we all share the same guilt caused by this belief. Massive dissociation occurred after the first projection of guilt onto a dream-world. So “individual” minds do differ in terms of the form our guilt takes. Only the form differs, the cause is the same for everyone. We all share the same problem: belief in the separation; and the same solution: acceptance of the Atonement or correction of this belief.

The acceptance of guilt into the mind of God’s Son was the beginning of the separation, as the acceptance of the Atonement is its end. ²The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. ³Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. ⁴For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws that seem to govern it are the laws of death. ⁵Children are born into it through pain and in pain. ⁶Their growth is attended by suffering, and they learn of sorrow and separation and death. ⁷Their minds seem to be trapped in their brain, and its powers to decline if their bodies are hurt. ⁸They seem to love, yet they desert and are deserted. ⁹They appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. ¹⁰And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground, and are no more. ¹¹Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel. (ACIM, T-13.in.2:1-11)

We are dreaming that we have separated from our unified reality and are at war with our Self and God. The instant the idea of separation entered the mind of God’s Son, in that same instant was God’s Answer given. ⁷In time this happened very long ago. ⁸In reality it never happened at all. The world of time is the world of illusion. ²What happened long ago seems to be happening now. ³Choices made long since appear to be open; yet to be made. ⁴What has been learned and understood and long ago passed by is looked upon as a new thought, a fresh idea, a different approach. ⁵Because your will is free you can accept what has already happened at any time you choose, and only then will you realize that it was always there (ACIM, M-2.2:6–3:5)— There are no new experiences, we keep in memory the total wrong-minded script.  The total right-minded corrections are also in our mind awaiting our acceptance!

When the Course speaks of—- “you” —-(see model of mind chart) It is referring to the dissociated aspect of mind, the dreamer of the dream; the decision maker/observer outside the dream (not a body.) The “you” you see in the mirror is your avatar, a figure in your dream. It is a projection of the dreamer’s (your) mind.  The script is written, therefore, we, as dreamer/decision maker, only decide between two possibilities. We can choose the wrong-mind, reinforcing our guilt and leading away from truth, or the right-mind corrections, leading towards the truth and healing. — Trials are but lessons that you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain that what you chose before has brought to you (ACIM, T-31.VIII.3:1) We keep reviewing in memory what was over long ago.

There is a temptation to quote Course phrases we find beautiful and forget, if not overlook entirely, the ones we find troubling. They are only troubling to our wrong-mind which finds them threatening to the ego’s survival. And as long as we identify with the ego, we will experience our survival as threatened. The Course is helping us examine our most cherished, unquestioned beliefs. The ego recognizes that if they were examined they could not be believed and without belief our ego thought system would disappear. Therefore, the ego frantically tries to either reinterpret these important passages or preferably blot them from our awareness.

The Course is designed to bring about total thought reversal. — It is the Holy Spirit’s goal to help us escape from the dream world by teaching us how to reverse our thinking and unlearn our mistakes. (ACIM, Preface.5:5-7).  —  Rest assured the ego, or wrong-minded thinking is making every attempt to translate the Course to fit its purpose: denial of the Truth of Who You Are. And all too often it is successful at fooling us, but it can only fool those who want to be fooled. —Time is a trick, a sleight of hand, a vast illusion in which figures come and go as if by magic. ²Yet there is a plan behind appearances that does not change. ³The script is written. ⁴When experience will come to end your doubting has been set.⁵For we but see the journey from the point at which it ended, looking back on it, imagining we make it once again; reviewing mentally what has gone by (ACIM, W-158.4:1-5)

Our ability to recognize what thought system we are listening to is very important! —- There are two teachers only, who point in different ways. (ACIM, T-26.V.1:7) — Yes, that’s right, we are maintaining two fundamentally different, mutually exclusive, thought systems in our dissociated mind, each describing who we are and what the world is! —  Therefore, we must understand the mechanism for choice between these two thought systems. And, most importantly, we must discern what choice we made!— Is what you are perceiving consistent with the Right-Mind’s purpose of release from guilt and escape from the dream-world; or the ego’s wrong-mind purpose, reinforcing guilt, fear and belief in the ego’s world of form? — “There is nothing so blinding as the perception of form!”

This is not a Course on Love, for that is what you are! The important question it addresses is why you are unaware of Love’s presence, — of Who “you” Are? Therefore it aims at removing the blocks we placed to Love’s awareness. Those blocks are the guilty thoughts in our mind that we have denied and projected onto a dream-world.  Every thought you have makes up some segment of the world you see (ACIM, W-23.1:4)   If you want to know what thought system you chose to join with, you just need to observe your reactions in the world. If you are not peaceful and react with fear or condemning judgment to any situation, you know you chose the wrong-mind script.

This is not a Course in “Positive Thinking.” From the Course’s perspective thinking positively about the world would reinforce our guilt. Neither should we think negatively about the world.The world is nothing in itself, we give the world all the meaning that is has for us. In every situation we must always ask ourself: what is it for, what is my purpose?  If peace is your experience you chose the right-mind; if not forgive and choose once again.

As we experience the benefits of looking at our guilt with our right-mind, our fear of doing so will diminish.The situations or people that seem to cause us great pain, when perceived properly, provide us with the greatest learning opportunity. The holiest of all the spots on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love (ACIM, T-26.IX.6:1) While we should not specifically look for these situations, neither should we try to exclude them. To judge someone or something as more or less fearful or difficult to forgive is to fail to learn that it is our guilt we see, we either condemn or forgive ourself.

In view of how fearful the dream is, the Course’s plan for awakening is gentle. ⁴So fearful is the dream, so seeming real, he could not waken to reality without the sweat of terror and a scream of mortal fear, unless a gentler dream preceded his awaking, and allowed his calmer mind to welcome, not to fear, the Voice that calls with love to waken him; a gentler dream, in which his suffering was healed and where his brother was his friend.⁵God willed he waken gently and with joy, and gave him means to waken without fear. (ACIM, T-27.VII.13:4-5)

After “years” of living from the perspective that the Course presents, everything makes sense; including the ubiquitous experiences of pain, suffering, loss and death. Learning to live from this perspective is literally a mind altering experience; the world is the same yet the experience is completely different.  I recognize that every experience is an opportunity to heal my mind and all those who are literally one with me. Spirit, or remembering my right-mind, is helping me correct all errors in my thinking, and see the Christ in me by seeing It in “everyone.” I still have wrong-minded thoughts, but none that I would keep. I no longer perceive a fearful world; I perceive opportunities to heal the mind of God’s son.— And it is my sincere desire to always keep the Truth of Who “We” Are in my awareness!

Remember that the script is written! To you who still believe you live in time and know not it is gone, the Holy Spirit still guides you through the infinitely small and senseless maze you still perceive in time, though it has long since gone (ACIM, T-26.V.4:1)

In peace and love, Caryl

acim.org has an excellent searchable web edition:  https://acim.org/acim/en