A Course In Miracles – San Jose Karl J Vidt, ACIM Student/Teacher

Monthly Archives: May 2015

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ACIM T-12.I The Judgment of the Holy Spirit

abstract background withe sea sunriseMay 26, 2015

In our human existence we do not respond to anything directly. We respond to our own interpretation of anything we encounter or experience. Everything is colored through the lens of our egoic thought system which is the result of a lifetime of perceiving with our split mind. We have forfeited true perception by relying on our own efforts and denying the guidance of Spirit. We truly believe that we are judging correctly, for we believe that what we perceive on our own is true. Thus our belief that what we perceive is true justifies any response we make. This is why analyzing the motives of others is hazardous to us and our own peace of mind.

Analyzing anything from our egoic thought system is very complicated, very confusing, and never without ego involvement. The whole process represents an attempt to demonstrate our own individual ability to understand what we perceive. We then react to our interpretations as if they were real and true. Our interpretations, whether correct or not, become the justification for our reactions. We may control our reactions behaviorally, but not emotionally. This creates a split or an attack on the integrity of our minds, pitting one level within the mind against another. This can only result in conflict and any conflict within the mind is insanity.

The Curse teaches:

There is but one interpretation of motivation that makes any sense. And because it is the Holy Spirit’s judgment it requires no effort at all on your part. Every loving thought is true. Everything else is an appeal for healing and help, regardless of the form it takes. Can anyone be justified in responding with anger to another’s plea for help? No response can be appropriate except the willingness to give it to them, for this and only this is what they are asking for. Offer them anything else, and you are assuming the right to attack their reality by interpreting it as you see fit. Perhaps the danger of this to your own mind is not yet fully apparent. If you believe that an appeal for help is something else you will react to something else. Your response will therefore be inappropriate to reality as it is, but not to your perception of it. ACIM T-12.I.3.1-10

If we are aware, there is nothing that prevents us from recognizing all calls for help or love for what they are except our own belief in our own mistaken perception. Are we willing to continually maintain our “battles” with reality in which we deny the need for healing? We would never do thus except for our unwillingness to accept reality as it is, and thus withhold it from ourselves.

It is surely good advice to tell you not to judge what you do not understand. No one with a personal investment is a reliable witness, for truth to them has become what they want it to be. If you are unwilling to perceive an appeal for help as what it is, it is because you are unwilling to give help and to receive it. To fail to recognize a call for help is to refuse help. Would you maintain that you do not need it? Yet this is what you are maintaining when you refuse to recognize another’s appeal, for only by answering their appeal can you be helped. Deny them your help and you will not recognize the One’s Answer to you. Spirit does not need your help in interpreting motivation, but you do need Spirit’s. T-12.I.5.1-8

Accept Spirit’s interpretation and accept the awareness of reality into your mind. It’s already and has always been within you. We have simply been unwilling to open our minds and see the truth about ourselves. Remember, every loving thought is true. Everything else, regardless of the form it takes, is a call for healing and help – love. Accept the reality of who you are and always extend love thus opening yourself to that same love.

ACIM T-11.VIII The Problem and the Answer

abstract background withe sea sunriseMay 19, 2015

In this world we have made we are so obsessed with how others act and think. How others act and think is not the problem. How others act and think is merely a reflection of how we are acting and thinking. Be careful not to take this reflection too literally, for it is not the form that is the problem, it is our perception that is the problem. If someone we are in relationship with – and if we are encountering them we are in relationship with them – seems to be pushing our buttons, we need to look at our buttons, not at the other person. If we have buttons to push, we are perceiving something about ourselves that is incorrect. We believe there is something about ourselves that is not complete, not whole and lacking. We chose to believe we are not who we really are. We chose to believe we are separate from each other and Oneness. This is the only problem that can possibly be. The problem is in our mind and the only healing that will work is healing of our own mind.

The Course tells us:

Do not accept another’s variable perception of themselves for their split mind is yours, and you will not accept your healing without theirs. For you share the real world as you share Heaven, and their healing is yours. To love yourself is to heal yourself, and you cannot perceive part of you as sick and achieve your goal. My friend, we heal together as we live together and love together. Be not deceived in Source’s One Child, for we are one with each other and one with our Source. Love another who is beloved of their Source, and you will learn of the Source’s Love for you. ACIM T-11.VIII.11.1-6

Love another as you love yourself. Let all else fall away. If we perceive fault or offense in another, we are seeing the same in ourselves, for that “another” is one with us. The Course goes on to say:

If you perceive offense in another, pluck the offense from your mind, for you are offended by your Self and are deceived in who you are. Heal in your Self and be not offended by who you really are, for there is no offense in You. If what you perceive offends you, you are offended in yourself and are condemning your Self whom Spirit condemneth not. Let the Holy Spirit remove all our offenses against ourselves and perceive no one but through Spirit’s guidance, for Spirit would save you from all condemnation. Accept Spirit’s healing power and use it for all Spirit sends you, for Spirit wills to heal Us, in whom Spirit is not deceived. ACIM T-11.VIII.12.1-5

We are whole, we are complete, we lack nothing and we are limitless. We simply ask Spirit for the guidance we need to shift our perception to this reality and see the real world through our Spirit eyes.

Like children who are afraid of something they don’t understand, we are afraid of the world we think we see because we don’t understand reality. It doesn’t make any sense to our split mind. A child will ask its parent to explain and trusts what its parent tells them. Why do we not do the same with our Creator? We choose to rely on our own perception and trust only our perception. Spirit is within us and is the One who knows us as we are and will guide us to correct perception and the truth. We needn’t be afraid to ask Spirit for guidance.

Would you not exchange your fears for truth, if the exchange is yours for the asking? For if Oneness is not deceived in you, you can be deceived only in yourself. Yet you can learn the truth about yourself from Spirit, Who will teach you that, as part of Oneness, deceit in you is impossible. When you perceive yourself without deceit, you will accept the real world in place of the false one you have made. And then Source will lean down to you and take the last step for you, by raising you unto Oneness. ACIM T-11.VIII.15.1-5

The perception of the real world and Oneness is ours for the asking. What is stopping us from asking and then believing? Choose and set yourself and all others free.

ACIM T-11.VIII The Problem and the Answer

abstract background withe sea sunriseMay 12, 2015

We are afraid of the world we perceive. No matter where we are on this journey, we still harbor some sort of fear towards the world we see. We have taught ourselves all we believe about the world we perceive and the God we perceive. We even fear the God who created us out of Love, for we have misperceived even God. We have misperceived it all, the world, our Source and Creator, the Holy Spirit and each other. We have looked at Love and perceived something fearful of it. Is it any wonder we are afraid of the world we see? Our Creator gave us the power to create like ourselves just as we are created like our Creator. However, we have made like we perceive ourselves and thus made a perceived world that has no more substance than perception. And therein lies the problem. We perceive a world that is not real because we perceive it through the lens of mistaken beliefs. Our task now is to find the answer to our problem of misperception.

The answer lies in our freedom to choose. No matter what we have chosen to believe, we cannot harm or damage the truth about us. Our divine nature is within our being. We are whole, complete, limitless and free as we are created. We share all this with each other as One in our Natural state of being. Source and Spirit are within that Oneness, too. We are the Holy One and the Holy One never fragments of lessens. It can only grow by extending ever increasing Love. How do we begin our awakening?

You believe in a world that takes, because you believe that you can get by taking. And by that perception you have lost sight of the real world. You are afraid of the world as you see it, but the real world is still yours for the asking. Do not deny it to yourself, for it can only free you. Nothing of the One will enslave Us whom Source created free and whose freedom is protected by the One’s Being. Blessed are you who are willing to ask the truth of Source without fear, for only thus can you learn that the Answer is the release from fear. ACIM T-11.VIII.7.2-7

We are free to choose a different perception. And we have a guide in Spirit, One with our true Self, who will guide us in the way of correct perception. All we need do is ask and relinquish our attachment to the fearful world we have perceived. Love is our true nature and Love is our all-powerful Source. The seemingly dark and fearful world fades to nothing in the light of Love as we allow it to flood our awareness. The real world rises in its place allowing the awareness of peace, love and joy to rise in us and radiate from us.

It is time to stop deceiving ourselves with mistaken beliefs and misperceptions and allow Spirit to guide our minds in joining the One Mind we already are. Separation and misperception cannot remain in the awareness of our true nature. The real world must rise in our minds as we allow Spirit to guide us.

In the real world there is no sickness, for there is no separation and no division. Only loving thoughts are recognized, and because no one is without your help, the Help of Source goes with you everywhere. As you become willing to accept this Help by asking for It, you will give It because you want It. Nothing will be beyond your healing power, because nothing will be denied your simple request. What problems will not disappear in the Presence of Source’s Answer? Ask, then, to learn of the reality of each other, because this is what you will perceive in each of them, and you will see your beauty reflected in them. ACIM T-11.VIII.10.1-6

This is our quest. We find our own Divine nature reflected in our brothers and sisters as we allow our perception to be guided by Spirit. Nothing must change outside of us, for there is nothing real outside of us. Love wells up within us and transcends the world we thought we saw outside ourselves. Choose the Answer Spirit holds within our mind today. We have always had the answer but never saw it there. Accept Spirit’s offering and release all else we are hanging on to. What is real will remain. And what is not real will simply fade away. Make the choice for the Answer today and relinquish the problem altogether.

ACIM T-11.VIII The Problem and the Answer

abstract background withe sea sunriseMay 5, 2015

What do we really know? Our world is built on perception, whether correct or mistaken. Is our perception correct? As we journey through the world we live in, we use all of our experiences to perceive the world we think we are in. We think it’s all around us. Every perception is based on some evaluation we have made based on what we have experienced at some point in our life and what we believe about those experiences and about life in general. As we grew older we stopped asking our parents, teachers, friends and others for interpretations and assistance and relied on our own mind to interpret and perceive for us. How can we possibly know we are perceiving correctly? The Course tells us we cannot without guidance!

Do not make the mistake of believing that you understand what you perceive, for its meaning is lost to you. Yet the Holy Spirit has saved its meaning for you, and if you will let Spirit interpret it, Spirit will restore to you what you have thrown away. Yet while you think you know its meaning, you will see no need to ask it of Spirit. ACIM T-11.VIII.2.3-5

It isn’t that we are incapable of understanding or perceiving correctly. Our true mind is one with the One Mind and knows Reality. The problem is that we have chosen to believe we are less than the fullness of who we are. We have lost sight of our wholeness and completeness in Unity with all creation. We have chosen to believe we are separate from Source in an effort to become autonomous and make our own “reality”, our own world on our own terms. The problem with this belief is that it is based in a fundamental error of belief in the possibility that One can ever be separated into parts.

There is an answer to this problem. We are One with our Creator, our Source, and that can never be severed regardless of what we choose to believe. Source created us in complete freedom and gave us the freedom to even choose to believe something mistaken about ourselves. The lessons of the Course give us a way to correctly and gently change our mistaken beliefs. It understands how deeply rooted in our minds these mistaken beliefs have become. These mistaken beliefs comprise the egoic thought system that has kept us from the awareness of who we really are. The entity that still binds us, if we are willing to listen, is the Holy Spirit, the Voice for the One.

We can begin this transformation by letting go of our attachment to our beliefs and our perceptions. Are we willing to allow Spirit to guide us? From the Course:

You do not know the meaning of anything you perceive. Not one thought you hold is wholly true. The recognition of this is your firm beginning. You are not misguided; you have accepted no guide at all. Instruction in perception is your great need, for you understand nothing. Recognize this but do not accept it, for understanding is your inheritance. Perceptions are learned, and you are not without a Teacher. Yet your willingness to learn of your Teacher depends on your willingness to question everything you learned of yourself, for you who learned amiss should not be your own teacher. ACIM T-11.VIII.3.1-8

No one can withhold Truth except from themselves. We are the ones who have misperceived and believed mistaken beliefs. There is no shame or harm in this, for we cannot remove our wholeness and completeness from ourselves. The most we can do is hide it from ourselves and journey through our world unaware of who we really are. We have made up the problem. What do we really want? We have a choice; the problem or the Answer. Decide for the Answer and you will have it, for you will see it as it is, and it is yours already. Simply ask Spirit for guidance and keep your mind tuned to Spirit. We walk this journey together in Oneness whether we recognize it or not. Choose to recognize it.