ACIM & Hawkins

[belle99]

"I am never [angry/upset/worried/etc] for the reason I think."

This is one of the first lessons in ACIM, and I got an excellent illustration of it over the last couple of days.

I learned something about someone close to me that somehow--irrationally--triggered my feelings of inferiority. I assumed that it was because the other person was comparing me to someone else and that I was not measuring up.

Then I realized that it was triggering something altogether different, and showed me the real issue that I needed to work on....and when you're finally working on the real issue, it is amazing how easily you can release things! I realized that the real issue was that the other person had told me about an act of freedom that I had never given myself permission to do. The real issue was not that I wasn't good enough. It was that I was not claiming authority over my own life, and that was what I felt like I was missing out on.

When I look back at all the other times I have created this same misinterpretation, I see that I could have saved myself a lot of trouble!

[Grace]

For Belle99!

Hi Belle99!
THIS THREAD IS AWESOME!! I ADORE YOU FOR STARTING IT!! What ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS Posts already!!

I will be back to discuss the physical body according to ACIM and Hawkins. I feel that this needs to be addressed soon.

[Pamela]

Oh, Grace! I look forward to your next post about the physical body!

But I do want to pop in and explain a wee bit more on the ACIM concept of innocence that I started in my post before. To do this, I'm going to share a part from "The Disappearance of the Universe" and quote the ascended master, "Pursah", as she explains it much better than I could. This one starts with the author posing the question, "How can a man like Hitler be innocent?"

"PURSAH: That's a typical question and the answer doesn't have anything to do with Hitler. As one who remembers my Jewish lifetimes very well, I'm not exactly a fan of the Nazis, skinheads, the KKK, or any other mentally injured groups. The reason they are innocent has nothing to do with the level of form. Hitler and everyone else in the world, including you, are equally innocent because WHAT YOU ARE SEEING IS NOT TRUE. This is YOUR dream. As the Course teaches, the dream is not being dreamed by sombody else.

Hitler was an example of a thought system of fear being carried out to its extreame. You think the Holocaust was an unusual event, but it only was unusual in its size. The same kind of thing occurs all the time, all throughout history... You don't have to be Jewish, Black, an Indian, or some other exotic color to be a victim. It would be hard to find ANY group of people that has not been persecuted.....

All this is a result of a predicament where people have a deep, hidden need to project their unconscious guilt onto sombody else, and ANY excuse will do. We've been talking about extreme examples, but people do this in a thousand subtle ways. They don't know they need to, or why. If they did, then they wouldn't do it. You'll be learning more about this situation, and you'll realize exactly why insane actions such as genocide are a routine part of the story of man's inhumanity toward man. You'll also learn that true forgiveness is the only way to break the pattern...

Incidentally, the thought system of fear and separation from God is given the name 'ego' in the Course, and this term shouldn't be confused with the term 'ego' as it is used in traditional psychology... You should remember that no matter how large it may appear to be, the ego is just a thought, and thoughts can be changed.

Once we've told you everything we want to tell you, then not only will you be able to see what's really happening with true forgiveness, but you'll realize that the thought system of love and the thought system of fear are BOTH forms of denial. One of them, the Holy Spirit's teaching, leads to Heaven by uncovering and reversing the ego's denial of truth. As the Course says about the peace that results from the Holy Spirit's teaching:"

It denies the ability of anything not of God to affect you. This is the proper use of denial.

Of the forgiveness that leads to peace, the Course says:

Forgiveness then, is an illusion, but because of its purpose, it has one difference. Unlike all other illusions, it leads away from error and not towards it.

What strikes me most profoundly is the "need" people have to project their unconscious guilt onto somebody else and Pursah is correct that this is done in thousands of ways, subtle and not so subtle. While this concept of the ego is examined over and over in many ways throughout ACIM, the undoing of the ego is also reinforced by reminding the student of the consistant practice of forgiveness.

With Much Love and Gratitude,

Pamela

[belle99]

Thanks to everyone who is contributing on this thread and posting links with great resources.....

I'm today working on forgiving Wall Street for creating the illusion of economic crisis, our politicians who are dealing with it, and the apparent victims of the policies and decisions over the past several years.

[belle99]

The "...and what will that do for me?" exercise:

What is the intention beneath our intentions? What is the real thing we are looking for when we desire a particular outcome?

When we discover the kernel of desire inside any Want, we have the resources right now to actually have it now.

Whenever I feel frustrated that I do not yet have a particular state, thing, or result, I sit down with my journal and ask myself a couple of questions until I finally arrive at the real desire. If I can identify what feeling state I think I will get from having my desired outcome, then I am 99% closer to having it.

What do you want? Ask yourself, "what will that do for me if I have it?" Then when you have an answer, ask yourself again, "and what would THAT do for me?" Keep asking until you start repeating yourself or can inquire no further.

Now you have this distilled to a particular type of feeling. Imagine a time when you had that feeling in the past. Notice how you recognize this feeling. Is it a bright mental picture? Is there a sound associated with the feeling? Is there a sensation in the body? Can you make it more intense? Memorize how you recognize this state.

Now think of yourself having that desired outcome, and notice if there are any differences between that and the remembered state. Mentally enhance your experience of your desired outcome until it is as believable, bright, real, harmonious, whatever as your memorized state. Imagine yourself carrying this wonderful experience with you in the coming hours, days, and weeks.

The ultimate kernel of desire in every Want is to experience our own divinity.

[Pamela]

Grandeur vs. Grandiosity

That was great, Belle!

The concept from this ACIM passage has been going through my mind in the last few days and it has been helpful in reminding of me of my divinity.

"Grandeur is of God, and only of Him. Therefore it is in you: Whenever you become aware of it, however dimly, you abandon the ego automatically, because in the presence of the grandeur of God, the meaninglessness of the ego becomes perfectly apparent. Whenever this occurs, even though it does not understand it, the ego believes that the 'enemy' has struck, and attempts to offer gifts to induce you to return to its 'protection'. Self-inflation is the only offer it can make. The grandiosity of the ego is its alternative to the grandeur of God. Which will you choose?

Grandiosity is always a cover for despair. It is without hope because it is not real. It is an attempt to counteract your littleness, based on the belief that the littleness is real. Without this belief, grandiosity is meaningless, and you could not possibly want it. The essence of grandiosity is copmpetitiveness, because it always involves attack. It is a delusional attempt to outdo, but not to undo. We said before that the ego vacillates between suspiciousness and viciousness. It remains suspicious as long as you despair of yourself. It shifts to viciousness when you decide not to tolerate self-abasement and seek relief. Then it offers the illusion of attack as a 'solution'.

The ego is immobilized in the presence of God's grandeur, because His grandeur establishes your freedom. Even the faintest hint of your reality drives the ego from your mind because you will give up all investment in it. Grandeur is totally without illusions, and because it is real it is compellingly convincing. Yet the conviction of reality will not remain with you unless you do not allow the ego to attack it. The ego will make every effort to recover and mobilize its energies against your release. It will tell you that you are insane and argue that grandeur cannot be a real part of you because of the littleness in which it believes. Yet your grandeur is not delusional because you did not make it. You made grandiosity and are afraid of it because it is a form of attack, but your grandeur is of God, Who created it out of His Love.

From your grandeur you can only bless, because it is your abundance. By blessing you hold it in your mind, protecting it from illusions and keeping yourself in the Mind of God. Remember aways that you cannot be anywhere except in the mind of God."

And I love this line....

"Whenever you question your value, say:

God Himself is incomplete without me."

Something to remember when the ego speaks...

With Much Love and Gratitude,

Pamela

[belle99]

"God Himself is incomplete without me."

I love it! Just what I needed to hear! I guess we can also state it as, "God Herself is incomplete without me." This gives me an incredible feeling.

[wpage]

power vs force

Power vs force graphic is excellent

"When I am weak I am strong"

This thread leads to enlightenment thru power of high minded dealing with worlds conditions.

If you can keep your peace and share it everyone wins in a lost world

W

[Pamela]

Genderless...

Hi Lovies,

Woody...I would like to thank you for joining our discussion! You always make such loving posts and it is such a pleasure to hear your thoughts!

And Belle... It is perfectly wonderful for you to consider God as feminine! I'm sure She finds it a refreshing change from the norm!



In "The Disappearance of the Universe" there is a passage that discusses the gender of God and how and why in ACIM Jesus uses the word "He" to describe God. It states that he was speaking metaphorically in the language of scripture because he had to communicate with people, but WE make everything real. "Jesus knew that God cannot be limited by gender and neither can people, because they're not really people. How can you really be a person if you're not a body? ...Jesus treated each body the same...as though it didn't exist. He was then able to look completely past it to the true light of unchangeable and immortal spirit that is the one reality of us all."

It goes on to discuss that like most people today, during the lifetime of Jesus, instead of really listening to what he was teaching, most saw and heard what they wanted to see and hear so they could use him to validate their own experience.... which was the experience of being an individual in a body. Thus, they had to make him a SEPARATE and VERY SPECIAL individual body which is how they really saw themselves and how we still see ourselves.

"Before you knew it, you had people relating to Jesus as the body of all bodies. They already believed that God had created a flawed world with imperfect people like Adam and Eve who were capable of making mistakes. They completely overlooked the logic that for God to create the imperfect must either mean that He Himself was imperfect or He deliberately made those who were so they could screw up, be punished by Him, and suffer here on psycho planet. Then, according to this new developing religion, God takes, incredibly, His big-time special only begotten Son, who would apparently be more Holy than the rest of the scum of the earth, and sends him as a blood sacrifice to suffer and die on a cross as a way of vicariously atoning for people's sins.

Except now there's ANOTHER big problem, because even according to Christianity's own doctrines, this does NOT really atone for anybody else's sins. If it atoned for people's sins, then that would be the end of it. Problem solved. But no! It now becomes necessary for everyone to blindly BELIEVE in all of the details conveniently set forth exclusively by the Christian religion, or else they will STILL burn in hell, even if they happen to be born, presumably by God's will, in a place, time, or culture that isn't even familiar with this particular religion! ()

...It is true at the time Jesus was the most advanced spiritual person ever to appear on the earth. But everyone else, including you, will eventually attain the same level of accomplishment as him. There is no exception to this. Thus, Jesus is not ultimately different from anyone else, and his attitude was that NO ONE will be left out of Heaven, because there really is only ONE of us, not all these separate bodies as you are presently dreaming."


Grace told me she spent an hour the other day creating a post about the physical body just as she had promised, but when she went to submit it the whole thing poofed! Once she finds the time to recreate it, I am sure that much of this will make even more sense.

In the meantime, I am LOVING ever passage from "A Course In Miracles" and applying the daily lessons is very transforming!!!

With Much Love and Gratitude,

Pamela

[elias]

Hi


Grace told me she spent an hour the other day creating a post about the physical body just as she had promised, but when she went to submit it the whole thing poofed! Once she finds the time to recreate it, I am sure that much of this will make even more sense.

Yes, that was one of my problems too, until I started copying the whole message to the clipboard before submitting it.

Looking forward for Grace's post!

[Grace]

Our Temples!

Our physical bodies are only projections. Illusion. Not the Truth of who we are as ONE, the LIGHT. So why take care of the body, why concern yourself at all with dis-ease and death? It is only an illusion so why focus attention on something that is not real?

As you study the Course in Miracles you will read in many different ways, that the physical body can be experienced in two different ways. By the ego/mind for death/destruction, and attack, or by the Holy Spirit for Communion. In Communion the physical body is used for LOVE. The physical body is the ONLY TEMPLE to seek devotion to God in.

The Physical body is our opportunity to realize the TRUTH. That we are ONE, and able to express this in many beautiful ways to each other body/temples.

In every moment we have the divine opportunity to express unity or separation. As we grow in consciousness we choose more and more to experience unity in as many moments as possible.

"A short story"

God extended himself and created LIGHT, the light projected itself and created the desire to experience itself as LOVE. This brought forth the idea of "time" and hence Dualism which included the idea to experience the light as love. In order to experience love, the idea of experiencing "no love" was also created which is "The absence of Love." This was only a thought, which manifested itself as the "the ego/mind" the belief in separation and hence the creation of fear.

Your physical body is your opportunity to experience LOVE, to experience UNITY, to experience Divinity by remembering that your physical body is a vessel for unity. You and your brother/sister are ONE and you need only commune with this. On the other hand, to see your physical body as something that is sinful, and of no importance, is giving away your power in this projected reality, which was created to experience LOVE, which is the LIGHT that you ARE.

If you perceive a "negative" perception of another, understand this is a reflection of YOU. Your Body is not separate from another's, but it is a vessel to use for perfection, and to inspire perfection in all. Forgiveness is simply saying, what I am seeing and experiencing is a perception of either true perception or incorrect perception. I forgive myself instantly for my incorrect perception which is illusion and nothing to fear.

Your physical body is a temple for you to experience your Divinity! It is a vessel for you to experience the LOVE that you are.

Love your body, and you will experience GREATNESS! The more you love your vessel, the more you will empower it to experience GREATNESS! Yes it is a projection, but you must remember that it is a projection to experience LOVE.

[Pamela]

Judging Others...

Thank You, Darling Grace... That was beautiful comment on the projection of the physical body!

Just about all the passages from A Course In Miracles have the ability to cause those wonderful "Ah Ha" moments and make you want to get out the old highlighter so you can easily refer back to them, but if I did that I would probably be highlighting the whole document!

Still there are some that REALLY stick out and this one on judgment is one of them...

"When the Bible says "Judge not that ye be not judged," it means that if you judge the reality of others you will be unable to judge your own...
The choice to judge rather than to know is the cause of the loss of peace. Judgement is the process on which perception but not knowledge rests... Judgement always involves rejection. It never emphasizes only the positive aspects of what is judged, whether in you or in others. What has been perceived and rejected, or judged and found wanting, remains in your mind because it has been perceived. One of the illusions from which you suffer is the belief that what you judged against has no effect. This cannot be true unless you also believe that what you judged against does not exist. You evidently do not believe this, or you would not have judged against it. In the end it does not matter whether your judgement is right or wrong. Either way you are placing your belief in the unreal. This cannot be avoided in any type of judgement, becuase it implies the belief that reality is yours to select FROM.

You have no idea of the tremendous release and deep peace that comes from meeting yourself and your brothers totally without judgement. When you recognize what you are and what your brothers are, you will realize that judging them in any way is without meaning. In fact, their meaning is lost to you precisely BECAUSE you are judging them. All uncertainty comes from the belief that you are under the coercion of judgement. You do not need judgement to organize your life, and you certainly do not need it to organize yourself. In the presence of knowledge all judgement is automatically suspended, and this is the process that enables recognition to replace perception.

God offers only mercy. Your words should reflect only mercy, because that is what you have received and that is what you should give. Justice is a temporary expedient, or an attempt to teach you the meaning of mercy. It is judgemental only because you are capable of injustice."

These passages, among many others, have caused me to become even more aware and I find that I am catching myself as I begin to judge a brother... and then, as I remember that all of my brothers are Sons of God, I forgive myself as well as forgive my brother's variable perception of himself.

"Love him who is beloved of his Father, and you will learn of the Father's Love for you."

With Much Love and Gratitude,

Pamela

[belle99]

Grace and Pamela,

Thank you so much for your posts...I will have to let them "digest" in this body of mine for a bit....In Transcending the Levels of Consciousness, Hawkins says that in calibrated levels above 200 you see a desire to maintain a healthy body and appearance. This is not out of pride (level 190) but because of what you have described in your posts.

What a synchronicity. I've always been very health-conscious, and I've found that I have to maintain a higher degree of health to feel baseline-OK, I think compared to the average person in the western world. Not to be "better," but to feel like MYSELF. I recently changed up my workout plan and I am SO inspired and already seeing improvements, mind, body, and spirit.

I'm definitely being reminded that we come here to have the experience of the physical body. Without the physical body, it wouldn't be the same experience. The wonderful illusions of physical reality and matter are the game, they are the joy. They are the whole point of "earth school" as some have called it.

[belle99]

Hi everyone here on the ACIM and Hawkins thread!

Feel free to post about other books and ideas that go along with the flow of conversation here.

My general hope is that this thread will serve as a way to give the rational mind something spiritual to chew on, so that it doesn't fan the flames of the ego.

Here's to oatmeal for the mind!

[Pamela]

Hi Lovies!

Belle...Thanks so much for opening the door for other books... I have been wanting to do this for a few weeks, but "time" has gotten in my way!

While ACIM is FABULOUS, it is also deep and intense, so I have found it necessary to read several chapters and then spend some time internalizing the information. And, because I simply cannot go a day without reading SOMETHING , I have included a new one by Deepac Chopra which is a little easier to fly through, yet also emphasizes many of the concepts made in ACIM.

"The Third Jesus, The Christ We Cannot Ignore" discusses the "historical Jesus" as the "man who lived more than two thousand years ago and whose teachings are the foundation of Christian theology and thought. Next there is Jesus the Son of God, who has come to embody an institutional religion with specific dogma, a priesthood, and devout believers. And finally, there is the third Jesus, the cosmic Christ, the spiritual guide whose teachings embrace all humanity, not just the church built in his name. He speaks to the individual who wants to find God as a personal experience, to attain what some might call grace, or God-consciousness, or enlightenment." And while I find fascinating Chopra's discussions on the first and second Jesus, his disconcertion with fundamentalist Christians, and his insightful thoughts on certain Bible passages, many of which were completely misinterpreted (no surprise there... ), it was this Third Jesus that attracted me to this book.

Chopra argues, "Ultimately, Christianity needs to overcome the tendancy to be exclusionary and refocus on being a religion of personal insight and spiritual growth. In this way Jesus can be seen for the universal teacher that he truly is...someone whose teachings of compassion, tolerance, and understanding can embrace and be embraced by all of us.

Like ACIM, Chopra discusses at length, how the ego disallows us to hear our spiritual voice and in doing so, causes us profound suffering, but he provides such a vast wealth of intelligent and practical information on understanding the difference between this illusory world percieved by the egomind and that which is true or Ultimate Reality. I deeply appreciate his thoughts on how the spiritual path opens and the transformations which occur as we begin to get glimpses of reality, enlightenment, and/or God-consciousness...I will try to post some of these thoughts as the days unfold, but for now, that naughty illusion of "time" is getting in my way again!

With Much Love and Gratitude,

Pamela