The need of every heart is to rejoin the Truth, to return home, to experience the unchanging peace we thought we had forsaken. In this video about A Course In Miracles, we read and discussed the pertinent sections Introduction and Mind – Spirit from the Clarification of Terms (ACIM, C-in) after reading the last 3 paragraphs of Lesson 185:
“12. For you was peace created, given you by its Creator, and established as His Own eternal gift. ²How can you fail, when you but ask for what He wills for you? ³And how could your request be limited to you alone? ⁴No gift of God can be unshared. ⁵It is this attribute that sets the gifts of God apart from every dream that ever seemed to take the place of truth.
13. No one can lose and everyone must gain whenever any gift of God has been requested and received by anyone. ²God gives but to unite. ³To take away is meaningless to Him. ⁴And when it is as meaningless to you, you can be sure you share one Will with Him, and He with you. ⁵And you will also know you share one Will with all your brothers, whose intent is yours.
14. It is this one intent we seek today, uniting our desires with the need of every heart, the call of every mind, the hope that lies beyond despair, the love attack would hide, the brotherhood that hate has sought to sever, but which still remains as God created it. ²With Help like this beside us, can we fail today as we request the peace of God be given us?” (ACIM, W-185.12:1–14:2)
It’s helpful to remember that words can only – at best – represent or support the ideas (the source) behind their appearance, a very Platonic idea:
“Let us not forget, however, that words are but symbols of symbols.” (ACIM, M-21.1:9)
What we really want (and have never been denied except by our own denial) is the source we never left, not the symbols we substituted, the shabby placeholders we know will never satisfy; we all want, deserve and truly have and are the real content, and the form just won’t do. There’s nothing wrong with the form, it just is never what our heart needs. We will all ultimately persevere and succeed with the Course’s “not no” curriculum – denying ego’s denial of Truth (making a fuss over specifics and indulgence in specialness) – which may be akin to the western equivalent of the Hindu/Advaita “neti neti” (not this, not that) practice.
ACIM helps us correct the content, not the form, since form is ultimately irrelevant to truth, yet each specific form (or symbol) becomes our mathematically perfect forgiveness lesson: There are 288 instances of correct (or correction) in ACIM.
To further emphasize that we want the unchanging content (the certainty – the experience – of unchanging peace we restore to ourselves via Holy Spirit’s forgiveness) we can observe how the words – at best– merely point the way to the threshold of that desired experience. Aligned with this goal, we read section 21 in the Manual: What Is the Role of Words in Healing? (ACIM, M-21); here are the first 3 paragraphs of that section:
“1. Strictly speaking, words play no part at all in healing. ²The motivating factor is prayer, or asking. ³What you ask for you receive. ⁴But this refers to the prayer of the heart, not to the words you use in praying. ⁵Sometimes the words and the prayer are contradictory; sometimes they agree. ⁶It does not matter. ⁷God does not understand words, for they were made by separated minds to keep them in the illusion of separation. ⁸Words can be helpful, particularly for the beginner, in helping concentration and facilitating the exclusion, or at least the control, of extraneous thoughts. ⁹Let us not forget, however, that words are but symbols of symbols. ¹⁰They are thus twice removed from reality.
2. As symbols, words have quite specific references. ²Even when they seem most abstract, the picture that comes to mind is apt to be very concrete. ³Unless a specific referent does occur to the mind in conjunction with the word, the word has little or no practical meaning, and thus cannot help the healing process. ⁴The prayer of the heart does not really ask for concrete things. ⁵It always requests some kind of experience, the specific things asked for being the bringers of the desired experience in the opinion of the asker. ⁶The words, then, are symbols for the things asked for, but the things themselves but stand for the experiences that are hoped for.
3. The prayer for things of this world will bring experiences of this world. ²If the prayer of the heart asks for this, this will be given because this will be received. ³It is impossible that the prayer of the heart remain unanswered in the perception of the one who asks. ⁴If he asks for the impossible, if he wants what does not exist or seeks for illusions in his heart, all this becomes his own. ⁵The power of his decision offers it to him as he requests. ⁶Herein lie hell and Heaven. ⁷The sleeping Son of God has but this power left to him. ⁸It is enough. ⁹His words do not matter. ¹⁰Only the Word of God has any meaning, because it symbolizes that which has no human symbols at all. ¹¹The Holy Spirit alone understands what this Word stands for. ¹²And this, too, is enough.” (ACIM, M-21.1:1–3:12)
Here are some relevant selections from the introduction to the Clarification of Terms (ACIM, C-in):
“This is not a course in philosophical speculation, nor is it concerned with precise terminology. ²It is concerned only with Atonement, or the correction of perception. ³The means of the Atonement is forgiveness. ⁴The structure of “individual consciousness” is essentially irrelevant because it is a concept representing the “original error” or the “original sin.” ⁵To study the error itself does not lead to correction, if you are indeed to succeed in overlooking the error. ⁶And it is just this process of overlooking at which the course aims.
2. All terms are potentially controversial, and those who seek controversy will find it. ²Yet those who seek clarification will find it as well. ³They must, however, be willing to overlook controversy, recognizing that it is a defense against truth in the form of a delaying maneuver. ⁴Theological considerations as such are necessarily controversial, since they depend on belief and can therefore be accepted or rejected. ⁵A universal theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only possible but necessary. ⁶It is this experience toward which the course is directed. ⁷Here alone consistency becomes possible because here alone uncertainty ends.
3. This course remains within the ego framework, where it is needed. ²It is not concerned with what is beyond all error because it is planned only to set the direction towards it. ³Therefore it uses words, which are symbolic, and cannot express what lies beyond symbols. ⁴It is merely the ego that questions because it is only the ego that doubts. ⁵The course merely gives another answer, once a question has been raised. ⁶However, this answer does not attempt to resort to inventiveness or ingenuity. ⁷These are attributes of the ego. ⁸The course is simple. ⁹It has one function and one goal. ¹⁰Only in that does it remain wholly consistent because only that can be consistent.
4. The ego will demand many answers that this course does not give. ²It does not recognize as questions the mere form of a question to which an answer is impossible. ³The ego may ask, “How did the impossible occur?”, “To what did the impossible happen?”, and may ask this in many forms. ⁴Yet there is no answer; only an experience. ⁵Seek only this, and do not let theology delay you.” (ACIM, C-in.1:1–4:5)
Related topics and quotes (for the Clarification of Terms) from the Course include:
- Atonement (258 instances) = correction (288 instances)
- consciousness (24 instances)
- sin vs. error
- controversy (6 instances)
- universal experience (ACIM, C-in.2:5)
- impossible (ACIM, C-in.4:3) (ego statements disguised as questions)
- meeting us where we believe we’re at:
“This course remains within the ego framework, where it is needed.” (ACIM, C-in.3:1)
The split mind – believing it is an “individual mind” – consists of a right mind and wrong mind; Holy Spirit and ego; sanity and insanity; sameness and differences. Here are paragraphs 2-4 of Mind – Spirit from the Clarification of Terms which address these two parts of our split minds:
“2. In this world, because the mind is split, the Sons of God appear to be separate. ²Nor do their minds seem to be joined. ³In this illusory state, the concept of an “individual mind” seems to be meaningful. ⁴It is therefore described in the course as if it has two parts; spirit and ego.
3. Spirit is the part that is still in contact with God through the Holy Spirit, Who abides in this part but sees the other part as well. ²The term “soul” is not used except in direct biblical quotations because of its highly controversial nature. ³It would, however, be an equivalent of “spirit,” with the understanding that, being of God, it is eternal and was never born.
4. The other part of the mind is entirely illusory and makes only illusions. ²Spirit retains the potential for creating, but its Will, which is God’s, seems to be imprisoned while the mind is not unified. ³Creation continues unabated because that is the Will of God. ⁴This Will is always unified and therefore has no meaning in this world. ⁵It has no opposite and no degrees.”
This line distilling and clarifies how our real freedom is choosing against insanity – but not fighting it: “Do not fight yourself.” (ACIM, T-30.I.1:7):
“In this world the only remaining freedom is the freedom of choice; always between two choices or two voices.” (ACIM, C-1.7:1)
… which is closely echoed in this crystal clear reminder of how we find and keep the need of every heart:
“The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of this world.” (ACIM, T-12.VII.9:1)
We closed with Workbook Lesson 215:
“I am not a body. I am free.
For I am still as God created me.
1. (195) Love is the way I walk in gratitude.
²The Holy Spirit is my only Guide. ³He walks with me in love. ⁴And I give thanks to Him for showing me the way to go.
⁵I am not a body. ⁶I am free.
⁷For I am still as God created me.”
We all want the experience (of perfect peace, all-inclusive innocence, and unshakeable certainty) not just a minimal intellectual understanding even though that is an essential foundational prerequisite. We don’t want the Drost Effect of spiraling down ego’s “rabbit hole” but rather climbing out of Plato’s Cave into Reality, awakening from the dream of separation into the universal experience.
“A universal theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only possible but necessary.” (ACIM, C-in.2:5)
(This conversation was facilitated by Bruce Rawles as part of the School For A Course In Miracles (SFACIM) curriculum hosted by Lyn Corona and Tim Wise. This YouTube video recording was made on August 3, 2024.)
