Jackie Lora Jones and Bruce Rawles continue their conversations about A Course In Miracles (ACIM) in this video about two completely polarized attractions. Despite almost complete denial by our ego-obsessed minds, when we’re believing in separation, we’re actually attracted to guilt and the entire insane thought system of sin-guilt-fear. Beyond that, with considerable forgiveness practice, past our special love/hate preoccupations and chaotic thinking, we (our right minds) are truly attracted to a constant Love where change, comparison and polarization are forever impossible. In order to consistently experience the unchanging lovingkindness of unassailable peace (our real, eternally shared nature) we must first remove the “blocks to the awareness of love’s presence” (ACIM, T-in.1:7) – our mental malware that is attracted to guilt, being made from a false (sinful) assumption about our identity, arising from a correctable belief in separation.
There are 87 instances of the word “attract” in ACIM, so it’s an important concept in the Course. Unlike a lot of “new age” use of the term (law of ) “attraction” it’s important to note that we’re attracting (or magnetizing) experiences depending on which of the 2 thought systems we’re using and ACIM reminds us there are only two, and only one of them is real – the Holy Spirit, which is the correction for the ego. When we turn off ego’s guilt magnet, our Real (all-Inclusive) Identity “magnetizes” only Love.
“What God did not give you has no power over you, and the attraction of love for love remains irresistible.” (ACIM, T-12.VIII.7:10)
“You think you have made a world God would destroy; and by loving Him, which you do, you would throw this world away, which you would.” (ACIM, T-13.III.4:3)
One could also say – since distraction is another form of attraction – that when we’re attracted to the ego’s propaganda, it distracts us from our real attraction to Holy Spirit’s correction for ego’s pathological spewing of untruths, just as when we’re attracted to the love behind and beyond our ego nightmares, we recognize these fearful imaginings are merely a forgivable distraction. There are 13 instances of the word “distraction” in ACIM. While the word “aversion” doesn’t appear in ACIM, the attraction (attachment) and repulsion (aversion) principles come into play with each thought we think we like and those we think we don’t.
For something to attract us, it must appeal to some aspect of the identity we have chosen in that moment; there are 71 instances of the word “appeal” in ACIM.
The section in the text “The Attraction of Love for Love” (ACIM, T-12.VIII) reviews our real attraction to unchanging Love – what drew us to the Course in the first place! – in considerable detail, yet because that is our real nature we don’t have to DO anything for that to take effect. We do need to UNDO the attraction of guilt, specialness, death, duality and everything that constitutes ego’s “consolation prize” that we still hope will yet bring us what we (as silly seemingly separate selves) think we want. With minds divided between sanity and insanity (Holy Spirit and ego) how can we hope to know what we really want when our minds are in conflict about everything?
“You will quickly realize that you have a number of goals in mind as part of the desired outcome, and also that these goals are on different levels and often conflict.” (ACIM, W-24.4:3)
Everything in the world becomes our classroom (instead of prison) when we look at how quickly we want the world to “make us happy” (manifesting or attracting what we think we want) and realize – and eventually generalize – the conclusion that the world has no capacity whatsoever to make us happy (or sad for that matter) since our peace of mind is solely determined by our choice of teachers: either the guilty, unconscious thought system of ego, or the forgiving, All-inclusive and mental barrier-dissolving thought system of Holy Spirit: a.k.a. Jesus of the Course, or our Inner Kindness Teacher.
“We speak today for everyone who walks this world, for he is not at home. ²He goes uncertainly about in endless search, seeking in darkness what he cannot find; not recognizing what it is he seeks. ³A thousand homes he makes, yet none contents his restless mind.” (ACIM, W-182.3:1-3)
We just have to notice when we’re trying to make our world work – the thousands of relationship “homes” to everyone and everything we desperately dream might work, yet all the while we simultaneously sabotage our peace by drawing from the teacher of failure (disconnection, dissolution, denial and duality) whose (often secret) mantra is “Seek but do not find” a phrase appearing 3 times in ACIM. As long as we have a seemingly inexhaustible supply of scapegoats upon which to project our imagined grievances for their shortcomings and failure to deliver ego’s outrageous demands to make my life happy (usually by means of conflicting goals) we never (or rarely) question the basic premise that the world can “make us happy” or more fundamentally that the world exists outside of our projecting dualistic dream machine in the first place!
“We’re largely unaware of the workings of our mind.” – Bruce Rawles
We touched on “Reversing Effect and Cause” (ACIM, T-28.II) We think the world is doing things “to us.” When we become aware that it’s the other way around, namely, our masochistic choice for identifying with a specific “dream figure” (insert your name here) isn’t working because we set up the nightmare precisely so that we would always find problems in our physical lives, we become “recovering dream repair technicians” noticing more lucidly when we’re trying to “rearrange the holodeck chairs on a Titanic dream” and that will never work. ACIM’s message is that if we let our Inner Kindness teacher lead the way back to sanity, we can awaken from the dream, rather than endlessly trying to repair it!
These thoughts do not mean anything. (ACIM, W-4) … and My thoughts do not mean anything. (ACIM, W-10) but that’s OK, because there are real thoughts (Holy Spirit’s corrective software for ego’s malware) always available to undo the ego’s complaint “disappointment haunted all my dreams.”
“We put the dream figures there to disappoint us; we put them there so that we could see our guilt outside (of us).” – Jacke Lora Jones
Our attraction to self-sabotage could be described as our desire to get rid of peace:
“The first obstacle that peace must flow across is your desire to get rid of it.” (ACIM, T-19.IV-A.1:1)
“You do not realize what you have done to sabotage the holy peace of God by your defensiveness.” (ACIM, W-153.5:4)
Once we uncover that self-destructive self-concept we need to keep looking at how it’s foundational premise is the belief that we “pulled off” the impossible crime of separation – from our Creator and from each other – and the unconscious, unfounded guilt behind that is what is fueling all the sabotage, including the unchallenged assumption that our peace is predicated on what happens (or does not happen) in this world.
“The attraction of guilt produces fear of love, for love would never look on guilt at all. ²It is the nature of love to look upon only the truth, for there it sees itself, with which it would unite in holy union and completion. ³As love must look past fear, so must fear see love not. ⁴For love contains the end of guilt, as surely as fear depends on it. ⁵Love is attracted only to love. ⁶Overlooking guilt completely, it sees no fear. ⁷Being wholly without attack, it could not be afraid. ⁸Fear is attracted to what love sees not, and each believes that what the other looks upon does not exist. ⁹Fear looks on guilt with just the same devotion that love looks on itself. ¹⁰And each has messengers which it sends forth, and which return to it with messages written in the language in which their going forth was asked.” (ACIM, T-19.IV-A.10:1-10)
“The attraction of guilt is found in sin, not error. ²Sin will be repeated because of this attraction. ³Fear can become so acute that the sin is denied the acting out. ⁴But while the guilt remains attractive the mind will suffer, and not let go of the idea of sin. ⁵For guilt still calls to it, and the mind hears it and yearns for it, making itself a willing captive to its sick appeal. ⁶Sin is an idea of evil that cannot be corrected, and yet will be forever desirable. ⁷As an essential part of what the ego thinks you are, you will always want it. ⁸And only an avenger, with a mind unlike your own, could stamp it out through fear.” (ACIM, T-19.III.1:1-8)
We also talked about 3 ways we can (attempt to) “make the dream real” and therefore keep the attraction to guilt working, though mostly unconsciously (all discussed at the latter part of what may be Ken Wapnick’s most scholarly tome, Love Does Not Condemn: The World, the Flesh, and the Devil According to Platonism, Christianity, Gnosticism, and ‘A Course in Miracles‘ – not recommended for new Course students):
- Hedonism or Libertinism – identifying with nothing but the material world; attempting to deny Spirit altogether
- Asceticism (deprivation) – denying the world, yet also depriving ourselves of our forgiveness classroom material, and
- Radical Moderateness (not Ken’s term, but a third mechanism for making the ephemeral world real by making a big deal about avoiding extremes
Anything that makes a “big deal” about specifics can be a gentle trigger to reset our mental software from ego to Holy Spirit, thus rebooting the default attraction to guilt and restoring it to the attraction to Love.
“You have no conception of the limits you have placed on your perception, and no idea of all the loveliness that you could see. ²But this you must remember; the attraction of guilt opposes the attraction of God. ³His attraction for you remains unlimited, but because your power, being His, is as great as His, you can turn away from love. ⁴What you invest in guilt you withdraw from God. ⁵And your sight grows weak and dim and limited, for you have attempted to separate the Father from the Son, and limit Their communication. ⁶Seek not Atonement in further separation. ⁷And limit not your vision of God’s Son to what interferes with his release, and what the Holy Spirit must undo to set him free. ⁸For his belief in limits has imprisoned him.” (ACIM, T-15.IX.6:1-8)
The rest of the section “The Holy Instant and the Attraction of God” (ACIM, T-15.IX) is also worth reviewing.
We just have to look (without condemnation at the two attractions; only one of which is in operation at any given time. If we’re not at peace, we’re using ego’s attraction to guilt. Otherwise, our natural (not normal) default is attraction to Love.
“No one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them, for not looking is the way they are protected. ²There is no need to shrink from illusions, for they cannot be dangerous. ³We are ready to look more closely at the ego’s thought system because together we have the lamp that will dispel it, and since you realize you do not want it, you must be ready. ⁴Let us be very calm in doing this, for we are merely looking honestly for truth. ⁵The “dynamics” of the ego will be our lesson for a while, for we must look first at this to see beyond it, since you have made it real. ⁶We will undo this error quietly together, and then look beyond it to truth.” (ACIM, T-11.V.1:1-6)
“Love’s messengers are gently sent, and return with messages of love and gentleness. ²The messengers of fear are harshly ordered to seek out guilt, and cherish every scrap of evil and of sin that they can find, losing none of them on pain of death, and laying them respectfully before their lord and master.” (ACIM, T-19.IV-A.11:1-2)
We’re all on each other’s “theatrical payroll” because we want others to serve as scapegoat actors, but we can instead “hire them” to graciously deliver what we’ve been projecting, showing us the contents of our divided minds perfectly revealed for our forgiveness classroom instead of ego’s further imprisonment.
We concluded with the reminder that neither the world (ego’s projected, magnetized, manifested, attracted dream) nor the ego itself is the problem; it’s our wanting to believe in that thought system that’s the problem, and therefore the solution is to look (with our Inner Kindness Teacher) at that choice with patience, gentleness and humor until we have exhausted all hope in that insane choice; then our eternal and inexorable attraction to Love will be all that remains, as it is truly all that ever was!
This video recording was recorded on Thursday, June 6, 2024.
“A tranquil mind is not a little gift.” (ACIM, M-20.4:8)
Here is the “Powers of 10” video we referenced in our conversation – our Real (eternal) Identity is outside the dream of space and time:
“…if you find it helpful to do so, you might imagine that you are watching an oddly assorted procession going by, which has little if any personal meaning to you.” (ACIM, W-10.4:6)
Check out Jackie’s True Forgiveness Teachings podcast here. These readings provide a platform to discuss a variety of helpful ideas and practices from the non-dual metaphysics of A Course in Miracles. Jackie has conducted insightful video interviews with Gary Renard and numerous others. She and her sister, Cindy Lora-Renard, facilitate classes on ACIM in addition to equally highly-regarded workshops on “The Course.” Jackie’s first book, All Peace, No Pieces – now available in audiobook form – is a valuable addition to any Course student’s library, regardless of their level of familiarity with the Course’s ideas, with some particularly fun and insightful metaphors from the Wizard of Oz movie. Here are more ACIM-related conversations with Jackie Lora Jones and Bruce Rawles.
